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A word from the Café de Flore in Paris, where I am, yet again, sitting across from Vincent Landon. What a face! It definitely beats sitting across form Hugh Grant (who is small and grey and does not have nice hands) last week!

Margaret, I so hope your health is getting better. We are both looking forward to seeing you for Hugh’s birthday lunch, and seeing your new home too. It sounds lovely to be catching up with old friends. I reckon there is nothing like people who have known us in all our incarnations!

We both want to share with you a decision we have come to. Partly it sprang from a feeling of profound sadness we both had at Christmas not being with our families, and realising the importance of you all in our lives. And partly, I suppose, because we have both, after a period of mourning (losing a baby and 3 failed IVF’s take their toll), arrived at a place of fulfilment and financial security, a place which we thought might be the answer to all our questions. This place, however, has only served to bring one big question back into the foreground, and that is the question of children. The answer, for once, seems clear, and we have decided to go ahead and try to adopt a child.

We are thinking Chinese (so many daughters abandoned and Julian likes the idea of the family connection in Singapore), or Nepali or Thai …we are thinking whomsoever presents themselves to us. It is a long and complicated process, and there are, at our age and in our situation as French residents and English Nationals, absolutely no guarantees. However, we have opened a door and it feels good. We hope, Hugh and Margaret, that we will one day be able to offer you yet another grandchild!

Wish us luck along what will probably the long and winding (and possibly bumpy) way!