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?)

Remember when I said I was so relieved to be able to go on holiday despite the best efforts of the ash cloud, that I wasn’t even feeling a smidgen of my usual fear of flying?

That was before I read this:

[Source: warning, this link is to the Daily Mail, proceed with caution!]

(And oh hey, remember when I said I’d never read the Daily Mail ever again? Wish I’d kept THAT promise…)

You see that, people?  That “terrifying mid-air drama”? That “plunge” from the sky? That “hitting severe turbulence”? That right there would kill me. I would die. And I don’t mean I’d die because I didn’t have my seat belt on (I ALWAYS have my seat belt on…) and I got thrown around the cabin like a rag doll, I mean I’d die because of THE FEAR. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve come very close to dying of THE FEAR on previous flights, and those were ones with only very mild turbulence. Some of them were flights with no turbulence at all, and I still almost died of THE FEAR.

(Two days after 9/11, Terry and I flew back from Spain, where we’d been during the attacks. Naturally, I was terrified, and this was intensified by the fact that the airlines at the time weren’t allowing passengers to bring anything into the cabin at all, so I was denied my usual coping mechanisms of book and music. At one point during the flight I got up to go to the bathroom, which was at the very front of the plane, right in front of the cockpit. As I stood there awaiting my turn, the door to the cockpit opened, and a young woman came out. Seriously, she looked about… twelve, maybe? She looked at me. I looked at her. We both looked at the locked door of the bathroom. “I have to go before you,” the woman suddenly announced, glaring at me. “Because I am the pilot.” I nodded dumbly, and let her go first. Then I stood braced in the doorway of that cockpit, knowing that the only thing standing between a planeload of people and a fiery death at the hands of the maniacs who were almost certainly on board, was… me. I am glad to report that I rose to the occasion. I did not shirk my duty. I protected that cockpit as if my life depended on it – which it basically did, as far as I was concerned – and it was only as I walked back to my seat afterwards that I realised there must’ve been a co-pilot in there anyway, and my fears of the woman never coming out of the bathroom, and me having to guide the plane to safety, guided only by a small team of people on the ground and my sketchy knowledge of Microsoft Flight Simulator were, um, ridiculous. I remained in a state of constant vigilance and total and utter panic for the rest of the flight, though. I’m still in that state now, actually.)

So, readers, please give a warm, Forever Amber welcome to: THE FEAR! It’s back, and it’s bigger than ever! One terrifying mid-air drama, coming right up!*

(*There’s almost almost a terrifing mid-air drama when I fly. Unfortunately, the drama is normally provided by me…)

Three sleeps to go, people! Three! And you know the one good thing about this whole Ash Cloud O’Doom extravaganza? It means that I’ll be so relieved to be getting on that plane on Saturday morning that I haven’t even bothered to go through my usual “OMG, what if the plane crashes? I bet the plane will crash!” hysteria or anything. Well, I mean, there was that dream in which we became the first people to fly directly through the heart of the ash cloud “Just to see what would happen”, but other than that, SCREW the fear or flying, just get me on that plane, bring me the little miniature bottle of wine or three and let’s get the hell out of Dodge, people, seriously. Also, the Ash Cloud seems to have abated somewhat, so although I hesitate to tempt fate in this way, I’m tentatively hopeful that we’ll be going to Florida this weekend, and that the plane will not crash.

(I am SO dying in a plane crash this weekend, aren’t I? And then all of the advance posts I’ve written for my my blogs will continue to publish on schedule, so it’ll be like I’m speaking to you from beyond the grave. About shoes. Because that’s totally what my ghostly self would return to earth to talk about, isn’t it?) 

Anyway, today is my last day of work – or I hope so, anyway. The aim is to have everything finished up by tonight, so I can spend Thursday and Friday cleaning the house, packing my suitcase, re-packing my suitcase, and working my way through my cryptic pre-holiday To-Do list, which simply says things like “eyelashes!” and “Rubin!”. I am AWESOME at this, seriously.

(I will also be spending some of that time going to the dentist to have impressions taken for my next few sets of braces. I am terrified about this, because apparently when I said all that stuff about not being afraid of the dentist, I had yet to know the horror that is having a giant metal tray stuffed into your mouth so you can’t breathe or swallow, and you become convinced you’re going to throw up, and then suffocate, because, well, there’s a huge metal tray blocking your mouth. Terrified.)

