The car came for us at 5.30 yesterday morning. To take us to City Airport. Ooooohhhhh, City Airport, that’s a new one for me. And its great. So small you can barely fit a 50 seater plane in the car park. And if there should be two planes at the same time, one has to wait next door. At The Dome. Thus; no queues for security, no queues at the coffee shop (only one), no waiting, no bother, no hassle whatsoever. One day all airports will be like that. The irony being that they then become popular, take more flights, get 6 new runways, four new terminals, have massive, off-site parking (like, in Kent) and turn into the nightmare that is Gatwick.

However, City Airport, brilliant. Got on a weeny little plane, basically just me, Mel, a pilot, couple of ‘waitresses’… ok, ‘steward-essessesssesss’, (though I’m now used to the gay guys you seem to get at other airports I was almost disappointed), and 37 other people. Good people. Voted for Cameron. Didn’t smell too bad.

And Venice is both the dream and the nightmare. The sun’s shining, it beautiful and filled with fabulous places and stuff. But its busy. Soooooo sodding busy. Its Oxford Circus at 5.30, but all day. Its the January Sales at Brent Cross. They unload great big cruise ships here and dump the contents, thousands of day-trippers, into St Mark’s Square. Where they all seem to be taking photos of each other, rather than the Doge’s Palace.

And as a tourist myself, I fucking hate tourists. Go figure. The traveller’s dilemma.

So we ventured off down the back streets, along the canals, in search of quieter places, nicer places that didn’t feel like Old Trafford 15 minutes before kick-off. And we found them.

The water-boats are fab, the restaurants and bars abundant, the food superb, the wine even better (and 1 Euro a glass; just gimme a tenner’s worth, por favor, hic), the Venetians are lovely and rather gorgeous and the weather is amazing. Except for about half an hour last night when we happened to be on a walking tour of the Ghetto (the world’s very first Jewish Ghetto, even older than Stamford Hill) from which all other ‘ghettos’ are named. Then it pissed down. But really pissed down.

There are more French people here than Italians; it would appear. You can smell them.

Ok, the sunshine is calling me. Loudly and clearly. And in Italian.

Bene Sunday (yeah, whatever)

A xxxx