London

Pliny and Nostradamus were eating their lunch at a wooden table under the ancient and ragged casuarinas at the grassy end of the carpark next to the Henley Sailing Club.

A soft cool breeze blew over their picnic from the sea. A yacht with white sails moved between the papery tree trunks on a sea of brilliant turquoise green and blue. A vapour trail dissolved in the sky.

They ate cold sausages left over from last night's barbecue, a farewell dinner for their daughter who was going back to London.

They ate potato salad, rocket and tiny red tomatoes from the garden. They dipped into a pot of mustard their daughter had given them for Christmas.

They ate nectarines and grapes, washed down with tapwater from a plastic bottle.

It was too beautiful to go straight home. They walked on the beach for a while, sometimes looking at the colours of the sea and the sand banks and the shallow pools, and sometimes looking up into the sky to see if they could spot the plane their daughter was flying out on.