TWO DAYS; THREE MEALS

Yesterday, I had to go on an intrepid journey to Virginia - a whole different state! - to get our computer fixed at the 'genius bar' of the nearest Apple Store. In fact, getting to Virginia just involved sitting on the metro for about four stops (with my bike! cool!), but it was a terrific adventure nevertheless. Virginia looks very different to DC. Erm, kind of.

Unfortunately it all turned out to be a massive waste of time, as not only did our computer behave itself like an errant child who no-one believes is a nightmare because they're always good in public, but the 'genius' actually managed to make things work and lose 80% of our iTunes library. I am only able to write this calmly having freaked out at length already. Gnaaah.

In the evening we met with another friend of the person who put us in touch with Alison. Hopes were high, as we'd hit it off so well with Alison, but unfortunately that law-of-averages thing that I thought would apply to Erik Love actually came into force on this evening. Jackie and David (both American) are management consultants. Jackie looks like Tina Fey and David wears tan suits and hangs out at Boujis when he's in London. They're both nice enough, but Jackie's just kind of hard work and hates DC, so is down on everything, while David seems just a bit to much of a sloaney networker.

In good news, we discovered another lovely roof terrace restaurant and had quite nice sushi with them during a gorgeous sunset. But we were a little relieved when the night was over and we could slope home to watch 'The West Wing'. I got the impression they probably were, too - I got little sense that they enjoyed our company and think they were happy to get home to watch the UK's Prime Minister's Questions, which they enjoy every week.

But the balance was reset today when I had lunch with a really nice lady called Cindy. She used to work for Tiger Aspect when they had an office in DC and the head of production in London gave me her details. We met in Georgetown and were quite the ladies who lunch. It was lovely, to cycle through the sunshine to my lunch date in Georgetown, and me and Cindy got on really really well.

Before Cindy arrived, I was wandering around the nice restaurant she'd chosen, accosting any sole female and asking if they were called Cindy, when a nice old couple befriended me. We got chatting and it turns out that he spent 20 years in London, living just round the corner from where my friends and goddaughter live in Eaton Place. When the lady heard I was from London, she asked if I knew some person, who runs a hedge fund there and again - as with my first trip to Georgetown - I worried I'd been woefully mistaken for someone way fancier than I am! Anyway, they left and the chap - Lanny Carew - gave me his card and asked me not to be a stranger. Turns out he was instrumental in setting up BBC America (still not quite sure what it is he does), so perhaps he'd be someone good for Max to meet.

Anyway, Cindy's really nice. She's head of production at National Geographic, is probably in her early 40s and has been married for two years (her second marriage) to a chap called Jim who's a personal trainer and actor. We got on really well and seem similarly frustrated with the way that reality TV is replacing all the good programmes and that working in TV doesn't really do much good to the world as a whole.

We chatted and chatted and chatted and then had a ladylike saunter around the shops of Georgetown, including Dean and Deluca, where I found puff pastry but it cost $10 (£5ish)! Cindy has created a sort of co-op of production managers here in DC and offered to circulate my CV around, so it'll be good if I get a bit of work out of that.

Before I headed out to Georgetown, we were visited early this morning by our downstairs neighbour, Giles, who was complaining (very nicely and friendly-ly) that water was coming down from our apartment into his and that he was getting a bubble in his ceiling. We worked out that the water was coming from our bathroom and immediately called the management company to get a plumber over. He promptly discovered that there was so much water leaking behind our shower that the whole wall was rotted through.

The point of telling you this is sharing the utter relief that Max and I felt on realising it's not our problem. We've only been homeowners in London for a year, but are already exhausted by all the stuff you have to do when the property is your responsibility. So to be here and renting and able to just get a management company to sort things out is bliss.

This evening, we finally managed to have dinner with Geoff and Sarah, having made plans two or three times before but had them cancel. It was really nice to see them again, as they're kind of our original fun DC friends. But the whole evening turned out to be really stunted and difficult and - dare I say it - kind of boring! It was a real shocker - we seem to get on much better when drunk and bantering in a bar full of people, than when sitting round a table talking. It was a little painful and I began to worry that they probably think we're awfully dull, until I realised that actually it was them who were being weird and boring.

