It was lovely catching up with Mr D and hearing all about the flying visit he had had at the weekend with his daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughter all sketching characters from a freeze framed children's television show. He really does love his art and has taught the next generations to enjoy it too. He then told me about how much he enjoys Winter Watch and this had inspired him to do another drawing - this time of a squirrel and wading bird. He gets so much joy out of his art work but said he especially enjoys being able to show it to me, as apart form his family he has no one to show the pictures too. I love seeing them all.

We settled into our seats to attempt some of the cross word - I complained that he does all the easy ones before I get there and then leaves me to be a failure at all the most cryptic clues. Sigh...

As often the case we got talking about music - mainly my upcoming concerts, and he was interested to know about some of the famous conductors I've worked with and whether any are temperamental. I explained my favourite was Simon Rattle who is so gentle, caring and funny.

Mr D has quite a lot of articles to translate into Russian again, and explained that this time they were all about 3D printers and how they work. He hadn't known about them before he started working on the articles, but now he has shared his new found knowledge with me. At 91 he is incredibly good at learning new things and new terminology in both English and Russian. And there's me struggling to learn even the basics in Italian on Duo Lingo. I am now totally in awe of Mr D and looking forward to my next visit.