Out we go.

One-inch pillows of fresh salmon, poached ever so gently in a little wine and garlic. Strips of avocado added to warm through.

Egg noodles cooked until just done, drained and draped in ringlets on white plates. Salmon pillows and avocado strips placed in little cairns on the pasta.

A little cream in the pan juices, reduced in the wine with salt and pepper and poured over each dish.

A large glass of cold chardonnay, glinting yellow in the gathering dusk.

The first outdoor evening meal of spring has to be special and it was.

*

We had an afternoon tea for Thomas's birthday; crustless sandwiches, and small open pastries filled with lightly beaten egg and tiny bacon squares and shards of spring onion. And tea: my favourite Earl Grey.

*

I'd been discussing euphemisms earlier in the day with a teacher. Teachers know all about euphemisms. They have to use them. It's enforced by Education Department bureaucrats. We had been discussing reports in the news of students stealing from convenience stores, vandalising property and being drunk in a public place.

The default language now used to describe this behaviour is 'making poor choices'. That really grates. Making a poor choice is when you choose a strawberry milkshake when you really prefer caramel; or buying a Hyundai Excel when you're six feet tall; or buying your wife an iron for Christmas. Stealing and vandalising are criminal acts and should be described thus.

Another one, or maybe it's just a stupid cliche, or lazy language: the government keeps stating that asylum-seekers will be sent to Indonesia to be 'processed'. Makes it sound like they're going to be turned into cheese spread.