The island we were staying on is small so it was not entirely a surprise to bump into the gay couple we had struck up an intersting conversation with in a coffee place the day before.

We kicked ourselves for not arranging to meet them for another coffee, or even lunch.

And despite keeping our eyes peeled, we didn’t catch them again.

That was last year, and there were just the vaguest of hopes that we might see them again this year – but we didn’t.

So, when we were on a beach and I saw a nice looking gay couple I, well basically, picked them up.

Had a chat, and suggested coffee in the nearby restaurant in half an hour.

Coffee morphed into a (delicious) lunch and conversation.

One of the couple was a professor of early renaissance Italian philosophy and history and the other was a family lawyer.

The Best Beloved complained about the way philosophy was taught in Oxford (mind you that was a very long time ago) and the professor explained his way of teaching was to put the ideas in a historical context.

We talked about art (and its context), we talked about what lockdown was like in Rome – not too bad given they have a large airy apartment with a balcony and could eventually escape to their house in the Umbrian countryside.

We talked about the merits of various Greek islands, where to go in Southern Italy, how it was lonely doing all your legal work on Zoom and missing the chat with fellow lawyers and even divorcing clients.

To save the BB from writing holiday suggestions on the back of his hand, gave his email and suffice it to say, the next day he had a lot of holiday suggestions and we made an arrangement to meet for lunch on Sunday.

We get on fine on holiday but there is something good about conversations about things you don’t know with people you don’t know at all.

Picking up gay couples could well be a holiday habit from now on.