Maybe they were tired, or dying for a cigarette or something. But I'm relieved that we've made other friends here besides them. It doesn't look like we'll be going to the basketball game or getting the TeVo that Geoff promised when we first met on that fun night in the 18th St Lounge. Ah well.

DECLARING WAR ON STOMPY

COOLEST THING I DIDN'T DO TODAY: Max had to call 911 on his way home, when he saw a car blazing on fire on the street.

The rest of yesterday did not go well. I tried to stay awake for when Max got home from work late after the primaries, but eventually had to throw in the towel at 1am. However, when I got to bed, there was the loudest, most word-for-word TV noise coming from Stompy's apartment above our bedroom. Aaaarrrggghhh.

It was so loud and I so wanted to go up there, but I was just so snoozy I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed. I did compose a very angry note in my head though, which I wrote and took upstairs this morning. Stompy wasn't in, so I just put it under his door. The note made it clear that old buildings like this are obviously going to be rubbish when it comes to noise travel, but that to be woken up at 6.30am in the morning and kept awake until after 1.30am is deeply uncool.

With war on Stompy waged, I went to meet Max for lunch in Dupont Circle, where he told me he'd just seen a cool clip of a cooking travel programme starring Gwyneth Paltrow in which Gwynnie appears to be a really fun person! Who knew? I always thought she was kind of uptight and boring, not unlike a strict prefect, with her macrobiotic diet and dislike of interviews and stuff. But no, Maxy's right - check it out.

This evening, we went for dinner at the flat of Jonathan Whitney - news editor at the BBC Bureau. Apparently he's very important, but I just know him as Whitters, the chap who's super-fun and really friendly whenever we go out with the BBC lot. He's here for two years, but his girlfriend Katie isn't coming over until September. She's visiting at the moment and this was a chance for us to meet her, as she and I will hopefully become daytime buddies when she moves here.

Whitters' apartment is AMAZING. It's in an interesting part of town - about 5 blocks down from us, just off U Street. It's next door to Busboys & Poets, which is something of a DC institution (not sure why yet - will investigate). The reason it's interesting is because on his street, you can see the tidemark of gentrification. Literally, the wave of redevelopment kind of stops with his fancy new glassy apartment block and beyond it is rundown, paint peely tenement buildings.

The apartment itself is up on the 8th floor and is this really modern open-plan flat with exposed brickwork and big metal duct piping running around the ceiling. It's all furnished in blacks and reds and one whole wall is a window looking out onto a colossal balcony with a west-facing view from the Washington Monument right round to the National Cathedral. It's absolutely stunning and we watched the sun set behind the cathedral while drinking wine, which was lovely.

Whitters and Katie are away all July and have said we can have their keys and come up to the apartment on 4th July or for sunbathing. Awesome!

We had a really nice evening, with fun chat and nice food. Turns out Whitters was in Soham coordinating the BBC's coverage of that tragedy, and then also in Praia del Luz last summer, coordinating the coverage of Madeleine McCann story. We got interesting insights into both of those and I was amazed by how jolly he is, despite having been in the middle of horrible things. He spent a long time in Northern Ireland, too.

It wasn't quite as much fun as hanging out with Alison and Erik Love, but Whitters and Katie are really nice and I was very happy to discover that I've got my baking mojo back as we tucked into my first successful effort at brownies for dessert (third time lucky... I think the answer was the actual baking tin I bought the other day).

I was very proud that we were able to hop on a bus home, just like when we used to get the 94 home from Tom and Bambi's house if we were feeling snoozy. We're true locals! (erm, the fact that we just had to get straight down U St kind of diminishes our achievement).

