Diamond Lillibet

What more appropriate way to begin the Queen's Birthday holiday than by watching the coverage of the Royal Pageant on the Thames to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee? Except that the BBC's commentary was so obsequious, and the weather didn't co-operate - but 1000 assorted boats, five miles, four knots, swan-uppers, watermen, a floating belfry, a million-plus spectators, goodness knows how many Union flags and miles of bunting... it was an unmissable spectacle. (Let's gloss over the fact that I could easily have been there, just popping back over the Channel last week instead of flying home from Munich. I'm perverse like that: I got to England in 1977 a scant fortnight after the Silver Jubilee.)

It was good to see the waka making fine progress along the river with all the other rowed boats, though I felt for the bros with their bare chests; and I looked away when the leisure cruisers went past. The Queen seemed delighted to board the Britannia launch again to get out to the royal barge - it's normally kept now at Leith with the Britannia since its decommission. That was the first of today's connections: Her Maj and I go right back, you know. I've been growled at by her bodyguard at Badminton, drunk her tea at Buckingham Palace, trailed around Holyrood, got the goss on the royal parsimony at Sandringham (no silver sixpence in the staff Christmas pud!) - not to mention being born the year she was crowned, so she's been a fixture all my life. In the job 60 years, still going strong at 87 (didn't sit down once!) - impressive, and well worth celebrating with such a huge spectacle.

It was fun to see Joey from War Horse prancing on top of the National Theatre - I went to see the play last month and it was brilliant (it's now on also on Broadway). I was interested too to see Tower Bridge with its bascules (bascules!) raised right to the top as her barge approached at the end. I went under it myself just last month, on a ferry along the Thames, gawping at all the sights old and new - like The Shard, almost complete (and already explored by an urban fox right up to the 72nd floor). It's a must-do, such a good way to view that great city, and  the river is always busy - though never as chokka, and as colourful despite the dreary weather, as it was during the pageant today.

Cesky varmints

Still in the Czech Republic, we left Prague's seething masses and came south to Cesky Krumlow (which sounds much less silly when given the proper pronunciation, as of course we do, given that Karin our guide is Slavakian - though also disappointed that our memories are so short when it comes to remembering simple greetings and thank yous in the various languages we've encountered). I almost cut this tour short of coming here, and I'm so glad I didn't: it's probably the prettiest place we've been to, and that's against stiff competition.

It's ancient, on a river, undamaged by war or communists and full of winding cobbled streets - well, the same can be said for Prague; but where CK (not Louis) scores is in more or less banning cars from the centre. There are some, but used for access only, and it makes a huge difference to the feel of the place - and the sound of it: I could hear blackbirds singing today, and the river tumbling over the weir. And once it gets to about 5pm and all the day trippers (including - spit - river cruisers from Linz) have gone, it's just lovely, so peaceful and relaxed.

The castle where the photo was taken from grows organically, it seems, out of the rock above the town, and has some most unusual sights inside, including a ballroom painted with costumed grotesques that was like nothing I've ever seen before. It was in the hands of just three families for most of its history, and one of them with connections to the Italian Ursinis has bears on its crest and naturally instituted bears in the moat below. The poor things, a blonde, a brunette and a black one, skulked invisibly under the bridge for most of the day, but ventured out when it went quiet to pick at what the birds had left of their fruit. Not very nice to see them in such an uneco enclosure - but at least it has chiaruscuro decoration. I suppose.

Old

There's no getting around it: our English friends are old in both senses now. As are we, of course, and I'm currently feeling all of that myself, what with the awkward left-handedness, the stiff knee, the aching shoulder and all. Not to mention the bruise on the cheek from the glasses that have been remarkably high-profile on this trip for frames that were chosen particularly for their unobtrusiveness.

Despite being in shock with the pain of the dislocated shoulder, I was still able to snap at the paramedic who reported that I'd "had a fall" that actually, I'd TRIPPED AND FALLEN, thank you very much. But it didn't help that one of our friends has also done just that while walking along the road and has, at the moment, an even blacker eye (and greener cheek) than I have.We made a right pair, out at the pub for our dinner tonight after an afternoon of catching up in front of the fire with their startlingly ancient and ragged - but perfectly content - cat on the mat.

