Sentence structure

Things I feel I would like to write: a review of my trip to see Clybourne Park at the theatre on Tuesday, a paean to vocabulary, a summary of yesterday's budget, a rousing call for Saturday's march, a record of my dinner at Bob Bob Ricard and a rant about the difficulties of hiring an RV in California in late August. Clearly I can't possibly get into all of those topics, I am far too distracted. Hmmmm. Drums fingers. Adds another line to the epic poem I am co-writing with Kate about the wonders of white wine. Hmmmm. Thinks again. Maybe I will do them all in one sentence. Depending on which ones are popular or generate feedback, I can then expand on them at a later date if necessary.

A play about changing attitudes to race in the Chicago suburbs, Clybourne Park disappointed me while seeming to delight ninety percent of the audience: they thought it was shocking and hilarious, while I felt jaded and unimpressed - the acting was patchy at best, the Big Shock moments weren't shocking, and there was no insight into current race divides that you couldn't find in an episode of The Office.

Partially inspired by this most amazing flowchart, I've realised that, possibly even more than my health, I am grateful for my vocabulary, a gift I received from my word-loving, crossword-solving parents - if you can't express your feelings, if you can't explain why you are thinking something or articulate your motivation, you're effectively rendered mute - I see it in teens who fight, not because they're violent, but because they can't tell the other person what they mean - and I'd argue that an ability to speak about the contents of one's head with precision is the greatest asset we can have.

I haven't really investigated the budget fully yet - my concentration levels are not at their highest at the moment - but it doesn't seem to have said anything too pleasing, and the thing that jumped out at me is that they are now going to tax private jet travel, to which I say, WHY THE FREAKING HECK WASN'T IT BEING TAXED BEFORE?

In the pub after choir on Monday, I became aware that none of my right-leaning singing friends had even heard of this Saturday's March for the Alternative, which a) means that they're not reading my blog (outrageous) and b) means that the right-wing press are not even covering it, even to slag it off - not something that should have surprised me, but since it's been on the front page of The Guardian's website pretty much daily since its announcement, the realisation that huge swathes of the populus don't even know it's happening is slightly frustrating - so for one last time (maybe), please read about it, and please come if you can.

I kind of don't want to tell anyone how much I like Bob Bob Ricard because obviously I am childishly possessive of a popular restaurant in central London and want it to be my place and no one else's except the people who know about it already, but in the spirit of sharing, it really is a gorgeous restaurant in Soho that has only become nicer since I was last there three years ago - the food is reliable, the menu has a good selection of prices and the atmosphere is basically my idea of eat-out perfection; on the downside, the wine list is a bit expensive, the waiting staff sometimes top up your glass even if you haven't taken a sip since thirty seconds ago when they last came round, and if there are celebrities present you can't see them because each table is curtained off, so opportunities for spying are limited - but basically, if I was richer and/or famous I'd go there constantly and if you want to take me out for a romantic meal, you could do worse than choose this place.

Hiring an RV in California in late August is freaking difficult, not just because there is a massive shortage of RVs for hire, but also because all the websites work like this: you type in your dates, they show you a list of possible vehicles that they may or may not have for hire, you are allowed to select one (and only one) of the vehicles that you're interested in (even if you'd be delighted to hire any of the twenty or so results they've found), and a new page loads asking for your details including your credit card number to secure the deposit, which you fill in, and then you get an email saying that they will look to see if the vehicle is available and then get back to you when they can, usually within 48 hours but no promises, and they can legitimately charge your card if the vehicle IS available, so you're loath to give your card details to anyone else, but you also know from experience that it's unlikely that that particular RV is going to be available and time is of the essence and there are possibly only two RVs available for that week on the whole of the West Coast, but you can't request a quote for any others because what if they all are available and your card gets charged twenty times and you end up paying a non-refundable 20% deposit on twenty RVs when you only want one?

OK that's it for now. I am bored and busy and grumpy and very happy all at once. Also: read Siddhartha, it's amazing. And this is brilliant too. Also, Boots own Skin, Hair & Nails supplements are just as good as Perfectil's and half the price. And I bought Pureology shampoo and conditioner for coloured hair - extra volume version - and it makes my hair really greasy. And I think one of the crayfish in my salad this lunchtime was funny. I spat it out but if I die in the next 12 hours, that's probably why. Also about a month ago, I got my highlights done by a girl and then quite soon after I saw my mum, who was like, 'When are you getting your hair done?' and I was all defensive and like, 'I just HAD it done!' and she was like, 'Oh! Sorry! Aren't they meant to dye the roots so you can't see them any more?' and I was like, 'They DID!' and she said, 'Hmmmm,' which she says quite often, and I said, 'It's HIGHLIGHTS, Mum - they take a section of the hair and then split it in half, and dye half of it and leave the other half undyed - it's meant to make it look more natural rather than just a block of solid colour.' And she nodded and realised she wasn't going to get anywhere with that argument, so she stayed quiet. And then I looked in the mirror, and my mum was right, I think the girl in the salon must have chosen each section, dyed about 10% of it and discarded 90%. And it's freaking annoying but it was too long ago to complain so now I'm going somewhere else to get it done again. Boring boring boring annoying. BYE.

Long weekend

So apart from keeping my right hand gripping whatever fabric is covering my right buttock so that I don't suffer another unintentional reveal, I've been in Paris this weekend, which was excellent. I was there on a course called Adventures in Non-Fiction, which in true expat Parisian style was held at the world's most ridiculous bookshop, Shakespeare & Co. For the uninitiated, imagine you are a forty-year old American divorcee who has always yearned to jack it all in, sweep up her dog, Loopy, and her mop-headed son, Sam, and head to the French capital to fulfill her always-yearned-for-but-never-once-voiced-in-four-decades lifelong dream of setting up a bookshop. It's ramshackle, clearly in breach of all UK fire restrictions, with wooden ladders affixed to brass rails to help you reach the higher shelves. Our classroom was a reading area upstairs, the walls crammed floor-to-ceiling with second-hand tomes, wooden pews around the edges of the room with scatter cushions scattered liberally, pink geraniums in the window box, a view of Notre Dame beyond, bunches of lavender on the sills wafting their scent in on the Autumn breeze along the occasional sound of an accordian player busking for tourists, mismatched cups, battered tin trays, superlative biscuits, a faded Moroccan rug over uneven floorboards, a farcially well-behaved black dog called Colette, a friendly fat cat to stroke, charming bilingual staff, bedrooms available for free to struggling writers... Even better, it has history, with regulars to its old premises including Hemingway and other impressive writers I've already forgotten, and some seriously groovy cats from the seventies like all those French writers whose names I've also misplaced. They were cool though. And influential. Anyone who's anyone's been to Shakespeare & Co. And then there is me.

So I arrived on Thursday night, settled in nicely to my room on the 23rd floor of a tower block in the 13th, learned the word for mortgage in French (now forgotten again), went to bed, overslept, arrived fifteen minutes en retard for the start of the course, met my coursemates while covered in sweat, my previously bouffant fringe now plastered to my forehead, missed the croissants (instant overpowering foot-stamping rage), asked a billion questions and no doubt made the other participants wish I'd slept until sixteen hundred hours instead of only 09:15.

First day's tutor was Francis Wheen, definitely one of the most erudite people I've ever had the fortune to be lectured by for around nine hours, bursting with stories about everything and everyone, dropping so many famous names that the area on the desk in front of him looked like someone had given this year's Who's Who a vigorous shaking. Fascinating and not unfond anecdotes poured out, from the young Tony Blair to... for fuck's sake, I literally cannot remember anyone else. What the hell is wrong with my brain? Anyway. The stories were gripping. And alongside all that, we got a massively helpful masterclass in non-fiction writing, particularly biography, eight students sitting agog as Francis educated and entertained, seemingly without inhaling, until 5pm, and from 10am until lunchtime on Saturday. If he ever wants to turn his hand to the didgeridoo (or any other skill requiring circular breathing), I've no doubt he'll be a hit. In the relevant circles.

I wrote eight pages of notes about research and timelines and other important things, and went away from that section feeling exhausted and enthused. From Saturday lunchtime until Sunday afternoon, Francis' place at the desk was taken by Jon Ronson, non-fiction writer and documentary-maker for film and TV, best known for The Men Who Stare At Goats, who added to the absurdly impressive collection of names on the desk by telling discreet stories about the time he lived with Robbie Williams, and George Clooney's insecurities and... oh I honestly don't know why I bother. I think he mentioned The Fall, but I might have made that up. Basically, unless it's about me, I can't remember anything. And even then I struggle.

Equally fascinating but utterly different, this second half of the course was more about finding great stories and developing our own ideas. Having thought LLFF was the limit of my writing landscape, I am now considering attempting a longer project and it's scaring the M&S opaque tights off me.

But all in all, it was money brilliantly spent: dreamy lunches at a make-shift trestle table on the pavement outside the bookshop, juicy quiches, salads, chocolate, yoghurts and juice on two days, and a nearby couscous restaurant on Saturday; an inspiring and enthralling combination of course tutors; crisp, bright, Parisian weather; free accommodation; interesting, kind and impressive coursemates - one with a ridiculously cute baby that sat on my lap for ages and was all warm and podgy; an amazing vintage store in the Marais that's open til 11pm, where I bought three dresses for 10 Euros each; a vague frisson of flirtation with someone who I didn't really want to kiss as it would be in breach of the boyban and I don't want to reawaken my comatose libido, and I wasn't sure from looking at his lips whether he'd be a good kisser, but then who generously developed a cold so I immediately went off him which couldn't have been more convenient if it tried; some lovely white wine and a few episodes of Arrested Development on DVD. Basically perfect.

My alarm went off at 05:15 Paris time this morning, and I came back to London on the 07:13 Eurostar, nodding off during the 2hr 15min ride with my old favourite alphabetical list game ("I went home to London and I brought Apple tart, a Box of macaroons, a Computer, DVDs, Estee Lauder foundation, Finnish memories, Good ideas, Housekeys, an iPod, a book by Jon Ronson...) Am now in the office feeling like I've recently done an optical rinse with battery acid and wondering how I will manage to stand without weeping during this evening's choir practice.