We got home to find a long and mortified note under our door from Stompy. Except it very obviously isn't Stompy! The person who wrote the note - having received mine - is a lady called Paula who lives alone upstairs. I met her briefly a week or two ago, when she helped me get my bike through the front door. Turns out she is in the flat directly above us. But she can't possibly be Stompy, because the petulant stamping feet are definitely those of a heavy person, not a 5'2" lady and we regularly hear a male voice. Also, she mentioned in her note that she rarely listens to music, and we always hear music coming into our apartment. Oops! Paula was so nice in her note, totally accepting responsibility (despite the fact it very obviously isn't her who's disturbing us) and promising to take her shoes off when she walks around her flat. I feel awful and am now intent on finding the real Stompy.

MISSING: BAKING MOJO

MOST DELICIOUS NEW COCKTAIL DISCOVERY: the 'Blue Sting' - fresh blueberries, mango flavored rum, blueberry honey, crushed mint, limes and white cranberry juice. Niiiiice.

We saw Alison again last night, which was really fun. She brought along her friend Erik Love (who, for some reason is always referred to by his full name), a sociology PhD student and a friend of hers from when they were both teaching English in Japan after college.

I didn't really want to meet Erik Love. I figured we'd met enough nice people in Alison, Patrick and Anne and that surely our luck had to run out soon and we'd start uncovering boring people. But no! Erik Love is utterly hilarious and spectacular company.

Both the boys were late, which gave Alison and me time for chats before they arrived. Alison went on a date with a guy from her church last Friday who'd asked her out six months ago having never spoken to her, so she turned him down straight away. But then he asked again a week ago and, admiring his patience and persistence, she said yes and went on a date with him. His name is Brewster and he's 37 and works for Accenture.

It's interesting, being religious isn't a big deal here. Religion features so much more casually in conversation with people our age than in the UK - not as some great evangelical proclamations, but just as informing everyday life. It's no great mystery - more people our age are religious here - but it's nice for me to be able to mention faith in casual conversations without it being awkward, or sticking out a mile. It feels like in Britain, if you talk about it then you're defined by it and it is a thing. But here, you can just drop it into conversation and nothing is really thought of it.

We had dinner at a nice place called Zola, where we the wine flowed freely, as did the conversation. All of which led Max to order a $24 plate of cheese for dessert. You've never seen one person eat so much cheese.

It was nice to make another fun friend in Erik Love, though we're sad he's going back to California at the end of June, when his course here finishes.

It's the Oregon and Kentucky primaries today, so Max is working late tonight. But that meant I got to hang out with him this morning, as he didn't go to work until 4pm, which was nice. Unfortunately for him, most of the morning was spent at the supermarket, so I could take advantage of an extra pair of arms to carry lots of stuff home.

We can add puff pastry to flannels and duvet covers on our list of Things You Just Can't Buy In The US. I searched high and low for puff pastry, but there just isn't any. Apart from if you want to make baklava and, considering how disastrous my baking attempts have been so far, I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon. Problem is, puff pastry is the corner stone of my signature dish, so any dinner parties we give (we're having Sarah and Geoff over for supper this Friday) will be sunk without it!

I was meant to be playing my first ever softball game tonight, but it got cancelled because there'd been a lot of rain at the weekend and the pitch was still soggy. I was secretly relieved, as I'm getting increasingly nervous about my softball debut - it's been years since I played rounders.

Like the good housewife I am, I decided to make the BBC troops some cupcakes to get them through their long night. But I've lost it. I've completely lost my baking mojo - it's official. Two bad batches of brownies and now some disguuuusting cupcakes - the stats don't lie. I don't know what it is, but can only hope it has something to do with butter tasting different here, or something. *sniff*

PHOTOS: MONTAUK & THE HAMPTONS

Click here for pictures of Maxy's birthday weekend at the tip of Long Island.

SUNDAY IN THE HAMPTONS

MOST MONEY THING WE SAW IN THE HAMPTONS: a DeLorean driving down the main drag of East Hampton

It feels like we've been away a lot longer than just a weekend. Perhaps we have Son o' Stompy to thank, as we were up and about, making the most of the day, earlier than perhaps we'd have liked, having been woken up by lots of noises from the surrounding rooms.

