I’ve been preparing for visitors this evening, making up beds, finding towels, doing posies of flowers (actually – don’t tell on me but some of them are officially ‘weeds’ – I hope she doesn’t mind but I thought they looked fab) and food ready for their arrival.

It’s very strange that I’m preparing for the arrival of a friend and yet I won’t see her when she arrives. She’ll be here and I’ll be somewhere else. So, I want to make sure it’s all nice for her. That she’s comfortable and well looked after by her host despite her host being in another place.

The fire is laid, there are chocolates, cakes and biscuits in the fridge, a loaf of bread in the bread machine and there are as many goodies as I can think of.

These chocs are for her and I hope she doesn’t mind me getting them out of the box to photograph before she arrives – she does know my obsession only too well, having been its subject a few times before. I have been practicing my now nearly famous in my own lunchtime trick of a mix of flash and tungsten light to give the chocs a nice warm tone – it works for me.

This weekend is going to be strange – I will explain all as it unfolds and as the series of activities that we have planned actually happen. I doubt I’ve had such a packed weekend for many months if not years.

David and I have this strange thing since we’ve been doing our PADs – our parents worry about us. If I don’t post for a few days and my folks don’t know I’m away, they get all fretful. Last time it happened, I said to my Mum ‘I’ll bet you thought David had done away with me and my body was in bits in the freezer didn’t you?’ My Mum laughed and replied that any fool could see how much he loved me and that you just don’t do that to someone you love so she knew I was perfectly safe.

The same thing has happened today – DMs folks phoned to check he wasn’t under that new patio I’ve been planning! (Hopefully they too realise I’d never do that to him!) The truth is that he’s been persuaded by me that it’s not good to post pics without a signature on pbase because there are lots of nasty folks out there who think it’s fair game to just help themselves to pics on pbase. Which, of course, it’s NOT! Anyway, he wrote me a little thingy and all I do is click a button in photoshop and there it is, my signature on my pics – it works a treat – all I have to do is change the colour and reposition to where I want it. He, however, can’t do the same thing for himself because he’s not got such good photoshop on the Mac as I’ve got on the PC! So you see – there is something the Mac can’t do for him……now wait for the torrent of abuse I’m going to get for daring to suggest it’s the Mac’s fault – it’s not, of course, it’s Bill Gates’s fault – as is everything from the price of fish to global warming. (Or so DM would have you believe.)

I will just mention a little secret – shhhhhh don’t tell him…….I LOVE Microsoft. Yep – it’s true. All of these lovely things I can do in Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Windows that I couldn’t do before and guess what? I can send stuff from work, to home and back to work again and I barely notice a thing. It’s fantastic.

Oh blimey – now the cat’s out of the bag – I reckon I’m for the frosties tonight now.

Oh and another thing - I really think that you'll thank me for mentioning that a pop over to www.lush.co.uk today will give you a great big giggle - I laughed so much that it's made my day......go Lush - show the world how it's done!

Last year, I was in London in scorching temperatures - this year the poor souls there are experiencing flooding - I'm glad I was 'there and back' this week.