GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL PART TWO THE HARD VERSION

There's a lot to be said about spending time in the wilds of Dorset with your elderly but sprightly parnets ( mum and dad to me ) without a phone or a computer. Well the phone bit is a lie but it never rang and I forgot it was there. Said parents are still raging against the powers that be and the rest, so dinner was always a delight and thank God they both drink red wine. My mother always a teetotaller has finally succumbed but as I have been saying for ages with all the doom and gloom the British media like to espouse I'm not surprised people drink.

Not having a computer also meant that I forgot that I had to print out my Check and Go pass to board a Ryanair plane quickly and free so getting there and finding out I had to pay twenty quid to take my eight kilos and Henderson's ten of hand luggage that I had fretted over for the previous few days just left me feeling like an idiot. I noticed when I checked my e-mails that Ryanair hadn't sent the usual 'reminder' to print this pass out so I would have probably forgotten anyway but I can't help feeling the whole thing is a con especially when even at the last minute two guys were trying to flog us priority boarding passes for an extra four pounds.

When I wasn't ensconced in the New Forest I did venture out in it and what a beautiful place. It was one of many things that were stopping me from returning to Spain but at dinner I would be reminded that if I come back it won't be long before I am writing letters, protesting and generally getting steamed up about living in what is looking like a weird, dictatorial, neo fascistic, socially engineered island stuck out in the Atlantic. Better to live in a weird, post-dictatorial, post fascistic, couldn't give a toss peninsula with some handy mountains and various waterways to run to if it ever kicks off again.

I can keep going on this one, like the fact that the British high street looks like one chain of charity shops. If you leave Poole shopping centre as I did to escape the melee and possible panic attacks from one of many bete noirs you see the evidence. There are many charity shops here but as I went into various other shops I realised I couldn't tell the difference. Some of the charity shops were more expensive than the regular shops. If you're looking for clothes and you are a woman you could end up looking like a prostitute tramp cum female impersonator. If you took the shopping centres away I think it would be a fascinating study to see what unpredictable behaviour would ensue.

On a positive note, my mother can't fault the NHS where she lives and for further evidence I have to say that going to her chiropractor has given me the will to live. I wouldn't normally write about such detailed and personal pains but I would like to have some historical reference and evidence just to say that the twenty four hour, seven days a week for seven months pain is largely due to a muscular skeletal problemo and can and will be fixed.