Mrs Down's Diary - September 30 2009

Jacquie and I had come to stay with my daughter whilst we attended a school reunion. An affair we enjoyed for the time it gave us to catch up with each other and meet several other school friends- despite all the inner turmoil it produces and concerns about 'do I look as old as that or them?'.

Of course we didn't. Thank heavens the girls sixth form toilets didn't have mirrors though. That would have been a grim reminder of how swiftly time flies and the ravages it brings.

But I did complain about the lack of facilities to the headteacher. "Sorry but the girls' toilets are not somewhere I go," he said. "Our main concern is standards". Not personal ones I presumed.

'From our own olive grove' -doesn't that sound wonderful? It does not have the same kudos as 'I've brought you a jar of chutney from our plum tree', but I still say it. If you haven't got a plum tree, or apple or cherry tree , or olive grove for that matter, a bottle of oil, jar of jam or just an apple pie, is a fantastic gift to receive when someone you know and care for has contributed to its production.

It is a matter of fact. Jacquie and her husband own an olive grove as much as John and I own some arable and grass fields and a cow and sheep or two.

Olio di Oliva is bottled in Umbria. Now that again could be the subject of much teeth gnashing. But as I currently have a very tender root filling, it won't be. What is an amazing co-incidence however is that not only do I have one friend with a house in Umbria, but, I have two.

And neither of them (lucky things) realised that I , or io as they say in Italy, knew them both. It's the product of being a service child and moved from pillar to post and school to school all my childhood. The result is the mistakes in my grammar that probably drives more academic readers nuts.

But I have kept in touch with many of my old school friends and it is just incredible to me that two of them, known in completely different countries in my youth, now have houses with only a relative few kilometers (think Italy) distance from each other.

It is the European Union however, that may bring us all yet a little closer. Just as we have benefited from EU grants, so now will my friends as they now both , by default, farm in the EU as well.

Jacquie's problems when hay making are of a different order to ours. Our hay might get trampled and ruffled by the odd deer, but theirs can be ravaged by wild boar. I know which I would rather meet on a dark night. A deer will turn and flee. Not so wild boar.