The weather is rubbish. It’s now winter. It is grey a lot of the time.

Can my spirits withstand the grey and damp, when I have been raised in sunshine? Can a kangaroo jump around in the cold?

Just about. Reluctantly. But the cold does slow a kanga down.

Flamenco, my wonderful Spanish friend, took me, with a few friends, to the Arts Club in Dover Street, the street opposite The Ritz, in Mayfair, for lunch today. It was fabulous.

Afterall, Mayfair is the most prized address on the Monopoly Board; Mayfair with Park Lane have blue, denoting the Best Address, pieces. If you can get hold of one, you can collect a lot of rent ‘past GO’ on the board.

When there is mud piling up in nature, in the country, it is best to head indoors and to civilised London, from time to time. How about a gorgeous private club in Mayfair for lunch to forget the grey? What better antidote to winter?

Everybody looked groomed/civilised in the dining room. There were no disheveled guests in this establishment.

But was there joy?

I have been thinking about joy a bit of late, as I think it is a rare commodity. It is different from happiness, which I think is a litmus test for how things are going; that is, thumbs down or thumbs up depending on whether you had a good night’s sleep or not. Whether the stock market is up or down.

Joy is a feeling of sunlight in your belly, catching and swallowing light. It’s perhaps like looking at a child and watching him/her examine his/her hands as if they were Renoir paintings. And feeling that universal feeling of ‘wonderful’.

I had it today. The Arts Club is light, airy and stylish, like the members. I had joy, because I did not belong there. I was an intruder. I was stealing in a sense. So it made me glad, joyous, that I was in such a beautiful location with my friends. And I didn’t deserve it.

Joy, I think, is being somewhere and feeling as if you have been given a big bunch of roses, that smell fresh and like the best perfume you can’t afford. It is having an experience of pleasure, beyond your mundane expectations. It can be so simple. Like a breeze that brings the smell of salt from the sea. Or a piece of music that transports you to a sublime place.

At lunch, we talked of whether it was good to look back, to be nostalgic. I am not sure. For some, it can make you feel sad. The loss of loved ones. Or it can be a celebration of what is past. It is how you look at it. It depends on temperament.

I have a very precise memory that comes back to me again and again. I am about six years old. I have been swimming in the cold Aussie surf. Mum has got me out of my wet, damp swimmers and put me in warm, dry shorts and a t-shirt.

I am now in the back of the car. It is warm away from the sea breeze. I was cold, and now I am snug. I am weary. My limbs are tired from exertion in the sea. I am at rest. I relax. And joy wells up inside of me. Bubbles of it come to the surface. I remember the feeling. Like the sea foam. Welling up inside of me.

I think Joy is like a present that appears, unexpectedly, like a rainbow, and makes you feel that you are alive.