Few things could be more impressive than the peace that descends on deserted city streets as weekends when the thousands that travel to work everyday are tucked away in their homes in the country.
So, after two days of loneliness, I was very glad to receive my first visitor, Steerforth, and because I was so happy to see him, I invited him and two friends of his to dinner the next evening.
As I approached the house I saw a tall man in a Scotch bonnet with a coat which was buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the bright semicircle which was thrown from the fanlight.
This 80-hectare retreat in the California desert offers the two leaders the chance to get to know each other, says Geoffrey Cowan of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.
She had let her house in Edinburgh, and was for the time house-less, so the charge of her sister-in-law's comfortable abode was very convenient and acceptable.