Dead a long time, dead a long time...

Miss me?

Heave an hours-long sigh of relief, my Faithful, for I am not dead, nor am I unable to type for your amusement and continued edification. I have been abroad, often without phone reception or access to the internet, and my enforced separation from these facilities has been strange and wonderful. And at times slightly unpleasant.

Even before my travels began, however, I was aware that my desire to blog has been sluggish at best, and over the past weeks I have spent some not insignificant time musing over my writing. Not to get too spiritual at this early stage of what promises to be a scroll-heavy edition of LLFF, but my psychological goal has long been to become as self-sufficient as possible. Like most people, I need and thrive on human contact, and have a deeply-held belief that love is all we need. I am not aiming for some sort of hermetic existence atop a girthy Tibetan telegraph pole. However, true love is truly selfless, and doesn’t work too well if one half of the partnership is constantly craving attention, affection or none-too-subtley pointing out that the other person owes them a present because she bought them that T-shirt last week and you haven’t even worn it yet, and for fuck’s sake how many times have I asked you to please phone me if you’re going to be late?

And release.

So. Yeah. I know that love should be unconditional, and, like millions of others, I know that in the past I’ve sometimes struggled with that. After much thought over the years, I've reasoned that the best way to be able to give unconditional love, whether to friends, family or lovers, is to need them as little as possible. I am about six tons of cherished possessions away from being a Buddhist, but ideally, I’d like to be fairly zen about this whole life malarkey, and work towards needing less, not more, the idea being that the less you need, the more you are free to give.

Which is where the blog comes in. Is it right to write? If it is informative – yes. If it brings pleasure – yes. Clearly I don’t blog for money, but I still receive two rewards: the immense satisfaction and flow I gain from the act of writing, the decision to structure a sentence like this (and not like that), the clarity and stability I feel having recounted an incident in black and white. And secondly, the flush of gratification I receive when I discover that my efforts have brought others pleasure or support.

BUT.

If I'm going to be serious about self-sufficiency, shouldn't I fight this urge for third party approval, and take the decision not to write at all? Shouldn't I conclude that the very nature of blogging cultivates a needy side of me from which I should be moving away? I thought that I should.

But then I thought of all the wonderful stuff we'd never have witnessed if a desire for appreciation was unacceptable. All the plays and paintings, poems, programmes, companies, children, families, restaurants, songs and pizzas that might not have come into existence if financial remuneration was the only possible reward for effort, if humanity's enjoyment of recognition vanished altogether.

The experience of choral singing is meditative, transformative, but the surge that follows when the audience appreciates your sound is another rush altogether - not more pleasurable than the performance itself, but nonetheless a huge part of singing, one which makes the night of a concert so strikingly different to a rehearsal. Would I still go to choir practice if I could never sing in front of an audience again? Probably not, but not many people would think that's weird. You join a choir to sing - and to be heard singing. Only a few people would, on learning that you are in a choir, conclude that you're an attention-seeking spotlight-whore. But choose to write and publish your work on the internet, and the implication is that you think you've created something worth others' valuable time. There is a question that's asked when any creative output is put in the public domain: 'Do you think this is good?' And if that question is left unanswered, it hurts. Some performers say they don't care what others think. I think they're talking out of their asses. Anyone who puts work out there, hangs it in a gallery, plays it onstage, creates and shapes a young mind, offers themselves to the lives of strangers - if you do that, you care. You need.

Before I went to Morocco, I went on a one-day travel writing course, which was immaculately structured and very helpful, in that it made me decide that I do not under any circumstances want to be a travel writer. The hardest thing about it was that we had to do four short written exercises throughout the day. After the group of around 25 people had finished the first written exercise, I sat, heart in mouth, as the course leader selected who would read – and I wasn’t picked. No one heard my astonishingly original and hilarious efforts. I was livid. Mystifyingly – or rather, demonstrating vast social intelligence – others seemed to feel remorse when they were picked and, like true Englishmen and women, they carefully indicated that they were embarrassed or uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. I did my level best to seem relieved not to have had to share, but as my second and third efforts also went unwitnessed, I became more and more desperate to be heard. I was finally selected to share my attempt for the fourth and final exercise, the last person out of the entire group to read aloud, only a couple of minutes before the workshop’s end. After hours of anticipation, the hoped-for laughs I received for my work were gratifying and immediately internal order was restored, the butterflies went back to their locker and my heart rate returned to its un-attention-seeking-nightmare levels.

That night I went to stay with my mother, and read her the three exercises I’d written that hadn’t been heard. She said I was brilliant. I was fully aware that a) she is not objective and b) I have my moments, and it was all OK.

I will be frank: I want to write and I want to be read. Does that make me needy? Yes, but no more than anyone else who puts their time and effort into a project, a baby, that doesn't give them financial reward. And in my defense: I could be needier. I could be trying to be famous, writing bad chick-lit and living on a permanent diet. That's not what I want. I want to carry on trying to put words together in an order that makes me proud, and I want to receive recognition for any pleasure my hard work brings to others.

To conclude this absurdly overlong and introspective introduction: Lost Looking For Fish will go on. I've missed it while I've been away – not just the praise, but the process. And if one or two of you are still this side of comatose and are kind enough to tell me I rock every now and then, I’ll be happy as a lamb in a field full of tussocks on a sunny day.

On to where the hell I’ve been. Morocco has been a fantastic break. I flew out two Fridays ago, and went to an unexpectedly swanky hotel about 45 minutes south of Marrakech, where I felt like I should wear floaty dresses, light candles and be filmed by Zeffirelli singing songs about love in a plaintive but effortlessly beautiful folk voice while playing some sort of north African lute. Instead I wore floaty dresses, did yoga, read books, ate my own bodyweight in couscous and discovered an hitherto unknown penchant for Moroccan rosé.

My true Faithful may remember that I went on a yoga holiday last June to Dahab in Egypt, where I discovered upon my arrival that no one else had had the foresight to sign up for the same holiday, and that I was thus going to have around four hours’ private yoga tuition each day, just me and the lovely instructor. In between classes, I was left to my own devices, and spent my time lounging, reading, snorkelling, scubaing, horse-riding, shopping, battling with local internet cafés and climbing Mount Sinai by night.

This year was somewhat different, and for ‘somewhat’, read ‘a bit meh’ and for ‘different’, read ‘by comparison’. I meeeeeaaaannnn, the people were nice, the yoga was stretchy, the pool was glorious, the hotel was far better than I deserve, my books were fantastic but… it turns out that I am not one for set meals with 24 people split up into three groups of eight, seated round one of three rectangular tables for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, plus four hours of yoga together, plus nowhere to go outside the hotel, no sea to swim in, no horses to ride along the beach, no internet cafés, no internet, no cafés. I slept a lot, I relaxed, I even think some people may have enjoyed my company, and I feel rested and grateful, but I won’t be rushing back. The routine made me rebellious and by the end I had lost interest in mealtimes and yoga, desperate to assert my independence by doing the only thing I could think of: not joining in.

Oh but it wasn’t bad, it really wasn’t. The sun shone, I went brown, there were some absolute gems of people there – 22 women and 2 men with an age-range spanning five decades from twenties to seventies, a male/female ratio which inevitably descended into discussions about the topics women so often discuss when left to their own devices: periods, the menopause, tanning, biological clocks, raising children and the mirena coil. I spent some time imagining how the holiday would shift if five or six single, heterosexual men arrived, and envisaged games of waterpolo ruining Margaret’s laps in the pools, cheers from makeshift boules games upsetting the meditation sessions on the sun terrace, late night drinking games distracting many of the group’s less committed members from their 7am yoga practice the next morning. As it was, one of my principal bonding conversations involved a chat with a mother and daughter about how the woman with the world’s longest fingernails wipes her bottom.

Most people were very well behaved, and it was often left to one fantastic character called Kay to provide the hilarity. In her late forties, vocally somewhere between Frances De La Tour and Roseanne Barr, she was sorted and straightforward during the day, but a few glasses of wine down and she transformed into one of the most fantastically belligerent women I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.
“I don’t mean to make a scene,” she slurred gently on our second night, having made a mid-dinner trip to another table, “but everyone else is very dry. I know it's awful, but we definitely have the best table,” she emphasised, her voice rising an octave or so. “And I think we would do very well if we could just do a little wee, go on, everyone in their chairs now. Mark your spot and then no one else can sit here tomorrow. Go on. Just a few drops – you’ll thank me later, I promise you.” I never want to party without her again.

Then after a week, a short taxi ride into Marrakech, the pink city, a place I’ve wanted to visit for a very long time, a place I’m glad I’ve now seen, a place I won’t be hurrying to visit again. Wow I’m sounding like a grump. I had a great time. It was fascinating, very different to expectations and I could have stayed longer. But did I like it? Not exactly. The divide between touristville and normalville was so harsh – the souks were 3% functioning market and 97% get-your-hands-on-the-Western-dollar desperation – Times Square without New Yorkers, Leicester Square without the cinemas. I felt guilty for perpetuating it, but not so guilty that I wasn’t able to select so many of their wares that I had to buy another suitcase to get them all home. We had a great trip through the new town, Gueliz, where the real Marrakechis live, the ones who have a life other than that portrayed in SATC2. But the expensive restaurants are all full of white faces, sweating men from Bournemouth stuff dirhams into the bra tops of bellydancers in swanky bars that serve pink Champagne at £50 a bottle, while a few minutes down the road, veiled women sit outside tourist attractions using their cute kids as bait. I guess there’s the same mix of wealth and abject poverty in any other city, but the tourist market is one huge whopping part of their economy and it felt a bit gross, like holidaying in a theme park, escaping to my luxury air conditioned riad every night while the ride's staff just carry on living in the Pink Kingdom, never able to take off their uniforms.

That said, who am I to say their life isn’t fun? Maybe they’re having a whale of a time. I guess I often felt pretty uncomfortable – the women wouldn’t look us in the eye, while the men muttered obscenities under their breath while we walked by, desperate to woo us into their shops, angry when we ignored them, unbearably obsequious when we didn’t. I can't blame the girls for being pissed off - I'd be livid if London was 95% full of gorgeous women that all the men leer over while ignoring me. Oh.

