Cranking the brain back to work after a holiday...

When it's still lying in the sun and drinking lunchtime wine

Hello! I’m back from my holiday (which I promise I’ll stop going on about soon) and the usual post-hol questions are whirling around in my head.

1. Our flat smells funny. Does it always smell like this? Is it that thing of, unless you leave it for a time and then come back, you can never smell your own home?

2. Daughter has been looking after our little front garden and it looks better than ever. Plants that weren’t even there when we set off are now a blaze of flowers. Does this mean she’s better at plant care than us?

3. And crucially - work. What the heck do I do again?

We went to three different countries on holiday. I say this not to brag (maybe it was madness?) but it’s made it seem like we’ve been away since 1987 - in a good way.

But still, getting my head around work again is especially challenging this time. First day back, I stare at my laptop as if I’ve never seen one before. What is this strange flat silver box? What could possibly be inside it?

Then I remember it’s a novel I have to fix by MONDAY!!!

It takes me five goes to remember my password to get into my computer.

‘Get into my computer’. Is that the correct terminology? Surely, when we set off on holiday, it was still manual typewriters and Kajagoogoo hair?

Anyway, I’m happy to report that this holiday has taught me one thing. i.e., how to pack properly - finally.

Here are some lessons I’ve learnt:

Don’t take the crap case! We have numerous wheelie cases in various states. Don’t pick the one with the busted wheel that you have drag through dusty cobbled streets, causing your travelling companion to enquire at regular intervals, ‘Is there something wrong with your case?’

Clearly, yes, as I am wheeling it along by one corner. CAN WE STOP MENTIONING IT PLEASE?

Don’t take a stupid jacket. Somehow I can never get my head around the fact that we’re going somewhere hot, and not just to a different area of Glasgow. I’m not even from Glasgow. I’ve lived here for less than a decade. Yet even if I’m heading for a land of gnarly olive groves and parched, cracked earth, I still can’t de-Glasgow myself.

I also pack a raincoat and vest!

This time I really wanted to take my collagen powder (old lady stuff you make up into a drink to supposedly to stop you withering. Yeah, right?). I’d planned to decant it into a smaller unmarked pot to take through security at the airport. But then I chickened out, thinking that would basically be asking for a body cavity search.

The thing with borders is, I always feel antsy as if I’m doing something wrong. Try to affect a casual face and you worry, am I looking too casual? Is this the face of someone trying to breeze their way through when they have cocaine secreted in a specially adapted digestive biscuit?

Anyway, I digress. Back to packing:

Do not take your running stuff! Planning to run in thirty degrees is as realistic as proclaiming, ‘I’m going to compose an opera while I’m holiday.’

However, do take plasters, Ibuprofen and reading glasses - because these are the things that matter.

Readers of last week’s column may be interested to know that Jimmy’s toenail clippers, bought in Spain and posted back to himself, have ARRIVED SAFELY IN GLASGOW.

Jubilant news delivered, I need to crank on with my book…

What the heck is it about again?

Love,

Fiona xx

PS You can order my latest novel, The Woman Who Ran Away From Everything here and pre-order my forthcoming novel, ‘Tis the Damn Season - out on September 11 - here!