Weather, not Tuscany, is the British obsession

The runner bean glut continues to fire the imagination. We haven’t got as far as covering them in custard but it comes close. A rare run out for the barbeque yesterday, before I lose my touch. I’ve ten bob on the weather improving the very day the kids are due back in school. If I recall correctly it was the same last year. Every holidaying family I met was on the phone to a travel agent, booking an October break in the Spanish sun. Watching last night’s opening scene from Andrew Graham-Dixon’s The Art of Russia in itself justifies a trip to a warmer climate. Dostoyevsky may have been correct in his assertion that, to the rest of the world, Russia is an unknown, unexplored, enigmatic and mysterious country, but the mere sight of it freezes your socks off...makes the Scottish climate look positively Mediterranean. I hope Samuel Eto’o knows what he’s in for. Despite the ingratiating charm, Francesco da Mosto’s preceding journey through Tuscany and Umbria was almost as watchable. If I ever manage to stir myself into travelling again it will be for a grand tour of my own.