I share some 'snaps' from my travels

Here are some photosnaps of my holidays so you can feel what it is like to be me (except on holiday). I am on day 2.5, and so far it is going very well. I have seen a lot of people I like very much, roasted some chickens, bought some cheese, bumped into people in cheese shops, eaten the cheese, taken two aeroplanes, laughed until I cried with the British Airways check-in man, bought some brogues and some very well-cut trousers, bitten my nails, seen my father, and been happy to see the French-Canadian veterinary histopathologist to whom I married. (He has been at a top research scientists' conference in Geneva, and has eaten nothing but cheese and potatoes for a week. This is not a lie.)

In my photosnaps (which are excellent) you may detect a recurrent 'theme', a.k.a. foodstuffs, most of which are made of cheese. You will be glad to know that I didn't have to be in Clapham Junction for long (train was late, obv, and when I asked when it was going to arrive, the lady said "CAN'T YOU READ?", and pointed at a blank announcement board), and I am sure you will enjoy the photograph in which the amphibious vehicle is reversing sharply after having driven in to a tree.

Eagle-eyed viewers will see that I have been in London, scene of my birth and 37 years of my stainless life, but that now I am in Amsterdam, scene of most of 2007 and some of the most happy times in recent years.

Amsterdam is where I would live if I did not have to live in Montreal. I don't mean I "have to" live in Montreal as in I am forced to live in Montreal, but really it is Amsterdam I love the best. Also my brother, RunningMonkey, and his virtually-wife (Our San) and her sister (Our Den) live here, so it is hard to find an argument against it, particularly in view of the proliferation of bicycles, cheese and almond-based biscuits. (It is also spectacularly easy to live here all year round and never, ever see a tourist. Who knew?)











If you too dream of taking photographs like this (slightly odd, mainly out of focus, colours I like, potential to make the most ordinary things very, very pretty), simply buy an iPhone, download the Hipstamatic app and never bother using a real camera again.

Cheese toasties at dawn!!!

NWM