But, coming from such a young country, it's noticeable that being old(er) in England feels more fitting than at home, what with everything we look at from houses to hills to trees being so very much older - and all the better and more attractive and interesting for it, it must be said. Though, really, it would be pushing it to say the same of Fluffy.

The Queen's Narnia

Sandringham is where the Queen and the Royal Family spend Christmas every year in private, staying for about 6 weeks. It must be odd to have a house that you only live in during winter - it must always be associated in her mind with cold weather and fires, and chilly walks to the nearby little flint church with its unexpectedly extravagant silver altar and pulpit. "A land in which it seemed always winter", as Tennyson didn't say.

But evidently they sneak in for the odd weekend at other times of the year, the remarkably well-informed guides told us, when they slum it in another house on the estate; so they do get to enjoy the expansive gardens and grounds that today were entirely at the disposal of doughty and well rugged-up dog walkers. In the stables, there are immaculately polished cars - Daimlers,  Rolls Royces, Bentleys - as well as some outrageously indulgent large toy cars enjoyed by Royal children over the years. There's also a rather horrifying room bristling with horns and heads from big-game hunts long ago: three understandably glum-looking rhinos including a baby, plus a stuffed (in both senses) lion and lioness, cheetah and zebra skins, several bison  heads, a whole herd of deer and antelope, and elephant tusks. "Kept in celebration of the taxidermist's skills," the notice read - rather defensively, I thought.

The house, though apparently much modified since its Victorian heyday, is still very cluttered with stuff, all of it with a story that the guides can tell. The one stationed in the corridor to the ballroom which was lined with cases of shotguns including 33 Purdys, and masses of racing trophies and statues, who boasted that she could find something to link with every nationality, was stumped when I asked about New Zealand, though. She's probably still kicking herself. (It's very hard to take photos one-handed, by the way, holding the camera, focusing and clicking the shutter all with your left hand.That's my excuse.)

Broadly speaking

I didn't know whether I should be channelling Fanny and Dick today, or Titty and Roger, when we picked up our frighteningly large (8 berth!) river launch for a couple of nights on the Norfolk Broads. It's a classic thing to do, to cruise the rivers and adjoining lakes, or broads, tying up outside pubs and going ashore in pretty villages to buy provisions (lashings of lemonade! Or pemmican?). A wet blanket recently told me that the Broads were choked with badly-driven boats loaded with stag parties, and thoroughly spoiled - but the river was pretty empty for us, and the worst drivers were us as we manoeuvred in to dock at the end of our sail downriver to Horning.

We tied up (amateurishly) eventually, after some quiet panicking, white knuckles and frantic thrusts backwards and forwards [ok, no more un(ish)intentional double entendres]. Then we discovered that there's a lot of walking involved in cruising, as we meandered past masses of thatched cottages, a windmill and two appealing black-and-white pubs, from which we chose The Swan, which was warm and cosy and inviting, and of course had free wifi (free wifi is gloriously common in England now - pubs, cafes, hotels, hotspots - it's just as it should be).

Then we wandered all the way back again for a quiet and still night on the boat, disturbed only by trespassing ducks on the roof, rowdy geese, whistling swans flying along the river, and some post-cider snoring inside. This is a lovely way to have a holiday - once you've earned your captain's stripes.

Now that April's there

Ah, England in the spring! Wet and cold and windy, and irredeemably miserable - until the sun comes out and it's warm and bright and suddenly you notice flowers everywhere (only slightly battered-looking): forget-me-nots and tulips, primroses and honesty, forsythia and camellias.

Here in Farnham the brick looks warm, the Castle with its sets of seven steps built for the blind bishop looks imposing on its hill beside the town, and the pubs are cosy and welcoming. And so are the people.

Not so the cats in my aunt's house, who treat my friendly advances with disdain and suspicion, and look at me with narrow eyes if I sit in the wrong chair. It's a long way to come, to be sneered at through whiskers.

