FLOWER GIRL

So I am back from my weekend with the Family. And I can't think of anything to say. I'm still pondering over the greeting from one of my fashion-conscious nieces.

"Are those skinny jeans, Aunt Ellie?"

"NO!" They are bootleg jeans that are just, erm, a little on the tight side".

*Puts down second slice of mother's fruitcake and ponders dismal dieting future before next family gathering*

Yesterday, whilst out shopping (for me), I picked up a free magazine about the shortlisted British Book Awards 2008. It also featured Richard & Judy's Best Read of the Year, and an article entitled Richard & Judy 'on the sofa'.

The article announced the sad news that Richard & Judy are giving up their daily show after twenty years. Despite making me snort chardonnay with the phrase "There's a perception in the media that we're retiring" says Richard, squatting on a pouffe ..", despite the fact that the latter irritates me intensely and despite never having actually watched their show myself, I think it will be a great loss, thanks to their amazingly successful Book Club and the effect it has had on persuading people to read more.

The amount of reading I have done lately has dropped off - partly more time on the computer, but also partly because I have found it quite difficult to find new authors to get stuck into. But the library regularly features the Richard and Judy Book Club recommends and I have read several of them. Thanks to this magazine, I now have a list of possible books to look out for. It also reminded me of The Big Read organised by the BBC in April 2003. At the time, I printed off the top 100 hundred books and started working my way through previously unknown books. Having found the list again, I've just realised I've still got some way to go.

No-one will be able to convince me that Lord of the Rings is the best book ever. After repeated attempts to get to grips with The Hobbit, failing to remember who's who, shunning pages of long-winded hobbit songs, I went and saw the film instead. I still think number two should have won. And not just because of Colin Firth either.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

So, are there any great books missing from that list, do you think?

I took the day off today to go shopping. Tis the season of family birthdays, and I needed to get presents for a 70 year old, an eighteen year old and a ten year old.

Total and abject failure.

I came home with a book from Oxfam (for me), a pomegranite (for me), a bag of gobstoppers (for me), a Waitrose Food Magazine (for me) and a bag of Thai chillies (for whoever, I don't know what to do with them).

I also bought a glass of wine and a packet of McCoys (for me) and a triple strength latte (for me).

And I walked through 2.5 miles through a swamp (formerly a footpath) to catch the ferry to do all these things (for me).

Now I have just one day left to buy said presents. Heeeeelp!

Yippee - it's back.

Sixteen more go-getters, all anxious to demonstrate their greed, foul language, naked ambition and ability to stab other people in the back. All about to sell wet fish to unsuspecting Londoners. Contains strong language apparently. Good job they warned me. I might have been overcome with surprise.

None of them want to win, of course. It's coming second or third that really matters. Winning just gets you stuck in an office with Sir Alan. But second or third - hey, your own TV show beckons, you might even get to go to the jungle and the tabloids might fill pages with your crap.

Can't wait.

Eeek - there's heavy rain and thunder. Dog has hidden under the stairs. I might join her if it gets any louder.

*scurries off to pack a rucksack with food rations in case of prolonged trip*

Can you 'catch' thunder - or should that be lighting? - through your keyboard?

Hope you are having a great day - don't work too hard and have lots of fun!

Last year we spent a bit of money and a lot more time and effort installing a wildlife pond in our garden.

Well? *taps foot*

So far, we've only had two drowned mice and one dragonfly.

I want frogs - like this one on the London Daily Nature Photo site that Mr. Flighty introduced me to (the website, not the frog).

So what's stopping them? There's no fish. Only six million water snails, who have come forth and multiplied in Biblical numbers after my mum gave me just TWO snails last year with the words "... they'll take over the planet in a year's time, dear" ".. they'll help clean the water, dear."

Here's the pond in May 2007 - a beautiful pea green soup:

And here it is now, clearer, albeit snailier, surely a wildlife "des res" if ever I saw one (for small things):

So, how do I persuade frogs to move in? Or do I have to find another pond with some frog spawn and 'borrow' it?

