Tony and I attended a memorial service today in London. It was a beautiful service but incredibly moving and we are both feeling rather low. The service was held in a theatre in The Strand and we parked our car at the National Theatre car park and walked across Waterloo Bridge. We actually met at the National, 26 years ago, as my mother ran one of the departments there and I spent many happy years working front of house and also backstage in my mother’s office. Today was certainly a day for reflection and a funny mix of joyful memories as Tony and I reminisced, but marked with incredible sadness at all the losses of this past year.

I am not sure how I feel about Christmas approaching. I usually love Christmas but this year so much has changed and I know that the first Christmas without my parents and Tony’s father is, of course, going to be emotional at times. I am also hideously unprepared as I can’t get into the Christmas spirit at all. I have not been moping about, just incredibly busy, and I just don’t feel inspired to go Christmas shopping. I am of course looking forward to spending some uninterrupted time with Tony and our daughters but a little of the joy I usually feel has definitely gone this year.

Daisy has been filming in London for the past three weeks but has been struck down with a hideous bug. After the memorial service Tony and I drove down to Surrey to pick her up and take her to film her final scenes. It is a night shoot, poor girl, and the last thing she feels like doing but she will get through it and the production team will take good care of her.

I think Thanksgiving is a very civilised holiday. There is excitement, good food and great company but without the stress of a manic build up. Unless you are a turkey of course! We spent a wonderful day yesterday with Jane’s friends who invite us every year and we walked around their lovely neighbourhood with all the children in the afternoon before heading back for pie, pie, pie. Apple pie, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. Yup; we went pie mad. (How weird does that word look now that I have written it several times?)

We headed out to Westport today to buy new light fittings and visit a jewellery store. On the way back to the car we all played a silly game of tag as compensation to the boys for dragging them round the shops. We were trying to run around the grass on one side of the car park but I had boots with heels and Tony and Jane had heavy winter coats so we weren’t exactly fleet of foot. ‘Base’ was a piece of modern art, and the trees provided some much needed sanctuary at times, but the more we laughed, the more ridiculous our running became. As we were playing we all noticed a funny smell in the air but desperate not to be the next ‘it’, we paid little attention to the acrid aroma. The game went on for some time until the combination of hysterics and vain attempts to run across unlevel ground to ‘base’ proved all too much. We stopped and turned to face the car and our jaws dropped. Another car in the parking lot, just a few metres away from where we had been playing, had flames flickering from under the bonnet. The Fire Chief’s car, the police and a huge fire truck were all in attendance and the area was filled with firefighters and on lookers. So intent were we on running round in circles we had been completely oblivious to the whole thing!