I'm in London!!

Even though it's a gloriously sunny day, I'm taking time indoors to update you, my beautiful readership, on my comings and goings of recent days. THAT's how much I love you!

So I was in Berlin with Michaela. We stayed at Caro & Anton's house in Neukölln, which is an area with a bit of a reputation for gang warfare and various flavours of crime. But it's all in fact totally normal round there: a little run-down, perhaps, but full of the vigour of a multi-ethnic population peppered with funky students and left-leaning institutions. It's great!

The weather over the Easter weekend in Berlin was pants. Which is all the more galling when you consider that the rest of Germany was having a heatwave! I kept having friends in Munich telling me how it was 20 degrees and sunny, when we were sat in a grey, drizzly 11 degrees!

Weather notwithstanding, we managed to have a fabulous time of it. We had six days, so there was no desperate rush to fit everything in. Instead, we took our time, and it really felt like a holiday. Caro did a splendid job of being tour guide, taking us to visit the toilets of a series of five-star hotels around the centre of town (our favourite was the Hôtel de Rome on Bebelplatz, where the Nazis burnt the books in the '30s) and other top sights.

Here's the highlights - in chronological order, no less:

Day 1 Tegel airport (Caro met us, the angel!) - her house - a few hours' kip (well it was a very early start) - spot of local shopping - into town - wander round Hackesche Höfe - coffee & snacks - arty shop - home for dinner (Caro's cooking rocks).

Day 2 To Alexanderplatz - walk down Unter Den Linden - Radisson hotel with cool tower-shaped aquarium with internal lift - Aussie ice cream shop - Tajik Tea Shop - German memorial to dead of war, totalitarianism & stuff - Bebelplatz (underground empty library to remember books) - Gendarmenmarkt (beautiful square with concert hall and churches) - funky interior design of shopping centre by Jagdfeld - big walk along Friedrichstraße - Aboriginal art exhibition (plus a really amazing film of Aboriginal artists at work) - Bohemian outdoor art space - stroll along Oranienburgstrasse (red light district & restaurants) - dinner in a very funky restaurant - drinks in Schöneberg.

Day 3 Winterfeld market (amazing honey stand) - wander to Schöneberg - train to Potsdam - walk through old town - Dutch quarter - late lunch in a Breton crepe restaurant (mmm! cider) - walk from Sanssouci Palace to Neues Palais - train back to Berlin - drinks near Alex.

Day 4 Brunch at Mexican restaurant with Caro's friend Sara - into town (just me & Michaela) - cheesy tour bus trip (second commentator was much much better) - Jewish memorial - back to Caro & Anton's for light dinner of Russian pelmeny - drink at Syndikat left-wing bar - evening of telly & crisps.

Day 5 A slower day at last! - spa, sauna & swimming in view of the Memorial Church at Berlin Zoo with Michaela - stupendous buffet dinner at Caro & Anton's with my friends Mireia & David and Anton & Caro's three friends who arrived that day from Volgograd (bringing delicious vodka with them that we proceeded to drink all evening).

And then on day 6 it was time to fly home. The weather was grey and drizzly, as indeed it had been for most of our weekend in Berlin, but somehow that didn't matter. We left feeling relaxed, refreshed and happy.