We spent the morning wandering around Montauk, heading off the main street a little bit and pootling in and out of the shops. The atmosphere reminds me of little seaside towns we used to visit in Norfolk. We found an actual bakery, so were mercifully spared the clingfilm-wrapped croissants for the second day in a row.

It was another beeaaautiful morning, so our chosen breakfast location was the beach at Hither Hills state park which again, was an amazing sprawling deserted beach - this time with cool dunes at the back of the beach and those spindly wooden fences that I have in my head as being typical of Hamptons/Montauk beaches.

Behind the dunes, there was a handful of campervans and tents and I can imagine it's a really great place to camp - the beach is enormous and beautiful and then there are 'walking dunes' and woodland to wander through right there, too. Unfortunately you're not allowed to swim off Hither Hills beach, though. The waves were really big and angry - it was brilliant to sit and eat breakfast watching the shore get a pounding.

The light in the sunny sunshine was just amazing - like on a photoshoot with those silver reflecty things. So as we strolled down the beach, I indulged in something of a photo frenzy.

Bidding Montauk goodbye, we headed to East Hampton, to rub shoulders with the fancy folks. With good tunes on the stereo and beautiful wooded roads to drive through, the half hour drive did not suck.

The main bit of East Hampton is quite small - just a kind of high street (albeit one with Tiffany, Ralph Lauren and Gucci on it) with a couple of little streets going off it. But it looks as though it's manicured with nail scissors - it's all extremely fancy and just so and I found myself approaching the visit more from an anthropological perspective than feeling in any way at home!

Having had no t-shirt joy in the nice little ramschackled beach shop in Montauk, Max made a bee-line for Ralph Lauren. You may think Max is a happy-go-lucky, laid back scruff of a chap, but he LOVES his labels! He doesn't buy many clothes, but when he does, they invariably bear some cool brand and were on sale for half the price they should be. He also loves a bargain.

And apparently there were bargains to be had in Ralph Lauren. I saw a lady trying on the most exquisite evening gown - a full length black beaded number with a kind of fishtail skirt and really deep v-shaped halterneck top - that was on sale for... $16,000!!! Reduced by 20%, or something!! It did look absolutely amazing - it'd outshine anyone on any red carpet anywhere - and it was fun to finally find out where people buy dresses like that. But as the woman trying it on pointed out - she could get a car for that money.

Max found a really cool t-shirt for $20, so was very happy to be able to wander down the high street of East Hampton, swinging a Ralph Lauren bag around. There wasn't too much more to see, other than fancy shops and a nice windmill plonked in the middle of everything. We certainly couldn't find any restaurants (judging by the size of the lady trying on the Ralph Lauren gown, eating isn't high on the list of priorities in East Hampton), so we decided to go to Sag Harbor for lunch.

To get to Sag Harbor, we had to drive through a few of the other Hamptons, all of which were perfectly nice and picturesque. Max got the iTrip working like a dream and we fittingly listened to a Josh Rouse album (he sings a song called, 'Winter in the Hamptons'), which again made for a nice sunny driving soundtrack. The iTrip is amazing - it allows you to broadcast your iPod on a radio frequency, then tune the radio of your car into that frequency, so you pick up the music from your pod! I'd read bad things about how weak the signal from the iTrip can be and how the iPod needs to be right up against the radio to work, but it was great for us. Woo!

Sag Harbor is loads nicer than East Hampton. It's still quite fancy, but in a less hardcore way. It feels more lived in and organic and was really nice to walk around. The weather started clouding over, so we had a nice light lunch in a Belgian place and then decided to make our way slowly back to LaGuardia, via the Paumanok vineyard.

We foolishly decided against using Polly to get us to the vineyard and got a little lost and then when we got there, it was raining. So Max just gulped down a flight of four wines and we left. I planned to get Max a bottle of his favourite wine as his final birthday present, but he reminded me of ChampagneGate at the airport and pointed out that the same thing would happen on the way home.

