Have I told you lately that I love you? (Van Morrison)

This one's for all the people out there in the blogosphere who love me.

I don’t think we do this enough – tell the people we love that we love them. But I’m not sure. When I watch American films they are forever ending a conversation with ‘I love you’. So much so that it tends to devalue the sentiment.

At the other extreme is the stoic New Zealand ‘see ya!'

I guess it’s come from our ancestral British reserve. When Fiona tells her son Marcus in About A Boy that she loves him, just before he goes into school, he looks crestfallen and is immediately mocked by the other kids.

I don’t recall my own mum or dad ever actually taking me to school (kiwi kids in the sixties said ‘who-ru’ from the door as they skipped off to skool barefoot and fancy free) but if they did they would never have done a Fiona on me. Their love for me was never in doubt though!

The good thing is that Van Morrison is in the world with us to sing like a dream and say those things that sometimes we don't say.