LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA

Streams of presents (gold, silver, black) piled up in front of a white-washed wall. We had Christmas dinner in the absolute bliss of an Australian day of sunlight. We started with—do you mind the fleshpots?—smoked salmon, and then wandered into the garden and returned to have a roasted fillet steak (an hour in the oven, the centre red for those who wished it, the ends more done), and then after another pause fresh peeled lychees and blueberry tarts. Hours later, tea and tiny individually wrapped Christmas cakes tied with scarlet ribbon. I gave a mid-seventeenth-century grey Ming dish (also tiny) to my son-in-law and to my daughter something from my past: my great-aunt’s ruby earrings, surrounded by little seed pearls in gold.