Ah, those seventies. Discos, ultra violet light, falling off platform shoes, flares, maxi dresses (yuk), studs and sew on patches on jeans...

My favourite song? I can't make up my mind. So many ...

Cockney Rebel and Come up and see me?
David Bowie - Life on Mars?
Lou Reed- Walk on the wild side?
Bachman Turner Overdrive - You ain't seen nothing yet?

Or this?

*makes note to self: Start post-Easter diet tomorrow*

My middle name should be 'Cry Baby". I can cry at the drop of a hat - any sad news story about tragic events, any story about cruelty to children, old people and animals, films with sad endings, films with happy endings... as far as my Man is concerned, never is too soon for him to risk a repeat of the time we went to see 'Born Free' at the cinema.

So it was probably inevitable that our visit today to Dimbola Lodge, a museum dedicated to the pioneer photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, whose home it was, would end in tears. The museum has a permanent display of her work - photos of celebrities such as Tennyson rubbing shoulders with local people posed in heroic or whimsical stances - but also shows a succession of very varied temporary exhibitions.

There are two astonishing and moving exhibitions at the moment. One by Norman Potter, a former press photographer, and the other by Maurice Broomfield. The picture of that bridge made the room sway for a vertigo sufferer like me.

But it was Norman Potter's photos that had me crying my eyes out. Incredibly moving photos of dying children and their parents in war-torn, famine and diseased countries and the support and hope offered by the Leonard Cheshire homes to people with disabilities. How anyone could stay sane after witnessing such sights and, fifty years on, knowing that the same atrocities are still happening because the world cannot learn from its mistakes, I do not know. But if you get the chance to see his work, then I thoroughly recommend it. Just make sure you have lots of tissues, if you are anything like me.

Hope you have a great day!

"It's raining, it's pouring,
I wish I was still snoring.."

Well, I've eaten all the chocolate in the house. What next to do?

I know. Poke eggsagerated fun at a rambler.

This morning a party of six, initially eggscited, middle-aged, well-wrapped up people (even their rucksacks had waterproof covers - is that eggscessive or what?) set off from the village. Less than five minutes later, in pouring rain, they go into a huddle and peer at a map. Which way to go? Should they continue up this field, over the cliff edge and go swimming in the sea? Or should they turn right down this lane, the lane where the sign marked "Footpath" is pointing. A close call, but they chose the lane.

Ten minutes later, we observed them trudging along in single file, heads sunk onto their chests in gloom. They didn't notice the view of Hurst Castle, they didn't notice the bank of primroses. They appeared to be thinking long and hard about their lunch. Eggscept for the two women at the front who were having an animated discussion about shopping in Tesco. And another woman who was preoccupied with the difficulties of walking along a slippery muddy lane, armed with two walking sticks AND holding up an umbrella at the same time. How bonkers is that?

All I know for sure is that when my brother-in-law resumes his attempt to eggsalt the joys of joining the Ramblers Association, I will be sealing the envelope containing my application to "I wandered lonely as a cloud" club. Because I am convinced that people who join the ramblers do so for companionship rather than the joy of walking and beholding nature - they never look up and see the things around them. Nothing wrong in wanting companionship, I know, and good on them for choosing a physical eggsercise rather than bingo. But I just wish they wouldn't ruin the countryside for others. Without eggsception, they are always so busy talking or fiddling with their equipment and I am eggsacting when it comes to peace and quiet on walks . So I'm with Wordsworth - in spirit anyway, because all that muttering would get on my nerves.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

And if anyone accuses me of writing a load of eggscrement, can I just say "Give us an egg, pleeeeze, I didn't get one!"

Oh dear. I did feel sorry for the tourists today.

Imagine booking a week in a Thorness Bay caravan in gale 9 northerly winds.

Imagine trying to cycle around the island into an oncoming gale.

Imagine plodding up the hill to the Downs with your rhythm sticks aclicking when a gust of wind snatches your hat and you have to run down the hill again to collect it.

