The children and I play this fabulous game where we own and run a hotel in the rolling hills of Tuscany. Luma is the head housekeeper; she also oversees all wedding arrangements. We host a lot of weddings. Insouciant models. Avant garde designers. The odd marquess. Antimo is the consigliere and he can arrange pretty much anything. A chopper to Rome. A private tour of the Uffizi. A round of Pecorino di Pienza. Iole runs the restaurant. And the stables. We have a lemon grove on our property and an abundance of olive trees. There’s a pool, of course, and a grass boce court. Our rooms are designed by Marie-Anne Oudejans. The property has been in our family for three hundred years. If we don’t like a guest, we lock them in the chapel.

Our son smiles with his whole face. Like his Mum. And he’s first off the mark to launch into a lake. Like his Dad. Antimo turns ten this week, and it’s hard to grasp that I’ve only known him for a decade. It feels like much longer. Maybe because I’d imagined him for so many years before he actually existed. Minutes after Antimo was born, every worry I’d ever had was reduced to dust. He was here. “Still waters run deep,” said a woman at the supermarket checkout a couple of years later after locking eyes with the toddler in my arms. And she was right. His waters do run deep. Happy Birthday, Antimo. We love you.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Marie Eklund’s delicate hand-carved spoons. Equally beautiful, are Mark Reddy’s spoons, made from spalted beech, oak, maple, apple, cherry and walnut. “The spoon is arguably man’s first vessel, a giver of life, a utensil providing comfort and nourishment: universal and timeless, domestic and intimate,” writes Reddy. “Spoons are the earliest eating tools, dating back as far as the Paleolithic Era. Seashells were connected to small wooden sticks and chips of wood were slowly carved into spoon-like shapes.” There is great variety in both shape and size to Reddy’s creations, and he’s so creative with his handles. Much like Eklund’s, these spoons belong on a mantle piece, or displayed on a wall; the humble spoon elevated to high art.