TALES OF TRIUMPHANT TRUMPETING

First, a little triumphant trumpeting: we went out for dinner last night. My second time eating out this year!

This in itself calls for trumpeting – although I do wish triumph were associated with another instrument, for obvious phonetic reasons. This irritated me so much that I briefly considered switching to bongos or saxophones instead, but that would be unfair to innocent trumpets.

Dinner was delicious, made by friends and accompanied by laughter.

There was wine, too, which I initially turned down. I’ve hardly had any alcohol these past few months because the few times I’ve succumbed to a small glass of white wine, I’ve slept badly and woken up feeling like I’m 23 again — but in the worst possible way. As if I’d been out gallivanting all night, dancing and knocking back champagne and vodka and whatever else I used to knock back as if it were water.

Anyway, I caved and had two small glasses of a lovely white wine, along with a heroic quantity of water, which I hoped would spare me the unpleasant time travel.

Sadly, today I’m 23 and hungover again, after a night of that strange sleep where you’re not entirely sure you’re actually sleeping, but you’re pretty sure you are because your dreams don’t make any sense.

So I suppose I have to give up alcohol.

Which is fine, really.

Just a bit…boring.

But the main triumphant trumpeting, also related to last night, came when one of our hosts — a lovely and very good-looking Dutch man — said that he rarely reads books because he finds it hard to sit still and concentrate long enough to read anything other than the news on his phone.

However, his wife read my romcom last summer, told him it was great fun, and so he picked it up when she’d finished it and read it in a few sittings.

It’s the last book he’s read. And so far he hasn’t felt any inclination to pick up another.

I’m choosing to view this as a triumph rather than a cautionary tale!

Huzzah!

In other news, the sun came out yesterday, which also merits a fanfare of trumpeting, as Spain seems to have developed an endless monsoon season over the past six months.

It was warm, too. Warm enough for me to wriggle into a swimsuit, grab my reading sunglasses and a book, and lie by the pool for a bit. Which was lovely, except I immediately became far too distracted by my boobs to read a single word.

My boobs clearly want to star in Bridgerton.

I’ve never had particularly big boobs, nor particularly big anything, apart from my feet, which deserve a mention in the Guinness Book of Records. But lately my boobs are on a rampage, living their best life, spilling over the tops of my bras, clamouring for fabulous corsets, and behaving with absolutely no sense of discretion.

I’m hoping they’ll eventually get bored with this boisterous behaviour and go back to being regular, run-of-the-mill boobs again.

Maybe this will happen when I go to Palasiet, a thalassotherapy clinic in Benicàssim, north of Valencia, for two weeks of body rehab.

I keep imagining the medical staff there will take one look at me and shake their heads in despair. I feel a bit like Humpty Dumpty after his great fall.

While my colitis is finally under control after three and a half years of mayhem, my body is still a bit of a shambles. So I’m hoping there will be able to gently patch up my aching muscles, joints and fascia, and perhaps locate a couple of dormant muscles.

When that happens, there will be a drumroll, followed by a fanfare of trumpets and possibly some Maypole dancing.

I just hope I don’t have to wear a corset.