It seems as if I have been away for months and months.

I am very tired, due to the jet lag. There is a pile of post on the floor!!! This is exciting. I sort the post.

There are three items for me. Two of them are a mobile phone bill and a new debit card. There is also an invitation to purchase some Christmas cards, from a charity.

Booooo. Still. The answerphone light is flashing. I have messages!!! I press the button. There is one message. It is from a financial adviser that I spoke to two years ago, asking if I am all right.

Booooooooo and thrice boooooo. I have been away for ages, and I have three bits of post and a single phone call. Nobody likes me, except the financial adviser.

I will write up my Private Secret Holiday Diary when I am a bit more with it. In the meantime, has anything of note happened whilst I was away? You do not get UK news in America, as they have so much of their own. It would be good to catch up with events.

It is very exciting. I planned it myself. We are going on a secret trip around a secret location. I will not tell you, for fear of stalkers. It will be the trip of a lifetime.

The LTLP had to be talked round, and is still a bit dubious with parts of my itinerary, but she will come round when we get there. We all need a holiday. Her, as she is a bit stressed and tired, and didn’t get any birthday presents apart from some lipstick that makes her look like a prostitute. Me, because I have been working so hard. The Toddler, because it will be educational, and she will love visiting the home of the banjo oh dear I have given the game away.

I will be back at the end of the month.

“But we’d promised we’d go to shee them,” slurs Mrs. Short Tony, in the Village Pub.

I consider this through my beer. It is, indeed, true.

The Miniature Barman shrugs his shoulders good-naturedly. “You’d be very welcome,” he says. “If you can get tickets.”

“And it is the LTLP’s birthday,” insists Mrs. Short Tony. “It would be a great birthday surprise. She must know all the Johnny Cash songs, like ‘Ring of Fire,’ and… um…”

“‘Folsom Prison Blues?’” I add, warming to the idea of going to a Johnny Cash tribute evening. “And ‘The Mercy Seat.’ That is my favourite. It is a bloody brilliant song.”

“We don’t do that one,” says the Miniature Barman.

“And all the others are basically the same,” I continue, finishing my pint and waving the glass in the general direction of the pumps. “The ones that go:”

(4/4; allegro; adopt low mumbling voice)

[I] “WellImummmdemummmdeeedamummdemum

[IV] andImummdemummandImummdemumm

[I] andImummdemummandmummdemummm

[V] dumm dooo.”

Mrs Short Tony looks blank. “I don’t know that one,” she says.

“And ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky,’” I add, helpfully.

“It should be a good night,” prompts the Miniature Barman. “It was a sell-out last year.”

I take a deep swig of my refilled pint. “The thing is, that the LTLP is not that keen on Johnny Cash,” I reflect. “But then she is a bit down about her birthday, and me not really getting round to getting her a present and stuff, and in fact not getting any presents except from the Toddler, who chose some lipstick for her that is in the shade of red worn by prostitutes. So I reckon it might cheer her up.”

“Am I the only one that doesn’t think this a great idea?” interjects Short Tony. “And I am normally the one who…”

“The problem is going to be getting her there,” I continue, ignoring him. “It would have to be a surprise.”

“She would love it,” says Mrs Short Tony.

I have a brainwave. “She has always wanted to go to the Michelin-starred restaurant Morston Hall,” I say. “And I have always said I would take her there. So what we could do would be to book the tickets for the Johnny Cash tribute evening, but tell her that we are all going to the Michelin-starred restaurant Morston Hall for a special birthday dinner. And then, when we are in the cab, we would pretend that we have to pick somebody up at the theatre, or fetch something, or something like that, so she wouldn’t suspect. And then when we actually arrived at the theatre, we could all jump out of the cab and say ‘surprise!’ and it would be a special surprise Johnny Cash birthday treat instead.”

“That sounds like a really good plan,” says Short Tony.

“We’d be quite happy to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ at a break in the set,” offers the Miniature Barman. “That’s always good, as the rest of the theatre will join in.”

I am excited. “She would really like that,” I exclaim.

I used to do this occasionally, I don’t do it so much now. So here we go for a bit of a round-up of things that don’t fit anywhere else.

*

Firstly, and interestingly, I have discovered that I am enjoying writing again. I didn’t for a while, mainly when I didn’t have much free time due to a Demanding Baby, and it became a bit of a ‘thing that I felt I ought to do’ rather than a ‘thing that I loved doing’. Plus, when your job involves writing for money, sometimes it is not quite so easy to write for fun.

If anybody would like me to do some writing for them, for money, then do get in touch.

(If anybody would like to offer me money to STOP writing then I will consider that as well).

I’m trying to work out at the moment if I should write a bit more on here, and do it in different styles, and not worry about whether it’s much good or not… or whether I should stick to the particular approach that everybody knows and is used to. The chicken guide thing was very popular, for instance, but I don’t know if it was out of place and should have gone in a separate ‘chicken’ section. Should I have a different blog for different things, for example? Or put things on different pages, or on a different RSS feed? I do not know. I would be interested in your comments in the comments box, if they are sensible and do not basically say ‘give up, your shit.’

*

I met one of my Twitter followers the other day (the pie lady). It was disconcerting, as I hadn’t expected to, despite the circumstances (I was at her pie stall). Plus I had a hangover and was thinking that I might be sick, which I thought would not be great publicity for her, and all I could really think of to say was ‘I am a fan of your work’ which even though it is true was a bit weak and possibly made me sound like a bit of a dick. Anyway, I didn’t realise it, but she mail-orders her pies, so if you want to share in the top-notch pie experience then I would heartily recommend it. Here is her pork pie website.

*

A commercial break for two more friends and readers of Private Secret Diary:

I have never read a chick-lit book before, so French Kissing by Catherine Sanderson, who is mainly famous for not blogging any more – worried me a bit, as it has a pink cover. Plus I had to use pliers to uncurl my toes after reading the advert the publisher had put at the back for their ‘fiction for women’ promotion (‘And of course we realise that even when she’s reading, every girl wants to look her best, so we have heaps of beauty goodies…’).

But blimey!!! It is a real page-turner – I can see why people like this sort of thing – genuinely. I ended up annoying the LTLP by exclaiming things like ‘OMG! OMG! She’s going to shag the bloke in the other apartment!!!’ I hope it does well, as Cath’s a good friend and far from being a publicity-hungry velociraptor, she will be a bit embarrassed that I have written about it. Buy it for a female companion, then sneak a read yourself under the duvet.

Neil Forsyth’s Let Them Come Through is gripping – big time. I’ll stick my neck out and say that I think he’s been slightly ill-served by the publishers. The cover doesn’t match the content, the quote on the front doesn’t really say anything and the whole package seems to want to give the impression of some Ben Elton take on spiritualism.

Whereas actually it’s seriously well researched, and hits you with a pacy and plausible world of small-time crookery, casual corruption, cruel lies and general seediness. Neil’s background is in crime journalism (as I recall) and it shows – he pulls off the difficult trick of making you root for an unsympathetic character, and the end leaves you wanting to spend more time in his world, which is always a good sign. It’s his first novel – I hope he’ll write more. Buy it for a male companion, then sneak a read yourself under the duvet.

*

Commercial break and round-up over. I shall be going on holiday in a week or so. Remind me to turn the comments off before then, as there are a lot of Evil Spammers around at the moment.