Dam fine

More cute coatis on the way to breakfast this morning. I'm soldiering on through epic jet lag and off-the-scale blood iron thanks to a paleolithic intake of red meat: possibly a connection? Who knows. Anyway, after yesterday's 'Whoa, nature showing off, here' moments with the waterfalls, today was about how man can whip up the odd marvel too, given some time and co-operation. So we were taken to the Itaipu Dam, 65 storeys high, 18km long, 20 turbines using 10 times the volume of the Falls... er, an hour? a day? The statistics became a blur, after a movie, a bus tour, the commentary - what is more impressive, is that it's a bi-national project by Brazil and Paraguay, the river forming their border. The construction, the maintenance, the power, they're all split 50:50 in a shining example of international co-operation.

Then lunchtime brought another revelation: my first churrascaria, a barbecue restaurant where you fill your plate with a selection of fresh salads and vegetables (or chips) and then a succession of waiters arrive at your table with what could be a heart attack on a stick, but is so delicious, who cares? We were offered from long skewers every type of barbecued meat imaginable, and some not (like chicken hearts) - filet mignon, rump steak, pork tenderloin, lamb, plus onions, cheese balls, sausages... all hot and crusty outside and meltingly tender inside. Delicious! And afterwards the completely unnecessary dessert selection recalled the very best in children's parties, with every permutation of sugar and cream possible. And it was only lunchtime!

At the bird park my zip toggle was gently examined by a toucan with his huge orange beak; a rhea came rushing excitably up to the fence and immediately fell asleep leaning against it; blue and yellow macaws swooped low overhead; we were frowned at by a harpy eagle and, happily, ignored by a large hairy tarantula; we went crazy trying to focus on super fast-forward hummingbirds and were draped with an anaconda; and my camera got into a snit and let me down, sniff.

Wet and wild in Brazil

"You will get 100% wet." That was Anderson, here at the Hotel das Cataratas in Brazil at Iguazu Falls, when we were preparing for our boat trip not just along the river but, disquietingly, "under the falls". These would be the falls where 1.4 million litres of water thunder over the escarpment every second. Images of boats full of water, disappearing under the surface, never to be seen again...

After more fuss and waiting about than you could imagine (apparently, it's a Brazilian thing; it's strangely un-mollifying to consider that it would be worse in India) we got settled into our inflatable and set off upstream over churning, moiling water and some actual rapids, for a view of part of this astonishingly long series of waterfalls. Then it was time to tuck our cameras away as we entered The Devil's Throat, a canyon obscured by swirling clouds of spray, where the boat flirted with some heavy-duty falls, skipping around the edge, close enough for us to feel the wind and be blinded by the spray - and then nosed up into the cascading water, which drenched us completely without - some skill here, happily - filling the boat.

It was fun, if silly, and the water was pleasantly warm; and then afterwards we zipped along fast enough to blow-dry our hair; though we were stuck with the historical sensation of wet pants for the rest of the afternoon. I was completely diverted, though, by a large family of coatis, busily looking for food up and down tree-trunks, on top of rubbish bins and inside people's bags left carelessly on the ground. Very sweet and cute, and the symbol of Iguazu Falls my brochure tells me, saying they "may occasionally be seen". Only everywhere we went.

Los animales de Buenos Aires

So, the usual sort of busy day that a city tour involves: cathedral, monuments, government buildings, outdoor artworks, parks and gardens. All necessary to get the feel of a place, establish its history and position in the modern world. But as always, it's the people who do furnish a city, give it a personality (literally) and allow you to connect.

We were all very taken by the dog-walkers we saw everywhere this morning, with handfuls of leads attached to a variety of canines, trotting purposefully along pavements and through parks. This young man had 25 that he was escorting - the pooper scooping that that must involve doesn't bear thinking about - and at around 250 pesos per dog per month, was easily bringing in a healthy average wage in just a couple of hours' work per day.

We were also fascinated by an actual necropolis, the cemetery where Eva Peron is buried, like everyone else in the basement of a tomb lining the narrow lanes of this peaceful and attractive place peopled by stone angels and stray cats. There were more cats at La Boca, the suburb that appears in every collection of photos of Buenos Aires - poor housing of corrugated iron and wood painted in bright reds, greens, yellows, originally using left-over cans of paint from the shipyards. It's a no-go area at night, because it's still lived in by poor people who can be a bit desperate, but during the day it's full of tourists and tango-dancers and artists, and the mood is cheerful: like the young man in the blue and gold of a Boca Juniors football supporter walking along singing about love in English. "I don't sing well, but I'm a happy boy."

