The Queen and I are deeply moved.

 

It is a week of anniversaries:  on Thursday Joy would have been married to Mike for 60 years and she invited Jackie and me to lunch with her.  Then she got the delightful news that her son and his partner were going to visit her on the day and stay over.

 As a result Joy and I had lunch together yesterday which was the 62^nd anniversary of her meeting Mike.  It was also the 65^th anniversary of the Queen and Phillip’s marriage.  Well done both!
 Then on Friday MTL and I have our 33^rd anniversary – the roses came early.  Jackie didn’t make our lunch yesterday as she is about to have a minor op – fingers crossed all goes smoothly.

 

That’s my Tuesday nights sorted for the next five weeks.  Last Tango in Halifax had its first episode on BBC 1 at 9pm last night, and it is very watchable with faultless acting from Anne Reid, Derek Jacobi, Sara Lancashire and Nicola Walker who head a stalwart cast.

 I couldn’t help a feeling of déjà vu. It is set in and around Skipton – where we had a cottage for decades and the two main characters are in their late seventies and have just been reunited after 60 years with the help of their grandsons and the internet. It seems they were drawn to each other as children but then she was going to move away and arranged to meet him.  She never turned up, he waited two hours and he was as heart broken as one can be at that tender age.  In spite of a reasonably happy marriage he carried a torch for her the rest of his life.

 Hesitant at first , they really opened up to each other and discovered that her family had to ‘flit’ in a hurry and she just had time to write him a note explaining and making it clear she wanted to see him again.  Sadly he never got the note and guess what?  The recalcitrant postman turned out to be his late wife.  The first all day conversation they had really rang true to me:

‘Were you really in love with me?’

‘Did you really think I’d stood you up?’

 

They have an truly adventurous day- his car is stolen and she manages to crash her car into his- which ends when they are collected by their daughters both of whom have their own dramas unfolding and neither of whom are thrilled at this recent development in their respective parent’s love life.

 

It rings true – truth is stranger than fiction, there is plenty of humour and the ever present Yorkshire scenery – not just the pretty bits, makes this something to relish.  But don’t take my word for it – give it a whirl.  The writer is Sally Wainwright (Scott and Bailey)