So we just drove back through the rain - this time with Polly guiding us. Unfortunately the iTrip started picking up loads of static and then Polly led us on a merry dance when we realised we could programme the satnav to take us to the nearest gas station and we ended up in the middle of suburbia, nowhere near anything resembling pumps. Technology was failing us by the second!

Yet again, our plane was delayed and we sat on the tarmac for about an hour because there was a traffic jam of about 8 planes ahead of us, which was an unusual sight.

Just like when we came back from New York, returning to DC felt pleasantly like coming home, though it was lovely to feel like we'd been away for ages. We had a quick bite at Raku (rapidly becoming our traditional post-weekend-away first stop) and then went back to the apartment, where Max had some more gifts to open that had been too heavy for us to take onto the plane as hand luggage. These included the complete DVD boxset of 'Seinfeld' from Max's brother which - in my eyes - not only made up for the Phil Collins CD he also gave him, but has assured us of many nights of pre-bedtime fun once we've polished off 'The West Wing'. Woo!

ETERNAL SUNSHINE

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE DAY: being woken up by Stompy's envoys next door.

It is to my shame that I've often looked at adverts for Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch and Tommy Hilfiger with a pang of longing, as beautiful people lark around in lovely clothes on amazing beaches, the like of which you just don't get in Britain (as beautiful as those beaches are).

Well all those adverts must've been shot in Montauk! The beaches are AMAZING and we found three of them! Actually, one wasn't so nice. But two out of three ain't bad.

After our noodley day indoors yesterday, we decided to get up and at 'em early, so headed into Montauk and picked up some clingfilm-wrapped croissants (weird) from a shop which also inexplicably sold British sweets, so I excitedly stocked up on Crunchies, Twirly Wirlys, Smarties and Turkish Delight for Maxy. Then we headed to the beach, which turns out to be just the other side of the shops and things - the beach is very much in Montauk.

The weather was just gorgeous - all blue skies and sunshine - but there were very few people on this incredible huge, sweeping beach with white breakers and big sky, with the odd beachhouse dotted along the dunes. We sat on a log and ate our breakfast, marvelling at the waves and sunshine and neverending beach.

breakfast in Montauk

After breakfast, we consulted Max's excellent guide to Montauk (seen here, through the windscreen) and had high hopes for Gin Beach. But unfortunately it was not so nice and had lots of caravans on it, so we drove to Ditch Plains Beach, which is famed for its surfing and was again, just breathtakingly amazing and pretty much deserted.

We had to almost consciously make ourselves just stop and enjoy the view, rather than dashing on somewhere else, and so took a gentle stroll down the beach, coming across the odd rockpool, looking longingly at the beachouses with private staircases down to the beach and watching some sea fishermen catch a big fish.

After walking for ages and seeing some cool rock formations in the rocks at the back of the beach, we finally found the beachhouse that we're going to buy one day when we're living in New York, and sat down looking out to sea, staggered by how lucky we are (even luckier when we have the beachhouse!).

Casa Devo, circa 2030

As we got to the end of Ditch Plains Beach and rounded a corner, we found ourselves on Breakfast Beach, so needn't have done all that driving after all! With great difficulty - and spurred on by our rumbling stomachs, we headed back along the beach, trying to take everything in as much as possible, to store up as an antidote to dark grey autumn afternoons in an office in London.

We headed to Gossman's Dock for lunch, driving along in the sunniest of sunshine, listening to Vampire Weekend (EXCELLENT driving music) and pootling along these roads of nice little houses.

Gossman's Dock is vaguely hilarious - it looks a little like a theme park based on a village of yesteryear, probably in England. We hadn't realised, but today was its first day of the season, so had we come last weekend, it'd have been all closed up. Embracing the 'when in Rome...' spirit, we decided to have an enormous lunch of fresh lobster and I got ridiculously excited when we were supplied with authentic lobster bibs, as I've only ever seen those in the movies.

