Rubin and I just heard the best joke ever:

We’re totally not going to tell you what it was though. Sorry.

Today I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I would start up a Tumblr. Well, all the cool kids were doing it, and you know, me, if there’s a bandwagon in town, I’ll… well, I’ll probably wait a year or so and then I’ll jump right on it. Slowly. (Also, it bothered me that there was a blogging platform I hadn’t used. )

So I got me a Tumblr. Five minutes after I published my first post, I got my first spam comment.

Seven minutes after I published my first post, I got my first piece of personal abuse, from someone telling me I “look so much better when I don’t show my face.”

I deleted the Tumblr. I figure people have enough ways to abuse me on the Internet already.

(Seriously, though, maybe I was just unlucky, but worst blogging experience ever. I’d been wondering for ages why it was so popular and… I’m still wondering. Anyone?)

p.s. Nominate  TheFashionPolice.net in the Cosmo Blog Awards? Or Shoeperwoman.com? Or hey-dollface.com? Pretty please?

Yes, folks, it’s true! The least popular section of my blog ever is back by… well. I was going to say “by popular demand”, but that would be an exaggeration too far, even for me. But! It is true to say that some a few two of you requested to see some more of my holiday photos, so the Friday Photo limps from the ashes! (“GOOD GRIEF, don’t encourage her!” I hear the rest of you cry. “Or she’ll still be talking about this freaking holiday at Christmas.” And you know what? I probably will.)

This is probably my favourite photo of the whole trip. It’s Clearwater beach at sunset, photographed by Terry, using our swish new camera, which was purchased shortly before we left. Did I mention we purchased a swish new camera shortly before we left? Well, we did. It is technically “my” camera, and was really bought for “me” to take blog photos with (not for this blog! Don’t worry!), but I think I took maybe five shots with it in three weeks, because Terry guarded it like a jealous lover, carrying it with him at all times, and barking instructions at the rest of us, like a Nikon-wielding Sergeant Major. In most of the photos that resulted from the holiday, we may look like we’re smiling, but our faces are actually just frozen in fear as we stand there with Terry shouting, “AMBER! Take that look off your face! NORMA! Hold your leg at a 32 degree angle to your body! NO! That’s thirty ONE degrees! That’s spoiled it completely, we’ll have to start again: PLACES, EVERYONE!”

I swear I’m not exaggerating about this. On one particularly memorable occasion, we were having dinner when Terry, attempting to take a photo of all four of us, turned to me and barked, “AMBER! Put your head in the middle of the table!” And he couldn’t understand why my parents and I thought that was funny. I mean, I know it might seem like my head screws right off, but it obviously doesn’t. Because if it did, I’d probably have left it at Sanford airport by now, or on top of the car roof, or some such place.

You know what? I’ve come this far, so I may as well just show you the photo of my head in the middle of the table, no? Here it is:

Terry was NOT happy with this, let me tell you. For, in attempting to follow his instructions and place my head in the middle of the table, I succeeded only in making myself look like a giant growth sprouting out of the side of his head. Athena and Zeus, or just Terry and his Terrible Twin? You decide.

I can’t even BEGIN to tell you the grief my dad got over this attempt at a self-timed shot, which he failed to take his designated place for at the allotted time:

You can tell by my mum’s face and Terry’s fixed grin that we all knew what was going to happen here, can’t you? As punishment, Terry made my dad stand a little away from the rest of us for the remainder of the night:

He had to sit on the Naughty Step when he got home, too. He won’t be making that mistake again in a hurry.

But I digress. I was going to talk about Clearwater and its beautiful sunset, which is the subject of the first photo (and also my desktop wallpaper, replacing Microsoft’s seminal ‘Gigantic Green Leaf’). It was gorgeous. The light had this amazing quality to it, which made everything look so soft and dreamlike. The huge pink building you can see is the hotel we had dinner in that night, and the photo was taken from the pier, which we walked to the end of to watch the sun sink into the sea. Not long after this had happened (and mighty fine it was, too), I was watching the man next to me fishing from the end of the pier, when he reeled in his line, and do you know what was on the end of it?

A GIANT CRAB WAS ON THE END OF IT.

Yes, I came face to face with my old nemesis on Clearwater Pier. Or at least, I would have come face to face with my old nemesis if it wasn’t for the fact that as soon as I saw its evil and grotesque form break the surface of the water and come swinging towards land, I got the hell outta dodge, as fast as my little legs could carry me.

