JUST ANOTHER DAY FOR YOU AND ME WITH PARADISE: (South of France)

Well, Mr & Mrs Paradise arrived for some fun and games here on the Cote d'Azur. Ever the gentleman, Ricardo arrived suited 'n' booted, in the finest of linen suits, ready for his driver to show them the sights.

So there we were, eating wine, drinking cheese, playing les boules, and looking beautiful I think you'll agree. The ladies were looking rather good too.

Une Poseur, & the man from Del Monte

So we hit Monte Carlo, dined at Medieval villages, frequented the local art exhibitions, beached and bronzed and showed the Frenchies a thing or two about fashion. Sacre bleu!!

Stunning the Art World...again

WE ARE SO DARLING...DARLING: (Verona, Italy)

Aged 14, Mum thought it might be adventurous for me to go stay with for three weeks with a guy who she'd met on a train in Italy. Ahhh the 80's, when you could leave your front door unlocked and anyone your parents age was your uncle and aunt. He was actually a great guy, a director of Italian TV, and Mum thought I might get a precocious foot in the door to television!?! Well, one of the highlights back then was sneaking a peek in the amphitheatre in Verona where Madame Butterfly was being performed. I was enchanted, but we couldn't stay.

Returning now, Neko and I hoped to have a romantic evening at the opera and fulfil my childhood longing. We started our day waking up contorted having slept in our lil' car at a truck stop somewhere in eastern Slovenia, and ended it eating at a Mitchelin star restaurant, staying at a boutique guest house, and watching Aida. An occasional treat.

I love that about us - we are as happy to slum it, eat street food, and people watch, or to dine fine, and rub shoulders with the hoi polloi….it's all the same to us, learning the secret of being content in any situation.

THANK YOU LADIES & GERMS: (Budapest, Hungary & Slovenia)

 So we met up with Cath and her friends, Graham, Laura, and lots of others. Fine fine people. Cath showed us the sights - all the best drinking establishments with their idiosyncratic offerings of hoppy brews…and proceeded to drink white wine spritzers. She is clearly disorientated and will need psychiatric help when she returns home. SO nice to see Cath in a place so special to her.

We spent a few days wandering around, discovered the Hungarian House of Photography and Museum of Crafts & Textiles (top recommendations in Art Nouveau buildings), and went to an old regency style neo-classical Spa. We quite like spas. We ended up marinating in another one later in Slovenia, stewing for seven hours in thermal waters and other people's germs. We've been sick ever since.

If you're interested in going to Budapest, the Hungarian name of the Spa was Szengeti (I can spell that with some authority cos my wife is a Spelling Bee champ).

ENOUGH WITH THE WISE CRACKS ALREADY: (Seged, Hungary)

Can you imagine our disappointment when we spoke to Cath earlier this summer, excited to come to Hungary and hoping to see her there, only to find out after 3 years she's moving back a couple of weeks before we get there. Oh the irony. Kind of. How's about those Bosnian escapades though hey? Police stop us for having our side lights on, then we break down and a mechanic rigs the lights to be constantly on. Now that's irony! With all my time in America, and the loose grasp they have on the concept, it gets hazy at times. Never mind Morrisette's "…rain on your wedding day" (which I believe is only ironic if you're a weather man, getting married, and you predicted it would be sunny).

So to our delight, we heard Cath is back THIS WEEK to collect her things for the final move home. Well, in another turn of irony, I decided to call her to arrange hooking up in Budapest, doing my favourite 'Mo's Bar' stunt of faking some alias or another - this time a demented sounding old fella who is insistent that she's just called me. Cath remained on the phone for a remarkable amount of time - I would have told such a rambling nutter to politely bog off by now. Testament to Cath's good Christian nature? No. Her dad's just had a stroke and it might be him calling. Man I feel bad now. I'll buy her a pint when we see her.