I hope this isn't going to be a once a week blog. There are no excuses as I am not bereft of anything to say or write about. There are lots of excuses like I was too busy drinking or watching the Montreal Comedy Festival or chatting with friends over coffee or visiting those with children and being dragged up and down a hallway five floors up by a one year old with the vim and vigour I don't recall ever having but must still possess as he kept me at it for two hours.

Meanwhile, I pondered my failings in my Dutch lessons with Henderson. I realised I have only learnt the words ' I love you', 'a lot', 'can I have a beer please? 'very nice' and 'towel' which if looked at from a perverse angle says a lot about our relationship. A bit like peering into the contents of someone's shopping basket and seeing they are buying washing powder and a bottle of gin.

There is a very nice friendly man who sells me phone cards on the cheap and he remarked the other day that I was 'muy tapada' which I think means I was well wrapped up on account of the cold. I dearly wanted to utter the words, again of my father, that involve a monkey and balls, but didn't know the word for brass at the time. Henderson, whose Spanish leaves a lot to be desired knew the word of course. Can't string a decent sentence together in Spanish but always knows how to say obscure words.

After chatting with a friend whose 10 year old daughter's answer to the credit crisis is to get rid of money altogether, I thought I might start bartering for things. You know, I'll do a painting if you sort out my teeth. I've also got a plan for old age that if things get desperate, which they might as I have no pension plan or savings, I may embark on a life of crime. Perhaps in the Netherlands where I hear their prisons are very comfy if things go awry and at least I would have a roof over my head. In fact, I think every single person over seventy should just rise up en masse and start fighting back one way or another till it gets so out of hand the police give up. Why should it be just the young who get to toss Molotov cocktails?