flying solo

I've been doing a lot of travelling on my own recently. Last week I was at Heathrow on my way to Geneva, and ordered a burger from the Garfunkel's restaurant there. It arrived along with a nice, shiny brand new bottle of ketchup. I can't eat chips without ketchup, so I held it upside down over my plate and started to whack the bottle hard with my hand. Several minutes later I was still going, and there was no sign of any ketchup. A kind man at the next table felt sorry for me, and lent me his bottle of ketchup to try. After several minutes of thumping the new bottle there was still no response. Eventually I managed to flag down a passing waiter and ask for a clean knife which I used to shovel the ketchup out of the bottle. Now, I consider myself an independent woman. I can happily haul suitcases weighing 20 kilos plus up and down long flights of stairs, and on and off luggage belts. But getting the ketchup out of the bottle without making a fool of myself? I need a man for that!

Christmas

I flew back to the UK just before Christmas to spend the hols with my family and fiance. I was unlucky enough to fly into Heathrow during that really foggy spell (a bit scary coming in to land when you can't see the land!). I arrived only an hour late, but my luggage didn't. This was of course the perfect excuse to go on a massive spending spree the next day, the result of which was this



Here's a fun game to try at home - see if you can guess how much money I spent from the bags strewn across my parents' living-room. My suitcase finally turned up a week later, having spent a brief sojourn in Madrid. Apologies to all those members of my family who haven't received their Christmas presents yet. I'll put them in the post. I promise.

We were joined for Christmas by my neighbour's cat, who is the master of the unusual sleeping position



She has been freaking us all out by staring for long periods of time into the ventilation grate in my parents ceiling, leaving us to wonder what kind of vermin she finds so interesting up there. Not a pleasant thought!