Anyway. I can’t deny I found the attention fun for the first hour, my daily experience in Marrakech being the exact opposite of my life in London: I was getting so much male attention it was almost embarrassing, but when their hands started brushing against my ass, I quickly began to feel a bit sick about the whole thing. I’d been warned about this by other visitors, and wore my (blonde) hair back and up so as to stand out a bit less, but no matter what I did with my hair, my ass was, as always, shall we say, a ‘feature’, and on my final night as Trace and I wandered round the main square I was almost in tears, as every few seconds, a complete stranger would violate my dance space and lightly touch my buttocks as he walked by and disappeared into the crowd. Arguably, I should have chucked on a birka and been done with it, but there was a part of me that felt that would have been a capitulation that'd assist those people who say rape victims who wore short skirts were asking for it. Long sentence. Sorry. It's late and I'm out of practice.

Anyway. It was interesting. Other points of note:

• Within a few hours of arriving in the city, Trace and I were in a local spa having a reflexology foot treatment, and I was amused to notice that the pan pipes were playing ‘Speed Bonny Boat’. You can take the girl out of Scotland…
• Moroccan horses stop at “Woah” too. I noticed no other Arabic/English convergences.
• Another day, another spa experience – Tracey and I went to a hammam for a steam and scrub, and were sitting semi awkwardly in our bikinis in the treatment room, waiting for further instructions, when a brusque woman with limited English came in, pointed at my boobs and said, “Off.” Clearly it was to be a topless treatment. We complied, lay down on an L-shaped bench, Trace along one wall, my head perpendicular to her feet. Another woman came in and started to rub black soap oil into Tracey’s front. “Tournez,” she barked. Trace slithered over onto her belly. I tipped my head back over my right shoulder to see what was going on, precisely at the moment that the lady gripped the lower hems of Tracey’s bikini bottoms and firmly jerked them up, giving a professional but unexpected wedgie that sent my friend giggling for some time to come.
• Moroccans aren’t without a sense of humour although their favourite joke is fairly simple: you ask a fairly innocent question, e.g. “Can I have a bottle of water?”, “Please can we have some lunch here?”, “Can we check out?” and they look you square in the eyes and say, “No.” And you say, “Really?” and they say, “No! Not really! It is fine! Of course you can have water/lunch/check out.” And they laugh as if it is a brilliant ruse. It is a bit funny the first time it happens. After that not so much.
• I did laugh one night though, when we were at the uber-swanky Western restaurant Foundouk, seated on the first floor mezzanine, overlooking a huge chandelier which hung deep down over the ground floor diners. The chandelier held twenty or thirty creamy wax orbs containing tea light candles, which any fool knows have a burning time of around four hours. How, I wondered, were these new candles replaced and lit every evening, when the chandelier was a good distance from any table or platform. I asked the waiter. “Nous avons un singe,” he said. “A monkey?” I said. “Oui,” he said, straightfaced. Then he laughed and showed us how the wrought iron panels in the balcony of the mezzanine slide to one side so someone can reach out and change the lights. I’m not a massive fan of animal cruelty but I’m afraid on that occasion the reality was a little disappointing.

So it was fun. It was relaxing and enlightening. I’ve learned stuff. I know now that my ideal summer getaway needs to involve the beach and, ideally, snorkelling with fish. I know that DBC Pierre’s new novel is a masterpiece, as is The Way Young Lovers Do by Van Morrisson. I laughed often and I whimpered with pain a fair bit, and I nattered away a lot and made new friends. And it was great, and I’m very glad I went and I’m happy to be home, and I don’t need much, but a bit of love every now and then doesn’t go amiss.

Now leave me alone as I have a ton of X Factor to catch up on.

Shang, hi?

So I know the comments section at the bottom of each of these posts is often fairly barren. I have a few loyal people who have managed to sign up and say things in public, but the vast majority of my feedback comes from those who know me in Real Life, who seem happy to tell me in person, but not so happy to write it for the World To See. Either way, I bask like a lioness in the sun when people say nice things about LLFF - along with whiskers on kittens, it is one of my favourite things - and yesterday was a good day, when four or five different and highly respected friends contacted me to say how much they'd enjoyed my witterings, and how nice it was to see me sounding so perky.

The irony is, I spent this morning in tears at my desk, the snake coiled round my feet.

I went on that date on Sunday night, and when I got home we texted briefly. He said I was amazing and mentioned 'next time'. Then we texted a bit yesterday morning, but the speed of his responses sounded the Gong of Warning. It became clear that he wasn't that keen. And the annoying thing was, I hadn't been that keen either. I mean, he was really really funny. But I guess the sexual chemistry I felt could have had more to do with wine than I'd admitted previously. And he is as laid back as it's possible to be - to the point where, given a choice between two date venues, he genuinely doesn't care which one we go to, which is all fine and dandy, especially because I do obviously have an opinion so then we just get to do what I want and everyone's happy, right? Except that is a recipe for unmitigated disaster in relationship terms. I of all people need a leader, not a follower. I dunno. I didn't think he was perfect, sure, but I certainly didn't think he was perfectly awful, either. And he'd been so persuasive about how much he'd liked me, really ladling on the compliments, and then... poof!

GASP. Maybe the magician has made him vanish.

That is surely it.

But anyway, for whever reason, he's stopped texting me, and he's still on the dating website checking in regularly, so he's a) still alive and b) surfing around for other options. And, I mean, obviously that is fair enough, in that I am doing it too, and have a date coming up this Thursday. But still. It's this gaping chasm between a) my friends, who always say "I don't understand why you haven't been snapped up," and b) boys I fancy, who always say, "I don't want to see you ever again."

And so then I sit here and think - hmmm. That's the first date I've been on since my confidence took a beating in late February. And now I feel like shit again. Why do I keep on dating if it keeps giving my confidence a beating? And then I think: well, because I want, ultimately, to be in a relationship - because love is the best feeling on earth and, like pretty much everyone I know, I'd love to experience it. And then I think: well, that's fine, but we all know you can't look for love, and maybe you're just not occupied enough in the rest of your life and you're hoping too hard for love and coming across as desperate. And then I'm like: but hang on, how could I do any more? I'm basically so Ms Extra Curricular that I annoy myself with my smuggery, what with choir last night and uke tomorrow and late night museum tickets on Friday and Capital Ring on Sunday and god knows what else lined up for the coming months. But then we all know that merely being busy doesn't mean you're happy. But then what else could I do to make myself more happy and satisfied with my existence? I have wonderful friends and family. I'm deeply fortunate to be pretty much fit and healthy (snake excepted). I love my hometown. What else can I do? Maybe it's time for a break... I could go away for a bit. Change of scene. Writing opportunity... I've been talking about that for months. Maybe I should finally put my money where my mouth is and actually book something. But then... could doing that jeopardise my job? What if I go away and then whoever is covering for me ends up being better at my job than I am (e.g. by not spending all day writing blog entries) and they don't want me back? But then my job could end suddenly anyway. It certainly won't last forever: I need to confront what will happen when I leave. I should line up other options. Maybe if I went away for a couple of months, I could write while I was away and then I could start putting a safety net in place for Life After This Job. But then I read that and laugh, and think, for goodness' sake, moron, who ever heard of using writing as a safety net? Writing is about as safe as Gaza. Don't risk your security. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Don't you forget about me. But then... security is so... stable. I'm 32, with no kids, no relationship, an affordable mortgage and some savings. Why not go away? Go to China for two months, explore, have some adventures, come back and see what happens? And then I'm like: that's freaking terrifying. I hate rocking the boat, it feels grim. I'm a control freak. I like controlled fun: medium sized waves and lifejackets, not tsunamis and kayaks. But then... maybe the medium waves and the lifejacket is a bit boring. Maybe I'm feeling stifled. And then I was, like, ooh, my boss has just walked in, and before I knew it I was asking him about a sabbatical, and he said that it definitely could be doable, and now it looks like I'm going to China for eight weeks in September and October this year. All because some moronic short boy from Hull didn't text me back.

Madness.

Six days in April

Rage. I've done it again: left writing my blog for so long that I am now overwhelmed with information and feel as though I should split it up under subheadings. Maybe I will.

Cocksuckgate
Last Thursday morning I phoned my mother just before I got to the airport, to say goodbye and reassure her that I had not yet died, an almost-daily ritual for which she seems to be grateful.
"Oh, Jane, I'm glad you called," she said, solemnly. "I was just about to email you." She sounded close to tears.
"What's wrong?" I asked in a high-pitched voice that indicated my panic.
"Your... your blog, Jane..." she said. I wasn't much the wiser.
"What about it?"
"Dad and I... we're both... shocked."
"What about?"
"I can hardly say it... You used the word..." (I tried to scan my memory of what the offensive item could possibly be) "...cocksucker."
I roared with laughter.
"So?!" I asked. Mum was not reassured.
"It's awful, Jane," she said. "So vulgar. So... unfeminine."
"Really? Worse than fucking?" I asked.
"Oh god, yes," she said, emphatically. "So much worse than fucking."
I told her that I believe this is a generational difference, but she seemed so gobsmacked by my labelling the volcanic ash as something that fellates that I felt it necessary to do a straw poll on arriving in France. I asked around twenty people in their early thirties, none of whom felt that a cocksucking volcano is any worse than a fucking volcano. Of course, we all agreed that fucking and cocksucking are both vulgar and unfeminine, so mother, you are indeed correct on that point. But for any of my mother's friends, or indeed any others, who read this blog and feel that she has failed in her parenting duties as a result of my free use of profanities, I apologise. Only the good bits of me are a reflection of her, i.e. my skin that tans, my love of birds and my US citizenship. Everything else is my dad's fault.

France
So I went to France for Emily's wedding and it was one of those cominglings of beautiful people and beautiful surroundings and beautiful emotions and beautiful food that made me simultaneously joyous and painfully and continually aware that, of the youth contingent, and as a fairly normal size 14 gal, I was the fattest female there by about nine stone. I kid you not. I genuinely reckon I could have got three of the other wedding guests into each leg of my jeans. There were literally miles of smooth, slim, tanned thighs on show, and the men's eyes were, naturally, out on stalks. I could have collected the drool and irrigated southern Africa for a month.

