Some kind of salad

I'm going to serve this as part of the meal when our friends arrive to stay on their way home to Hertfordshire from a trip to Skye. It is based on one from my cook book - fennel, orange and yellow peppers, cucumber, radishes, dates and oranges. I made a dressing with the orange juice, soy sauce and sesame oil and have scattered toasted sesame seeds and fennel sprigs on top. It looks colourful and must be healthy as well. To counteract all that goodness I've made a meringue roulade which will have a filling of mixed berries in cream laced with Cointreau.

When I went into the garden to pick some flowers for the table (between heavy rain showers), I could hear the sounds of the village pipe band (yes we in North East England have our own pipe band) rising up through the mist. They were playing "Scottish Soldier" as they led the funeral cortège of one of the village's oldest and most respected gentlemen. Jack, who died aged 95, served in the Far East in WW2, was captured by the Japanese and was then subjected to the horrors of the Burma Railway. He came home safely, had a family and ran the local paper shop, but like so many, never mentioned that time. I don't know what it is about that music but it does get me emotionally.

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