The best thing about Lila Days is that you get to play with Lila all day. The worst things about Lila Days is when they start. I know you can’t have ‘too much of a good thing’ but at the 5.20 call this morning I had to keep reminding myself of that.

And I know that whilst most of you may wince slightly and go “oooh, 5.20, that’s a bit early”, when I see Spurs Paul he’ll go all Monty Python on me and say “5.20!!!! Bloody luxury!! That’s what we call ‘a bloody good lie in’, wasting half the day away. Why, when I were young…” But he’s a stockbroker so has no choice. He has to be up before the markets open in some fucking God-forsaken corner of a far-Eastern world, stay at work til Sydney closes, 19 hours later, then get blind drunk in a lap-dance bar, stuff 42 grand in used 50s down a pole dancer’s underwear and try to make it to bed without his shoes on. Ok, that may have been Leonardo di Caprio but they’re almost the same person.

Yet this was no ordinary Lila-day, this was… The Day the Witch Arrived… Day… Lila Day… whatever.

Because as you can see above, we now have a really ugly witch in the garden. Which daughter-in-Berlin called ‘hideous’ and you’ll probably think is stupid, ugly or both. But we love her. And, of course, she’s supposed to be hideous. If she looked like Gigi Hadid she wouldn’t be a witch, would she? No, she’d be either the broomstick or we’d tell everyone we’ve got a new ‘anorexic-on-a-broomstick’ in the garden. Though it would be prettier.

When we first visited our sculptor friend in Israel he had a witch on a broomstick, almost life size (no idea how big a witch is, never met one), and we both loved it. But it was solid iron and although very inexpensive, the cost of shipping ran into thousands because it weighed half a ton. That was 10 years ago and Mel’s never forgotten. And then we met Michael. A wonderful local artist who sculpts out of chicken wire. And he’s the nicest man in the world. Because he just charges you the cost of the materials (in this case, about 30 quid) and gets you to make a donation to the cancer charity who helped him when he was a patient. And how fucking wonderful is that? So now we have a super-lightweight witch, Mel’s happy, Michael really enjoyed the challenge (like how to keep her upright) and the charity get a donation.

She’s going to be called Jeannie. Don’t ask why. No really, don’t ask.

Happy exhausting Lila Day

A xxxx