But for the brave few that made it to the top and the viewpoints, it was the most spectacularly clear day we've had here in years. The sunset was spectacular. The light was incredible. We even had a bit of snow, before it was whirled away by the wind.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and somehow so much more appreciated now that I am sat beside a fire, with a glass of red and have finally shed the thermals.

Honestly, no wonder I get paranoid about computers. Nervous about clicking here and being nosy there. One minute, I was looking at a website, when a voice rings out...

Welcome to the United States Navy. We offer a range of exciting careers for those of you that are up to it. Now choose a sailor...

And just in case anyone is wondering, it was a website about literature and literary criticism. And the book I was looking for was 'Great Expectations', not 'The Ancient Mariner' or 'Carry on Sailing'.

Anyway, just in case I do inadvertently sign up, I am ready. I've learnt the words, all I need to do is find an appropriate outfit. Altogether now.

In the navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the navy
Come on now people, make a stand
In the navy, in the navy
Can't you see we need a hand
In the navy
Come on, protect the motherland
In the navy
Come on and join your fellow man
In the navy
Come on people, and make a stand
In the navy, in the navy, in the navy (in the navy)

They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit

Who me?

Not that they are on my mind or anything. No, my mind has travelled on to the next foody stop: Easter Eggs. But since Dog only got a few crumbs of the real thing, and failed to catch a rabbit during tonight's walk, this is for her.

What do you get if you pour boiling water down a rabbit hole ?

Hot cross bunnies!

Have a good Easter, everyone.

"Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns"

Ha! 35p more like. And I ain't giving them to nobody. They're mine, all mine.

I watched a YouTube clip of 'Are you being served?' earlier. It was astonishing. Oh, not the farcical situations, the bad jokes about Mrs Slocombe's pussy, Mr. Rumbold's lack of managerial prowess or the sight of Miss Brahm's in a mini skirt. They all made me laugh.

No, it was the astonishing premise that customers were once important. That, however much salespeople hated them or wanted to wring out a commission from them, they disguised their feelings and nothing was too much trouble for Madam or Sir.

It's about time they forced the staff of anyone employed by British Gas, my local council, a phone company - or anyone who has anything to do with customers - to be managed by an eagle-eyed, 'customer is always right' Captain Peacock.

*stomps off to write fourth letter of complaint to Council etc. etc.*

I had to do the weekly food/household shop today. I could have thought of better things to do. In fact, it is fair to say that I had slipped easily into my Victoria Meldrew persona even before I got out the car.

"Blooming pensioners - I bet they've never even taken a driving test. Bloody school kids running amok. Planet Earth Despoilers who use twenty plastic bags per shopping trip without regard to the environment. Cretinous people who feel that once they've got a trolley, they have to cling on to it for dear life even if it means that they block access to sixteen shelves at once".

So there I was, trundling around, becoming more cantankerous by the second. Peering at the cereal shelf, wondering whether to attempt to make Rice Crispy Chocolate Cakes instead of getting a packet of digestive biscuits and making Rocky Roads. Then I notice this bloke. He was stalking me. Sidling up towards my trolley. Looking furtive. I prepared myself for confrontation.

"Excuse me, but I think I may have taken your trolley by mistake", he politely intoned. And sure enough, he was clutching a trolley with my jute/environmentally friendly shopping bags, creatively painted with purple fabric paint to obliterate the Co-op advert. The bags I have carefully accumulated to achieve a moral superiority over the plastic baggers. My conscience-salvers wedged in amongst a pile of alien foodstuffs, whilst I was surrogate Ma to a pile of stranger jute.

Oh how we chortled, we fellow 'Save the Planeters', as we scooped up our wrong shopping and plonked it in the other trolley, only to find that whilst I was extracting his items and putting them in his trolley, he was extracting his items and putting them in my trolley. It took four attempts to reunite trolley and shopping with the right person, in true Laurel and Hardy style. His polite smile was looking rather strained by the time he went off, reunited with his shopping.

