People, I have had the most amazing day. The years rolled back when I met up with my former pupil of the 70s, and it was if it were yesterday, rather than over 30 years, that we last met up. He arrived in the most beautiful Aston Martin I have ever seen, offering me the keys and inviting me to drive it. I drove it only from where the minibi are parked back to where we keep our family Volvo, but that in itself was an experience beyond words. I shall continue to ask Santa for one of those.

We celebrated our reunion in our kitchen, before making our way to one of Summertown's top restaurants, where, over two excellent steaks, accompanied by what was undoubtedly the finest '82 claret (which had been brought especially for the occasion) I have ever drunk, we talked and talked. And talked and talked - and then talked some more.

"What's the best thing about teaching, then?" he asked, as we later strolled around the SF grounds.

"I think today speaks for itself", I replied. And I meant it. Education, in its widest sense, is all about helping to 'make a difference'; a fundamental to which I know Mr BT holds fast, as I do. As teachers we never really know what sort of an impression we may be making on our pupils, but sometimes, if we're as lucky as I've been today, something happens to make us realise just why we do this strange, idiosyncratic and sometimes frustrating job - and love it. Yes, indeed: it's been a great day.

It seems to be writing philosophically on this blog: it doesn't often happen. But just in case you may be thinking that philosophy might have taken over, let me tell you that I was presented with a wonderful collection of memorabilia from my first teaching decade - including a particularly facetious and scurrilous diary that a group of boys in a particular dorm wrote nightly! All sorts of comments were there, about most of my erstwhile colleagues of yore - and the less said about some of them the better! I was amused by one comment, which read:

'Cheater is on duty tonight and of course he'll come and read this. He always does'.

Yes, I always did. And I must admit that I never thought I'd see that book again, 36 years later!

As said at the beginning of this entry: it's been an amazing day.