June was good and wet. July was good and FINALLY hot & sunny! AT LAST!! It feels like I've been waiting a decade for good weather. Crazy to think that it's only just over six months since I was baking in the antipodean summer...

So anyway, here's my end of June and start of July in a nutshell: FABULOUS!

The last few days of June & the first couple of days of July I was in Tenerife. Bernhard has a couple of mates in Regensburg who holiday there every year for a fortnight, and we decided to take an apartment in the same block as theirs for a week. We were based in Puerto de la Cruz, but we had a hire car for the duration and we made good use of it, travelling all over the island.

Highlights of Tenerife for me include the natural (Punta Teno in the northwest with its craggy hills; the black beaches of Benijo in the northeast; and of course the joys of the Teide volcano, Spain's highest mountain), the cultural (UNESCO World Heritage at La Laguna, the template for Spain's cities in Latin America; local colour at La Orotava; the twee town of Garachico built on an apron of lava), the social (good times with Reinhard & Peter; good times with Bernhard; meeting a few friendly locals, including our La Laguna tour guide David), and of course the cuisine (papas arrugadas, the wrinkly salty boiled potatoes; tapas galore; cheese; wine; sausage; fish; and more papas arrugadas).

I'd only been back in Munich a week before my next highlight, of quite a different kind: I went on a yodelling seminar in the mountains!! So I can now officially yodel - I've got a Diploma and everything! And the craziest part of it all is that I really didn't learn much at all. I'm what they call a Natural Talent. Yay! (In this as in so many other things, I hear you all cry...)

One week further on into July it was Christopher Street Day (CSD), which is German for Gay Pride. This was Munich's 30th annual pride festival, and the parade was really quite impressive. Okay, it wasn't Sydney, but it was long & lively nonetheless. Michaela & I walked through town and enjoyed the day. We even ran into Ivana, our favourite waitress from the tapas bar called Bar Teatro.

In the evening I had beers with Bernd in the spirit of CSD, after our very unfortunately-timed choir concert in Schwabing. But we weren't too badly-behaved because the following day we had another choir concert in church in the morning, followed by a day-trip to a church in the Tyrol. In the bus on the way back home I taught everyone to yodel. Well, I've got a Diploma after all!

And the last weekend of July I was in England! I flew to Gatwick and caught the train to Guildford, then spent a couple of nights at Chris & Kate's, spending lots of quality time with Sophie - who has morphed from a gorgeous girl into a gorgeous teenager! - and having more quality with Livi & Chris & Kate too.

I took a hire car on Saturday & drove to Winchester, where I visited the famous - and huge - cathedral, before continuing my journey to Lyme Regis (a seaside resort that just sounds like one of those places you ought to have been to in your life) and ending up outside Exmouth for Dawn's 40th birthday casino party event. MADNESS! Everyone was there: Siobhán, Helena, Caroline, Mim, and of course Dawnie. What a night!

On Sunday, after a VERY hung-over fry-up at Dawn's favourite beachside greasy spoon, I drove up to Frome to visit Steve & Andrea and their gorgeous kids Natalie, Nicholas & Jacob. I haven't seen Steve & Ange in years & years. It was SO GOOD to catch up again! And on Monday I had another well-overdue catch-up, this time with Laura and her two lovely babies Paul & Samuel, who I met for lunch in Devizes.

Then I had to rush back to Guildford to return the car, walk along the river Wey to the railway station, and head into London to visit Simon & Hester & their girls near Turnpike Lane. Which was marvellous! Hester cooked a delicious lamb tajine and the girls were both delightful. I can't get over how much like Simon's dad they both look.

On the Monday I had coffee with Simon in Camden before meeting up with Lorna in Dulwich Village for a pub lunch. Then I had to head to Gatwick for my flight home. Only the flight home was CANCELLED bloody EasyJet! They put us up in a hotel - but not before leaving everyone wondering what the hell was going on for three hours (the flight was due to leave at 6.30pm but no information went up on any screens until after nine o'clock!). Our plane was even an hour late leaving the next morning.

So a slightly sour taste to end my English experience on - matched by the slightly bitter initial arrival experience of being herded onto the airport bus from the plane to the terminal like cattle. But this negativity was balanced by the general wondrousness of the six days.

And I'd even had a pang of homesickness for Blighty on my very first day back there, when I was in Guildford town centre and needed to draw some money from a cash machine: I went to my bank, saw the two cash machines in the wall, and - how my heart leapt! - saw that a SINGLE queue had spontaneously formed in front of the two holes in the wall. This could only happen in England, spiritual home of the queue.

And that, my dears, was July.