Me and lobster before the carnage - just excited by the bib

Unfortunately, the love affair with all things lobster came to a definite and abrupt end when I couldn't get out of my head the anatomy of it all. It was one of those times when I couldn't separate the food I was eating from the animal it once was and there was something almost surgical about ripping the legs out of their sockets and stuff. I did my best to ignore this and eat the tasty lobster, until I pulled the head off and this massive slug of black matter - which I can only assume was brains - slopped out of the head cavity and onto the table. Ugh. I nearly barfed. Ugh. I feel sick. So that was the end of me and lobster. It was wonderful to be eating outside in the sunshine, though.

After lunch, we wandered around the twee little boutiques of Gossman's Dock, where I bought myself a baseball cap for my impending softball game next Tuesday. I also tried on a bunch of nice summer clothes, but then remembered that I was paying for the weekend, so left them all behind.

We tried to get to Andy Warhol's estate after leaving Gossman's Dock, but it was an extremely private road with a gate across it and we weren't feeling brave enough in our very-obviously-not-suited-to-offroad-driving hire car. We did however see a foal drinking from its mother on Deep Hollow Ranch - the oldest cattle ranch in the US (thanks, Maxy's Guide To Montauk).

We headed over to Montauk Point State Park and to New York State's first lighthouse and the fourth oldest active lighthouse in the US (will the deluge of facts never end, Maxy's Guide To Montauk?!). We climbed all the way up to the top (137 steps) and the view from the top was pretty cool, but Max was a little frightened and we were only allowed onto a tiny bit of the viewing platform. Our visit this weekend coincides with the fourth annual Long Island Lighthouse Challenge, where you visit all 9 lighthouses in Long Island and get a little passport thing stamped at each place. So there were lots of breathlessly excited challengers up there with us.

In the giftshop, Max told me there was something that would make me cry and that I wasn't to go over to a particular corner of the shop. Convinced that nothing could be so bad in the giftshop of a lighthouse, I defiantly wandered over, only to find my bottom lip quivering as I saw a nice old man standing with a pile of books smiling hopefully at every passer-by who ventured to his corner of the shop. He'd written a book about the lighthouse and was there for a special book signing event. Except no-one was buying his book and he was standing all forlorn. Max knows me too well.

From the top of the lighthouse, we had seen a massive - and somewhat sinister - radar thing poking out of dense woodland, so knew our next stop had to be Camp Hero.

Hddddrrrdrdr. It was so weird. It's another state park, so quite a lot like driving through the New Forest. There are even little picnic spots among the trees. But there's such a weird atmosphere there. Not helped by a man with long silver hair, bearing striking resemblance to the terrifying Uncle Bob from 'Twin Peaks' who was just walking along the road. Sinisterly. Then we drove for what seemed like quite some time, turned a corner and there he was again! Time travel, I tell you.

The whole place was freaky weird, with the big radar thingy towering above the trees and lots of scary boarded up bunkers that looked like the setting for a teen horror film where friends dare each other to go inside and are never seen again. Hdddrrrrdrdrrr.

it's sinister, it's run by the government, it's a compound
(and it says, 'DO NOT ENTER BUILDING. CLOSED TO PUBLIC' on it)

Laying down rubber as we got the funk out of Camp Hero, we headed back to the hotel and had a swim before going out for the evening. I wanted to watch the sunset while drinking cocktails in a nice bar, but Max wanted to sample the delights of The Movie so we went to see 'Iron Man'. Which suuuuuucked.

But the evening was saved by another fantastic meal, this time at East By Northeast, which again had a great atmosphere - all contemporary and cool - and deliiiiicious food. It's owned by the same people who run the place we ate last night, so it was with great trepidation that I asked our waiter whether they by any chance have the same sorbet as Harvest on Fort Pond. Not only did they have it, but it's made there! So the Harvest guys nick it from them!

Oooh la la, dessert was a delight to behold and Max didn't make the same mistake twice - he got himself a serving too and we were both in fizzy citrussy heaven. Mmmmm.