It didn’t spoil the sunset. But I was glad I’d seen it after I’d been in the water rather than before…

(I am never so happy as I am when I’m on holiday…)

Whoops, by going on holiday, I’ve gone and lost all my readers again. For those of you still grimly hanging on in there a) thank you! and b) I’m just popping in to say that I took pity on you, sucked it up and coughed up the money to renew my Flickr Pro account, so I could post all one million and twelvty of my holiday photos over there, rather than forcing you all to sit through them here, like one of those boring relatives who drinks all your tea and talks for hours about their awesome! vacation! I would never do that, obviously. I’d drink all of your wine instead…

Anyway, since I’ve been home, absolutely nothing has happened. Seriously, nothing. I HATE being home. On Sunday night, I woke up in an absolute panic, totally unable to work out where I was, and convinced that the mirrored wardrobe doors (I HATE mirrored wardrobe doors) in front of me were actually windows. I was terrified. And then, when I finally realised that I was, in fact, in my own bed, in my own home? I was gutted.

(Then last night? Last night Terry woke up to find me standing at the bottom of the bed, absolutely hysterical, and screaming at him to GET OUT OF BED NOW BECAUSE OMG THERE IS TOTALLY A CRAB IN THERE!” The calmer he remained, the more hysterical I became (I mean, for God’s sake, CRAB! In the BED!), until he finally had to force me to sit down (me making “crab eyes” at the corner of the bed the whole time, and repeat veeeerrryyy sssllooowwwllly that there was. no. crab. in. the. bed. And I didn’t believe him, so I went to take refuge in the bathroom, and it was only once I got there, with the light switched on, that I started to think that hey, maybe that crab I saw wasn’t actually real. I still checked for it when I got back to bed though.)

Anyway, the photos are here. If you make it through them all, congratulations, you have better stamina than me. I’m pretty sure there are shots there that I even I couldn’t be bothered looking at. Also, someone found my blog today after searching for “Forever Amber’s shoes” so rather than disappoint that person and risk turning away a potential reader (HI! Come in! Pull up a chair! Would you like to see my holiday snaps?), here are the shoes I bought on my second-last day in Florida:

Vivienne Westwood for Melissa. On sale. Want them in every colour now.

(I’ve just realised that that person may have been searching for shoes belonging to the heroine of the BOOK Forever Amber. In which case, this will have been a crushing disappointment, for sure…)

P.S. My cold is a little better, but the coughing would be keeping me awake at night if I wasn’t still on American time, and lying awake all night anyway, watching for CRABS.

P.P.S. Sanford Airport never replied to my email about my jacket. Curses.

Well, folks, I brought an unexpected souvenir back from Florida: a heavy cold, which arrived the day before we left and gleefully packed its bags and hopped along with me for the plane ride home this morning/yesterday/whenever the hell that was. Don’t worry, though: I may have taken something with me (other than the five pairs of shoes, seven (!) dresses, two jackets and numerous other items, that is), but I left Florida something to remember me by, in the shape of my favourite blue jacket, which was last seen in the terminal at Sanford airport, and hasn’t been since. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, this relentless losing of clothes, but nope, each new loss is like a dagger to my heart, seriously.

Also lost: almost all of the video Terry took of our vacation, which he downloaded onto my laptop, and which my laptop proceeded to EAT FOR DINNER. Yeah. (Yes, we’ve tried every bit of recovery software known to man. No, it didn’t really work, although we did manage to recover about 60% of the footage, which I shall no doubt bore you with later.)

So, I’m home. I haven’t slept since Friday night, but I don’t feel remotely tired so I’ve just been outside and weeded the garden, which had returned to the wild during our absence, while Terry mowed the lawn. As I sat there, tugging up weeds (or possibly flowers: you never really know with me) with my bare hands, a plane crossed the sky above us, and I sat back and watched it. “Isn’t it strange to think,” I said to Terry, “that just a few hours ago we were up there in the sky, and a few hours before that we were all the way across the Atlantic? And now here we are, pulling up weeds in our excuse for a garden.”

It IS weird. Every time I take a flight, in fact, it reminds me of how small the world really is. It’s just not small enough, though, unfortunately, and sadly for me, the post-holiday blues have kicked in with a vengeance. From the moment I got up on Saturday morning and started systematically erasing all evidence of my existence from our rented house, to the sad opening of my suitcase on the wrong side of the Atlantic, every unpacked item provoking a new memory (“Last time I wore this, we went…” “Oh, this is what I wore that time we…”), I have felt like crying. God, aren’t first world problems a bitch?

Anyway. I should go and take some cold remedy and get some sleep. Hopefully I’ll be feeling much better in the morning…

I’ve actually already posted some of these over at Shoeperwoman, but on the off-chance that there’s anyone still reading over here, too, here are some photos from our High Tea at the Grand Floridian, which is something I highly recommend doing if you ever find yourself in this part of the world…

I know this is essentially an action replay of my holiday LAST year, but oh look, Neiman Marcus had a sale on!