To distract myself, I forwent my wheat ban and ate baguette, and I sunbathed and met tiny ponies. It was all going rather well until I got dressed up on Saturday afternoon for the wedding, and had one of those rare moments when I looked in the mirror and thought I had managed to make myself look momentarily bearable. To celebrate, I asked Kate to take some photographs of me outside for posterity. She snapped away for a minute or so and said she'd got some good ones. I retrieved my camera and looked at the screen. In the (approx.) six minutes since I'd put on my make-up in the bathroom mirror, the circumference of my face appeared to have inflated by around an inch. I briefly became convinced that I was the victim of a cruel pre-wedding allergic reaction but then I double-checked with Kate, who assured me that the photo was, in fact, normal and that I was looking at a picture of What I Look Like. This could not be true. Desperate for a second opinion, I showed Christianne the mutant image and was sorely disappointed at her distinct lack of horrified gasps or attempts to shield my eyes from the appalling aberration. On the contrary: it appeared that the grotesque image before me was not only fairly representative but actually flattering. Shortly afterwards, we got in the car and drove to the wedding, the other three girls chattering happily as I tried to come to terms with the realisation that I look utterly, utterly different to what I thought and that my fictional version was much prettier.

Of course, the weekend was not all about me. We had a fantastic few days in and around Mirmande, made all the more precious as the volcano had done its best to keep us away, and I made new friends and passionately loved my old ones. The bride was stunning, the groom's speech was excellent, the venue was magical, I didn't fall over on the dancefloor, the lunch the day afterwards was dreamy, my skirt didn't blow up in the wind and reveal my pants, the band were crush-worthy and best of all, I managed to get a mild tan which, as Kate continually stated, will "set us up" for the summer. Here's hoping.

Election 2010
What is weird is that I have voted. I posted it yesterday. Fortunately I haven't yet regretted my decision although I'm not denying that might happen between now and 6th May. I almost regretted my entire existence last night, however, when Sara, Rog, Grania and I sat through the most excruciating event ever at the Union Chapel. Instigate Debate was meant to be a cutting edge two-fingers-up at the mass media approaches to politics; the NME called it "the most important underground movement," which, if true, is enough to finish me off once and for all.

Invited speakers were Dame Vivienne Westwood; Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman; ex-Labour MP and current Green candidate, Peter Tatchell; ex-Mayoral candidate and LibDem hotshot, Simon Hughes; and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt. Music was to be from the Magic Numbers, Shlomo and Rose Elinor Dougall, and we were promised comedy from The Amazing Tommy and the Weeks.

In reality, Dame Viv didn't turn up and nor did Jeremy Hunt - in their place we got the Tory candidate for Putney, a dumpy young thickie who tried admirably to compete with Tatchell, Harman and Hughes and got absolutely nowhere. The Magic Numbers turned out to be one-of-the-Magic-Numbers, which is a bit different, while Tommy and the Weeks were about as Amazing as a pavement. The host, John O'Sullivan, was a self-satisfied, shambolic, patronising blunderbus who encouraged the audience to ask questions and then ignored what they said and asked his own. He sneered at an intern who passed him a note during the evening, consistently called 'his hero' Peter Tatchell 'Thatchell', and introduced beatboxer Shlomo as 'one of the best rappers in the world'. The evening had an absurdly obvious LibDem bias which shat all over any concept that we were watching a genuine 'debate' and I was fully embarrassed to witness the politicians going through such a risible two hours. It was an unmitigated disaster. On the upside, Shlomo was great, but watching him work his magic in front of a stifled smattering of uptight politicos sitting in church pews was painful. £5 I would rather have spent on something useful, like Compeed or stamps. Meh. You win some, you lose some.

Right. Must go hang out my whites wash.

Ash decisions

Ohgodohgodohgod, I love blogging, you know I do, but every now and then it feels like homework and I wish I could just employ some hilarious and articulate minion to write it for me so that I could get on with vital things like packing and watching American Idol, and now is definitely one of those times.

So the last you heard, I was rambling on about politics and then this FREAKING volcano started erupting, but obviously I thought it was just quite funny and cool and different, and then I realised that it might actually affect ME and suddenly it became completely unfunny and highly irritating, because I was meant to be flying to the south of France this very day to stay in the Pyrenees for two nights and then on to somewhere else to stay for two nights for Emily's wedding, and it was all going to be brilliant and a magical adventure and then the cocksucking ash started spewing and our flights were cancelled and then we had to start thinking about ferry trips and hire cars and overlong minibus journeys with strangers including other people's mothers and possibly attractive band members, and then the flights were uncancelled and the airports reopened but it was impossible to know whether the volcano was going to carry on slowing down or suddenly speed up again and we STILL DON'T KNOW and the uncertainty is GRADUALLY KILLING ME. However, I am determined to be optimistic and if I don't get on my Sleazyjet flight tomorrow morning I will laugh and be calm and everyone in the airport will be drawn to my relaxed good humour and incredible laissez-faire joie-de-vivre.

Anyway, other than that, since last Friday I have been doing billions of unparalleledly brilliant and uniquely quirky things, including taking incredible photos of London in the sun (admittedly I was poss. not the only person doing this on Saturday) and going on the fourth link of the Capital Ring walk with Kate on Sunday, where we managed to cover twelve miles from Falconwood, via Eltham Palace and... some other AMAZING places that I've completely forgotten, ending up at Crystal Palace, taking in a delicious pub lunch on the way and, critically, getting sunburned shoulders that have basically ruined my look for the wedding this weekend, as I am wearing a halterneck dress but my body clearly states I should wear something that covers my white strap marks. Once again, I live on the edge of the fashion grain and it is perilous up here, I can tell you.

I went to see Rufus Wainwright's opera, Prima Donna, at Sadler's Wells with Grania last Friday - a great evening out but not, perhaps, the best opera I've ever seen. A fantastic effort for a first go, however, and shedloads better than I could ever manage in my wildest dreams, so I am really not criticising. I'm glad I went but I'm also glad I didn't spend more than £10 on my ticket. After the show, we went to Dollar Grills in Exmouth Market, which was a cool venue and recommended, and at the table next to us was a very attractive girl in her mid-twenties, curvy, dark and sensual. I didn't have a clear view of the guy she was with and asked Grania if he was worthy of her. She nodded her assent. They were clearly a glamorous pairing. Then, about thirty minutes later, with her burger unbitten and his frankly terrifying rack of ribs undented, he grabbed his duffle coat and his rucksack and stropped out. We looked at Curvy McBuxom with sympathy. "Nightmare," I said to her, and smiled in what I hoped was a kind, unpatronising fashion. She nodded, and said, "I'm getting a bit bored of it now, though." Apparently this particular argument had been caused because he'd bought her tickets to Prima Donna and she hadn't liked it - the opera, not the gift. He, however, had taken her rejection of the opera as a personal affront. It was the kind of exhausting, pointless row I've had hundreds of times in my life, indicative of absolutely nothing on the surface and, underneath, firm evidence that the relationship is simply not meant to be. After the boy returned, tight-jawed, he sat in virtual silence, wiggling the rack of ribs disconsolately for a few minutes until the girl eventually caved and they got their food to go and stood up. We wished them luck as they left the restaurant and they laughed ruefully, and then I drunkenly told Grania how ecstatic I was to be there in Dollar Grills with her rather than stuck in the wrong relationship, and she agreed and it was lovely.

Monday I had my haircut in my usual imperceptible way, and then last night was Tuesday and Lucy came down to the smoke from t'country, and we went to Camden for a delicious dinner in a Turkish restaurant near Koko, and then to watch the Fuck Buttons (they're a band of sorts, mother. No actual fucking involved.) who were good enough for an hour or so, but we were a bit drunk from dinner, I was spinning out about something unrelated and distracted by trying to coordinate ferry bookings with very kind, very posh man who was being lovely and offering Kate and I a lift to the wedding, and it was all a bit confusing what with the fact that they were playing ridiculously loud dance music but no one was dancing, so we left after an hour and returned back to my flat to safety, cereal, mini Magnums and a last, absurdly unnecessary glass of wine. Today I thought I was leaving for France and then I wasn't, so I spent a long time in bed, threw a few unrelated items into my suitcase and passed a very pleasant two hours bathing in the wonderfully me-sized rectangle of sun that falls bang in the middle of my living room floor for about three hours every bright afternoon. I heave up the venetian blind, open the gigantic window and lie on my carpet, spreadeagled, often starkers as no one can see me but the birds and any particularly fortunate plane passengers looking down with binoculars. Tomorrow I have every hope that I'll be up there myself. A bientot et honh-he-honh.

Finnish

God I am sad. The last time I remember being so sad to leave a holiday was when I was a teenager in Corsica and pulled one of the barmen who was approximately twice my age and, in retrospect, possibly a paedophile, but as I left for the airport I thought I might die of heartbreak. The only thing keeping me going was my dream of the day in September that I might receive a letter from him once I returned to boarding school. Oh the naive yet charming idiocy of my youth. The soundtrack to that week remains Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album, which may give an indication of a) how long ago this was and b) how desperately, desperately uncool I have been, consistently, since I was born.

So today was our last day. We awoke early and went out for a final cross-country ski, just the two of us, gliding through the furrows like old pros, following the verbal directions Pascal had given us until we got down onto the frozen river and took a wrong turn, taking a stunning track several kilometers through a birch forest before emerging, sweating hard and laughing in shock, at precisely the point we’d left well over an hour previously. Back, eventually, to the hotel for lunch, packing and our final sow-na, a ritual that we now struggled to fit into an hour and a quarter, so comfortable are we with the heat and freezing swim combo. I have been astonished by how quickly I’ve acclimatised – at the beginning of the week I couldn’t be outside without my glove for more than thirty seconds without genuinely panicking about frostbite, and now I’m wandering about like a local. I am destined to be annoying forever when someone says ‘Oooh, it’s cold’ – I’ll always be sure to tell them they haven’t known cold if they haven’t experienced minus 35.

