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‘What are you doing?’ she asked down the phone. ‘I… urm… I’m…’ Admittedly, I panicked. I sounded suspicious. ‘Laura?’ ‘OKAY FINE.' I took a breath. 'I’M WATCHING THE VIDEO OF US ALL READING 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD WHILST DRINKING GRANITA, AND I’M IN A BAR BY MYSELF WITH A SPRITZ THAT DOESN’T TASTE THE SAME WITHOUT YOU AND I JUST GOT A PEDICURE WHERE THE LADY HAD TO USE THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SANDBLASTER TO GET MY FEET AS PRETTY AS YOURS AND… OH. HOLD ON. THE BARMAID WANTS SOMETHING.’ The barmaid was the same woman who ten minutes previously had asked a sweating (overweight) gentleman to leave the establishment because he wasn’t wearing a shirt. As he left she’d said, ‘How ugly,’ loud enough for him to hear it. She didn’t seem sorry. If she wanted something from me, I was to oblige. I did talking with the barmaid and two confused Germans, and came back on the line. ‘Laura, did I just hear you recommending wine to tourists for her?’ she asked. ‘Maybe.’ ‘What did they want?’ ‘Som

For the past month, I have been reading a book- 84 Charing Cross Road - with my friends. These aren’t friends in the traditional sense- the type of friends who live around the corner. These are the friends I see for short but intense monthly bursts once a year, when we come from America, and Australia, and South Africa (and Wales), to take a summer job teaching other people how to teach . We wear red tee shirts that bleed on the body when you sweat, and sleep four-and-a-half hours a night. We alternate swearing too much for a workshop about how to engage 5 year-olds with rewriting lyrics to Call Me Maybe in between drinks at the shot bar, so that we have original resources for the classroom when we’re trying not to be hungover tomorrow. Our enthusiasm for the job is matched only by our enthusiasm for each other, and never has work hard, play hard been a truer reflection for anybody than it has for the people I spend four weeks with on the Italian Riviera every June. My friends and I

So at about ten to midnight last Friday, I had a roll-up in one hand, a half-drunk beer in the other, and was stood in the middle of a bar in a prayer circle. Middle. Of. Bar. Prayer Circle. Uh-huh. On a somewhat related note, I also found myself crying roughly every seventeen-and-a-half minutes last week too, for reasons including but not limited to: school visits, focaccia bread, a beautiful description of ricotta cheese in the best book about Italian food that I’ve ever read in my life, people being nice, people being mean, getting my period, getting baby oil on my favourite dress, and saying goodbye to 85 of the most incredibly gifted, talented and self-aware people I have ever met in my 26 short years, even though I had only known them for five days. Learning point for the week? FIVE DAYS IS SOMETIMES ALL IT TAKES. I never feel more myself than in the summer when I wear this red t-shit and teach my peers how to teach. And I mean, HELL. Somebody pulled me aside to tell me that the

Last Friday, before I left Rome for a month to work a job as a teacher trainer on the Italian Riviera, I got a wax. You’ll remember I told you, Internet, that June is generally a month of debauchery for me- what with the sun, and the sea, and the weekly influx of cutie patooties from around the globe. Their various accents mean that as they arrive at the train station- wide eyed and looking for any help they can get to orient themselves in this new-found land of Teaching English as a Foreign Language- I, as their orientation leader, must orientate them mainly to the direction of my vagina because SOUTH AFRICA? I DON’T HAVE THAT FLAG YET. Except, not this June, because of all the celibacy . Except, well, maybe I’ll get a wax just in case, because what if I really need to break my personal code of conduct just this one time? EXCEPT, well, I need a wax anyway because we’ll be at the beach and stuff so. Yeah. What ? I’m not going to get to myself into trouble except MOUTH! SHUT UP SHUT