Fire and water

So there I was yesterday, puzzling over how to find a home for a winter story about Northland that was pushed from pillar to post until it was no longer seasonal; at the very same time that a huge bush fire was consuming the peninsula where I stayed up there. Arsonist, the sod, not the first time he's struck - and this time, tragically, he took out a rescue helicopter that crashed into the sea in the smoke, killing the two men on board. (It's not a good time for helicopters right now.)

The Karikari Peninsula is a bit out of the way, so it's quiet and unspoiled: lots of bush, some farmland, a vineyard, scattered baches (holiday homes) and a very little town. And oodles of beautiful beaches, natch. We stayed at Carrington Resort, in a villa overlooking the golf course which was occupied only by pukeko on the damp day we were there, but the sunny morning we left (sigh) there were heaps of people queuing up to use it, including lots of family parties - which was nice to see, even though it blew my mind (we have a long, LONG, family history of endless games of minigolf all around the country that ended, every single one, with the Baby hurling her club to the ground and storming off. Perfect example of hope over experience).

She broke her arm on Monday - a mere crack below the left elbow, nowhere near as incapacitating, I felt obliged to point out, as a properly broken right wrist - which she's hoping isn't going to cramp her style next week in Queenstown where we'll be luge-ing, Segwaying, ziplining and, augh, canyon swinging - as well as walking the Hollyford Valley track. My main concern is that the weather will be kinder than it was when I was last down there walking the Milford Track. Which reminds me: remember to pack quick-drying knickers...

Chicks and choppers

This morning, at the very moment that I was writing about the helicopter trip I took with Heliview in New Plymouth last week, another chopper being used to set up the seven-storey Christmas tree down at Viaduct Harbour in the city got tangled up with a pole and crashed in a muddle of metal. Fortunately the pilot wasn't seriously hurt - though as TV cameras were there filming the whole thing, his professional standing has taken a bodyblow and he's never going to live it down.

It was my fourth helicopter ride: the first was a mere hop across Lake Wakatipu after finishing the Greenstone Valley Trail, but the second was the real thing, swooping around in the Red Centre in Australia to get another perspective on Kings Canyon, which is spectacular enough seen from your own two feet, but even more amazing from the air. The third was great fun too, whale-spotting at Kaikoura one golden evening, hovering over a sperm whale as it came up to breathe and rest, and then buzzing back across the water to land on a bluff high over the bay. And then there was the Taranaki trip, when sadly we couldn't fly up to look into the crater of the mountain which was covered in cloud that day, though we did still get great views of that green-as countryside. I enjoyed all of the trips, thanks to expert and laid-back pilots who made it all seem super-safe. Ha!

And in other aerial news, I rescued a young thrush that I found this morning lying on its back on the road when I was out walking (after being hit by a car, I fancy, rather than just having chosen an inappropriate spot for a bit of a zizz). I brought it home and put it in the cat basket under a towel to see if a rest in the dark might do the trick - and happily it did. After an hour or so it was recovered enough to fly away as good as new. Yay, I thought, and wandered into the garden to pick flowers. Where I found the tiny corpses of two baby blackbirds lying on the grass, blown out of their nest perhaps or possibly preyed upon by other birds - magpies? - and dropped. Won one, lost two. Damn.

(Photo by Dean Mackenzie)

Poltergeists, poultry and a prediction

There's nothing like the roar of the surf just twenty metres or so away from your bed to ensure a good night's sleep, despite the actions of the petulant poltergeist that hurled a glass light fitting to the bathroom floor just before I entered my cosy cabin at Oakura Holiday Park, and later poked a halogen light bulb out of its fitting to bounce on the bedside table, making me jump as I sat there blearily catching up on the day's notes.

But the friendly bantam who popped by in the morning to check up on me more than made up for those goings-on. I'd also have welcomed, but didn't see, the duck with the gammy leg who's another regular according to Al, who runs the park with his wife Jan. They both came with us to the Butlers Reef pub last night where the food was great and the company jolly. I'd've had more to drink, though, if I'd known how bumpy the flight back to Auckland was going to be, in that little plane. It didn't help that I kept remembering the montage of newspaper front pages on the wall of the airport cafe in New Plymouth reporting the miraculous landing there of an aeroplane on only one wheel. What on earth was the designer thinking?