After he’d helped me wrap my reindeer skin in a black bin bag and tape it up for transit, we said an emotional goodbye to Pascal and presented him with his leaving gift of beer and Euros. The week has been exceptional, unforgettable, superlative – but I think we were particularly lucky to have such a nice guy looking after us, a man who genuinely loves the landscape, who for the past three years has left his family and friends behind in rural Belgium and travelled here to work in the snow. He has a foreigner’s objective love of the country and was always full of facts, explaining how the line of the Arctic Circle is defined (something to do with having 12 continuous hours of daylight after 21 June each year, and 12 continuous hours of darkness in the winter), and gleefully informing us that seal bladders make the most effective anoraks as we squealed obediently like piglets in a vice. His English was also charmingly foreign, as he pulled over in the car and said "Now we make photo," or when he was describing his Belgian girlfriend's appearance and said she had "long black hairs." Not a selling point.

What else can I tell you?

• Apparently I’m wrong about the trash situation – I had thought that the terrain was totally unspoilt by human debris, but he told me that Finns are some of the worst litterers he’s experienced, throwing oil drums and anything else unwanted out of their cars as they drive. Clearly now it’s all buried under several feet of crisp, white snow but come June when it melts, I understand that the picture may be slightly less esque.
• I am still pleased (is that appallingly patronising?) with the lack of Westernisation that we saw at the tourist attractions. No ‘have your photo taken as your husky sled rounds this hair-raising corner – then we’ll print it on a mug!’ offers, or overpriced T-shirts or marked-up soft drinks. They did what they did and nothing more, and we loved it.
• To save on resources and effort, bus drivers deliver local post in Finland. There are large post receptacles at bus-driver-window height along the roads, where they will lean out and deposit the mail for nearby houses. The receptacles are open-fronted plastic boxes, meaning that all the packages and letters are sitting there, free for anyone to claim. But there is no theft. Except in the big cities, people don’t lock their doors except if they are going away for a long vacation.
• I didn’t see a single non-white person in the entire week. That was slightly uncomfortable.
• What else…? I cannot exaggerate the whiteness of the landscape. Everything, but everything, is white. The roads are covered in a thick layer of sparkling ice, and all cars are equipped with spiked tyres that drive along it as easily as we would on tarmac. There is no sludge. No piles of brown, polluted snow lying to the roadside. No salt or grit. Just white, white, white and cold, cold, cold; so cold you cough in surprise when it hits your lungs every morning. And so beautiful it brings a lump to my throat.
• Finland is very expensive. Beers and wine are around 5 Euros per glass, a crappy novelty fleece in a tourist store that should normally be about £20 is nearer £50. Food, while delicious, is not cheap either. Petrol is extortionate. But wages are good too, and services are great. Just the fact that, twice a day including Sundays, someone drives around all the many hundreds of miles of snowmobile and cross country tracks, smoothing out the routes for all the local exercisers, is… well, it’s a lovely thing. Our tax money goes for local gyms and park exercise circuits, I know – but there’s something so special about the snow. The whiteness and the space. London will be a shock. Thankfully I’m going to Ikea in Croydon tomorrow afternoon so the Nordic adventure will continue. A final, slightly teary hey hey from Finland. See you in Blighty.

The End Is Nigh

Last you’d heard, we’d done a lot of skiing. My favourite Jack Dee joke has echoed through my mind a lot this week, where he takes the piss out of the Winter Olympics (“Just a selection of various forms of sliding”) saying how absurd it is that people can get so over-excited about a range of activities that you could do just as well if you were dead. But, while I concede that my skillset during the reindeer and husky safaris was pretty much limited to laughing and taking photographs, the skiing element has definitely required some effort.

After our successful three hour foray into downhill skiing on Thursday, Grania and I went back to Levi on Friday for a full day’s extravaganza, once again breezing through the absurdly efficient rental shop and lift pass purchasing process in a matter of minutes, a level of organisation that alone would justify the decision to ski in Finland, even without the non-existent lift queues, empty pistes, sparkling lavatorial facilities and breathtaking scenery. Once again, I found the new design of modern skis absolutely faultless, cruising down black runs without incident where previously I would have caught an edge or lost my balance on an icy patch and come bone-riskingly unstuck. I was going slightly faster than ‘stationary’ when I fell for the second time, losing my balance on an entirely flat stretch of off-piste snow between two runs, when I’d been pushing myself along with my poles. I had been moving marginally faster than an unstressed walrus, and coincidentally resembled one when I fell, as once again I found myself entirely unable to stand up unassisted. Pathetic.

Lunch was a delicious pizza in a piste-side restaurant, accompanied by two extortionate glasses of omnipresent Jacob’s Creek Semillon Chardonnay, the only wine available. Grania had the local speciality beverage which appears to be hot ribena with rum, which I’m sure is delicious if you like hot ribena and/or rum. (I do not.) As our plates were being cleared, I said thank you to our waiter, who answered with a phrase not dissimilar to ‘No worries.’ His accent was not Finnish. “You sound like you’re from East London!” I remarked. Turned out I was about twenty miles out, as he revealed he was from Rochester, in Kent. So over-excited were we to meet a chatty fellow English native that Grania and I went into giddy obsessive mode, peppering him with questions. He was, it emerged, 25 years old, and a fully trained electrician, but preferred life as a traveller - he works in Greece during the summer. He proudly told us that he is the only UK national working as a waiter in Levi, with his salary paid by a Finnish company, and that he has, he hopes, “paved the way” for other people to do the same. Having had my Jacob’s Creek, I was afflicted by what Grania affectionately calls my Tourette’s, and told him he had ‘player hair’ and that he looked like a heartbreaker. He said his hair only looks over-coiffed because his younger brother is training to be a hairdresser, and because everyone else in Finland has such terrible styles. I have to agree on that point: if Mrs Sassoon wants to help her husband avoid a stress-related heart attack, they should steer clear of the Arctic Circle.

Following our meal, we had a fantastic and too-short two hours on the piste in the afternoon before we had to rush back to meet our team for the taxi back to base. With a seven minute window pre-car, we decided to scamper to the shops across the road as fast as our Moons would carry us, on the hunt for some of the amazing reindeer fur boots we’d seen sported by the locals on the farm the day before. Sadly, the nearest we found were a pair of incredible grey boots that I loved until I found out that they were a) 350 Euros and b) made of seal skin. Later we discovered that they have now been banned by the EU, which perhaps would explain why the shop assistant had been so keen for me to buy them.

On returning to the hotel, we headed off for our daily sauna (with the first syllable rhyming with cow) and freezing cold plunge pool regime. While the other women in our ten person team haven’t seemed especially desperate to become bosom buddies with us while we are wearing clothes, the moment we hang up our dressing gowns and join them, starkers, on the pine benches in the 84 degrees Fahrenheit heat, they can’t get enough of gossiping with us. Maybe our British clothes gave off an unfriendly vibe. Personally I can’t think of many scarier sights than a naked me, half-baked in a Finnish sauna, but I’m glad I seemed approachable.

Since several of our group were leaving on Saturday morning, Friday night was our farewell meal, where we were presented with a huge wooden platter featuring smoked salmon, herrings in a dill and mustard dressing, another misc. fish (delicious), an incredible mushroom salad, potato balls and every conceivable type of reindeer: smoked, unsmoked, liver and some sort of pate. That was the starter. Then we had reindeer stew on mash with redcurrants, then delicious selected red berries and cream for dessert. It was freaking delicious. The food has been excellent all week – low, perhaps, on plate appeal, but extremely tasty, hearty, pleasingly fattening and educational. The highlight of the meal, however, was when our guide, Pascal, presented us with our Official Reindeer Driving License, valid (bafflingly) for five years. I shall treasure it always.

While the other guests retired (sensibly) to their rooms, Grania and I ordered our second bottle of wine and wandered through to Pilot’s Pub, which is conveniently the hotel bar and also the only bar in our village, hence jam-packed with excellent locals doing Finnish karaoke. Grania, who is always nicer to strangers than I, was inexplicably welcoming to two older gentlemen who were loitering in our area; they have since been referred to as ‘the man with no neck’ and ‘the man who kept touching my face’, which should give you some idea as to their desirability. My abiding memory of this portion of Friday, however, was when Grania seemed unable to stop begging me to do karaoke, and – my intelligent, clear and highly rational arguments clearly getting me nowhere – I resorted to making an exasperated growl of unmanageable frustration, which came out sounding somewhere between a snarl and a scream. Then I went to bed. We laughed a lot the next morning when she conceded that singing Dancing Queen to a room full of Finns would probably not have been as funny as she’d envisaged.

And then it was Saturday. Ten centimeters of snow had fallen overnight, making the countryside appear even more flawless. With most of our group homeward bound, there were just five of us who set off on a day trip – Pascal, the two of us, and the wonderful Geert and Trudi from the Netherlands, who were in their sixties and cool as ice, happily nattering to us throughout the week about topics such as Botox and hair highlights. They had met through a Catholic church group when they were in their late teens, and dated for two years before they decided to get married. Geert would come over to see Trudi, and at 9.30pm every night, Trudi’s dad would stamp on his bedroom floor to tell the young people in the kitchen below that their time was up. Forty years later, they were in Lapland to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Refreshingly, however, Trudi smilingly told us that she’d dumped Geert twice before she agreed to marry him, saying that she was worried that he was “too serious”. Clearly first impressions aren’t always to be trusted. They were a fantastic couple.

