I was looking back through a diary that I kept whilst I was teaching at a summer school in rural Nigeria in 1998 yesterday. We had found that the students had many misconceptions about England (as expected!) and of course we had misconceptions about Nigeria too, it was a learning experience on both sides that's for sure. We had asked the pupils to write a short essay on their thoughts on what living in England was like, and I found a piece written by a 13 year old girl, which is just lovely:

My name is Ezinne Mba. I am living at Unwana in Afikpo LGA Ebonyi State. I am 13 years old. While I think that England is different to Nigeria is because the white people from England look very smooth and walk as fast as a hare. England is cold and is a paradise, and their flag is quite different from ours. Another thing is because they do not wash their clothes by themselves and do not travel by ten toes [on foot] but travel by aeroplane and their hair is as long as a tail, and England is as beautiful as an angel and their body is smooth as an egg. England is a big country and everything in England is cheaper than ours, for example like rice, beans, tomato, clothes and so on. Our money is in Naira and theirs is in Dollars.

I remember the class had a really good conversation about the differences between where we lived; wages, cost of living, housing, education etc. That whole Nigerian experience was just amazing. I met some amazing people including some who had never seen white people before, saw some wonderous things, ate some...interesting food.

Now I'm getting itchy feet again. Need to plan the next thing! Suggestions on a postcard please!

I spent a lovely weekend doing countryside things, specifically, seeing my dad and my sister on board her houseboat, currently moored near Bath. She had invited us up for a barbeque, and what a barbeque it was! We had burgers, bratwurst sausages (the best kind), and three types of kebab, not forgetting corn on the cob and a lovely salad (healthy options so we didn't feel so bad about wolfing all that meat down!). Just when we thought we had finished, we had to try and make room for toasted marshmallows, which I managed to do quite successfully, even if I do say so myself.

Hearing some of the 'landlubbers' comments as they walked past was quite funny, "Ooooh look, they're having a barbeque on that one!" Yes, we can hear you! My sister told us about a time when a family looked into the boat and one said to another "Wow, they've even got bread and butter!" Woooooow. It's amazing that people treat the boaties as if they are unable to hear anything that is said on land, even worse, that they could well be an entirely new species, albeit one that 'even eats bread and butter'! Ah well, they don't know what they are missing!

I was still thinking about this when we drove through Putney later that night on the way back to the ghetto. Some young cretin and his mates were spraying graffiti on a brick wall, using a rather dull orange colour (which barely showed up, by the way) at only 8:30pm, still daylight at the time of year, with barely a care in the world. You would have thought that they would have chosen a contrasting colour, dull orange really doesn't get the job done, and if they got caught (which they wouldn't as no one seemed to be taking a blind bit of notice) would it all really have been worth it?

Looking forward to getting out of the city for good....

I'll start off with the bad, because it's always best to get that out of the way first isn't it? Is the whole world going mad or is it just me? (Some of you don't need to answer that).

The British Police are in hot water over three separate incidents: pushing an innocent man over during the G20 protests, who later died of a heart attack; a PC who died when he crashed into a house whilst calling the station to say he be late to a meeting; and the other one who was speeding with no lights or sirens and killed a beautiful young girl with her whole life ahead of her....the list goes on.

Meanwhile Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister, is rapidly taking Prince Philip's place as pronouncer of stupid and inappropriate remarks, when he reportedly told the 17,000 made homeless by the recent earthquake to look on sleeping in tents as a 'camping weekend'. Sometimes I just wish people would take a look at the REAL lives people lead sometimes, instead of looking out from their ivory towers and making stupid flippant remarks.

In the US, a mentally ill and severely depressed mother shoots her son dead and then kills herself in a shooting range. Shocking and so sad.

So what's the good then? Well, it seems more local and personal. Friends getting married, friends having babies, Romalidays coming up, new friends and old, going for walks with the dog and smelling the new green things growing in the woods, sunny and warm days, not getting home in the dark. You take it where you can find, it don't you!

And the ugly? That's just me. I need more sleep and I'm definitely planning to get it over the long weekend!

Oh my God. What a bloody awful day I had yesterday. It was such an annoying day that I'm still feeling annoyed today, thereby ruining my entire weekend. I'm sure you'll be aware of the saying "bad things come in threes"? Read on...