So, Taranaki done and dusted. Well, hardly - far too much to see and do there in a scant three days: more of a Taranaki dip and degustation. I'd like to go back for a proper look, at leisure. And why not? It's only a four and a half hour drive away, along a very pretty route; and that way there'd be no airborne lurching. Next time I'll listen to Chaddy: he warned us there would be a storm today. "Chaddy knows," the locals in the pub said. They were right - and so was he.

High and low

I could get used to being taken places by chopper. Just climb aboard, clap on the headphones and away you go, no fuss, no time wasted, and the views are terrific. Richard was at the controls, a veteran of 6 years in the British army - which is slightly unnerving in a pilot, you hope there won't be any sudden moves, but all was well. We swooped over New Plymouth and the port, clattered down the coast past the long black beaches with their long white lines of surf, and then inland over what must surely be the neatest and greenest farmland on the planet.

The mountain was hidden in cloud today, alas, so we couldn't get eye-to-eye with the summit, but we snooped over the tucked-away farms and houses to the north before setting down in a distant valley where Bob and Karen took us up some precipitously steep tracks and along knife-edge ridges in the ute before we walked through the bush to see what they were doing there in the name of conservation and specifically kiwi preservation.

Inconveniently nocturnal, the kiwi were naturally a no-show, but we did get to hear the clicks on the radio transmitter that showed Maru was where he should be, down in his burrow conscientiously incubating the eggs while the female that laid them was out recovering from the effort. (Kiwi eggs are about one-third of the bird's body size. Eye-watering.) It was a good walk, and even better to meet people with such drive to improve the environment for everyone's benefit.

Gee!

When you go for a drive into the country, you expect to see sheep (this is New Zealand), cows, cattle and horses; and birds - a few hawks, pukeko maybe; always some dead possums. If you're very lucky, you stop to take a photo of a bridge and there, right above your head in a flame tree, is a tui feeding from the flowers, swinging about from the twigs like an acrobat. Not that the purists would accept this as a valid tui image, since it's not in a native tree. But it is better than my only other tui photo, of one having a bath in the guttering of our house. And the sound track of singing sky lark (another non-native, tch) was just icing on the cake.

I was doing a roadtrip story about SH16 which heads north-west from Auckland straight into the wine country around Kumeu, where serious tasters were solemnly spitting into - do they call them spittoons? Surely oenophiles have a fancier word (like oenophile). Anyway, not swallowing. There are more vineyards around Kumeu than you can shake a stick at, famous ones, too: Coopers Creek, Matua Valley, Nobilo, Soljans Estate... All very neat and flushed with new green, the roses at the ends of the rows just in bloom.

Then it was out into the real country, where the horses are knee-deep in buttercups, the fields are pricked out with curving lines of new crops just sprouting, and the hayfields are long and lovely and lush (thanks, GM Hopkins). I was looking for a private sculpture park owned by a millionaire (450 times over) who likes to think big. The little old ladies in the op shop at the pretty little Kaukapakapa Church told me "You can't miss it, it's just past the concrete bridge. There's giraffes and all sorts!" And you know what? They were right. Giraffes, eh. Not at all what you expect to see on a country drive in New Zealand.

One hump or two?

Tomorrow is the big day at the races in Christchurch - or one of them, at least: Cup Day at the Addington trots, and a welcome chance to dress up and have some fun for Christchurch people. I was a bit disappointed in Dubai not to see any horses, other than in statues and sculptures, since Arabs are such a beautiful breed. If I'd had more time, I would have tried to go for a ride. Arab horses have rounder, flatter hooves, you know, to help with not sinking into the sand.

But I did see racing camels. I'd heard about camel racing last year while lurching through the Outback near Pichi Richi in South Australia with Graham, a 4th-generation cameleer who has worked as a trainer in the Middle East with racing camels worth up to $8million, which is pretty rich going for a place (in Dubai at least) where gambling is forbidden. The prizes tend to be luxury cars, in compensation. The camels can go surprisingly fast: I was told 50kmh for the females, half that for the males.