By coincidence, the checkout I chose was the one where my stalker had first discovered our swap. His puzzlement, apparently, as he extracted chocolate, crisps, wine and dog chews instead of salad, garlic, steak and toilet rolls was, apparently, a joy to behold. But he was far more dignified about it than I would have been. I would have wept copiously on finding two giant packs of toilet rolls in lieu of a family-sized bar of Whole Nut Chocolate.

Just about recovered from my weekend. It was pretty exhausting. We stayed with some friends who force-fed us. Sunday lunch was such a Gargantuan feast that I couldn't eat tea, dinner or supper, and even breakfast this morning was a challenge.

And the impromptu dancing and singing! Was that really me? Please tell me it wasn't. I can't remember.

One good thing - I was reminded that my first album purchase was NOT something by The Sweet or Donny Osmond, as I have long feared. Ho No - they were just pin ups. Or blu-tack-ups. Nope, my first album was by Status Quo.

Not sure if that's better or worse than Donny O really. But their hair styles at least explain why one set of singers was on a cassette and the others were on my bedroom wall.

When I said, the other day, that I felt a bit daft about dismissing Monday's storm as - well, as a storm in a teacup - I now feel that I have been upgraded to daftest after reading our weekly paper.

Apparently, whilst I snoozed comfortably during the night, The Needles recorded the highest wind speed in the country - 95 mph. No wonder those 18 trees were felled in one moment. No wonder that an application form to join the "I slept Through the Hurricane Club" is undoubtedly winging its way towards me.

Then that bit of seawater I drove through. Yarmouth and Cowes were flooded, the sea coming over the wall, putting the ferry terminal offices out of action until yesterday and invading homes. And a wave of tidal proportions battered the Bay just about when I was driving through. And there was I busy munching my way through my bags of 'Two for the price of One' Fruit Gums, getting annoyed because I dropped one of the strawberry ones on the floor, and only noticing a bit of seawater swirling around the car.

Oh, the shame.

I checked the weather forecast this morning as I started work. Flipping rain for five days. So I thought I'd take myself and a mug of coffee out into the garden and cut down the grasses that I've left standing over the winter, whilst it was dry.

And so I am in the front garden, bending down over the grass stems, when a car drives slowly past. And if I am not very much mistaken, the words "Avast behind" floated out of the window. Just as Mr. H, aged 89, was walking home from the village shop with his shopping bag of treats for the day (two tins of Guinness and a bar of chocolate, by the looks of things).

I know who you are, you who cast such asspersions on my form, and my retaliation will be swift and uncompromising. But in the meantime ....

*rolls around on the floor in a paroxysm of giggling at the memory of Mr. H's gallant attempt to assure me that my derriėre is not really the size of a battleship*

I kept seeing a TV trailer last night advertising a forthcoming series entitled "I own Britain's Best Home". To feature a succession of well-to-do people who have pots of money, terrific careers, well-behaved high-achieving children, nice detached properties and yet, strangely, are still sad enough to want a bit of TV appearance to fill the huge and many gaps in their lives. I'm betting they (or perhaps a cleaner or ten) had a jolly big tidy-up before the cameras were allowed in. The houses featured looked pretty swishy but strangely devoid of belongings, dog hair, piles of paper and a rotten apple. A house is surely not a home unless you have one of these in pride of place in a fruit bowl, like a welcoming candle in the window for Freda the Fruit Fly.

Naturally I am jealous. Because this morning I realised that I was a leading contender in "I own Britain's Slummiest Home". It started when I found my man rummaging around in the ironing mountain for a clean shirt that he could go to work in. He found every shirt he owned in that pile, all of them twisted and crumpled. Faced with a choice of having to make my own breakfast, I started ironing whilst he made tea.

And that's when the rot set in. Suddenly, I could no longer live in a house that needed its oven cleaned, its fridge tidied, its books and papers stuffed under a cushion, Dog's collection of half-chewed treats thrown out, our clothes cleaned and ironed etc etc and some more. So I got cleaning. And ironing. Result: one crippled back to add to my earache, hands that have dried to parchment, severe exhaustion and a spare bed that can be seen again now the clothes' mountain has gone.

