25. Running a mile... (literally)

Training for the Race for Life has begun in earnest, and yesterday I ran a mile. Which isn't very far, really, and obviously only a third of the distance I will be running in July, but it marks a fitness milestone. Literally. A year ago, just about, I fell down the stairs and hurt myself pretty badly, and it has taken the better part of this year to get better. For a long while, even walking a reasonable distance was painful, and so was sitting still. It was very dull indeed.

But yesterday I ran round the back streets of Aldeburgh - no iPod, no posh running gear (bar the shoes), Herself's beanie hat on my head - and I ran for a mile, and it was fantastic. The sun was setting, the smartly-dressed old people were coming home from church, and the further I ran the more of Auntie's delicious rhubarb and raspberry crumble I was allowed.

I don't allow myself a small smile of pride very often, but I did yesterday, and it felt good. Now for the next mile...

24. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

The first time I watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show it was like I had been electrocuted. My parents were (relatively) good at keeping my brother and I away from totally inappropriate films and TV shows (although the fact that he and I could recite the whole of Blazing Saddles from very early ages shows that they didn't catch everything), so I was in my mid-teens when RHPS first played out before my innocent little peepers.

I thought it was funny and weird all the way through Time Warp etc - and then Tim Curry appeared and that was it. It was all over. Life would never be the same again.

It's an absurd performance, really, but for me, then, it was the most extraordinary, wonderful, awful thing that I'd ever seen. I didn't know if I was in love or about to be sick. (Bit of both - which is how love feels.) He's strange looking, but completely beautiful. Was he a girl or a boy? Did it matter?

'Have you got any tattoos, Brad? No? Shame. What about you, Janet?' You have to watch it. It's the look he gives her.

It's a very peculiar film, and I've watched it so many times I can't watch it any more. But it occupies a very special place in my heart, and always will.

23. Writing dialogue

Writing is hard. Writing a novel is very hard. Writing dialogue is fun.

(Question to self: Why must you ALWAYS make your life as difficult as possible?'

The sentences in between stretches of dialogue are painful, tortuous exercises in psychological hoodwinkery and primary school grammar. I surf the interweb, I stare out of the window, I make up ridiculous blog entries, I put my hair in curlers, I call my mother, I even do sit-ups - rather than write prose. When I'm writing conversations, Tina Fey could walk into the room and I wouldn't notice.

(Comment to self: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha)

On my prestigious, illustrious Masters course (total published alumni: 1) I was told that my dialogue was excellent, which is the MA version of 'the set dressing was superb.'

(Ha Ha Ha Ha)

If only there was a way to make dialogue the preponderance of the writing, rather than the whatever the opposite of preponderance is. That might be something I could be good at. In the meantime, I'm going to keep going with the novel.

(Sigh)

22. Conducting Experiments

When I'm not being an internationally unknown writer, I spend a lot of my time conducting important scientific experiments. To give an example of the world-changing significance of this work, my current experiment seeks to answer the question:
'Is expensive shampoo and conditioner better for your hair than 99p stuff that smells of Play-Doh?'
I haven't applied for funding, yet, but I don't see how they could turn me down.

Other experiments have included:
'If I really focus can I lose 30lbs in weight AND get super fit and look good in my clothes for the first time ever?'
Conclusion: Yes. But not for long. And you'll be so boring while the experiment goes on that nobody will want to know you when you're thin.

'Is it possible to teach yourself to play the piano using only songs recorded by the Pussycat Dolls?'
Conclusion: Only if you are registered deaf. Or aurally challenged, or whatever it's called these days. (This is only slightly exaggerated. It was a John Denver book I found in a charity shop. I think it was for the guitar. Explains a lot.)

'How long will it take my brother to realise that he hasn't seen or heard from me in a while?'
Conclusion: Five months. And counting. (To give him his due, he has mentioned my name to others, so he knows I'm not dead.)

The experiments will continue as I am essentially a woman of considerable factual drive and scientific curiosity. And also, I have no life. When the experiments stop I will either finally have made it, or died. I'll let you know.

21. Cancer Research UK's Race for Life

I ran it in 2008, with my friend JT who ran it much faster.

I'm going to run it again this year, in Hyde Park, in July. I'm going to run it faster this time.

