I arrived early at Mr D’s house and not wanting to take him by surprise I decided to first take a brisk walk around the block to get a few extra kilometres under my belt. So I arrived back on his doorstep at the agreed time and he answered the door very quickly. He said he’d been looking forward to seeing me, the first visitor of the new year.

We were soon sharing what we’d done on Christmas Day and how helpful our respective family members had been - his son and daughter and their partners had travelled over to make him a Christmas dinner so he’d had a lovely day.

Our conversations always segue from one topic to another and somehow we got talking about previous holidays. Mr D showed me photographs of a holiday he’d had with his grand children last summer at Southwold , explaining that his job had been to sit in a chair on the beach and chill. He was interested to hear about a holiday I had had in Aldeburgh and we realised we both enjoyed being by the seaside. He’d grown up in East Sussex and I on the Isle of Wight so visits to the beach are ingrained in us both. We then talked about other trips and holidays and how Mr D would always try and learn the basics of the language of the country he was visiting . I only wish I was as gifted as he was at language learning.

Time flies, and it was soon time for me to go. It was dark outside and raining, and Mr D said that at least our chat about holidays had lifted his spirits on such a gloomy day. Looking forward to seeing him again next time.