A most interesting and productive day yesterday. I went up to London, not to see my monarch, but to attend a meeting of my music college, and, as I'm considered worthy of a first-class seat on one of Network Rail's finest, I enjoyed a relatively noise and trouble-free journey.

I arrived with time to spare, as we say here, and made haste to my favourite Italian hang-out, name Bella Italia, just off Oxford Street. I don't know about you, but when I order something on the menu that looks like the French word 'pain' on the menu, I assume it's going to be bread-based. It was, of course, but I certainly wasn't expecting the veritable bucket-load of the stuff that arrived. So plentiful was the supply, that I turned to my dining neighbours, who seemed to be members of the Trappist movement (it's strange how so many couples seem not to want to speak to one another, I find - especially those who've obviously been together for some time) and invited them to partake. They declined my invitation and continued chomping silently (well, almost) on their paganinis, or whatever they were.

As one does when one's awaiting one's lasagne and quaffing a glass of chilled Italian plonco, I cast my gaze around the dining area. My eyes alighted on one who was, well, not entirely uneasy on the eye, and before you start getting anxious that your sons' grandparental lodgemaster's eyes should still be wandering to the drop-dead gorgeous, I must tell you immediately that my thoughts were transported back to a similar place, 30 years ago, when, after a performance of 'Starlight Express', I took my beautiful fiancee for a meal. It was a lovely evening, marred only by a rather serious fight that broke out halfway through the occasion. Once the police had been summoned and everything had calmed down again, Mrs C (or Miss C, as she was then) and I concluded our repast, I paid up with my flexible friend and we took our leave. Pretending that I had left my wallet in the place, I returned inside and, being the incurable romantic that I am (yes, really), I asked the manager if I could have the rose from the centre of our table as compensation for the unwanted sideshow. He said yes, I thanked him, I gave it to my lovely bride-to-be - and the rest is history. So: now you know. I proposed soon after that, in the sunset, in Windsor Great Park, on the most wondrous May evening.

OK. Now that the violins have faded out, I can tell you about this morning. I was asked, after two and a half terms, by three Newtonians, where the guernseys were. I burst into irony.

"Oh, I' SO sorry: those wretched slaves haven't washed, ironed and folded them and put them out on the chairs. I'll have them flogged immediately. Miss Chloe: could you see to it that the slaves are whipped to within an inch of their lives, please?"

Only at Summer Fields would such a riposte as follows be thrown over a resident's shoulder as he left the lodge:

"Oh thank you, sir. That'll be good. Have a good day."

The guernseys were in the laundry, incidentally. Now: where are those slaves ...... ?