Our outing had been suggested by Pascal – strictly speaking it was his day off, but he’d found a Sami festival about 150km further north and we’d begged him to take us with him. The five of us bundled into his car and set off for a ten hour round trip that at one point took us about 50 meters from the border with Sweden to the west, and, later on, about 50 kilometers from the border with Norway to the north. Our first major stop was a town called Hetta, where we went to the market and ate delicious sausages out of paper, before bundling back in the car and going down the road to the festival. In a trip full of once-in-a-lifetime sights, this was one of the most extraordinary, a true snapshot of local Finnish life. The Samis are the indigenous people of Finland. Some of them wear the beautiful traditional costumes of heavily embroidered blue and red felt, ornate fur bonnets and the aforementioned reindeer boots, while others wear waterproof ski gear and heavy duty snow shoes, or a combination of the two. The mixture of old and new pleased me greatly. The four day festival was culminating on Sunday with the finals of many events, including lassoing and husky races, but on Saturday afternoon, we witnessed the heats of the young competitors’ solo reindeer races. These involved girls and boys aged around 13 wearing tight shiny lycra suits, helmets and cross country skis, being pulled around a long track on the stunningly beautiful and seemingly endless frozen lake where we were all standing, by a single reindeer, who was enticed to run faster by a rope threaded through his legs that was snapped against his testicles by the plucky racers. The animals shot out of the stalls like nuclear warheads, and the brave kids were jerked along behind in their tracks at terrifying speeds. It was fantastic. About two hundred racer reindeer were lying around in a pen nearby, waiting patiently for their turn and occasionally getting into fights. Other than that, not much was going on. It was exceptionally peaceful and seemingly timeless; an immense privilege to be there. We watched several heats before reluctantly returning to Pascal’s car, enticed only by his promise of a ‘really big souvenir shop’. But first, a stop at his favourite petrol station, clearly a Sami community hub, where we ate the world’s most delicious omelettes while Pascal had his cherished reindeer kebab, and I nearly bought a stuffed squirrel before Geert told me it was illegal to take taxidermy into another country. Then back into the car and a detour up a tiny white road, moving further north to the point where the altitude changes to the extent that the omnipresent pine trees can no longer grow. There was only birch here, and the landscape was totally different – eerie, still and stunning. We walked down onto another vast lake as the sun was setting, and were reminded of the salt beds in Arizona and Utah – I can’t think of a time when I’ve ever seen such massive flatness as that created by the frozen whiteness. It was humbling and awesome.

We got lost on the way home and took a frozen track for several kilometers, uneven and full of humps as only the main roads are covered in asphalt. The only major incident was a near-miss with an errant reindeer, who ran into our path and then pounded along in front of the car like a stupid sheep, before finally darting into the woods. After dinner, Grania and I donned our snowsuits for one final attempt to see the Northern Lights, but they were sadly unforthcoming, despite our best efforts to entice them with slightly inebriated singing of musical numbers including I Know Him So Well, My Favourite Things, I’m Getting Married In The Morning and Skimbleshanks The Railway Cat. Still can’t believe that didn’t work. Then we tried to do cartwheels and yoga positions in our snow gear, before waving goodbye to the star-crammed sky and heading back to the hotel. Although I was sad not to see the NLs a third time, there was something about a failed attempt that made me realise how lucky we’d been with our other two sightings. One more day left before our Sunday evening flight. I will be extremely sad to leave.

Sliding bores

Not quite so educational today but waaaaaaaay harder on the body. Still, my brain wasn't allowed to take a total back seat. Here is what I've learned:

• Cross country skiing. I mean. It is the most complete exercise form I've ever taken, other than swimming. Every. Single. Muscle. in your legs, your arms, your buttocks, your core, your back, your shoulders - all agony. But in a good way. Highly, highly recommended. We are going to go again.
• There are two types of cross country skiing - one where you go along in slim parallel furrows, which are carved out of the snow by a special piste machine. The other involves scooting along with your skis in a V-shape, far apart at the front and close together at the back. Each type of skiing has different skis, poles and boots. We did the former as it is easier. Your toe is attached to the ski by a binding, but your heel is free. You glide along like a beautiful ice dancer. Theoretically. In practice it is initially hard, and nothing like normal skiing. But we picked it up quickly.
• The Finns call cross country skiing 'skiing'. Downhill skiing is called 'downhill skiing'. So, if you're going skiing at the weekend, it's on the flat.

We set out, as a ten, at around 10.30am. Our ages varied from mid-twenties to mid-sixties. Within about ten yards, as I'd expected, I was pouring sweat like a jazz trumpeter during a seminal July set at Ronnie Scott's, pre-aircon. Fortunately, I know my body and was confident that, given time, I would acclimatise. After a few kilometers, I did. The older members of our party later admitted that they'd struggled, which seemed very reasonable to me. But although the activity was extremely energetic, there were no animals involved, which meant that it was inevitably slightly less incident-heavy than yesterday. I fell down on my knee at one point, and Grania headbutted the ground at another, but both those mishaps occurred in the first few moments and we were soon smoothly on our way.

After lunch back at the hotel, we took the minibus to the nearest big resort, Levi, pronounced like that which is dry in American Pie. Everyone else took the time to peruse the shops, but, ever-ambitious, Grania and I hired downhill skis, boots, poles, paid 2 euros extra for helmets, and set off for three hours on the pistes. The last time I skied was, I believe, in the late nineties, and things have changed somewhat. First, skis have shrunk about a foot, but gained about a stone. I don't know what they're made of these days, but I think it is probably uranium. (This is very heavy. I just looked it up on Wikipedia.) Boots are more comfortable than they were although I still have a panic that they won't do up around my calves. I also still fear T-bars after an incident which resulted in a cauliflower ear when I was approx. 11 and involved my parents laughing hysterically and insisting I pull my hair back off my face so they could photograph me like some sort of circus freak, ignoring the fact that IT REALLY HURT. But anyway. Basically, skiing is still the same: very fun, quite cold and slightly risky with a fair bit of adrenaline. It is way, way easier, cardiovascularly, than cross country skiing. We started out on the basic slopes but my map reading accidentally led us on to a black run and we both got down without incident. My only fall was, as usual, when I was standing completely still on a very flat surface. I recovered myself, turned my skis the right way and tried to get up. Panic set in as I realised I couldn't. I still don't quite understand what happened, but I think it is lack of upper body strength. I managed to lift my abdomen about a foot off the ground and then had to extend a pole and ask Grania to pull me through the offending middle section. Eventually I righted myself and we set off again. If she hadn't have been there I would have had to take my skis off, stand up and put them back on again. Unexpected result of ageing?

Skiing in Finland is great - the pistes are pretty much empty, the lifts have no queues and there is a good mix of runs. There isn't enough in Levi to keep you occupied for a week, but for a long weekend I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. That said, after 2.5 hours we were cold and tired, almost certainly the cumulative effect of our active morning and punchy afternoon, so we ditched our hired gear and jumped in a taxi for the short ride back to HQ and a sauna/freezing cold plunge pool/sauna extravaganza followed by dinner with the team where we were asked whether we'd ever seen Diana or Charles in a pub in London. Now we have a possible film or reading window and then sleep. Fractionally less hilarity today, and I've probably eaten as many calories as I've burned off (she says, stuffing the core of a Terry's Chocolate Orange in her mouth, one of many treats she brought for the dual enjoyment of herself and Grania this week, only to find out on arrival in Finland that Grania has given up chocolate for Lent), but it's been excellent. Hope all is well en Angleterre and with the rest of the Faithful, wherever you may be. Hey hey.

Rein 'em in. Seriously.

What's brilliant about this holiday is that it's not only amazing in every conceivable way, but I'm also learning, which alleviates most of the normal I'm-on-holiday-and-achieving-nothing-and-even-though-that's-the-point-of-holidays-I-still-feel-guilty guilt. Here, in bullet form, are some of the nuggets we learned yesterday about huskies:

• Huskies eat dried nuggets of raw salmon and meat
• They start racing aged one and normally retire around ten years old
• The intelligent women go first in the racing pack, with the stronger men behind
• They can run happily up to 25 km a day but race even further
• The ears of the puppies are very soft

And today, we went to a reindeer farm. This was brilliant for many hundreds of reasons, but here are the educational highlights:

• Each reindeer-owning family has its own recognisable series of nicks that it cuts into the ears of each of their reindeer in order to identify them. These nicks are recorded in a detailed local book for everyone's reference.
• The fluffy slivers of skin that are removed from the ears during the nicking process are saved and threaded into curious mobiles for interior decoration. Why waste?
  
• When the babies are born, it's hard to tell whose mummy owns which baby, so instead of putting the nicks in the ear, they put a leather necklace with a carved wooden medallion around the neck of the baby to identify it tentatively. After a year, they come back and make sure they've identified the right baby, and if all the families are in agreement, they put the nicks in the ear to mark it as theirs.
• The reindeer people make shoes out of reindeer fur. The fur at the front of the sole lies facing the centre of the foot, and the fur at the back lies the other way, creating a gripping surface. It's really clever.
• The shoes hook up at the toe end so that straps can be passed around the front and attached to cross-country skis.
• There are two breeds of reindeer - mountain and forest. The former have really short legs. We didn't see any of those. The forest reindeer are more common in Lapland.
• The farm we visited wants to make its livelihood from growing reindeer feed, which it makes in the summer. This does not create enough income, however, so in the winter months they make more money by hosting tourist parties like ours. They also sell the reindeer to third parties to be killed for their meat and skins. They make 5.40 Euros per kg of live reindeer, but once dead the meat is sold for around 20 Euros a kg and the skins fetch around 50-70 Euros each. I asked why they don't kill the reindeer on site and sell them off if it's more valuable that way, but apparently the EU regs are so strict that it's not worth the effort.
• Each town in Lapland has a slightly different local costume. The styles are all similar but the colours and trims vary. The men wear a hat with four corners, each representing one of the four winds (N, S, E, W). The hats have tassels down one side. If you wear your tassels on the right, it means you're married - on the left and you're single and looking. Women's hats do not indicate their marital status. Brilliant.

