CROATIA: It's hard to believe there is another world out there - one in which I have to do things for myself, rather than lie around on our friends' super superyacht in Croatia - but my inbox is bulging with tales from the winter festival, and I'm longing to see and congratulate the refurbished Annie Gallaway and Tracey Roxburgh fresh from the 12-week challenge.
I'm not sure 12 weeks would be enough to refurbish my own ample self after a week of total decadence having my every need met by the yacht's six crew before I even knew a need existed.
I shall sleep uneasily, if at all, tonight, worrying how I will cope in the third-world slum that is my sister's house in Wimbledon. How will she know that I now expect my dirty clothes to be picked up from the floor and returned washed and ironed within a couple of hours? What if my glass gets dangerously close to half full before she notices that it needs topping up?
Cruising in Croatia is bliss. Even the water in the marinas is gin clear and litter-free. We have tried to learn a bit of the local lingo, but are concerned that the writer of our guidebook is getting back at English speakers who laugh at some of the Croatian manglings.
The book claims that "bok" means "hello", but when you say it, the only response is a big fat nothing or a confused "bonjour". My darling said that "bok" could be something along the lines of "your father is a Serbian sissy" or some such merry taunt.
Yesterday at a museum we discovered that the archaeological treasures found in local waters had been donated by fishermen and spongers. It seemed a little cruel to lump hardworking and generous Croatian fishermen in with idle dole bludgers, but we have since learnt that "spongers" is short for sponge divers.
My darling could become a sponger or sponge diver or whatever now that he has mastered the marvellous SeaBob in our boat's massive arsenal of big boys' toys. SeaBob is a device you hold with both hands and it turns you into a dolphin (quite a fat, hairy dolphin in my darling's case) and allows you to hurtle above and below the water at quite high speeds.
From humiliating personal experience I can warn anyone planning to give it a go that SeaBob does not love bikinis.
In between "seabobbing", sunbathing and snorkelling in search of ancient Roman treasures, I've been devouring the huge stack of books I brought with me. The one haunting me the most is Patrick Hennessy's excellent memoir The Junior Officers' Reading Club.
This young officer is only a few years older than our five children and I am very, very glad to only be a soldier's daughter as I would hate to be a soldier's mother.
He writes about his training at Sandhurst, which mostly seems to involve housekeeping and sweating and trying to work out what soldiering is about. Suddenly, his great wish to go somewhere exciting comes true and he's off to Afghanistan. Be careful what you wish for.
His writing is so fresh and immediate that I was actually there with him in Afghanistan and hating every moment. Two little words like "fixing bayonets" look like nothing on the page and then you realise what it really means.
Many great British reviewers have picked this as a future classic and I couldn't agree more.
This life of luxury is heavenly but I am aching to get back to hoar frosts and frozen pipes. We watched the wonderful Ata Whenua DVD about Fiordland last night and I felt even more desperate to get home to our own bit of heaven.
The almond stuffed, brandy-soaked figs are brilliant, and so is the grilled octopus, but nothing beats a Kappa lunch and a Patagonia hot chocolate. Yum yum, home. Can't wait.
