Date.....line.......

Just before Christmas I had a haircut: a cute bob, very French, very Louise Brooks. It was well received by family and friends. It worked with both a smokey eye/nude lip look and a flash of liner and a full-red-call-me-Marilyn pout. I was tres pleased. I was also pretty happy at the thought of a date with a prospective beau, v tall, v handsome, I'd met after, and I'm sure because of, the haircut. So happy, in fact, that I was still smiling after reading a text he’d sent while walking to the art shop to buy supplies to make Christmas cards with (4 years at art college not wasted……). I was doing the flash of liner and full-red-call-me-Marilyn pout look that day, the bob gleaming in the winter sun, and as I passed a man walking towards me……50-something, tall, slim, full-head of greying hair…….he smiled at me smiling. I went into the shop. I stood before a vast array of art materials making my choices when I realised the man from the street was now in the shop. I made my purchases. He bought a pen. We left together.

“Are you an architect?” he asked.

I’m not. He was. He asked if I worked near-by. I do. He asked if I go to the pub on the corner where everyone goes. On occasion I do. He asked if I’d like to go there for a drink, gave me his card, said give him a call. I didn’t.

That was then, this is a new year. The date that gave me a smile ended with a frown and so when I saw the architect’s card on my desk I thought, why not? Now, I did think it through, I did Google the practice, I did establish it was in fact his and I decided it was unlikely he was an axe murderer. I also wondered why he’d assumed I was single. And whether he was.

I called him. He did remember me. He was delighted. Happy new year....... We met that evening. In the pub on the corner. 6.30pm. He bought me a vodka & tonic. He was married. But his wife didn’t understand him. I did though. I finished my drink, suggested he explain the problems he had with his wife to his wife and got the bus home.

And this is a picture I once took of a boat on a beach in Goa.......just to remind us that somewhere else the sun is shining, the weather is hot, the sea sparkles silver in the morning and ripples gold in the evening........ and because now I can upload pictures I shall.......

Top tip: don’t talk to strangers……

Age cannot wither her......

"I feel like an old man," said my son who just turned 20, "that's it now, no more teenager, it's all over." I smiled, said nothing and helped myself to another slice of birthday cake (a triple-layer devil's food cake with white-chocolate-cream-cheese icing from the Magnolia Bakery cook book, with added blue berries, part of his 5-a-day.... since you ask). They say that youth is wasted on the young and yes, wouldn't I have enjoyed myself so much more if I'd known then, how much worse it was going to get.......

But now, here comes summer, the sun has got his hat on and the days have suddenly started to get longer, creeping up on us in a "goodness, is that the time? I didn't realise it was so late..." kind of way. And with it the long, hot, much hoped for, hazy days of lazy lunches, picnics in the park, lying in the long-grass. Dark glasses perched beneath broad-brimmed sun-hats, arms glistening with factor 25, fingers sticky with ice-lolly drips, it's time to surf the wave of pink wine and chilled Prosecco.

I went through a period in my 30s, whilst living in New York, and buying cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery, when I would only ever been seen on a beach in a one piece. Then I went to Europe. In Spain, France, Italy, anywhere sur le continent, it seems that age is no barrier to the bikini, from the stripey tanga top to the day-glo thong, octogenarians proudly sport their itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny, yellow, pink, purple polka-dot bikinis, unabashed. Tanned hides ripple and undulate across the white sands, with more wrinkles than a Bedouin's saddle bag. So, I thought, why not.......as with the onset of old age comes the cloak of invisibility.....re-claim the two-piece. As luck would have it a girlfriend of mine has started a bikini empire called 'Nikinis'. Having spent the 80s living in Los Angeles where the daily wearing of swimwear is mandatory, (think high legged, halter-neck in red), she later re-located to the hippy haven of Goa, (string-bikini with beads) so there is nothing she doesn't know about gusset-width, bottom-coverage and adjustable straps. And so, as I prepare to concertina my tummy back into two, tiny pieces of Lycra, I feel it's time to embrace the pre-pool party diet, di-fuzz the legs and suck it in for the summer........after just one more piece of birthday cake........

Top tip: Dr. Nick Lowe (no not the singer.....) skin care products do seem to be delivering their promise!

Goa, Goa, Gone.....

I was 19 the first time I went to Goa. It was a paradise away from paradise then: flaxen-haired travellers stretched out under the arched palms, their skinny, brown bodies adorned with exotic belts of silver from Rajasthan, strings of turquoise beads and hefty bracelets from Nepal. We sat and stared at the unbroken horizon from up-all-night-party sunrise to the bom-shanker of the sunset chillum, waiting for the nuclear flash that would herald the end of the rest of the world as we knew it, or so we believed if Maggie had her way....oh hippy daze.....Now, beer-swilling blokes in Chelsea shirts discuss the low cost of dental work in Margao and restaurant sound systems compete for ear-time. With the rise of low cost airfares and the ubiquitous package tour, exotic travel is no longer quixotic. Where once we lived in palm-leaf huts, dined on bargiis, dhal and super-sweet chai, now it's all cold beers, char-grilled prawns and G & Ts, sun-loungers and boutique hotels. But the sun does still set right there on that unbroken horizon, nuclear bombs are out and instead we fear WMDs and IEDs. The times they certainly are a changing.

