It’s Friday and I’m on my way home. Whoopee.

I’ve learned a lot about travelling over the past few weeks, including a number of useful tips about how to make life easier and more comfortable for myself. Tip 1 is simple – one bag and make it a wheeled one! I left home with one and have ended up returning with a shoulder bag with my laptop and other essential equipment in it as well as my wheelie. That may not sound like too much of a pain but believe me, when you’re lugging around two heavy bags (plus handbag with 10d in it which adds yet more weight and bulk) and trying to get on and off trains and into and out of taxis, it’s no fun.

Not only that but I’ve ended up with a red welt on my shoulder where the laptop bag has been chafing and it makes me look like a love-sick teenager with a love bite. It’s a bit embarrassing really.

Train travel is generally pretty stress-free and certainly beats the pants off driving but today’s train (presumably because it’s Friday) is heaving with people and every seat is taken so it’s a bit of a free-for-all with seats being fought over – quite literally! I’m in the seat of a ‘no show’ so am all right despite the fact that my booked seat is on the next train!!! I like to think that the person who didn’t show whose seat I’m in will him/herself be in the seat I’m supposed to be in later.

I got a lucky break today and had an important client meeting booked at the last minute and in a location that is part of the way home. How cool is that? It meant I managed to get on an earlier train and I will be meeting DM at a sensible time rather than really late this evening. I do love it when client visits make life easy instead of difficult.

Not only that, but the weather was truly horrible when I boarded this train in Reading and has been getting gradually nicer as I’m en route to home. (I still LOVE being able to call Cornwall home, I doubt the novelty will ever wear off.) There are cotton wool clouds and big patches of blue everywhere I look. I’m only home for a couple of days but I’m so looking forward to it. Roll on 6pm when I’ll be back with the real-life flesh and blood things I love – no more need to console myself with photos, I’m getting the real deal in just two short hours time. Hurrah!

So, I’m home now and looking for a picture. I’m sitting on the sofa, looking at the shadows on the wall and finding myself drawn to the shadow of the pepper mill. So, I thought, what better way to celebrate being at home than to photograph something spicy and hot…..just like us really……(probably in our dreams more than real life if truth be told!)

Last year I was watching the detectives and the year before, Sherri was giving us her finest!