We saw a training session in progress outside the city, dozens of camels loping along, some with jockeys and the rest with the new robot jockeys, that have taken over from the young boys who used to be used, often in less than desirable conditions. Now the camels have little machines strapped to their backs with whips attached that whirl round in circles, radio-controlled from the 4WDs that drive alongside. Modern technology, eh?

Happy birthday to me

And what better way to spend it than poking a cannula into my skinny old cat and pouring electrolytes into him? "Oh dear, I think he's only got one more visit here in him," said the vet yesterday, showing me how to put the needle into a flap of some of the loose skin he now has so much of. Yet he's still cheerful enough, if tired, and though he doesn't do much more than lick at his food, he enjoys a wander round the garden and a roll on the path in the sun, and always seeks me out to lie against me at least, if his auld enemy the laptop has stolen yet again the prime position.

So it's a bit of a worry that I'm going away on Sunday for a week. That's a long time for him, especially now, and I'll be anxious that he won't be here when I come home. I'm doing another crazy flit up to the northern hemisphere, via a day in Dubai each way, for just three nights in Copenhagen. I was last there in 1980, so I'll see some changes - and also lots of things the same, since the city has such a lot of historic buildings. I do remember that my overwhelming impression last time was that I'd never before seen so many beautiful things I couldn't afford (same for Stockholm and Oslo - they know a few things about style, do those Scandinavians).

It's autumn there of course, and about 9 degrees, which considering it's 20 here and 33 in Dubai, is going to be something of a shock to the system, especially considering the fierce air-conditioning I'm going to encounter. Although not on the desert sunset safari - that'll be the one with the camels...

NIMBY

Almost a week ago, I was flying back from Gisborne to Auckland on a sunny afternoon, gazing out of the window down at the astonishingly long cloud of steam from White Island's volcano, which was trailing all the way northwards towards Coromandel. There was a nice little island down there, off the coast from Tauranga, and I looked at the scattering of houses on it and wondered what its name was.

Now I know. It's Motiti Island, and it's in the path of a much more sinister trail, of oil from a container ship aground on Astrolabe Reef. The MV Rena has been sitting there, listing ten degrees, for three days now, a 47,000-tonne ship with 1700 tonnes of fuel on board. It's a powder keg that's started smoking: some birds have been killed by the oil slick already. An old Maori man whose family has lived on the island for generations is wanting to see some action - and so am I. Nothing much seems to have happened so far except for some babble and hand-flapping. The weather's perfect for operations at the moment: I want to see them out there, pumping out the fuel, shifting the containers, dragging the ship off the reef.

The sea and the coast are so beautiful there, and so unspoiled: we really don't want another Gulf of Mexico disaster in our backyard.

Sit. Vac. - Rattenfänger

It's very hard to concentrate on writing about having coffee with a countess in an English stately home upstairs from a library of 6000 leather-bound books, Napoleon's desk and chair from St Helena and an array of framed family photos on the grand piano that include the Queen and Diana - very hard, I say, to concentrate on all that while there are rats rampaging around in the ceiling insulation above my head.

Although, given that Highclere Castle was neglected for years so that the upper storey of 50 bedrooms is pretty much uninhabitable because of the leaky roof, I'm sure rats are not unknown to Lord and Lady Carnarvon. Perhaps we could have bonded over that. Too late now.

Here I am, back home half a world away, with rats in my roof - probably the very ones I've been inadvertently feeding down in my sieve of a henhouse. This very cold winter they must have moved from their damp tunnels in the dirt up into our roof to snuggle cosily under the pink fibreglass duvet there. The Man has been through with his nasty baits, and in a week or so all should be quiet - although that won't describe my state of mind, envisaging decaying corpses scattered all over the ceiling. Poisoned rats don't go outside to die, apparently - and unfortunately. Urban legend.

I have no photos of the rats in my roof, but it's only a short leap from them to bats in the belfry, and thence to the wonderful sight of vast clouds of fruitbats flying out over the northern Queensland town of Cairns to feast on mangoes: their nightly outing from where they roost in trees on the other side. It was a staggering sight, but I haven't got any photos of them either; though there is this one of the stainless steel fish in the swimming pool on the Esplanade where I was sitting when I saw them. It's where everyone swims because there are crocodiles and stinging jellyfish in the sea. Oh and sharks - nobody mentions them because they're pussycats compared to the danger presented by the others. Rats, bats, crocs, stingers and sharks: is that enough animals for you today?

