With a twist.

This should have been a perfect day. Dan and Abi stayed over last night and we had a lovely lazy morning, with Dan remembering to do his bit to establish fresh scones from the bakery as the "but we always have" Saturday morning breakfast.

I tidied the house, cleaned and hoovered, and then the Minx arrived and we did a bit of shopping for this evening's meal, although with a characteristic lack of focus on the job in hand I found myself mooching along the bargain shelf, where I found this set of bitters. And while we were in the supermarket, Lou and Jon - this evening's dinner guests - arrived so we met them in the Royal for a drink.

After that we went back to the cottage, had gin and tonics, and chatted. At some point the Minx produced some olives, cheese, breads and dipping oils (apparently out of thin air) and shortly after that, I thought maybe I should get on with the chilli. So I did.

Thus the evening proceeded blissfully, with food, wine and good friends, up to the point where I was thinking that, actually, I was going to sleep like a lamb regardless of the slightly uncomfy sofabed.

And then the Minx received a tweet asking her to check her Facebook messages and we learnt that our friend Sam (@samjpaterson) had died. I won't go into the details here but it was an abruptly sobering shock, although I simply couldn't believe or accept what I'd read. It was (and remained) inconceivable that this lively, impish, enthusiastic young woman was suddenly gone.