RE-BERTHING

et in nostalgia ego
　
We are back! Bloggiana and I have returned from our travels. A whole euro-extravaganza is under our belts and autumn is among us, like an old rusty friend, here to remind us that we should never ever be too busy to apply face cream.

We are back! And besides being one year older and considerably wiser, we now have a handbook to go with the blog - a One World, One Chutney guide which Bloggiana swears will make that ridiculous woman from HSMC Miss Pinprick choke on her own statements.

Now that we are back, Bloggiana and I Piccalilli have done a number of things and the first was to sign off from our internet dating site - because Bloggiana has bagged her man and I too seem to have a friend; because we have grown tired of the cyberness of the winks and the virtuality of the hugs; because altogether, the whole thing - we are fully agreed on this - was compelling and amusing but utterly unproductive.

Since we have been back, we have waved goodbye to Adolesco who has been obliged to return to school; and to the dags on Our Dog who has been favoured with his most coveted experience of the year - a haircut; and we have said hello once more to Teener, greeted home from her excessively long sojourn in the outback of beyond with Great Aunt Vegemite.

Naturally enough, as we walked back into our parlour and saw the hens roosting above the Very Expensive Cooker; the autumn rain bouncing down the dados; heard the mice scuttle through the kitchen cupboards and the birds nesting in the roof, our hearts lifted. Bloggiana picked up the rates bills that had been piling up in the post box and whirled them round her head, as though they were part of an umbrella and she were singing in the rain; I wandered about the lawns stamping on molehills, left foot, right foot, my inner Shirley Temple and my outer Michael Jackson making contact at last. Bloggiana opened her duty free crate of shiny butts and embarked with gusto (and both smoking hands) on packet number one; while I stood firm, legs akimbo, and tugged and tugged on the corkscrew until finally the screwtop lid gave way and we could drink our PG freely once again.

Bloody good to be back, pronounced Bloggiana, lighting up a fag, spitting out pieces of screwtop lid and settling into last year's New Zealand rug on the sofa.

But bless my sainted thong collection, didn't we have a blast? Now how about it Piccalilli? How about we start planning a Whole New Adventure?