Holidays on Mars

The thing about skiing is that it's so completely different from anything else that you would ever do that it's a bit like having taken a holiday on Mars. "What did you do on holiday Marie?" "Oh, I just drove to the top of a snowy mountain, put on seventeen layers of clothing and a thick smear of factor 50 sunscreen, forced my feet into the most painful boots you can possibly imagine which weigh about six tonnes each, strapped fibreglass planks to the bottom of my feet, sat on an open chair swinging high above the ground in sub-zero temperatures, and then threw myself down the mountain as fast as I could go. Repeatedly. For a week." Result? I feel as if I have been off the planet for about a month. On the way home (Easyjet flight full of vomiting South Africans, but still miles preferable to the demon Ryanair) I fantasised lightly about how much all my friends would have missed me and how delighted they'd be to have me back, and then I remembered I had only been gone one WEEK. A blink of an eye. I think it's like light speed travel, it's changed the speed of time.

And now I'm back and I've realised that it's only two days til the great inaugural Woman Who Talked Too Much book club! Had you forgotten? Yes team, we will be discussing Ali and Nino here on Thursday, I hope you've all been busy reading. I finished it a while back and can report that it is... no, that would be showing my hand. I can report that it is short. So you can make it if you try. Or possibly if you go to a skiing resort right now and interfere with the passing of time...