It's not only a very good excuse to get in shape and stop being such a lard-butt, it's a genuinely emotional couple of hours. To be surrounded by women of all ages, shapes and sizes, who have either had cancer, or been close to someone with cancer, or just wanted to do something to help fund cancer research, is amazing. To see their families and friends come together to support them, is very moving. To see the pride on their faces when they finish, even if they have mainly walked round yakking to their mates, is amusing, but it's hard not to share that pride.

I have lost friends to cancer, but my experience more recently has been that it can be beaten. I have witnessed the miraculous, life-saving cutting edge of the science, and the daily goodness of the nurses. I have seen the system at its best, and am glad to be able to do even a very small thing to help make sure that every single person who is diagnosed with cancer gets the same care my loved ones got.

Watch out for a sponsorship form - coming round soon!

20. Cheesy beans on toast

The absolutely ideal high protein, carb-rich late Friday or Sunday night after the drive out to or home from the beach meal in minutes. Thank you Peter Mountford. The ultimate refinement is cheesy beans on cheese on toast, but Herself only lets me have that if I have been immersed in sea water for some time, or suffered some other kind of weather-based reversal.

Beans in saucepan, heat on, stir, add as much cheese as you think you'll get away with, stir til it melts, add Lea & P and pepper, pour onto toast. Eat. With HP. And a glass of the best red wine you have or, preferably, a glass of champagne. Follow that with more wine, The Bourne Ultimatum and a bar of Galaxy and feel slightly ashamed of your good fortune.

(Apologies for tardy posting. Will Try Harder.)

19. Mr Thomas of Davis & Eason, Faversham

Hello?

Oh, hello Mrs Baker, it's Mr Thomas of Davis and Eason, Market Street, Faversham.

Oh yes. Hello.

Yes Madam. I have now had an opportunity to appraise your unit, and discovered that you have a problem with your reading stack.

Ah. Have I? Right.

Oh yes. But not to worry, I have fitted you a new one and all now seems to be in order.

Great. Tha...

So it's available for collection, at your convenience.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome madam. Good bye.

Bye.



He reminds me of Mr Cayless, primary school headmaster to the stars. He's got pens in his (short-sleeved) shirt pocket. He mends stuff - a CD player in my case, that we are very fond of. He's wonderful.

18. Bumble & bumble Curl Creme

I've been trying to control my hair all my life, but only in the last 15 years have I gained any measure of success. It's a perfect storm, in hair terms, being thick, curly and abundant. (I'm not complaining.) I lose more hair every third day than some people have on their heads. (I'm not gloating.) But my hair does have a will of its own. Mainly it wants to make me look like I have some kind of disorder.

I have bought every single hair-controlling unguent available on the high street. All useless. USELESS. Unless you like having weird crispy hair that doesn't move when you put your head between your knees. Which I don't. Then about three years ago the brave soul I pay to help me control the haystack slicked this posh lookin' (and smellin') stuff all over it - and it behaved itself. Calloo! Callay! Bumble & bumble (the lower case b is their idea, not my typing. See previous blog post.) have invented this amazing curl creme and it is thanks to them that I don't just have to wear a hat all year round. They even make a special one for thick hair. They also make stuff for people with straight hair. But that's just silly.

17. Touch Typing

In the summer of 1996 a young person graduated from university and made her way back to the big smoke to start 'real' life. Concerned that a law degree was insufficient leverage for the modern world, certain perhaps that this strange geeky fruit of her loins would have no recourse but secretarial work, the young person's mother packed her off to Sight&Sound on the Charing Cross Road to be taught to touch type (plus the basics of Word and Excel).

The young person spent two weeks in front of a peculiar light board, training her brain and her fingers to work together without her eyes. It was (to be fair) quite extraordinary (in a Manchurian Candidate kind of way) when the brain did finally take over, and little by little the fingers learned to find the keys on the board without looking. In order to graduate from Sight & Sound the young person had to complete a touch-typing test showing that she could type 25 words a minute, plus create a usable spreadsheet and a table, or something. Anyway, graduate she did, and it was clear to all that only the second graduation of the summer really meant much to the mother.

I spend 8-10 hours a day at a computer these days. I must write thousands of words a day. My touch typing is not particularly fast (I think I probably do 50 words a minute, or thereabouts), but it is reasonably accurate. I had to type out something I had written in longhand yesterday, and for some reason I became slightly awe-struck by what I was doing. I think it's the same psychological hiccup as when you look at an everyday word, like SCHOOL, and for a moment all you can see is how weird it is. Then it goes back to just being school. Anyway, anyway, I was sitting typing and I thought,

'Thanks, Ma. This is a very cool weird thing to be able to do. I hope you'll forgive me for not going to work as a secretary in the city and marrying an Old Etonian and having a vast house in the country with a granny flat for you to move in to and five kids for you to spoil. But you know, now that I'm a writer, it's clear that this touch typing thing might be one of the best things I ever learned to do. It makes my life so EASY.'

