NOBLESSE OBLIGE

I have sometimes lunched like a Lord, but rarely get to lunch with a Lord, which made yesterday special. Then, to be invited to his wonderful house with its very uneven floors and dating back to 1683, was special indeed. We sat and talked in the tranquil drawing room, with its huge fireplace and views out across the snowy grounds. I'm not a particular fan of aristocracy. But I like nobility when I see it. And I see it in my noble friend. It is the nobility of the spirit that eschews its own dark places, and lives in the light of coming forward to others, open hearted and fundamentally well wishing. That does not deny the ability to win people over to his ambitions. This my friend has. And he is subtle, which I also take as a sign of his nobility. He has become accustomed to power and knows how to use it. And, indeed, as our conversation unravelled, it is difficult to think of him without it. I drove home reflecting on (dare I?) his peerless company.

At home I thought of Sue, and my lovely friend B, both of whom are ill. And George, a champion now laid low with illness too. Magically I did the following. Take from the cupboard three bottles. One is an old bottle that was filled with elderflower champagne made from the elders at the edge of the orchard. Another is an age old bottle that contained Balsamico from the old castello outside Arezzo where George, only three summers ago but then, how strange to think, still a boy, ran with Yas through the pine clad hills together with the dalmation from the castello. A third is a bottle that contained wine from the Lebanon, a small miracle of the survival of beauty in conflict. Cleansing these three bottles I pour into each as much of my health giving wishes as would fit and stopper them quick so as not to lose any of this noble (that word again) substance. Stop. Rewind. That pouring was a slow pouring of a very precious substance, made with qi, made mindfully, made with prana, made wishing for the kindest connection of mind and body. A slow pouring it was, made very full of thought. Their assignment to their recipients is enough, though I mentally send them. And off they go, to do their unstoppable, inexhaustible thing.

It is tiring, all that loving.

I go to bed reading HE Bates, and I dream of the Larkins, revelling in enough, and of magical potions, and of noblesse oblige.