The Happiest Place I Know

Well, it was a pretty spectacular holiday – actually, belated honeymoon. Everything was in our favour: good weather, fun times, well-organised and, best of all, good health all round. We went for a morning swim (I miss that already!), ate loads, walked loads, soaked up the sun and were entertained almost to the point of feeling guilty. I was left with a slight feeling of dread, even; after all that goodness surely something must go wrong?! But even the flights were good. And I’m planning a fear of flying course in the summer to stop me having any more travel-related meltdowns. I don’t want it holding me back. Plans are afoot to book our next trip once the coffers have been replenished. This time to Toronto. I’ve never been to Canada – any recommendations / tips?

My favourite moments are many, so I won’t list them all. But anyone who sets foot within 100 miles of Epcot should get over there are ride Soarin’ (one of the few we rode twice, so brilliant is its gentle, awe-inspiring hang gliding simulation). As mid-price restaurants go, Redrock Canyon Grill is lovely and does the best steak and mashed potato on International Drive by miles. Tarpon Springs is apparently a great place to walk your dog. But if you want to know more about my travels, just check out my Flickr feed, where I shall eventually put the photos.

I really want to talk books. I read three and a half while travelling: Anthony Flew’s There Is a God, a fascinating and highly intelligently written discourse on how the famous atheist found faith; Mark Gatiss’s second Lucifer Box novel, The Devil in Amber (slightly disappointing compared to the first as Box has become a little tiresome, but still amusing enough) and Augusten Burrough’s A Wolf at the Table were the completed ones. The last was relentlessly depressing. I had wondered how Burroughs could make an entire career – spanning some six or seven books – out of a dysfunctional childhood, but I had reckoned without the truly terrifying entity his sociopathic father turned out to be. Read this only if you have a good grip on your emotions; it is highly distressing and uncomfortable, not to mention frightening. There’s even guinea pig death. You were warned.

I’m still picking through Gregory Maguire’s Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which is far better than its title. His spare, evocative writing, which I loved so much in Wicked, is put to excellent use once more in a plotline slightly reminiscent of Girl With a Peal Earring (though it might have been published before – I forget). It was totally worth loading up my Sony Reader, even with all the irksome issues I had with Waterstones before we left.

Tomorrow, we begin repainting the living room. I’ve been gently immersing myself back in social media – I relinquished all but my crutch, Twitter, while I was away, mainly to see if I even COULD – and I’ve missed my old friend. Tuesday will herald business as usual: baking, blogging, and dreaming of the next time I’ll have the time and cash to visit WDW.