We shared. Parents. Home. Pets. Celebrations. Catastrophes. Secrets. And the threads of our experience became so interwoven that we are linked. I can never be utterly lonely, knowing you share the planet.

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often - just to save it from drying out completely.

It should be possible to exist with only a short shelf of books, to read and give away. After all - we may not open a book, once read, for ten years or more. But the act of reading has made it part of us - to relinquish it would be to lose an extension of our being.

Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, singers of songs.

You are asleep. Deep, deep asleep - and then the world caves in. The cat has leapt from the top window onto your stomach. He is saturated. He is hungry. He taps you into full wakefulness with a sodden paw "Could you open a can?"

Brooks too wide for our leaping, hedges far to high. Loads too heavy for our moving, burdens too cumbersome for us to bear. Distances far beyond our journeying. The horse gave us mastery.

Grandad has a long and earnest conversation with his grandchild. He says, you are noisy and wiggly and will be sent back if you don't pull herself together....The baby smiles complacently. She has him exactly where she wants him.