When 1 + 1 = 1

Another afternoon visit with Mr D, and before I was even through the door he was offering me a cup of tea and something nice to go with it. He still had some chocolate rolls left and insisted that today I would only have 1. “Yes, just the one,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “but we’ll also have one of these.” and produced a box of Tesco’s finest mince pies. A bit of banter followed while the kettle boiled as I tried to convince him that 1 and 1 makes 2, and he stuck to his guns in telling me that it was just one chocolate roll and just one mince pie, which meant I was just having ONE. It’s hard to refuse when he wants to make sure I feel appreciated, so I said I would take the roll home to have later after my dinner, which he seemed to accept before then presenting me with an apple as well. Apparently this was a swap for the crusty French baton I had bought him. We had a lovely couple of hours chatting about all sorts, including the perils of motorbikes, clay pigeon shooting, and dogs. We seemed to laugh a lot too, and he said what a tonic it had been. Finally I read a few text messages for him, helped put a couple of appointment times on his calendar and wished him goodbye.