Hip, hip hooray...

Spring starts today, so Sod's Law means a cold snap this weekend and more snow down south. We also have drifts of leaves everywhere - very confusing, but it's because the evergreens, which most of the native trees are, are dropping the old ones as the new ones push through. Even though I grew up here, I lived in England long enough to find it highly disorientating to be sweeping leaves in spring.

But Bruce is back! It will be his fourth summer in our pond and it's wonderful to see him again, reappeared from wherever it is he goes when the weather cools. He's like the cuckoo for us. He's called Bruce because he's an Australian green and golden bell frog. They've somehow got a toe-hold in this part of the country but are officially not welcome, so when I made enquiries about finding him a wife last year I was sternly told that if I were to enable breeding (I'm a frog pimp!) the frogs would have to be contained. (It's all academic anyway, as the goldfish would eat the eggs before they got anywhere near the tadpole stage, but it will be sad to hear him calling again - night and day - and never seeing another green face.)

In southern Western Australia last year, we spent a pleasant day with Dr Dave of Out of Sight Tours. He's a naturalist who drives people out for walks along the coast, which is pretty spectacular with cliffs and surf and excellent rocks. He has a related frog on his blogpage, which he says sounds like a motorbike when it calls, so we're lucky that ours just goes "crrrr-ack". Dave was full of interest - in both senses. He told us lots of fascinating stuff, but he was also enjoying himself being out and about in one of his favourite bits of Australia, and though he must have seen thousands, was as delighted as me to see kangaroos in the scrub and was snapping away at them as eagerly as I was. Enthusiastic people: they're my very favourite sort.

A glass act

Two connections today: at the MGM hotel (yes, another site inspection) they have a Dale Chihuly hallway lined with big pieces of his work, which also features in the lobby. I first came across him in Washington state and especially in Tacoma - and thought I had already seen some of his distinctive twirly tubes at the Galaxy earlier today (why yes, since you ask, that was a hotel inspection too). Lovely stuff, and classy, which was the aim - where all the other hotels have had us walking on (spit) marble, at the MGM the floors were jade and lapis lazuli. It's the kind of place where they employ leaf-dusters.

At the two hotels we drifted through scented corridors where it was all about hush and Zen, every detail considered - at Galaxy's associated Banyan Tree, the swirls of little bubbles in the coloured concrete panels of the walls were each applied by hand - and in the suite that was bigger than many houses, if it was Tuesday it was Ylang Ylang. Galaxy had a wave pool with a white sand beach on its second floor. MGM had a Portuguese square recreated indoors, with bored little budgies in tiny cages hanging from pergolas.

But then we got to see some proper sights: wine museum where we tasted white port, an aperitif; a Grand Prix museum where we got to sit in a real Formula 3 car (those things are like coffins - and hopelessly insubstantial); and a science museum where they had a display of da Vinci machines which included the cryptex that Dan Brown claimed he had invented, wrongly - but the da Vinci people were forced to include it by popular demand, and it's the most popular item. How sad, when there's all that other amazing stuff there that he actually invented.

And then we went to see the pandas, so I could be all "Oh, I've touched a panda before, in Adelaide, look at the close-up photo on my phone here, I can tell you all about them, what do you want to know?" I make a lot of friends that way. The two here were in the same enclosure, and moving around, which was lovely and a treat - "They do spend most of the day asleep in a ball," I informed everyone beforehand - but we were whisked away after a scant 10 minutes, which was mean.

Finally we had some free time and, having been shown the hotel's Six Senses Spa where it was all trickling water, perfume, open spaces, orchids and bamboo, I went to a dark little dive off the street where armchairs draped in towels were jammed in and Chinese men with no trousers were lolling back having their feet rubbed while they smoked and watched Brazil beat Panama in the football. I had a rather painful foot massage from a fat woman who tutted over the hard skin on my toes and simpered "Tip? Tip?" when I paid her.