16. 30 Rock - Season One

This is just the first of what might turn out to be several references to 30 Rock and Tina Fey, but it's my blog and I'm allowed.

I have never bothered watching 30 Rock on television. I mean, episodically, week after week. Because each episode is only 22 minutes long, and it's not enough. But the boxset allows me (if last evening is anything to go by) to watch ten episodes in a row, pausing only to refresh my drink and take comfort breaks.

When it first aired, 30 Rock was considered the puny puppy to the mighty Great Dane that was Studio 60. And I Iiked Studio 60, but it got cancelled before the end of its first season. 30 Rock is currently on Season 4. I think there are three main reasons for 30 Rock's victory:

1) The show within the show. Aaron Sorkin kept including his sketches, which weren't funny. This made it harder to understand what the hell they were all doing there. 30 Rock doesn't really bother with the show within the show, but when it does it's so bad it's funny. This is how we know that Tina Fey has still got her ego in check.

2) Alec Baldwin. Comedy Genius. In 30 Rock, not in Studio 60.

3) Tina Fey. Nuff said.

30 Rock is full of warmth, and joy, and cleverness. Alec Baldwin gets almost all the really best lines, but Tracy's insania, Jenna's neuroses, Kenneth's innocence and most and above all, Liz Lemon's goofy human vulnerability - all add up to a glorious whole.
When she started, it's true that TF's acting was occasionally a little wooden, but she soon loosened up and now she wins every TV acting award going. She writes, she acts, she produces. Even her American Express commercials are funny.

Anyway, 30 Rock Season One has some golden moments of TV comedy: Lemon dancing with Charisma at Dark Sensations in the Bronx, Jack Donaghy's every movement and word, Jenna's Muffin Top routine, anything to do with Dennis the Beeper King, and much much more. And best of all, the first season was really really long - so there are a gazillion episodes! Bliss.

15. Dr. Hiosous Quince Hand Lotion

Back to Bigelow's Chemist, 6th Ave below 9th Street, New York, New York.

Bigelow's mainly stocks mainstream brands, but they make a few products of their own, and this hand cream is one of them. The skin on the back of my hands is always desiccated, thanks to compulsive hand washing and London's hard water - and for years I have been searching for a handcream that soaks in quickly, isn't greasy and smells good. Yet again, Bigelow's came to my rescue.

Dr Hiosous, apparently, was a neighbourhood physician - and he commissioned Bigelow's to make this light, yummy, non-greasy cream. My favourite thing about the packaging is this:

OUR PHARMACIST'S ADVICE: For very dry hands or as a special treatment, apply a liberal amount to hands in the evening before bedtime. Slip on cotton gloves and awaken in the morning to silky, soft hands.

Bleurgh! but also - how fantastic. As President of the International Committee to Preserve and Protect Grown-Up ThumbSuckers - this gloved sleeping option is not available to me, but I suspect that it works a treat. And how kind of Bigelow's to go to the trouble of suggesting it.

My current tube of Quince Hand Cream sits on my desk, under the lamp, glowing Quincily at me. A tiny amount sorts out the worst of the scaliness, and reminds me happily of New York (so good they named it twice).

14. Jolene, by Dolly Parton

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Johhleeeeeeene,
I'm beggin' of you,
please don't take mah mayn

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Johhhleeeeeeeeenee
Please don't taike him
just because youoohooh cayahnnn

Jolene is one of those songs (and there are quite a few now I come to think about it) which make me cry - ooh - almost every time I hear them. I'm going to put it at 83% certainty, more during the third week of the month. But (and this is a big but, unlike Dolly's pert little hootenanny) I only cry at Jolene when Dolly sings it. All the other versions leave me cold.

(Hang on, I'm just going to put it on...)

Are there other songs in which a tiny little Blue Ridge Mountains songbird begs an auburn goddess not to play fast and loose with her mayahhnnn? She admits that she can't compete. 'You can eas'ly take my man but you don't know what he means to me, Jolene.' Heartbreak! Does Dolly not know that auburn haired, ivory skinned, green-eyed women are consistently rated crueller than a bagful of sleepy rattlesnakes?