But it was worth it. I'd just finished, and was standing there with my head in the oven - fixing back the fittings - when there was a knock on the door. "That will be the film crew" I thought. "Well, they'll just have to wait until I've polished Dog." A leaflet was stuffed through the door.

And that is how I managed to avoid answering the door to Jehovah's Witnesses. Long live Mr. Muscle.

Well, I feel a bit daft. And a bit guilty. I woke up in the early hours yesterday, thought 'Ooh, it's a bit wet and windy' and went back to sleep straight away. By the time I got up, there were blue skies. I thought it was all over.

Then I went to the village to shop. Still blue skies. The butcher was wearing shorts. But then again, he always does. So I sneered in the general direction of the Daily Mail headlline about £billion pound killer storm. Admittedly, it got a little rough on the drive home. It suddenly bucketed down with rain, the sea was washing over the esplanade and flooding the road. Then, at midday, I suddenly realised it had gone very dark. I just thought it was me and my tussle with a cad on my computer. Not the Terry-Thomas type of cad, unfortunately. That might have been fun.

'What storm?' I replied to my mum, who reported hailstones, wind tearing off the protective frost cover over the almond tree, torrential rain flooding the drive ...

So this morning, it came as a bit of a shock to find that even in this area, where the wind frequently batters The Needles and us, the normal dog walk had been turned into an assault course. Eighteen trees down. EIGHTEEN in one short lane. Soon there won't be any left. I wanted to cry.

"You mean - gulp - I have to cook dinner?"

*throws herself on floor and has a massive toddler tantrum*

That's the trouble with holidays. You get used to someone waiting on you. It makes you prima-donnaish. Although if I was Madonna, I'd have a live-in chef.

"A mug of hot, melted chocolate, Madam? No problem."

"A glass of champers in front of the fire whilst I create a delightful bouchee for Madam. No problem"

It's not hard, is it? I mean, with a bit of practice, my Man should be able to master the words 'No problem" within, say, a month or two.

The cookery skills might take an eternity.

*trudges off to do the washing up*

Oh dear. Oh dear dear deer deerie me. I don't like this. What's going on? I was only away 10 days. And in that 10 days two friends have deleted themselves. What happened to James Lindow and Flimflamfilmman? I know blogland has got a lot quieter lately, but ...? Has someone discovered an exciting, racy, life-enhancing alternative that I am, as usual, the last to know about? Come back. It's discouraging.

Well, I survived my skiing holiday, but only just. Oh, it wasn't the black icy run that was the problem. I went down that one so out of control fast that I hit the bottom before I could even think of falling over. In fact, I saved the only 'falling down' bit for when I left a cafe, on two feet, skis safely some distance away. The humiliation. It was the ice, I tell you, not the mulled wine.

No, it was the hotel that nearly proved my undoing. First, the menu. Now, I like a nice lamb chop or a roast chicken. But, I'm normally happier with a vegetarian or fish option. Having spent a week in the South Tyrol German-speaking part of Italy, I'm seriously considering becoming vegan. During the last week, I've been offered diced stag, sour calf's head, ox, rabbit, beef liver dumplings and a banana wrapped in filo pastry. I hate banana-flavoured puddings.

Worse still was the sauna experience. Necessary to eradicate bruises incurred in the cafe. But only to be attempted when alone, or in the company of Italian or French people. They know how to be modest. Not so the northern Europeans. Imagine sitting in a room the size of the average cupboard under the stairs. A very hot room. When the door opens, and you are confronted by Helga the Heffalump. Naked. Large. Very large. Muttering something in German or Dutch, that for all I knew could have been 'Budge up, you skinny overdressed prude' or 'Would you like a beef liver dumpling, meine liebchen?', before gaily throwing a ladle of water over sauna thingy and cranking up the heat to Hell's furnace levels.

I got out before I fainted. Give me the black icy run any day. And a bacon muffin. My breakfast de choix this morning.

It's good to be home.