When I picked up the mail and my packages this afternoon, my heart skipped a beat when I saw that I had received a parcel from my dear friend, Joan Ishibashi, about whom I’ve written several posts on this blog. Joan was my son’s Confirmation teacher back in the day, and served as the Executive Assistant at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, in addition to singing in our performances of the St. Matthew Passion. Since then, she and I have met up together in England to attend the Three Choirs Festivals and since her mom lives in Oxnard, California, I’ve often seen her when I visit my family.

I was excited because I knew what was in the package, an autographed copy of Martin Clunes book, Meetings with Remarkable Animals, Real-life Tales of Heroism, Loyalty and Companionship. Joan was fortunate to meet Martin Clunes in person at a book-signing event in London in mid-November.

You see, Joan and I had made two separate trips to Port Isaac in Cornwall, where they filmed the television series, and although we didn’t see Martin Clunes at that time, we were still able to watch some of the filming. Here’s what I wrote in April, 2019:

About two years ago, I discovered Doc Martin on Netflix (and now available on Acorn TV) After only one episode, I fell utterly and hopelessly in love with the entire cast, but especially the grumpy, rude but brilliant London surgeon, Martin Ellingham, who was banished to the fictional town of Portwenn to be the village GP because of a blood phobia.

So you can imagine how excited I was to hold this in my hands!

Here are some of the comments on Joan’s Facebook post about meeting Martin Clunes and his book:

Joan wrote: It is about animals that have helped people and worked with people. He is such a down to earth, lovely man. Took time to speak to everyone who wanted to engage with him, and gave an emotional, heartfelt talk about various animals. One thing I did not expect was how handsome and charismatic he is in person. He was literally radiant.

Inside the card that accompanied the book, Joan added: I told Martin C. about how Doc Martin helped you after Carl’s death, and he was quite moved by that and wished you the best.

Do you remember that when there was a call from the BBC to s