I'm not sure what the song means for Feminism. Clearly Jolene is a town bike with a difference (she's a looker) but I think that Dolly's decision to approach Jolene directly is a commendable one. My own dear Herself has spent many years trying to get me to have direct conversations with people about important issues (rather than just telling either of my brothers and allowing the info to get round that way) - so I have a great deal of respect for Dolly's dead-straight attitude. And she's at a disadvantage in this fight -as she acknowledges. So she's a scrappy little pugilist, and once again, I usually favour the underDolly (as t'were). So I think part of my response to the song is that Dolly is putting aside her many billions of dollars, Dollywood, the many augmentations, the James Woods movies, the long and happy marriage - and asking another woman to do the decent thing. She clearly didn't got to an all-girls school.

Did it work?

We'll never know. I like to think it did. I think Jolene probably had a bit of a think about it (the guy in question is clearly at least as good-looking as Jon Hamm) and then agreed to leave it this time. After all, Dolly is Dolly. Take away the sequins, the nails, and the rest of the kit, and she's still Dolly. Which of us could say the same?

(and yes, I do have tears in my eyes. Can I turn it off now?)

13. Crumpets

It's February. The year is yet young, and so far all this feckless youth has had to offer us is long weeks of actual cold, leaden grey skies, nothing much to look forward to yet, too early for a holiday. Light at the end of the tunnel is provided by the occasional mild day, and the daily increase in birdsong. Red wine helps a bit, as does cashmere and the boxset of Cranford. But I'm not sure that one of the purest sources of comfort and pleasure in these times isn't the good old crumpet.

It's no good buying Tesco's own crumpets. They taste of feet. Assuming you're not so bored that you're prepared to make your own, the best crumpets are Warburton's. (Of course. Warburton's is a Yorkshire company, and most of the best things that aren't Irish come from Yorkshire.) It's important to toast them for a very long time, and I have to squish them a bit with my palm before they go in the toaster, or I get bits of crumpet stuck to the bars and end up running round the house with a broom turning off all the violently loud smoke alarms. But if you toast them til they are golden brown, they will absorb the most unlikely amount of butter. Please do not defile the experience by attempting to add jam, or any other condiment. If you want jam, eat toast. Or your own socks. The point of crumpets is thick, slightly crunchy doughy loveliness dripping lasciviously and totally unnecessarily with good salted butter. Try not to drip butter on the soft furnishings, and try not to stare at anybody in the vicinity who has yet to finish their crumpet. Most importantly, do not steal other people's crumpets and then attempt to brazen it out. Particularly if you own the only dog in the whole world who doesn't eat bread-type stuff.

There will come a point - in my experience it's usually mid-April - when the crumpet will start to lose its appeal. It is then that you had better hope that nearly four months of crumpet eating hasn't left you so fat you'll have to spend the summer in a kaftan.

12. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

The Dark is Rising is the second in a sequence of five books - The Dark is Rising Sequence. It's very simple. There is the Dark (boo) and the Light (yay!). The Dark is Rising. If the Dark (boo!) is to be vanquished, the ancient order of the Light (yay!), the Old Ones, must come together to find the six great symbols - Wood, Bronze, Iron, Water, Fire and Stone. (If you want a measure of the depth of my love for these books, I have so far had no need to refer to the books for any detail. Let's see if I can do the whole thing...)

When the Dark comes rising,
Six will turn it back,
Three from the circle,
Three from the track,
Wood, Bronze, Iron,
Water, Fire, Stone
Five will return
And one go alone

(It's a shame I can't find a way to make money out of this)

Will Stanton, otherwise ordinary Buckinghamshire boy, discovers on his 11th birthday that he is the last of the Old Ones. He is the Sign Seeker. Basically, it's up to him - but he'll get a lot of help. The other major players are three normal children, Simon, Jane and Barney; King Arthur's son, brought by Merlin through time to a distant Welsh valley and now called Bran; Merlin himself, slightly disguised but not much, and the oldest of the old ones - the Lady. The Dark (boo!) is represented by the Rider - a genuinely menacing figure with ice-blue eyes.

