Oh dear, I didn't quite manage to keep my promise to write about August during August itself. But hey, shit happens. August was ridiculously busy, with more weekend away breaks than you can shake a well-travelled stick at! So I was busy living it and not writing it, sorry. As my dear (and now pregnant!!) friend Hester would say, "Ah, get over it!"

The headlines:

(Okay, actually this happened in July, but I forgot to write about it) I finally did a bit of sunbathing on the banks of the Isar, with Lorna. The water was extremely fresh, but it really was hot enough to need the cooling effect of the fast-flowing river. We finished off our afternoon of bugger all by eating (at Lucullus - where else? - because it's nearby), drinking (at an Italian up the road where we also shared a portion of tiramisù), and eating again (yummy ice cream!).

And (yep, this was in July too, dammit) I rounded off my month with a most relaxing acupressure massage from my mate Uwe, who is studying to be a practitioner of alternative medicine. He does the whole works, with incense & relaxation music, and once again I actually fell asleep, I was so relaxed! I tell you, it's ages since I had that much fun with clothes on.

So, finally coming to August, there was more general consumption of foodstuffs and beverages, accompanied by mirth and merry-making, in the shape of Schnitzels on a Tuesday night with Matthias & Andy, beers with Hias, and sushi & cocktails with Lorna & Phil, who is now living in Munich too (yet another Powergen recruit to the dark arts of E.ON Trading).

Then came Trip Number One, to the UK for a week. I saw many friends and lots of family, and naturally the inside of several excellent restaurants, among them the trendy new Gilgamesh in Camden (Asian fusion, which translates into small but perfectly formed portions of sushi, Chinese ribs, spring rolls, pepper squid and the like) and the mind-blowingly fabulous Eritrean restaurant Mosob in Westbourne Park - really quite splendid.

Another culinary highlight - and also a social one - was the fabulous barbecue at Justin & Sam's new house in Ham. Pretty much all my uni mates were there, including one I haven't seen for ages, John who I went to California with back in '95.

The Tuesday was a big family day. I went with Chris, Kate & the girls up to Welwyn Garden City to visit dearest ancient Aunty Mary. There we were met not only by Michaela & the boys, but also our fabulous cousin Jim who I haven't seen in decades. We sat in the garden of our usual Welwyn pub all afternoon and had a proper chinwag. I do love our family!

On Wednesday the eight of us siblings & offspring went and had a big photoshoot in Woking. The photographers specialise in shots of kids and family happiness, and we had an hour in a white room with dozens of different games and poses. I can't wait to see the outcome! (Michaela & Christopher both chose some great - if expensive - pictures, which I shall be able to enjoy on their walls in the near future).

Thursday saw my departure from Guildford, and I caught the train out to deepest darkest Wiltshire, where I met up with Laura and her partner Robin. It was fabulous to see Laura again after so long, and to meet Robin a second time (I first met him a few years back at a dinner in London). Their house is right in a tiny English village, and it was a big contrast to the Big Smoke.

Friday was fucked up. I missed my plane to Munich by five minutes (and, most annoyingly, it was my own stupid fault), and consequently had the joy of sitting around Stansted airport for eight hours, until my hastily-purchased flight to Nuremberg left. And that on top of the massive terrorist scare, so UK airports were screwed anyway. I sat hating myself quietly in a corner and caught up with current affairs in the form of two issues of The Economist. War, terror, war, terror, and more war. The world isn't really a happy place at the moment is it.

Thankfully, there's a little bubble of joy that floats around me at all times. Someone recently described me as sunshine, which sounds über cheesy but I hope is true. And it wasn't even someone trying to get into my knickers! No, in fact it was feedback from my manager at work. So there!

Me & my bubble survived the crawl of trains through the night to get back to my place in Munich at 4am in the pissing rain. I had a bit of a moment, actually, when I got into my flat. I felt a surge of relief after the hellish journey, a warm contentment in my belly at seeing my bed, and a wave of acceptance that I now live in Munich. I am not travelling, I am being. Roots have been put down. I live here.

Five hours, some sleep and a shower later, I hot-footed it back to the airport. Because Trip Number Two beckoned: my long weekend in Finland. I went to visit my fabulous friend Nea (who I knew from Melbourne) and her wonderful boyfriend Otto, who is a chef. Yep, you guessed it! We ate and drank and made merry the whole time. With the added Finnish twist of naked saunas every night. Mmmm!

Tampere is a medium-sized town a couple of hours north of Helsinki, which is set idyllically on a huge lake ringed with pine forest (soooo Finnish). Where to start with my story? I got off the bus from the airport (having there said a fond farewell to Kaisu, a Finnish woman living in Innsbruck who I sat next to on the plane and with whom I shared the trials of our two-hour delay in leaving Munich) and stood in a completely new place.

It was a bit daunting, because I don't speak a word of Finnish and you really can't work out what ANYTHING says, it's such a different language. Thankfully, Nea could give me directions to the coffee shop where her friend Hanna works. I was in desperate need of a big fat latte at this stage, and Hanna came up with the goods. Before long, Nea arrived from work and took me to Otto's house. And what a house! The whole place smells fantastically of pine, which isn't surprising given that it's a wooden house, but it's really amazingly beautiful in an old farmhouse kind of way, complete with tiled oven heating and crazy wooden beams. And a sauna!

We had a couple of beers and some averna while we got ready to go out for dinner, then we went and had yummy food (including snails - yay!) and more drinks. Hanna joined us on that night's pub crawl, which took us from Frankly's restaurant to Teerenpeli (where we enjoyed the first of many lonkero, the Finnish citrus alcopop that predates Smirnoff Ice by some decades) and then to Old Brick's Inn (which was an English pub inasmuch as you can get Tetley's there). Then we walked across town back to Otto's for the afterparty sauna and drinks in the garden. By the time we went to bed, the sun was already rising. Well, it was after five...

Tune in again soon to enjoy more adventures in Finland, plus the other half of August!