Riding the Rapids in Spain

I'm back from Spain and a water sports activity holiday with my son. It was the best holiday we've ever been on. I am KNACKERED. I did canyonning (abseiling down waterfalls foran hour, totally exhausting, don't ask me who invented it but gorgeouslyhunky guides who strap you into all sorts of ropes and harnesses if you likethat sort of thing), kyaking on a lake (easy peesy) and river (deathdefying, huge rocks, strong currents, masses and masses of rapids and reallyexhausting when you capsize and have to be rescued from beneath the craft),horseriding (cannot sit down for two days), football, volleyball and, mostscary of all, white water rafting (7 people, 4 of whom kids, in a dingy with mad Spanish raftsmen hurtling you down rapids and weirs and going backwards and spinning round like a wheely bug and huge bolders and jagged rocks andcrashing water and them shouting "forward!" "back!", "stop!" and aching,aching arms....) You really do do what's in the brochure, its not just publicity shots of people in safety helmets.

I'm booking it again next year but will this time do a ton of upper body strength training to make iteasier and increase chances of handsome Spanish man falling madly in love with blond tattooed 44 year old.

On a quieter front I'm feeling pleasantly satisfied having read two books, one autobiography about a Cornish childhood and another, all about the Natural History Museum here in London. I could relate to this behind-the-scenes biography of the place, the drawers of insects, the deer heads, the oddball tweed-suited characters who've spent too long contemplating the mating habits of trilobites.

I am now in the middle of a variety of books, dipping into them all at once. One is called The Art of Domesticity. I just LOVE it. I am trying to make a patchwork quilt and the kitchen table is covered in fabric squares of various sizes and patterns. Very Little House on the Prairy. This book is a real inspiration. The author is delighted by colour and design and plays with making cupcakes decorated as noughts-and-crosses and jelly beans. It's not just a coffee-table book full of wonderful photographs, but is full of personal insight into why women create quilts, tablecloths, cakes, etc. If I could have anything I wanted I should like to be a kept woman and spend my time knitting strangely baubbled jumpers adorned with pom poms, sketching, journalling, and doing my PhD (a physio doctorate programme starts at SouthBank uni Sept, just 8 days taught attendance required in each of the first 2 years and I'm VERY tempted!). I would throw women-only picnics and have tea weekly at the Dorchester and learn five languages just for fun. I would potter around all the museums and bake extravagant cakes with all the wrong colour icing and instead of tea, would take a bottle of wine with me when I walk the dog and sit and paint leaves upside down when I've had half the bottle and I no longer care what people think. Then I would waddle home and watch a movie like The African Queen and book jive lessons which I would do in a flared skirt with a small waist and heavy make up.

Back in the real world....I today took my son to the Ian Flemming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. He was dressed as James Bond, but security tookhis p.k.walt 45 (it's a gun apparently) off him on entrance. I can understand why and he was philosophical about it. Anyway, we enjoyed the exhibit, had a fantastically expensive lunch (as always) and then went to Tate Modern to see the exhibition called Street Art. The outside of the building had been decorated with huge pictures a la graffiti style but nicer if you know what mean. The shop was heaving with books on graffiti and street art and I bought yet another very inspiring book about journal keeping, full of the most delightfully evocative watercolours.

I have the weekend tomyself. My in tray is heaving with work-related stuff but I would much rather do other things. However, no work, no holidays, no books, no wine, no.......

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