Puligny-Montrachet

1995 was a very good year. That was the year I lived on the eighth floor of a block of flats on Marshall Street with a million dollar view of London from Centre Point to the Battersea Power Station. I could see the golden tips of Tower Bridge and the Crystal Palace mast blinked steadily all through the night.

It was also a really hot summer. We practically lived on the roof. I would carry an ice filled champagne bucket up the fire escape, for that first glass of the evening before visiting the pubs of west Soho. The ice lasted a nanosecond.

So last night, as the final icy winds of winter blasted down from the northeast, our host, "Terrifying But Just", found the perfect bottle for the lamb supper. He didn't fall for grabbing a taxi to go have frozen berries for dessert and his beautiful wife didn't hit me over the head when I made the suggestion, just laughed and said I could stay with the kids and they'd bring some back.

He read to us, in his rich and terrifying but just delivery, from an award winning book by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt.

"Daisy...didn't want to eat her peas." He looked at us over the top of his glasses, a long focused look. Phew, thank goodness we WERE paying attention.

"I don't like peas."

Snippets come back to haunt "you can stay up past midnight", "I'll buy you a baby elephant, a rocket launcher and Africa", "98 chocolate factories". How Daisy didn't fall at the first I'll never know. We were too weak with laughter to get the full effect and I just know all day I'm going to burst out at the most inappropriate moments, like halfway up the escallator and reading the travel updates at the station.

Guilty as charged, laughing too much in a public place. Thank goodness for the freedom to laugh.