I had a real treat yesterday morning. I went to a local elementary school to meet the children who'd been recruited to be the junior chorus in our show next January. I'd forgotten how nice eight year olds are, how bright-eyed and one hundred percent up for everything. They were even enthusiastic about being measured for their tails. But what really struck me was the beautiful atmosphere of the school. An inner city oasis of calm and civility. St Joseph is given them as a model of the qualities they should aim for: gentleness, charity and simplicity. I could have sat there for hours, smelling the beeswax. The last time I was in an elementary school, which I suppose must have been somewhere in England, I was flattened by a tsunami of noise. Those Venetian children are luckier than they know.
I told Mr F, if we have children I want to send them there. But then he reminded me, we already had our children.
Ah, the wisdom of the menopause.

Only a week till we leave for our annual trip to New York and there are some important questions to answer. To use my neat little pull-along bag that corners so well but allows the clothes inside to subside into a crumpled heap, or the nasty green hardtop case that keeps everything neat? To pack the full 8-cylinder, tried-and-tested Beautification Support Kit or buy whatever is on offer at Duane Reed when I get there? And will this be the year when I finally concede that no woman needs to change her necklace daily. Unless perhaps that woman is Joan Collins.

Tomorrow I have to scrub the canary's poop-encrusted perch before he goes to stay with his fastidious Uncle Tony. I tell you, travel's a curse.