Scenario #1 - Washing machine delivery
We'd ordered a washing machine that was due to be delivered between 9am and 12noon. We'd been assured that they would call us to make sure we were in before they came round. Well, they didn't and of course they came round early rather than late, so there we were, scrambling out of bed and trying to make room for the delivery. So far, so not yet annoyed. It transpired, however, during the 'installation' process that the new washing machine only needed one inlet pipe, whereas the old washing machine used two. But one of the pipes wouldn't stop leaking. (Cue enormous pool of water on my kitchen floor). "Not our problem mate," said the delivery chumps, "You'd better get a plumber in, luv." And they promptly disappeared, leaving us with two washing machines in our not very big kitchen. Luckily a nearby plumber owed me a favour, so I called him round and he came and capped the pipe off and we plumbed in the new machine. No problem. Scenario #1 dealt with satisfactorily. By the way, for those of you who are wondering what we did with the old one - yes we took it outside and it had been 'recycled' within the hour.

Scenario #2 - dog locked in sitting room
Meanwhile, to let the delivery chumps and the plumber get on with things, I had shut the dog in the sitting room, since she likes to meet new people in quite an energetic way. Despite moaning at Y not to shut the sitting room door for the past week as I'd removed the door handle to test the width of space for delivery of the new sofas, I of course shut it without a second thought. It wasn't until I came to let her out again that I realised the door wasn't going to open. After having a five minute panic some logical thought came into my head that I should unscrew the bedroom door handle, screw it onto the sitting room door and lo and behold, scenario #2 satisfactorily resolved. All door handles now screwed back on to prevent similar catastrophe. Thank god the tool box wasn't shut in the sitting room too. I can take comfort from these small pieces of luck.

Scenario #3 - broken down car in middle of busy junction
In the evening we were looking forward to catching up with friends. I decided to drive since I haven't for ages, and I just got my car fixed up again. We only got about 20 minutes into the journey before the sodding thing stopped slap bang in the middle of Clapham and wouldn't start again. After waiting for an hour in the freezing cold, and enduring much pointing and staring at my poor car by passers-by, we got picked up by a recovery truck and taken home. No chance of tasty homecooked food for me. By that point I was so hacked off with the entire day we just got takeaway and drank some beers. Which was ok I suppose. Now I have a car that still won't start. No idea of what is wrong and no chance of getting it to a garage to sort it out for a while. It's steeled my resolve to sell the blasted thing though, and get something boring and sensible like a Fiesta or something.

It was a pretty bad day, all in all. Thought i could have been worse, when compared to another one of my 'bad things come in threes' days, which cost me £400 and gave me a scar on my leg which I've still got.

Quite frankly I can't wait to get back to work.

Because a well-known high street retailer seems to think so! I can't believe that it's not even the end of January and already they have a dedicated chocolate bunny/lamb/Citroen 2CV area. We haven't even had Valentine's Day yet!! Not only that, but they have taken to charging for plastic bags (good idea), yet they are givimg away plastic knives and forks at the exit (doh!). I don't know, it's just that something's not quite adding up for me there....

Well, I've been back from Malaysia for a week now. My tan has peeled off. My posted-on-the-last-day postcards will be dropping onto people's doormats any time now. It's like a dim and distant memory. But what memories!

Amazingly friendly people, gorgeous weather (even the rain was warm), beautiful jungles and beaches. We watched a couple of excruiatingly badly subtitled DVDs - a couple of Japanese horrors (aptly named) - but it was just impossible. Even English DVDs had been subtitled hideously badly. In the film 'Whisper', the simple line "Your move, Vince" came out as "Your muffins" – less 'horror', more 'humour', we thought!

Looking out of the window of the plane as we flew home over England reminded me that however much I might moan about the bad weather and the fact that I don't want to live in the city, actually I love England and I love coming home, to my own space, my family and friends, and my dog.

And for all you fact collectors out there:

• Number of hours spent on planes: 35
• Number of times passport lost: 0 (surprisingly)
• Number of other lost and subsequently found items: 2 (camera case and necklace)
  
• Number of photos taken: 521
• Number of photos that friends/family will be subjected to: 101 (sighs of relief all round)