So I've decided to interpolate my series of bulletin-style blogs on recent events with one that takes a little more time to think about a few small things that have happened over the last few weeks. Things that made me smile or think or cry but which don't really count as headline events.

Did I mention how, the other day at breakfast, I managed to drop a whole jar of jam into my coffee? I was impressed at the coexistence in one dumbarse action of both luck and beauty:

1) the jar slipped from my hand (literally a case of butter fingers), and proceeded to drop vertically into the cup, sending a plume of coffee straight up into the air above the table, which then rained down onto the base of the jar and cascaded back into the cup, almost entirely avoiding the tablecloth.

2) meanwhile, the coffee cup, instead of shattering and sending scalding shards of china in all directions, survived the fruity encounter with only a tiny chip out of the rim! It was truly one of those moments where you wish you could do a slow-motion replay of your life.

The sheer complexity of the feelings I experienced on landing in Barcelona was quite overwhelming. A mixture of excitement, recognition, joy and that feeling you get when you return somewhere you love; but also a fear that I was overhyping it all for myself, plus a tiny bit of anxiety at arriving in a new airport and having to work out how to get into town. Catalonia went on to dispel utterly any thought that my excitement was overdone: I had the best time with my Catalan friends.

The flight down to Barcelona was totally exciting as well. There was barely a cloud in the sky, and I have never had such a delicious view of the full length of the Alps as I had that evening, the orangey-pink dusk creeping between peaks into craggy valleys and the (minimal amounts of) snow shining invitingly up.

Plus two cool man-made things: we flew almost directly over a big power station, and the steam emanating from the cooling tower rose impressively up about half-way to the plane, so some 5000 metres; and then right over the Alps we flew pretty much straight through another plane's vapour trail, which was cool, because from the ground they all look gleaming white, but when you're in one you can see how filthy black the exhaust from jet engines really is.

A couple of amusing quotes from recent weeks:

[on Mel & Kim] "Well God didn't like them either; he killed one of them." (I would like to distance myself from this opinion. When I was at school, Mel Appleby was my dream woman.)

[on Sanssouci palace in Potsdam] "Sau romantisch!" (which translates to something like "that's proper romantic, that is")

[advice to a gay couple] "You're two guys together. Maybe it's time for some straight talk." (Oh, purr-leaze!!!)

[on a school trip to China] "So we were given all these presents that were shit, like nuts. And they were from a guy called Dick. So we nibbled on Dick's nuts all night."

I can't wait to try out the avocado slicing gadget that I bought in Geneva! I've been rushing about that much recently that I haven't found the time even for a spot of vegetable shopping (or indeed fruit shopping, for the pedants among us). It's green and plastic and claims to fit all sizes. Yay!

Okay, I haven't written about any incidents that made me cry. But to be honest, there haven't been any. My life - or my perception of my life - would I am sure interest a psychologist, because I am altogether a happy-go-lucky kind of dude. True, I reflect a lot on what's going on, and it's not all roses, but on the whole I can say I appreciate every minute of my time on this earth. Which isn't a bad way to be, if you ask me.