Reasons to be cheerful...
1) Kedgeree. It's not just for breakfast anymore.
2) LL Bean Customer Service - Keep the conversation vaguely clothes related and you can talk to some very nice people for free 24/7. Often you can stretch the talk onto holidays & seafood.
3) The Quartet. MJQ. Savoy. 1951/2. Play it softly (as in a morning sunrise).
4) Moderately cold Heineken - It isn't too fizzy so you can drink it quickly. It doesn't taste of anything so It won't clash with anything else you may consume.
5) Good White Burgundy. Nice with Kedgeree.
For Vaclav.
Miles.
Any other contributions welcome.
6) The smell of good shoe polish.
7) Converstions with your barber.
8) The sound of corduroy rubbing together.
9) Apple-smoked Cheddar.
10) Looking in your shoe closet.
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11) Going out for breakfast.
12) Taking it easy after lunch.
13) Reading Cheever in bed.
14) The feeling you get when you slip on your oldest Weejuns.
15) Openeing all the windows after the grass has just been cut.
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16) The sound of a new bottle of tonic-water being opened.
17) Walking out into the back-garden at 5am in your bathrobe and breathing deeply.
18) Shrugging on a sack.
19) Going commando in Madras shorts.
20) Being saluted by young women on horseback.
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21) Looking fondly at the 'pills' around the collar of an old Brooks' shirt.
22) Finding sand in the back pockets of last year's chinos.
23) Lamb cutlets, Hollandaise Sauce, New Potatoes, Green Beans.
24) Bread and Butter Pudding.
25) The theme from 'Alfie' played by Sonny Rollins LOUDLY.
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26) The soft warm smell that rises when you press your Shetlands.
27) Catching your slopey-shouldered reflection in shop windows as you pass.
28) Being smiled at warmly in the park.
29) Having a rolled-up slim knit tie in your pocket. Just in case.
30) The lovely juice you get from Oysters.
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Growing up thinking girl's names like Tinker, Putter, Winnie, Jollie, Stiffy, Dot and Babs were common.
34) The false feeling of knowledge and academic suitability by osmosis you get in fall when you wear your tweed jacket to class
35) The rakish feeling of wearing white bucks and seersucker
36) personal: the unique, now largely vanished "thwock" of your Wilson Jack Kramer wooden racquet as you make a good return in your grass-stained whites. One of the reasons I still play with a wooden racquet from time to time is to enjoy that sound. New racquets go "whack" not "thwock"
37)The great feeling of being well-dressed in your madras jacket but yet not being bothered by the heat...looking sharp and staying cool
38)Squeezing some lime juice into your g&t and feeling that first tangy nip hit your nostrils as you take the first sip
39) The slap on the back of brandy or scotch served straight up
40) The way your oxford collar comes out of your shetland crewneck...so much better looking than with a v-neck or with, as is lately popular, no collar at all.
41) Wearing a straw boater at a jaunty angle
42)Sliding comfortably into your destroyed and ripe topsiders
43) The clean short lines of a Princeton cut
44)The snug and secure feeling of an overcoat, leather gloves, and tartan scarf as friends are freezing in their parkas, uncovered hands thrust in their pockets...it also makes me feel about a foot taller and somewhat better looking than normal. Your face is red but you are not cold.
45) Doing a sedate slow-slow-quick-quick fox trot and then spinning your date out for a perfect double spin and back in, right in time, back to the sedate forward step. Like nothing happened. And if you did it right, carefully and gracefully, not snapping her around, she loved it.
46) Just feeling the sun on your ankles.
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47) Learning to sail with the Rainbow Yacht Club (Afro Trad Yatch club) , whilst visiting your favorite uncle in Stamford, CT.