I find myself wanting to work in a different way. I like to think early in the morning, from 4.30 at my computer dealing with the work that I am doing getting new pension structures off the ground and considering how best to change the thinking we have about income in retirement.

By mid-day, I have done the bulk of my hard work and I am finding myself meeting with bright people who can make me laugh and inspire me. Yesterday it was with Gregg McClymont, today it will be with a leading person at Pension Bee. I am finding food to be a lovely thing to bring people together and I am learning to share plates with people!

The place I am doing this is an old court building in Farringdon, dominating Clerkenwell Square. It is close to my favorite cafe in West Smithfield (Beppes), but very different.

Beppes

Yesterday I sound myself eating radish soused in vinegar till it tasted like horseradish (Gregg’s choice). We had a scallop wrapped up with black truffle and accompanied by pureed chestnut (my choice). We shared fresh cod and beef and finished with apple crumble (well sort of!). We didn’t spend a lot on booze. I am 90 days into abstinence from alcohol while my colleague had but the one glass!

It was a glorious meal which went on much longer than I had anticipated any meal could last! We discussed our lives over the past 20 years and we talked about the great novelists of the twentieth century. I am gong to read Penelope Fitzgerald  and Arnold Bennett, I hope that people will spend some time reading my blog and that Gregg is one.

Success in life is not just about the £5,3bn deal, though Gregg and IVF should be congratulated for putting Nest in a position to do great things. And my guest today is similarly diverse in her thinking , her achievements and for the fantastic thing that the Bee has done. Our external enjoyment is in the achievement of Brentford FC which is doing as well as Pension Bee. My father and grandfather used to watch Brentford when my Grandpa was a Methodist minister in Hounslow. How they would have loved to live in a time when Brentford competed as this team does. Pension Bee came on board when the success was starting to arrive!

I will be back at Sessions this lunchtime and reconnecting with a diverse list of dishes which I have yet to exhaust

And in the evening Sessions turns into Sessions Art Club

The same room.

I am not yet well enough to enjoy evening session, nor maybe young enough. I have the mind of a 20 year old but not the body. There are other generations of Plowmen who will plough the fields when I retire!

I do not think that my generation is the last to benefit from the work we do today. John Hamilton and I discussed this when I was in Melton Mowbray. What we are doing with pensions is for another generation to take and make the most of. I hope that Melton Mowbray pie remains a staple of mind for decades to come!

I am hugely fond of being young and hang on to it with my lunchtime at Sessions (and Beppes). I hope that some of my readers like the sight of this fine place and are ready to join me for a lunchtime. We have finite times on earth and we might as well do what we can while we can. You know how to contact me!