Age cannot wither her…but does make her bloody tierd….

Everyone seems to be saying the same thing .......  it’s been a long week. I think it's the weather. It's exhausting.

I went to a Christening at Emmanuel College in Cambridge and the sun actually shone for my friend’s son. We went on the train. A late marriage quickly followed by a much wanted baby meant it was a very special day. There were ducks on the lawn. Our party had swelled for the return. We bought wine at the station M&S and continued the celebration with a train- party on the journey home.

I met someone some weeks ago but I don’t know if we're dating or not. It's perplexing me and so I made a triple layer, Devil’s Food cake for my boy's birthday, with white chocolate frosting, from a recipe in the Magnolia Bakery Cook Book. I didn’t know I was making a triple layer cake because I hadn’t read it properly. I had enough frosting to ice most of north London.

I had dinner with friend’s and drank too much wine because the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not had not called. So, I decided I wasn't dating him. When I got home I discovered I had a missed call from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not, hoping we were still on for our date at the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican. So, I decided I was dating him. 

I went to the cinema and saw Blackthorn, the story Butch Cassidy seeing out his retirement in Bolivia, and fell in love with Sam Shepard. Again. And Bolivia. When I was in Argentina this time last year, I travelled north to Salta, near the border with Bolivia and drank mate surrounded by the hills of 7 colours and walked on the salt flats, pretending I was Etta Place. And I wished I was there again.

I went to the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican with the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not. It was a delight. We went for a noisy drink in The Slaughtered Lamb but we are old and it was loud. So we went for a quiet drink in St. John Bar & Restaurant. It reminds me of being in New York. And I wished I was there again.

A confusing good-bye from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not left me confused. The drama kept me awake. So when I got home from work I picked some rhubarb from my yard and made Raspberry & Rhubarb Crumble Cakes with Marscapone. And ate them on the sofa watching Episodes and Graham Norton and I thought, if you have to wonder if you're dating someone or not then the answer is probably in the question....

Top tip: Go see: Jeff Who Lives At Home…..made me laugh, made me cry and Susan Sarandon looks brilliant…the woman’s 65!!

Merry Christmas everyone.......

As we hurtle towards 2012 I have taken a moment to stop and wonder .......2011 has not been a great year. More a year of loss than gain, of too much death and disappointment. But then I got to thinking and looking at pictures and actually there were a lot of other things that happened too.........

Like it snowed a lot......

and I went to France......

and I went to Argentina.......

and walked on a glacier in Patagonia......

and went for a drive in Salta.......

and stayed in a beautiful Finca........

and had a coffee in Buenos Aires.........

and saw Patti Smith sing.........

in Amsterdam........

and grew my own radishes...........

and went to France again..........

and hung around the pool...........

in the hot sun........

and got to write a lot.........

and ate homemade crumpets with jam and cream and a glass of Prosecco in Dorset......

and got these in the secret Santa.....

and finally learnt how to upload a picture on my blog........

And I thought, there's quite a lot to be thankful for really......... so Merry Christmas everyone.......

Top tip: count your blessings!!

Argie bargie.......

“You’ll got any dinner plans?” asked the American.

Dinner plans? We hadn’t even got off the plane?

“This is my card and this is where I’m staying.”

Keen? Lonely.....

“Oh...and do you have any dietary requirements?”

My travelling companion and I had left our puffy jackets and woolly jumpers with our hiking boots, back in Buenos Aires, because we had said good-bye to chilly, southern Patagonia and hello to Salta, a town rich with colonial architecture, nudging the north-west border of Argentina and Bolivia. So we were quite cold as we stood waiting for a cab into town, sheltering under a brooding sky, the supposed beautiful surrounding scenery obscured by low-slung cloud.

“Cold no?” said Martin, opening the door to our room, “never like this before, very strange weather.”

Between the plane and the bed, my travelling companion had sprung a leak. She blew her nose, violently. Coughed. Blew some more. Her eyes glazed and puffy, closed as she sank into the ample pillows of our boutique B&B.

“Half an hour, babes, I’ll be fine.”

I discussed my travelling companion's illness with Claudia, who spoke excellent English, and discovered the B&B's cleaner was also a nurse. We went to the pharmacy and bought drugs and a syringe. The patient could not take penicillin. I mimed death and repeated penicilina which is Spanish for penicillin. I went back to our room.

"I've bought medicine." I said, "and a syringe."

She wasn't too pleased but I convinced her the nurse would be coming. Soon. When she'd finished her cleaning.