After our gripping and edifying lecture, we went out and met our reindeer. We were in convoys of four sleds, with a reindeer separating each of us. We were in the front convoy. So it goes: reindeer, sled, reindeer, sled, reindeer, sled (containing us), reindeer, last sled. They are all tied together and each reindeer pulls the sled behind it with sticks attached to a girth round their middles. We set off. Just like the first few seconds with the huskies yesterday, it was hectic. The reindeer are going full pelt through deep sled-width tracks in the snow. Our sleds are low, and we're lying down in them with a blanket over us, fairly helpless. It's like being in a bobsled. Suddenly, we notice a reindeer running alongside us to the left. This should not be happening. It is the reindeer from the sled behind. He is trying to overtake. This will not be successful but we're going at quite a lick and it's not clear how it will play out. Then Grania yelps. We turn to our right. The front reindeer from the second convoy has barged past the back of our group and is making a bid for freedom. He has prodded Grania in the back of her head with his not-inconsiderable antlers. The face of the Lappish woman driving the runaway reindeer is one of abject terror. We realise the situation is not ideal but dissolve into uncontrollable giggles and shimmy down in our sled, paralysed. After thirty seconds, we recover and turn around to see what has emerged. The Lappish woman has driven her convoy into a snow drift in an emergency effort to control her fleet. Then we turn further and, with horror and hysteria, realise that there is no longer anyone in the sled behind us. The two Germans and their blankets have been deposited somewhere en route. We are incapacitated with laughter. It is now eleven hours later and I am still basically helpless with hysteria. The sight of the unexpectedly vacated sled, which had previously held a bemulletted woman, her absurdly high-tech Canon SLR and her clearly gay husband, was too much for us to bear.

When we arrived at our lunch venue and approached the lady who had been upturned, she was determined to make it seem like nothing remotely unusual had happened, saying 'Bof, it was nothing,' or the Deutsche equivalent, which made the whole thing even funnier. Then we fed lychen to our reindeer, which is apparently their special treat, and were taught how to lasso antlers. I was unexpectedly brilliant at this and was the only member of our group who managed to throw the loop over both the left and right protuberance. Unfortunately these antlers were not attached to a reindeer but were sitting, static, in the snow. When we were then ushered into a pen with two sprinting deer, we weren't quite so successful. Then a lunch of reindeer burgers in a hut, back to base, a tour of Levi, the local ski resort, and returning to the hotel for saunas, snoozing and a delicious dinner. Now: a screening of When Harry Met Sally. Hey hey.

Lapland: the journey begins

OK, it's not a great picture. In fact, I'd be willing to concede that it is crap. But in my defence, I'd unwittingly put my camera on a weird zoom setting on Sunday, and I didn't have a tripod. Either way, there it is: aurora borealis, surely one of the most magical sights a human can witness. On arriving at our hotel a couple of hours earlier, Grania and I had, without pause for discussion, abandoned our suitcases in the lobby and run into the gift shop area, laughing delightedly at the extensive range of amazing products on offer: fleeces with husky motifs, reindeer magnets, local Christmas tree decorations, Finnish balaclavas, furry boots, spa products – it was, we both agreed, justification alone for our trip. But then, just 120 minutes later, we were out in 'the swamp' (actually a stunning and deserted snow-covered field) in our Moon Boots and lucky enough to witness the Northern Lights as they shifted in the midnight sky for a good while. In some ways, they looked exactly as I'd imagined: hazy, ghostly and green. But standing there, together alone, on a white expanse in northern Finland, as the sun's rays bounced off swirling dust clouds in front of us... well, it was extraordinary. Truly. I can't recommend it enough.

Yesterday was our first full day, and our team of ten went skidooing - an 80km ride through the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen. I don't deny my natural tendency to be hyperbolic but I have given this much thought over the past 24 hours, and I really do think that this place is incomparably stunning. It is so fresh, so utterly unspoilt. We've covered a fair bit of ground, and the only piece of litter I've seen is one plastic bag caught on a tree. It is spectacularly pure and I feel extremely lucky to be here, so very grateful to the South African chalet company for going bust and so glad that Grania and I decided to do something a bit unusual instead of skiing in Switzerland.

We are finally understanding the old cliché about the Eskimos having so many words for snow – it really is different here. With daytime temperatures averaging minus 15, and those at night averaging 30 under, the conditions are different than anything I’ve seen before. It has amused us that when you ask a local about the temperature, they don’t say ‘minus’, though, so obvious is it that it is below freezing. As we in warmer climes don’t say it is “plus 20 degrees”, they merely say, “So it was 35 last night” – the minus is implied. Snow doesn’t fall often, but when it does, it freezes fairly solid. And because of the sparseness of the population, vast, inconceivable swathes of land are untouched, with perhaps only the footprints of an arctic hare disturbing the flat white expanse. The skies have been deep blue on both days, with only a tiny puff of cloud crossing the sun every few hours. Yet despite the lack of white clouds above, there is still a regular fall of tiny silvery particles, like glitter. This is not snow, but frozen humidity, that twinkles in the sunshine on its way down, enhancing the magic.

The skidoo ride was an exhilarating way to start our trip, bouncing over humps in the snow and trying to maintain a 25 metre stopping distance. At one point, Pascal, our guide, made the signal for us all to stop, and came to talk to us. "Up ahead there is a steep slope," he explained, "and then a main road. I want you drive up the slope, and stop at the top before crossing the road." We nodded our understanding. Inside, I felt nervous. I had visions of M25 levels of traffic hidden on the other side of the ridge, its roars disguised by our skidoo engine. He waved us on. I gingerly pressed the accelerator and we ascended the hill. At the top, I stopped. Grania and I searched for the road, and then realised we had stopped too late, and we were already halfway across it. No matter: it was deserted. Traffic in Lapland is not a problem. The mental image that we created following our London existence was clearly not typical. And in the three or so hours we spent riding in total, we saw one house. One.

Our lunchtime destination was a snow village and hotel, featuring two vast 60 metre domed function areas, several suites, twin rooms, a chapel for weddings (apparently mostly Brits) and an ice bar. Having been vaguely tempted to spend one night of our future lives snuggled up in an ice hotel with a fictional boyfriend, Grania and I both agreed that a 15 minute tour of the place was more than adequate. Save your pennies. Definitely an idea that’s better imagined.

Returning to our centrally-heated hotel yesterday afternoon, we did half an hour of yoga in our room and then had our first Scandinavian sauna experience – no clothes, obv., but a tear-off hygiene sheet on which to sit. We roasted merrily, having got fairly nippy at 30km per hour on the Skidoo, then returned to our room for a brief pre-dinner hiatus, where I fell asleep before I could do justice to the day’s events in blog form. Then dinner with our group – we are not only the only Brits in our team, but in the hotel, which is a wonderful novelty and just adds to the sense of distance from real life. Our team mates speak some English, but are all from Germany or Holland, so tend to communicate in German. We sit around guessing what they’re saying or doing ‘hilarious’ comedy translations, while feeling ashamed of our lack of linguistic skills.

If yesterday was a fantastic taster, today was a highlight, not just of this trip but of my 32 years. Husky sledding was the main reason why Grania and I had been drawn to this particular holiday, and consequently I made sure that I prepared myself for the (surely inevitable) anti-climax. Today, however, was every bit as dreamlike as I could have hoped and about 50% more on top of that. God it was good; we just got back to our room thirty minutes ago and I’m still high. My concern had been that all this stuff I’d heard about the dogs loving to run was just a line we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better, like the children in sweat shops need all the money they can get and if we boycott Primark then they’ll suffer more. But blimey, those dogs really do love to run. They are absolutely unstoppable. My team of four, led by a beautiful blue-eyed gal called Fatima, could not get enough of it, pulling me up hills without complaint and whipping round enraged every time I applied the brake to prevent us from running into the back of the man on the sled in front. When we stopped for lunch, they rubbed their muzzles in the snow to quench their thirst and lay down for thirty minutes while we sat on benches covered in reindeer hide, gathered round a log fire , the sky above us vast and blue, and a frozen river as wide as the Thames in front of us. Returning after our meal, the dogs were hysterical, howling, desperate to carry on running, jumping vertically and straining forward with such force that it was extremely difficult for me to hold them. I was truly gutted when we arrived back at the farm, although I was distracted from my disappointment by the opportunity to hold two ten day old husky puppies. A day of a lifetime and one I’ll never forget (until dementia sets in). I feel so fortunate. Sickening, isn't it?

Right, now I must post this, awaken sleeping Grania, do yoga, go for our sauna, and then return for beers and a selection of Finnish treats that we just bought from the local supermarket. Big aurora storms are forecast for tonight so I'm crossing my fingers. ’Til tomorrow, Faithful - hey hey (that’s Finnish for bye).

The Road: The Verdict

As the Faithful will know, towards the end of last year I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and was left shell-shocked. So when I heard it was being made into a film starring Viggo Mortensen, I was apprehensive and excited - he's good, I thought, and certainly well-cast - but... what could a film add to the bleak perfection of the book? Last night I went to find out, and the answer is: precisely nothing. It's a worthwhile film, but not nearly as good as the book, not even close - it adds rien and takes away beaucoup. I'm glad I saw it but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

That's not to say that I didn't get emotionally involved, however. Of course, I was sitting there being superior, thinking how it wasn't a patch on Cormac's version, that film is probably the most complete medium there is, but that there is something about truly magical books that can't be replicated on celluloid, scoffing at slightly clunky bits in the screenplay that interrupted the story's natural flow, and moments later I was aggressively strangled by the force of my tears, paralysed by the lengths to which the father and son are driven by their need to survive, and grief-stricken by the tale's lowest point right before its end. To the best of my recollection, I haven't cried in quite some time, and the force with which the hot saltwater coursed down my face left me concerned that it might erode pathways in my cheeks. After two minutes of stifling my sobs, I had to look away from the screen for fear that, if the adorable son made one more heart-rending plea to his father, I would start making noises like some sort of birthing walrus. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one snivveling away like a hormonal idiot - it seemed like the entire cinema was having similar issues. It's sad alright. But no sadder than the book - and certainly less powerful overall. Read it, my pretties, read it.