The Dark is Rising is the first time we meet Will - the reader goes on Will's journey of discovery with him. And what a journey it is: terrifying, exhilarating, magical, richly imagined, beautifully executed. There is a chapter, towards the end of the book, when the sky has gone almost black. Will is left stranded in the middle of nowhere, all alone. He has one last task to complete, but the Dark (boo!) is gaining power and strength with every passing minute. The air is literally alive with their shrieks of victory. Will completes his mission, and summons Herne the Hunter. Herne answers Will's call, and drives the Dark to the furthest reaches of the sky. The quality of the writing is in the depiction of Herne, who is just as frightening, and more powerful, than the Dark (boo!) - and he has no allegiance to the Light (yay!). He is ruthless, without pity, the perfect hunting machine. It is one of the most powerful passages of prose in any book of its kind I have ever read.

The sequence builds to the final confrontation - when the Light (yay!) will either drive the Dark (boo!) away forever, or be wiped out. I've got goosebumps just thinking about it.

The Dark is Rising helped pave the way for Harry Potter - and for Lyra Belacqua. It is better written than the Potters, and less alien (and didactic) than the His Dark Materials trilogy. It is steeped in myth and legend, but its learning is lightly borne.

If I was allowed to have the experience of reading one book for the first time again, I think it would be this one. I carry it with me in my soul somewhere, I think.

11. The Guardian Quick Crossword

No matter how hard I try, I cannot make my brain understand cryptic crosswords. This is one of the many ways I know that I am not that clever. But the Guardian Quick Crossword (Daily on the back of G2, inside the back of Saturday Review) has become an important part of my daily ritual.

Six o'clock (or thereabouts) comes, and the writer packs up the trusty Mac, abseils down the back of the building to the kitchen, feeds the hound, pours a perfectly French amount of wine into a glass, puts on some kind of fitting popular music, and settles down to the crossword.

Sometimes it's as if my brain has been waiting for just this kind of challenge, and the whole thing is done, in neat letters, before half the glass is empty. Sometimes the brain is made of slurry, and half an hour later only five clues have been done (and they're probably wrong) but two glasses of wine have somehow disappeared. Sometimes, but not that often, there's one I simply don't know. These clues will typically have something to do with geology or geography.

There's something thrilling about narrowing a tricky one down to three or four blank spaces, and then finding that you do know that word really, you just previously had no idea of its correct definition. And over months and years you find that your general knowledge has improved, and suddenly you got much better at Trivial Pursuit. Yes! Sitting at the kitchen table with the Quick Crossword has a useful crossover application.

I never cheat. I will sometimes ask herself if she can help, but a combination of dyslexia and sadism makes her an unreliable helper. I don't ask my mother because she sighs and wonders out loud just how much that education cost her. If I can't do it - I can't do it. But days on which I don't get to within a snifter of the full grid are few, and if a juicy swear word will fit into the recalcitrant last space, that usually seems like a fitting end.

Then I get up, and make the supper.

10. Brothers & Sisters

Brothers & Sisters is the modern version of The Sullivans. It concerns a wealthy Pasadena family, headed up by matriarch Sally Field -Nora- who has five grown-up children: Sarah, Kitty, Tommy, Kevin and Justin. Nora used to be married to Tom Skerritt, but he died in the first episode, leaving his family to discover his many affairs and dodgy business dealings. The Walkers (for that is the family name) are always telling each other's secrets, and having indescribably dysfunctional dinner parties where they all get together and find yet another family skeleton to send tumbling out of the closet. When they're not being a family, they are each allowed to have partners, careers, children etc - as long as they understand that it's really about the family and don't try to move to Boston.

In this season, Sarah's been in Europe doing some business deal (having a baby in real life), Kitty's got Lymphoma, Tommy's in a commune in Mexico because he's evading the law, Kevin and his husband are thinking about adoption, and Justin the ex-junkie ex army medic has just started at med school so he can turn his life around and marry Rebecca of the one facial expression.

By any reasonable standard, it is by far the best programme on TV.

I laugh, I cry, I become angry and frustrated (and that's just at Rob Lowe's hair). It's a soap, of course, but a high-functioning one - a bit like Grey's Anatomy, but with a family instead of a hospital. It's generally well-written, none of the storylines is too preposterous - it all looks very good and sunny. Mainly, I suppose, I identify. Just a bit. My family is really nothing like the Walkers - but Kitty and Justin have a sweet relationship that always makes me think of my little brother; the siblings row and tease their mother (as well as worrying about her all the time) they way we all do; they might drive each other crazy, but at the end of the day they are always there. It's heart-warming stuff.

It's not a clever, or glamorous, choice. It's not cool. It's just triffic. Watch it.

