Last night was terrific and utterly relaxing. Jen and Paul made a great pasta with seafood dish for dinner followed by a banana chocolate chip cake, which was delectable. We brought a few nice wines. One was a really lovely Shiraz we had bought in South Africa and the other was a Brunello di Montalcino from Castello Banfi, which I feel very sentimental about, having spent a memorable afternoon there years ago with Jen, Paul, Tom, John and Joanna. Paul broke out one of his nice bottles of Brunello as well, which was nice. We had a good night sipping upper echelon wines in ample quantity. It was fun.

Jen is headed to Cape Town for a week today. She has a conference there. Coincidentally, Chris is headed back to Johannesburg tomorrow, but they won't be able to meet, which is sort of a shame.

We had a good long talk about the political landscape in South Africa, which Jen seemed really interested in. Chris is great about summing things up in a concise and clear manner, much better than me. It was a good conversation.

We also talked about our upcoming trip to Provence, which should be a hoot. Our last hurrah in Europe as it were...