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY

THE GREATEST BIRTHDAY GIFT OF ALL: a good night's sleep - no Stompy in Montauk! Zzzzzz.

Even if I do say so myself, Max has had a pretty kickass birthday.

He awoke to a pile of cards and presents from his folks, brother, my folks and me, then we headed into Montauk town (such as it is) for a fat breakfast.

Montauk Manor is just beyond Montauk town and, in the daylight, we discovered that we'd driven past a big lake last night and Montauk's HILARIOUS cinema, called 'The Movie', that looks a little like a shed and only plays one film. Though, to its credit, at least that film ('Iron Man') is on current release - the cinema in Wareham tends to get films months after they've come out.

Unfortunately it was really crummy weather - really cloudy - so Montauk was not looking at its best. But it seems to be made up of a plaza based around a roundabout, then a main drag with a really seaside-y big shop of miscellany like dinghies and t-shirts and snowglobes and some little convenience stores and bakery, etc.

We had breakfast at John's Pancake House and were going to explore afterwards, but it was pouring down with rain, so we just ran across the road to the big seasidey shop to try to find Max a t-shirt, as for some reason he'd only packed shirts.

It was still raining when we got back to the hotel, so we just had a noodley afternoon indoors. I booked Maxy in for a massage at the spa and then - with Max all floppy and smelling of massage oil - we watched the DVD of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' in our room (I gave it to him because some of it takes place in Montauk). I'd forgotten what a wonderful movie it is, though fell asleep halfway through, so its jumbled chronology and dreamlike structure were doubled as I tried to work out what was going on when I woke up!

SPOILER ALERT! I always find the ending of the film really bleak, but Max thinks it's the most romantic thing ever. I just feel like the optimism that Joel and Clementine feel at the end, in spite of the tapes they've listened to, is only going to be dashed when they inevitably come to feel the same frustrations with each other as they did before.

Anyway, it was really lovely to watch on a rainy afternoon, and we got very excited about finding the beach from the movie. We then started watching it with Michel Gondry and Charlie Kauffman's commentary, which was really interesting. Michel Gondry's really fun and both of them really love Kate Winslet.

Before getting changed for dinner, we had a nice splash about in the pool and chilled out in the jacuzzi with a man who lives at the Manor during the summer.

Dressed in our finery, we headed out for dinner. I did lots of research last week and made reservations for us at the best restaurant in the area. The rain had become absolutely torrential by the time we set out and my white dress, makeup and strappy sandals were utterly soaked by the time we got to the car and didn't dry out before we got to the restaurant, where I managed to park next to a gigantic puddle (after dropping birthday boy off at the door).

The restaurant was wonderful, though. After a bellini and martini at the bar, we headed to our table and had one of the best meals of our lives. The atmosphere was lovely - all bustling and twinkly - and our waitress was great (and the meal was reeeeally cheap!). The portions at the restaurant are purposefully enormous, to encourage sharing among big parties. So it's really more of a family restaurant, where four of you get two dishes and all share everything.

So we just had one starter and a main course between us, both of which were amaaaaazing. We had a calamari salad to start with, which had an unexpectedly divine miso dressing on it, then a big steak with some of the tastiest fries I've ever had. Mmm, it was just fantastic and we had a really really fun time.

The highlight was the dessert, though. For a start, it was nice to have room for a dessert, after only eating half a portion (kind of), but secondly, it was genuinely the most astonishing lemon sorbet I've EVER eaten. And I eat a lot of lemon sorbet. Max went for his favourite, tiramisu, but had to concede from the mouthful I gave him that the sorbet was extraordinary. It almost fizzed on the tongue and tasted really lemony and wasn't at all frozen and icy like some sorbets and not too tart, either. Mmmmm, I shall dream of that sorbet.

To top off a great day, we watched a 'West Wing' at the hotel, then went to bed, fingers firmly crossed that the weather improves, so that we can explore.