We arrived in Margao several hours late, our train having travelled at little more than a brisk walking pace for most of the journey. My mother was staying at the delightful Hotel Oceanic, all white-washed walls and bougainvillea, about 15 minutes walk from the sea, and I was billeted at the friend's, a tad closer to the shore. After 2 weeks travelling we were looking forward to a little R & R and perhaps a large G & T. Not all changes are bad.......in 1980 I'd stayed in Chapora village, in the north, and my guilty pleasure was to sneak off to Scarlet's Juice Bar where they not only had electricity but also the only blender in the hood and had taken the radical step of throwing all manner of fruity concoctions, and sometimes even yogurt, into the same mix. Remember, the Smoothy was yet to be invented so this was pretty heady stuff.....

My friend lives in an ex-pat enclave known locally as Beachenders and for good reason. Think small Welsh village with twitching palm leaves instead of net curtains, just sunshine and you've got the idea. Everybody knows everything about everyone else. And believe me they've all got stories. And babies. It's yummy mummys by the sea. It's also party central. The 'local tourists', as the real locals call them, run restaurants and bars, organise yoga holidays, design beachwear and sell jewellery, they work hard and they play hard. As monsoon approaches and the temperature goes up the 'season', as the period from November to March is known, comes to an end. And things start to unravel. Everything and everyone literally gets fried. My friend has not long split up, for the second time, from her boyfriend and the 'I'm fine with it' facade was beginning to slip. I once lived with this woman in America, my year of living dangerously, so know her pretty well, and frankly I should have seen it coming. She was definitely, how shall I put it? Not feeling her best.

However, I did yoga classes high on a hill with a 360 degree view of sea, beach, palm-trees and sea...... not too shabby. Had the most amazing Ayuvedic massages from the small but perfectly formed chap who has the most incredibly healing hands and appears to be able to see inside my soul.....well that's how it feels! Our little party re-grouped for a trip to the Saturday produce market where we bought peppercorns and vanilla. We ate the delicious fish, drank the cold beer and watched that sunset, again and again. And it was good. And Mum said she'd loved it all so mission accomplished.

Back in Blighty Spring hadn't quite sprung. I had thought we'd be greeted by budding trees and blooming Daffs, but hay, the sun is sort of shinning today and the clocks have gone forward so fingers crossed.....

Top Tip: Daffodils.....cheap, yellow and in the shops now!!

Baby it's cold outside.....

February is undoubtedly the worse month. Well it's definitely my worse month. The end of winter. The end of civilisation, it drones on and on. Endless dull, damp days, the threat of snow a blessed relief from the low-hung sky; a dismal sun glimpsed like a 40 watt light bulb from behind a shower curtain. It's grim up north, down south, east and west. And this particular ragged end of winter seems worse than usual, as if summer belongs to another generation, someone elses memory found pressed like a buttercup between the pages of a dog-eared Enid Blyton book, before the library banned them. A time long, long ago in a land far away, when the hot, sticky heat smelt of ripe tomatoes and Ambre Solaire and yellow-parched grass pricked the back of bare legs, a humming bee buzzing just overhead. Aaaaah, 1976......that was a summertime when the weather was fine.

Happy daze indeed, but I fear summer will stay on hold for a few months more. That's why I'm off. I'm heading for the hills, the Nilgiris Hills that is, in Tamil Nadu, south India. And I can't wait. I was concentrating so hard on booking guesthouses and Bamboo lodges and sleeper trains, I'd sort of lost sight of the bigger picture ie: I'm going on holiday. It will be a mixed bag of low budget, shabby-chic and old-colonial-drinks-on-the-terrace sustainable tourism ending up with a bit of hippy-on-the-beach relaxation in Goa (think Mediterranean summer, light on the cost, heavy on the palm trees).

I first went to Goa an anxious, naive, 19 year old not even armed with a backpack. My boyfriend, a seasoned traveller of the over-land sort, insisted I jettison everything I owned. So, packing nothing more than a spare pair of knickers, a years worth of 'the pill' and as many boxes of tampons as I could carry in my. . . . . shoulder bag, we set off. I was supposed to be starting my degree at art college in London. This was a time before the invention of the gap-year so I lied to the tutors and told them I had been offered an opportunity of a lifetime: to stay with my Uncle who was working in Asia, an opportunity I couldn't possibly turn down, a once in a lifetime experience but I so wanted to go to their college what was I to do? 'Go' they said, 'of course you must,' they said, 'we'll hold your place' they said. So I went. That truly was a year of magical thinking and was to shape everything that came after it. 20 years later I went back to India, this time without the boyfriend but with his son instead. The father flew out to Manali, northern India, and we celebrated the son's tenth birthday.

Now I have a friend who lives in Goa with an open house and an open invitation. She is in the bikini business and as an ex-nanny who once worked in LA, there is nothing that woman doesn't know about beachwear. It's a good ......minute walk to the beach so after such early morning exertion it's time to enjoy a hearty breakfast at my favourite beach side cafe where they make the best Eggs Florentine and an excellent cappuccino, enjoyed under a shady canopy, watching the waves lap the half-moon curve, the sand already between my toes. A world away from my first visit to the once Portuguese state, where we subsisted on bhaji and 'ommolette', the culinary highlight being a coconut cake and a 'Nescafe'. And, after many hours sat staring at the sea or watching the palms sway overhead, back-dropped by a bright blue sky, under a heavy canopy of hashish, we would dream of sitting on cushions, eating Marmite toast and hot baths; luxuries we'd learned to do without on our quest for enlightenment. Oh happy daze.

Top tip: Turn up the heat with home-made chili oil. Toast dried chillies in a pan, add to olive or groundnut oil, whizz in a blender and pour on ......everything.

Young at Heart takes a trip......normal service will resume after March 9th.