Yvonne and I went to see Sarah and Geoffery in Halstead � round the M25 quite close to another Victorian fort at the top of the North Downs dip slope - theirs is still used by the army. We went for a walk round Shoreham � a village down in the Darent Valley where Samuel Palmer, friend of Blake used to live. We have some copies of Palmer�s engravings of Shoreham in our hallway. The river was pretty fast flowing and high through the village with all the rain there has been in the last week. (Both the Wey and the Mole have burst their banks at some points.)

Geoffery talked about his piano studies � from Chopin getting into Schuman. I said that Schubert meant more to me than Schuman � he disagreed. We talked about piano transcriptions - apparently in the 1930s someone rewrote Chopin to make it even harder so he could show off - needless to say more was lost than gained.

We played some jazz as a duo � a couple of great Jobim tunes written about the same time (late 1960s) � Wave and Triste; also Goodbye Porkpie Hat, What�s New, Stolen Moments, Anthropology, Someday My Prince Will Come - almost a set's worth I suppose. Playing this stuff as a duo makes me always think that I ought to practise harder at just playing jazz on the flute.

Geoffery has been playing some traditional jazzgigs and not enjoying it all that much. I said that Woody Allen's band had converted me to New Orleans jazz. We talked a bit about why he had given up free jazz - I reminded him that Horn was pretty free quite a lot of the time. He said that without amplification (this was before it was commonplace to use it for bass) it was hard for a bass player to make a contribution to ensemble playing and get any sense of reciprocation. I told him the jazz trio that comes at the end of the Joe Lovano programme on the Radio 3 website � with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones - plus the material on the site about the Polish jazz trumpeter - Tomas Stanko.

Later I asked about life at Network Rail where he is the senior lawyer. He said that the Chief Exec of the Strategic Rail Authority used to play jazz piano semi pro.

All six of us played a game which Miranda (his younger daughter)had got for Christmas � Taboo � where you have to explain to your team mates a certain word so that they can guess it but avoiding 5 or 6 specified terms which will be especially helpful in the task. A bit like pictionarybut pretty good fun.

I watched the biography of Peter Cook on BBC2 � quite gripped by the tale � what a strange man. Obviously lots of people found him too much and then felt guilty about it after he was dead.