I went for a walk. The dull day and chilly breeze didn't do much to enhance the colonial-ish main square. I found a restaurant that would let me take soup away. I mimed vegetarian and repeated 'vegetarianos', which is Spanish for vegetarian. I gave the soup to my travelling companion. It had bacon bits in it.

The recovery did involve a bit of hallucination but otherwise was swift and dramatic. We went for dinner with the American. He smoked for a living. He was the tobacco leaf inspector for Phillip Morris. He was in fact, the Marlboro Man and gave us cigarettes. And bought us dinner. Then we went to one of the many music bars on the strip and watched an Argentine Indian band. A very large man in a very large, black, leather jacket sat at an adjacent table. He engaged in conversation with my travelling companion. However, he spoke no English and she spoke less Spanish. But we were informed by his entourage that he was a famous Argentinean folk singer. People began to turn and look at our table. He then took to the stage and explained .... something ..... at length. The only word we could understand was 'Banessa', the Spanish pronunciation of Vanessa and the name of my travelling companion. Everyone turned around to look at us. And clap. Then he sang a song and played the guitar, a solemn, haunting melody the chorus of which appeared to be: Baaaaanessa...... Everyone clapped. And then he sang another, similar song, with the same chorus. The third song may have been the same but I was laughing so much I no longer cared. We thought the The Marlboro Man was about 40. He was 30. He thought I was somewhere between 38 and 42. It was a good evening.

Top tip: learn Spanish.

Don’t cry for me......

On extremely Good Friday I fly first to Madrid and then, 14 hours later, arrive in Buenos Aires. Over the next two weeks I will make four more internal flights, not so much a carbon footprint as a carbon Ugg boot. Hell, I don’t have a car or a dishwasher.....I must have some Brownie points? I so need a holiday and now I’m going to get one with my mad, bad but amusing to know travelling companion. We have puffy jackets and bikinis, woolly hats and sunglasses, the Rough Guide and Tamazepam.......Happy Easter, see you in a couple of weeks. Has anyone told Argentina?

“Where are you?” he said as she heard the clack of his Cuban heel behind her.

She turned and saw him approach, his phone pressed to his ear, eyes scanning the commuters scurrying about Kings Cross station. Would it be wrong, she wondered, to just leave now? If she stepped back into WH Smith he’d never know, she could move fast in her Converse, she could double back and nip out the front and be on the No.30 before he’d even realised she’d hung up.

“Hi,” she said, pocketing her mobile and smiling the thin smile of disappointment. His joy was palpable.

“You have been waiting?”

“No.”

“For long?”

“No.”

“We go.....”

“Yes...”

“No?”

“Yes, fine....”

“I know a Spanish bar, you know...”

“No. Yes.”

“You have been...?”

“A long time ago.”

He may have been 6’1” but he was definitely not 41. Why use a picture of yourself that has got to be at least ten years out of date, she wondered? His Carhartt jeans, faded and tight to his narrow hips, were ironed; his white t-shirt fitted and high-necked, the dark-denim jacket stretched across his broad shoulders and round his neck a large, beaten-silver cross hung on a leather thong. He moved ahead of her, leading the way, and there it was: yes he did have a full-head of thick, short hair but at the back, the tiniest of pert pony-tales...........Already, she was out of conversation.

Top tip: a bit of spontaneity can do wonders for blowing away the cobwebs.

I'd just like to thank the academy.....

Thank you so much to Hestia's Larder for awarding me this award......
The rules of the award are that you should pass the award on to a handful of blogs with under 300 followers and provide a link back to the person who awarded it to you. So, in no particular order.....

Evil Pixie's Blog

Piggies Heaven

work in progres

Resistant But Persistent

Heart Shaped

And thank you all so much for your warm wishes of bon voyage. I shall endeavour to report back as faithfully as the censor will allow and hopefully, with the help of the divine Christina, fromFashion's Most Wanted learn how to put up a photo or two.......

With holiday in the air.......whether like me you’re jetting down to South America or planning an Easter staycation sandwiched between two super-sized bank holiday weekends..... there is no better time to dust yourself down and spruce yourself up. It’s not called Spring Clean for nothing. The sun has shown it really can shine and, hopefully, will be back to shine some more........ oh please don’t let that be it..... raising the temperature and our spirits. After the longest winter in recorded history......at least that’s what it felt like ..... with the endless dark, desolate skies clagged in drizzle and the damp-rot of dull grey days, it’s easy to let the beauty routine slide: complexions become pallid and sagged, limbs plump and flab with more than a hint of winter mange. It’s not a good look.