Our flight is at stupid  o’clock on Saturday morning (I’ve just been thinking about this, and I actually can’t remember ever catching a flight that wasn’t at stupid o’clock in the morning, other than the couple that were at stupid o’clock at night, that is. Why do they do that to you, do you think? Is it so you’re so exhausted you become more docile and easy to manage? Because that doesn’t work with me, airlines, just FYI.), so once again we’ll be spending Friday night at my parents place, which is closer to the airport. Rubin, meanwhile, will be spending the next three weeks with Terry’s mum, who I’m sure is preparing a fattened calf as we speak, in preparation for his visit. He’s also in disgrace, having repeatedly rooted through Terry’s open suitcase, and twice removed and chewed a tube of toothpaste.

(“WHO DID THIS?!” Terry asked me incredulously, holding the mangled tube aloft, as if there was a possibility that I had got down on my hands and knees next to the suitcase and ripped the tube apart with my teeth. Me.)

(Wow, I’ve really used a LOT of parentheses in this post, haven’t I? Sorry. I’m over-excited.)

For the next three days, then, I’ll be living in that Limbo Land of pre-holiday preparation, where everything you do is either just marking time or getting ready for all the fun you’ll be having this time next week. I know I shouldn’t wish it away, and God knows, the passing of time continues to freak me out good, but honestly, I wish these next three days AWAY. Begone! Haste ye, oh weekend, when I will be back in my favourite place in the world, for three whole weeks.

First, though, I have exactly 11 blog posts to write. Better get on with that, then…

Here’s what happened last night:

It’s not frost, it’s SNOW. This was taken at 6am, when Rubin woke us up with his patented “Yapping at 6am for no reason whatsoever” manoeuvre. By the time we actually got up, it had melted, but even so, people, EVEN SO.

This is bad. It’s very, very bad. It’s particularly bad because lately I’ve been feeling like a dark cloud is hanging over me. And that’s because there IS a dark cloud hanging over me: it’s the Ash Cloud O’Doom from the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, or “That Stupid Freaking Volcano That Wants to Ruin My Life”, as it’s known in my house.

(This is going to be one of those really whiny, bratty posts I  write sometimes a lot. Don’t say you weren’t warned.)

I’m convinced the volcano is going to stop me going on holiday. (Now THERE’S a line I never thought I’d write). Absolutely convinced. Seriously, I haven’t even bought new shoes for the trip or anything, that’s how convinced I am that we won’t be going. And sure, we don’t leave until the end of the month, so the world still has a couple of weeks to sort itself out, but the thing is, it doesn’t really look like it’s going to bother, does it ? No, it looks more like that freaking volcano is just going to keep on belching out ash, and that it’s going to do it PURELY to ruin my holiday/life. And rather than basking in the sun for three weeks, I’m going to shiver in the SNOW instead, and also have no money, because I spent it all on a holiday I can’t take.

If that happens, I am going to FREAK THE HELL OUT. I mean, like I’ve never freaked out in my life before. I’m actually starting to do it now. In fact, I feel a bit like a volcano myself right now, and trust me, if I blow, YOU WILL KNOW ABOUT IT.

I should put in a disclaimer here to make me sound like a vaguely reasonable person, even although I’m not in the least bit reasonable, ever. Here it is:

I know safety has to come first. I’m terrified of flying – absolutely terrified – so trust me when I say that the last thing I want is to be sitting in a tin can that’s plummeting towards the earth at a million miles an hour ON FIRE, just because everyone ignored the Ash Cloud O’Doom. I know it’s no one’s fault, even although I’d dearly like to be able to blame someone, and it’s at times like this I wish I believed in God. I also know that there are people in a far worse situation than me when flights get cancelled: people who miss weddings and funerals, and people who might even miss out on the chance to have their lives saved because either they can’t get to the hospital, or the surgeon can’t, or whatever.

I know all of these things. And I still want to scream like a baby, because IT SNOWED IN MAY, people.  MAY. May is normally the nicest month of the year in Scotland. This year? Yeah. The best case scenario now is that we get to Florida, THEN the ash cloud gets really, really bad, and we can never come home again, ever. That would be awesome, because right now, if I never saw snow again, it would be too soon. If our flight gets cancelled, meanwhile, I think I will try to swim there. I’m not even joking.

(P.S. If even one person tells me they’re “SO JEALOUS!” of the snow, I swear my head will explode. It’s like being jealous of someone who just lost a limb, seriously.)