Re-Opening

I thought I might come back to this one day. So much has happened in the last eighteen months. My ex-partner left me and went back to the UK with our two daughters and I stayed in France. But now the time has come for me to return too. I will leave great weather, daily swimming, peace but also Ryanair, constant battles with the language and a feeling that I am divorced from the real world when I am here. So back to the UK it is at the end of October.

Blog closed

I have decided to close my blog. It has become too self-indulgent. And as someone recently said to me 'boring'. So, the only reason to write it would be for myself - so I shall continue in written form. The second reason is that I have not kept to my promise of honouring the greatest diarist of all - 'Chips' Channon. He said 'what is the point of a discrete diary - one may as well have a discrete soul'. I have not revealed what has really been happening in my life over the last twelve months. The happy professional experiences have been balanced by unhappy personal experiences and it is to those which I now need to devote my time.

Snow in the Sud

10 minutes from the Mediterranean and we have thick snow. Izzy, my naughty youngest has never seen real snow before and is transfixed. Lily, nearly eight is now building an 'homme de neige'. I have a garden full of happy children - about eight at the moment because Lily is the social animal par excellence. 10 days ago I was in the 35 degree heat of Port Au Prince Haiti. What a change. Extremes are wonderful.

This morning I have had english TV installed. Anyone who has had to endure french TV - endless programmes of people talking in the studio - will understand my joy.

And from a persoanl point of view I made an early start on the new book and good progress is being made. This has to be written by January 20. 35,000 words to go. 1000 per day.

Santa Claus is coming to town

The first sighting of a cuckoo in March/April signifies the arrival of spring. And the christmas equivalent is the first playing of Phil Spector's 'Christmas Album' in December. Today, Lily and Isabelle and daddy got to work on the tree accompanied by The Ronettes, The Crystals, Darlene Love etc. Lily knows most of the words so we were able to sing along to the famed 'Wall of Sound'. Lovely.

I must remind myself not to email gripes to my publisher when I have had a couple of glasses of wine. I said what I wanted to say but probably not with the tact I should have.

Ed Doolan

So much has happened recently that I forgot to mention a recent appearance on the Ed Doolan show on BBC West Midlands. Ed is also known as 'Mr Birmingham' an institution in the Midlands rivalled locally only by Carl Chinn - although Ed is Australian. I was invited on to talk about Positive Thinking and was given fifteen minutes. The 15 minutes soon became one hour as we took lots of texts and a few calls on the subject. I, of course loved every minute of it. Ed himself has had a few problems with his heart and we had an interesting sidetrack on whether positive thinking can pull you through health problems. He believes it can - as do I - and gave the example of how he had a serious heart operation twenty years ago a week before Christmas and that what pulled him through was the desire to broadcast his traditional Christmas day show. He was duly wheeled into the studio on Christmas morning. What they hadn't told him was that there was standby ambulance outside throughout the whole show in case of any relapse. Of course, there wasn't.

He re-enforced my belief that we need to continually create 'why's' to live for.

I wanted to also say that I really like Birmingham and from a personal point of view getting close to a place by being on a radio show helps no end. Not a fashionable view perhaps but it is a transformed city.

Perfect pop

'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More' - The Walker Brothers.

Discuss

Bits and bobs

A joke apparently attributed to former UN Secretary General Perez De Cuellar. When asked how many people worked at The United Nations he replied 'about half of them'. I met the good half this week.

Does it annoy you when people insist on putting 'lol' on their emails, messages, blogs etc? I had to look this up tonight. It means 'laughing out loud'. If you have to put this sort of mindless stuff in what you write I think you probably need a personality transplant. Or a wider ranging vocabulary. Or both.

Tonight, as I checked back in to my hotel - The Ibo Lele in Petionville, Haiti - the lady in reception offered a 'massage', with eyes raised on the word 'massage'. I walked off and ten minutes later she was on the phone to my room. Non merci. Do I look that lonely? Or desperate? Or perhaps she was.

My final night in Haiti. 'When was the last time you did something for the first time?' For me this was a view of the world I had never seen before. Of course, the next time I come it won't quite be the same. First time experiences in life mean everything. From birth right up to death. Perhaps Darfur next? Or DR Congo? Or East Timor?

Haitian Bee Gees

An evening indoors avoiding various Haitian biting things. Having done lots of work, prepped for tomorrow etc. I treated myself to an hour of You Tubing. I got Frank Zappa in my head and spent an hour watching various live version of his Allman Brothers cover 'Whipping Post'. Marvellous. If you don't want to do the full hour but want to see Frank at his best head for the 1984 New York version. 7 minutes and a great vocal performance from Bobby Martin.

Last night I went with my hosts Berta and her partner Jongee to see a band described as Haitian Bee Gees. They sounded so awful at the gate that we didn't even venture in. A great piece of fish at a local restaurant instead. A quick drink after where I saw the largest cockroach I have ever seen. Red and winged.