And so I hastily made the necessary appointments, have started walking to a bus stop further away than usual.....every little bit helps.....and am refusing all solids till after take-off.....after my low-carb-holiday-of-Malbec-and-steak I hope to return fit –for-summer. Now waxed and polished, so to speak, I do feel a whole lot better, lighter, brighter, fit for purpose. And so I got to wondering, why didn’t I pay more attention to myself sooner?

“Well,” she said, twisting the phone cord around her ring finger, “You know, the type who are trouble.”

“Trouble?” he said, his words in English, his accent in Spanish.

“Drink too much, too many drugs,” she laughed nervously, had he missed the joke? Did he even understand anything she was saying? And anyway, what did he mean what type of man did she like? When did choice come into it?

“Aah.... trouble.” He did get the joke. “Maybe you need a different type.”

“Yes, I think maybe I do.”

She looked at his picture again. This had to be a joke. A Spanish joke: tall, dark and somewhere between Javier Bardem and Antonio Banderas. It was a good joke.

“So,” she said, “Where are you from?”

Barcelona, she thought, Madrid perhaps?

“Me,” he said, “I am from Argentina.”

“Argentina!” “Yes, I am from Argentina.”

“ Oh. My. God. But I’m going to Argentina.”

“You are going to Argentina?”

“Yes, I’m going to Arentina.”

“Then I think we should have a coffee,” he said, “yes?”

“Yes.” She said.

Top tip: don’t wait for the sun to put it’s hat on, treat yourself to a trip to the beauty parlour.

Wishin' and hopin' and thinkin'...........

There are few greater pleasures in life than sitting upstairs, at the front of the bus on a beautiful sun-beaming-down-bright-blue-day; St. Pancras illuminated in a golden Gothic glow, budding trees skimming past, blossom blowing a blur in the breeze.....well perhaps a few.....but not so many when your head, too, is filled with thoughts of holiday, as mine is.

A couple of weeks ago I began to complain bitterly that I would never again go on holiday because I didn’t have a boyfriend. And I didn’t want to go away on my own to walk up a mountain, or learn salsa, or do yoga, or go kayaking with other enthusiastically single-Billy—no-mates, or billet myself with good-friends-who-live-abroad and have to sing for my free-supper by bouncing their children on my knee while balancing my glass of rose on the corner of the table-full-of-couples.......and that boyfriends really only are for Christmas and holidays and that what I wanted to do was go to Argentina because I’d always wanted to go to South America and soon I’d be too old to travel anywhere and I’d never see Patagonia and I’d always wanted to go to Patagonia because it’s one of my favourite words and Buenos Aires always sounded so romantic and......then someone I was working with randomly mentioned she was going to Argentina for a week over Easter to visit a friend....

“How wonderful”, I said, “I wish I was going to Argentina.”

“Why don’t you come,” she said, “I’ll change my flight, stay for two weeks, we can go to Patagonia.”

“Because..... how much is it?”

“Here’s the number, call them and just book it, it’ll be great....”

So I did.

My travelling companion, an energetic 35 year old, built like Barbie but eats like a horse, with a possible thyroid-condition, is the bi-polar opposite of me in pretty much everyway: petite, blond and not so much glass-half-full as cup-runneth-over, everything is extended: hair, eye-lashes and heels......she was once engaged to a Tottenham Hotspur’s player and so is a qualified, if non-practising, WAG. But she has too, backpacked across India and knows her way around any bargain-basement-budget- flight website. She parties hard but is always first in work and has informed me, in her fluent Yorkshire, that she has scored a rake of Temazepam for the flight.... In short, a perfect travelling companion.

And so we’re off to tango; the snap of Gaucho in the air, the tang of pampas on the tongue. We fly to BA...as I believe it is known...on Good Friday, renamed Spectacular Friday for the purposes of the trip. When, many years ago, I went to Mexico I married my ex-husband, after a similar rant: ‘we shall find our husbands, I want to marry a writer, an American....’ And I did. However, I married the wrong American. There are loads of them, it was an easy mistake. This time, I’d like to marry the right American. I shall eat steak...the travelling companion’s and mine, she’s also a vegetarian....and drink Malbec and Mate and watch the world tango by......and see what happens.....

Top tip: be careful what you wish.......but if you do want it then think it, say it and don’t give up on it.