Uh-oh.

Minutes after buying these, I tried to buy a cheap dress in Forever 21, and … my debit card got rejected. Turns out my bank now require me to let them know where I am at all times, and if I don’t, they will block my card when I try to buy something. (It’s either that or Terry has paid them to just block the card anyway…) They hadn’t bothered to tell me this, though, and in order for me to find out about it I had to:

1. Drive 5 miles up the highway, because there’s no cellphone reception in the house, and the phone there doesn’t allow you to make international calls, so you have to drive around until you can get a signal.

2. Drive back again to collect Terry’s phone, because my phone burned through 15 minutes worth of credit in the space of a 3 minute phone call. Value for money!

3. Discover that Terry’s phone isn’t working. Borrow my mum’s phone instead.

4. Drive back up the highway to a random parking lot.

5. Spend a further £7 in phonecalls.

6. Hope that the block has been lifted.

7. Whine a lot.

In conclusion: I can shop at Neiman Marcus, but get rejected in F21. Also, never use an iPhone to make international calls, kids…

In better news, we’re still having an amazing time, and now I’m going to bombard you with photos of it. You’re welcome!

(Should’ve asked him to sort out the cellphone coverage in our area…)

Who knew Obama had such a large head? Or looked so much like the George Bush statue they USED to have here? This was outside the Hall of Presidents. We didn’t go in, because we’ve seen it before, and there’s only so many times you can look at a bunch of animatronic presidents. Last time, of course, I didn’t actually realise they WERE animatronics until Bill Clinton suddenly winked at me. True story…

I did have my photo taken with Fake Rushmore, though:

We were there to climb the Citrus Tower next door, and by “climb”, I mean, “take the elevator”, obviously:

Here’s the thing about that, though: I’m terrified of heights. I discovered this fact many years ago, when I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, strode confidently out onto the landing, and then ran screaming back to the centre of the tower, convinced it was about to fall over, and that the only thing that would stop that happening would be me pressing all of my weight against the middle of the structure. I spent the next terrifying 20 minutes alternating between worrying that I was going to pass out and HOPING I’d pass out, so they could carry me down without me knowing about it. And I had almost exactly the same experience at the Citrus Tower, only not quite as bad, because it’s not as tall:

You think I’m just posing here, don’t you? I’m not: I’m HOLDING IT UP. Every time I stepped away from the centre, I felt dizzy. Fun times!

In this one, Terry is both holding ME up, and forcibly restraining me from running back to the safety of my pillar.

Phew.

Next we went to Mount Dora, which, despite the name, has no mountains. After the Citrus Tower, this was a Very Good Thing.

Totally not my bicycle.

OMG, TRAIN!

“I won’t mention the size of your head if you don’t tell anyone about how I flashed everyone on the beach at Sarasota yesterday after the strap of my bikini snapped, deal?”

I know the US government won’t let me live here for more than a few weeks at a time (probably wise of them, all things considered), but if they ever want to change their minds on that, I now know exactly where I want to live: Palm Beach. All I’ll need is for everyone who reads this blog to donate $1 million dollars and I reckon I just might be able to afford a condo in one of the poorer areas. Is everyone OK with that? Good…

So, yesterday, as you’ll have gathered, we spent the day in Palm Beach, with a short visit to Boca Raton. For some reason, every time I go to south Florida, it pours with rain, and this was no exception. Here’s what I wore:

OMG NO PANTS!

(I was actually wearing shorts, by the way. I just look like I wasn’t, which possibly accounts for the weird looks I kept getting.)

That woman you can see coming up behind me? Was super-stylish, and kept following me around, purely to make me look like even more of a fool, I’m sure. Actually, ALL of the women in Palm Beach were super-stylish, and, interetsingly enough, were all dressed in black, with spindly high heels. This amused me, because last year when I was here I posted a photo of myself in a navy dress, and someone left a snarky comment saying “OMG, BLACK? In FLORIDA? How shocking.” And now every time I come out of my room dressed in black or navy, my family all chorus “BLACK? In FLORIDA?” (Even when we’re in Scotland.) Black was pretty much de rigeur down in Boca and Palm Beach, though, so I’m glad Terry let me borrow his classy black poncho thing.