In AOB, today I am starting to face up to my denial about a rather large financial issue. Grania and I are booked to go skiing in March. We've paid for our flights, and we've paid for our accommodation. But on Monday I received an email saying (parents, brace yourselves) that the chalet we'd booked has gone bust. They are allegedly returning our money, but who knows. Of course, we still want to ski, and if they return the money, then great, we can book somewhere else (I've already found an alternative). But if they don't return our cash, we can't afford to go elsewhere and pay two lots of chalet fees, so we'll have to call it quits. It's a bit of a nightmare, really, but the one positive that has emerged from this is that I am ridiculously calm. My parents would have steam coming out of their ears and I know it's a bad thing, but there is literally absolutely nothing I can do about it. I'm firmly in the camp that doesn't see much point shedding tears over spilled milk (although copious weeping over a fictional movie apocalypse is of course fine) - if you can fix it, go ahead, if you can't, shut up and don't whinge - so it's reassuring to know that, in the face of quite an expensive situation, I'm not losing my cool. Go me. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to buy me a week's chalet hire, I'd be very grateful. Email address is in my profile, underneath the photo of the lost baby whale.

And I'm back

Given that I am the world's most efficient person, it should come as little surprise to anyone that I decided to organise a New Year party on 2nd January, to start five hours after my plane was due to land. I'd had a delivery of food and Cava before I left for Prague, and miraculously, everything happened on time - the pate was made to schedule, the olives were baked, the chorizo was chopped, the wine was cooled - the only thing I had neglected to factor in was people being absolute wusses and deciding they were too tired to come. My eventual stats for the evening were something like:

Invited: 79
Expected to attend: around 15-20
Responded: 68
Ignored altogether: 11
Refused point blank: 47
Accepted: 12
Maybes: 8
Cancelled on the day: 6
Gatecrashed: 4
Attended: 14
Bedtime: 4am

It was really fun. Really, really fun. Possibly too much fun for Leo, who I had to send home with a bottle of mostly-drunk whiskey as he had disgraced himself somewhat. But everyone else was excellent, the pub quiz went well, the charades were raucous, I LOVE the addition of the sabotage option, only one drop of red wine was spilled and was hastily removed with my beloved power laser carpet shampoo miracle product (thank you OxyKIC), my flat looked lovely and candlelit and I had a groovy time.

On Sunday I got butterflies when I realised I was going to buy a new camera, and I went to Jessops and did, and it's amazing amazing. And then I went to see Tokyo Story at the BFI, which I absolutely loved. God I want to go to Japan. I am drawn there like a freezing cold moth on a icy night to a roaring log fire surrounded by halogen lamps. Blame Murakami. And Hello Kitty. And my conviction that I'll take, like, the best photos ever. And write brilliant things that have never been thought before, let alone written out loud.

On Sunday evening I met up with Em at the BFI bar and we caught up after weeks apart - she'd been at my party the night before but we hadn't really spoken - and we giggled helplessly over my favourites on Texts From Last Night (still funny, not a passing fad).

Monday was my first day back and I felt so rank and exhausted but I dragged myself to the gym and then went at 5pm and Kazu, a gorgeous Japanese man at the hairdresser next door to my office, gave me the best haircut, not just of my life, but of anyone's life, and I literally can't stop looking at myself in the mirror. It couldn't be cooler. I look like I should be wearing a Seventies ski suit with a white polo-neck jumper. Best of all, even BEFORE he'd cut my hair, Kazu asked me if I'd ever MODELLED! Can you imagine?! I laughed in his face. Too hilarious. But then after he cut it, I suddenly thought maybe I might be in line for Kate Moss' throne. Maybe if I swap fun size Crunchies for heroin, it'll work out. I'll keep you posted.

Yesterday was Tuesday and, even after one trip to the gym, I felt like a new woman, convinced I could see the beginnings of a six pack. It's absurd how quickly I expect to see results. Enthused, I went again in the afternoon, and panted my way through a forty minute stint on the treadmill. And I will go again shortly. I would be feeling absurdly pleased with myself were it not for the fact that I ate approx. three times my own bodyweight in leftover Christmas/party chocolate last night, including, in fact, an entire bag of M&S chocolate-covered raisins that I'd bought yesterday evening because they were reduced to 50p, even though I knew full well that, back at my flat, there was enough chocolate to fill a large skip. I'm putting it down to hormones.

Now I'm grumpy because, although it is snowing heavily, I live and work in a frustratingly warm microclimate, and while many of my colleagues have been unable to get to work due to thick snowfall, I woke up to a feint dusting of white, like a meagre sprinkling of icing sugar on a cake, and was able to travel into work on the underground without incident. I had been dreaming of a snow day, snuggled under a blanket with the heating on Permanent, watching bad movies and live Celebrity Big Brother, and possibly having a little snooze around now. Instead, I am drinking green tea, struggling to stay awake and delaying my gym trip. Nothing more motivating than the idea of me in too-tight salopettes, though. Ick.

Czeching Out

My eyes are stinging with tiredness but now is as bad a time to write as any. New Year's Eve was truly wonderful. We went to a restaurant we'd spied earlier, and had a delicious four course dinner including pizza underneath a gorgeous vaulted ceiling, chatting non-stop to the Hungarians at the table next to us and the stammering Germans opposite, and later to the enthusiastic Greeks at the table even further away. At 23:47 we rushed out into the Old Town Square, determined to see the Astrological Clock chime us in to the new decade, but there was no way we could muscle through the packed crowd, so we celebrated midnight opposite the Christmas tree, as thousands of impromptu fireworks were set off all around us, with scant regard for health or, indeed, safety. Nick got through his hatred of NYE by pretending he was reporting back for a local BBC News channel, asking everyone who would make eye contact with us where they were from, and what their hopes were for 2010.

After the big moment had quietened down somewhat, we returned to the restaurant for a final drink, and a lovely waitress chatted to us for ages and then revealed herself as the place's owner, saying we didn't have to pay for any of the extra drinks we'd had. Result. We gave her a fat tip. Then we wandered, headily, through the streets and over the Charles Bridge, photographing things and reveling in the fact that although everyone was undoubtedly drunk, no one was being aggressive, unfriendly or anti-socially loud. It was lovely.

This morning started a little slowly and we missed the hotel breakfast so had a snack from the Christmas market, me feeling optimistic that the Nutella and crepe that surrounded my banana did not detract from its 'one of my five a day' status. Then we wandered over to the Jewish Quarter. Now, I know as well as you do that it is impossible and deeply stupid to generalise about an entire race, so I won't, but I will say that the Jewish section of Prague is the most badly organised and stressful area in the city by a country mile. Everything is numbered, but the numbers don't correlate to the buildings on the map they give you, and the numbers on the map don't correlate with the numbers on your ticket. Then there are long rooms full of displays of things, but you have no idea what the things are/mean, because the panel of information explaining their significance is behind the door through which everyone is walking. The Holocaust was, undeniably, absolutely horrific. The things those people went through, whether they survived or died, are beyond my powers of imagination - or, perhaps, I just don't want to have to think about them. And I totally buy the whole 'lest we forget' argument - we should be reminded, regularly, of the horrific elements of humanity's past, sometimes shockingly recent, so that we don't let such atrocities happen again, if possible. But, that said, it does seem to me that Judaism's PR is almost entirely negative. If it were me, I would focus on the Sho'ah, sure, but I would also talk about the wonderful things about my faith that make me proud. I'd like to hear a bit more about the positives. Maybe that's just me. The cemetery, the synagogues and the exhibitions were interesting, once we worked out what was going on, but the tourists were disrespectful and the highlight was probably the tiny menorah that Nick bought on a stall outside.

After the Jewish Quarter, we walked back over Charles Bridge and had yet another deep fried lunch before heading up to St. Nicholas' church, where we arrived at 15:48 and the last admission was at 15:45, so we grumpily went on to The Church of Our Lady Victorious, just down the road, where Nick had read about this little statue of Christ that was donated by a Spanish woman ages ago, and is thought to have magical powers and is one of the most sacred icons in Catholicism. We'd started calling it the Waxy Jesus, because it is made of wax. And so we went to see the Waxy Jesus, and sweet Mary mother of God, if it wasn't the most gloriously kitsch thing in the history of the world. There's this tiny, alabaster-pale doll, perched high on a wall, surrounded by ornate metalwork, wearing an elaborate white gown, and in front of it are people praying. Real people. And upstairs, in the museum, are glass cases full of all the Waxy Jesus' other outfits. For there are many. All donated by other countries. Gorgeous ruffled cuffs and collars on a gown sent from Columbia, a beautiful embroidered cape from Shanghai, a deep red get-up from Vietnam and a case full of white, lace undergarments to protect Waxy from damage, accompanied by a photo of three nuns helping him into a new costume. He changes every feast day. It was fantastic but simultaneously deeply worrying. Nick can't stop thinking about him.

Then we went back to St. Nicholas' church and bought tickets to a 5pm concert, and sat quietly in the back pew while a good flautist and a semi-good soprano and an excellent organist played a selection of hits old and new, and I admired the trompe d'oeuil ceiling and snoozed, and a woman sat down next to us and knocked my antique Czech metal paint pot onto the floor, and then we left fifteen minutes early because we had to go back to the river to see the wonderful New Year's Day fireworks, which were great, and then we thawed in a bar and I had a heated conversation about wine with an argumentative Frenchman who, it seemed, deliberately misunderstood my point. And then it was time for the JAZZBOAT, and we were sharing a table with a very cute couple, early-twenties, she was from Holland, he was from Hungary, they hadn't seen each other since early October and god they were so happy, it was quite moving. The jazz was good, the boat travelled, I kid you not, about half a mile before we stopped at a lock for ages, and then went on a little bit and turned around almost immediately, stopped at the lock again for ages, went back to our starting point and a fraction beyond and then turned round and docked, but it was fun anyway. And now I'm at Prague airport, having started writing this last night and then passing out. I loved Prague. The people were very friendly, the architecture was stunning, the history was fascinating and had a good spread of interesting incidents through the ages, the tourists were nice, the items for sale were excellent, especially in the area of miniature things - I am most excited about my tiny matches and my tiny glass snail - and the food was, while perhaps not the healthiest, definitely delicious. The ratio of couples to non-couples was approx. 93:1, so if you are feeling particularly sore about your unwed status I might suggest avoiding it, but other than that I have no complaints. That said, I've just seen a photo of Vegas on my computer and I slightly wish I was in the States, and I am so excited about getting back to my flat that I might weep. London, I'm coming home.