9. The Today Programme

Oh, I know...'yawn'. Just another middle-class liberal who doesn't have to get up and go out to a real job, pontificating about the BBC's in-house toothless terriers. But wait! Give me a chance. It's not what you think.

For the large part, the Today programme provides a soothing background burble as I emerge from sleep and attempt to engage brain and sinew. It gives me something to latch onto that isn't the sultry temptation of dreamland. In the old days, the alarm was set to come on at half-past seven, which meant that I awoke to the sports report. I don't care about sport, but Gary's got a voice well-suited to the early morning. Now that I am a slugabed writer, the alarm comes on at eight - so I get a bit of news and then left in the tender care of the Today presenters, and that's when things become interesting. I think the combinations are important. If it's Sarah and John, I know there will be a certain amount of giggling. If it's Justin and Evan, I don't think it's fanciful to suggest that you can sense the vanity, the posturing - the sexual tension? After all, Justin's got seriously perfect hair, and Evan seems to enjoy his seniority. I'm always glad to listen to Sarah, but sometimes Evan gets a bit squeaky - like today, when he was being tormented by an oiler-than-thou Tory lying about manipulating crime statistics. I understand why Evan becomes enraged, I just wish his indignation didn't make him sound so much like Julie Burchill.

Sometimes a segment will infuriate me sufficiently to catapult me out of bed and into the shower, muttering darkly. It might be John giving somebody an unreasonably hard time because he feels like it and fancies rolling some extra rrrrrs today. It might be a politician, lying and evading and disappointing. Yesterday's example was a young female playwright (a demographic of which I am generally inordinately fond) who couldn't string an articulate sentence together. It took her the best part of 10 minutes (with revivifying tea break) to adequately describe what her new play was about! I thought Baroness Warnock was going to have to practice some euthanasia, right there and then.

The mornings that begin with a rant from me often precede energetic, productive days. At very least, my weekday rendezvous with the Today programme keeps me better informed than I would be if I relied solely on the Guardian and the front cover of Reveal! magazine - my only other sources of news. For that alone, I think we should all be thankful.

Your editors today were Georgina Baker, and Spell Check. Good Morning.

8. Ibuprofen

If, like me, you have bad knees and a tendency to tension headaches, ibuprofen is a wonder drug. It calms the swollen gammy knees, eases the poor aching head, and restores the George to equilibrium. If you add two ibuprofen to a pint of beer, you have a failsafe sleeping draught. (This is not for everybody, particularly small children.)

They're cheap, they're widely available, they always work, and if my experience is anything to go by, you can take up to four at any one time without too many serious side-effects. (Again, I'm not sure if a medical professional would whole-heartedly endorse this view.)

It's not that I don't love paracetamol - I do. But when the chips are down, I know that I can count on Ibuprofen. And also, they're usually covered in sugary stuff, which tastes nicer.

7. Driving

When I was a runner on a TV show, based in the Cotswolds for a month - I drove a different car every day. I'd have to move the director's car, or the 1st AD's, and on one memorable occasion I had to drive a 12 seater landrover through some high-sided narrow lanes without a map, without being able to find the lights, very quickly. That was fun. In Yorkshire two years ago my friend Liz put me on her insurance for the weekend, and late on the Saturday night I found myself driving her, my mother and my partner, through a snowstorm down Sutton Bank (a 1 in 5 gradient). That was hairy. But fun.

For a few years my in-laws owned a lovely old MG. Driving that round the lanes of Suffolk was bliss, and I was sad when they sold it. One day I will own something similar, kept simply for the pleasure that kind of driving brings me. I'll have to be rich.

For me driving has never lost that bittersweet taste of freedom and self-determination, but that's what I love about it. I have been a licensed driver for 18 years, and the idea of not being able to do it - of never passing that test - is unimaginable. I pity those who can't drive, but maybe they are not speed-addicted control freaks. I don't mind being driven (depends who's doing the driving) but just as my father always did the big drives (unless he was banned), and let my Mum do the 'town' driving, I find myself preferring to be responsible for transporting my little family long distances, and not being so bothered about driving the dog to the park. Just another aspect of my control-freakery, I suspect, but maybe a gentle subconscious nod to what I hope will be a lifetime of enjoyment. Maybe I have to limit my exposure, to truly enjoy the experience. Maybe that is true of other aspects of my life? Hmm. I'll have to think about that, next time I'm on a long journey.