We’d booked onto a Palm Beach tour, on an amphibious bus, which takes you through the town then plunges into the water of the intracoastal and takes you past the homes of people like Celine Dion and the guy who owns Walgreens, etc. I was almost sick with envy over the side of the bus/boat (Buboat?). As I say, it POURED relentlessly the whole time we were doing this, and great waves of water kept rolling off the roof and onto the people at the back of the boat (luckily we were at the front), but hey, it was all strangely atmospheric, and we still managed to have an amazing time. Plus, we have a great excuse to go back and see it in the sunshine.

Afterwards, we visited Worth Avenue, which is basically Palm Beach’s version of Rodeo Drive. Naturally, I continued to wear a black plastic bag, just to freak out all the shop assistants:

I also returned to the Mother Ship:

Yes, they had a sale. No, I didn’t buy anything, despite being sorely tempted. I suspect I will rectify that soon, though…

Aaaand, looking back at my camera, that seems to be pretty much all I have from Palm Beach, so here’s what we did for the rest of the week:

I bought shoes.

I bought more shoes.

Um, yeah.

I wore NAVY. In FLORIDA. I mean, can you EVEN?

I wrote my name in lights…

…and pretended to be in The Beatles, except with one member missing.

Here’s the missing Beatle:

And now the sun is shining again, so I’m off to do this:

Only with less posing and more, well, snoring probably. See you all soon!

Well, folks, we made it. And having only been in the States for about five hours, I’d already bought myself a Zac Posen for Target dress, which I think has to be a personal best for me in the shopping stakes. I normally wait at least 24 hours:

I mean, we only went in there for some groceries. Whoops. I don’t think Terry was quite convinced that what we’d really gone out for was bread, milk, and a Zac Posen dress, but, you know, those are the basics in life, no? Isn’t grocery shopping fun these days?

Here’s the wonderful and amazing thing about Florida for me, though: it feels so much like coming home. Much more than actually coming home does, say. And as I stood there in that same Target changing room that I always seem to end up in when I come here, with my mum struggling to yank the dress over my head (it’s one of those double layered things. I got the two layers twisted, somehow, got stuck, and had to call in reinforcements. Which just goes to prove that changing continents doesn’t make me any cleverer, sadly.), it was hard to believe that earlier that day I’d been at Glasgow airport, or waking up at home, getting ready to leave. It already feels like I’ve been here forever, and I love that. It’s like coming home.

On the plane on the way over I sat across the aisle from an elderly man, who seemed to be on his own. Being slightly emotional at the time (I welled up when we touched down and the pilot said “Welcome to Florida”…), I just couldn’t get this man out of my mind. I imagined him waking up on his own, travelling to the airport and sitting there waiting for his flight, with no one to share a few words with, or even just to sit in companionable silence with. And now here he was, still alone, and for some reason it made me feel maudlin to think of him travelling all the way across the Atlantic without a kind word from anyone other than the cabin crew, if he was lucky, and I wanted to try and reach out to him somehow, but I didn’t know what to say so I had to settle for a few friendly smiles in his direction, which probably made the poor guy think I was a lunatic.

I hope someone was waiting for him at the other end. I hope he was actually completely happy in his solitude, or that his wife, or friend or whatever was just sitting in another part of the cabin, because ever since we landed,  that old man’s been on my mind. I feel so lucky to be here, in my favourite place in the world, and to have my family here with me. (I also feel a bit teary and introspective, like someone who hasn’t slept properly for three days, and who has drunk a bit too much coffee to make up for it. Note to self: stop doing that.) And I’m going to try and enjoy every single second of this trip, as much as I possibly can, because, well, you never know how long next winter will be.. .

I’m also going to probably buy some more shoes and dresses. But I guess you already knew that…

Obligatory photos:

(Terry really needs to eat a sandwich, doesn’t he?)

Mt Flickr Pro account expired a couple of weeks ago, and I’m too mean to pay to renew it right now, so I’m afraid that means some of the photos I would normally have posted there are getting stuck here instead: sorry.

These were taken today, on our first day trip of the year – and given that we were up to our ankles in snow just a couple of weeks ago, it was a joyous occasion indeed. These photos were taken today at Seacliff Beach, in East Lothian: it’s our favourite Scottish beach, and as it’s my mum’s birthday tomorrow (Happy Birthday, mum!) we celebrated with champagne and chocolate cake on the beach: yum!

Here’s hoping for enough good weather to let us have a few more days like this…

I couldn’t find a bunny, so here are some photos of a big bad WOLF instead:

As you can see, the snow has melted, but it’s still very, very muddy. Especially in the region of Rubin’s belly.

I’ve taken a couple of days off over Easter, but so far, other than eating vast quantities of food and braving the crowds on Princes Street during an ill-advised shopping trip yesterday, I’m not doing much of anything. Which is sometimes the best kind of holiday you can have..

Happy Easter!