Single malts

I have a theory. It's not particularly insightful - in fact it's borderline common sense - but I haven't proved it, so a theory it remains. And the theory is this; that for every fifty miles you travel on England's motorways, there is a percentage chance that you'll get delayed. I'm not sure what that percentage chance is, exactly, but I do know that by the time you've driven from Kirkby Lonsdale to Chippenham, the combined percentages add up to a near certainty that at some point you'll have been delayed.

So it was this evening, when I arrived an hour later than planned, very much looking forward to the roast dinner that Mark had promised and also a few glasses of the wine that would certainly be served with it. When I'd parked up, I checked my 'phone for texts, emails, WhatsApp, Tweets etc etc and there was one message from Mark, sent minutes before: "You're about to meet my new partner!"

Blimey, I hadn't seen that coming.

Tracy, for that is her name, turned out to be lovely: interesting, funny and all round good company. The wine flowed, the food was to Mark's usual standard, i.e. superb, and we all chatted happily away. Then Mark mentioned that although he's not a whisky drinker, he'd been given a lot of single malts for his recent birthday.

Someone - almost certainly not me; I have a meeting tomorrow - suggested that we should try them, so Mark went and grabbed a few (although this wasn't all of them!). We did a side by side tasting, my favourite being The Green Spot, and I lined them up to take a photo. I told Mark and Tracy what I was doing and Mark suggested that , as it was his third appearance in the blog text, he really ought to be in the photo, too. So here is: my very good friend Mark!