You have often heard my comments on identity (or lack of it). The main problem is on of never fitting in, wherever you are. And here in Ireland, where I lived for the first two years of my marriage, and have come on holiday regularly for the next twenty-eight, what makes me stick out like an octopus in the garage

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(the Spanish version of a fish out of water, much better than the Italian 'cabbage at tea-time' which actually would not seem so out of place here in the Mountains of Mourne) - as I was was saying - what makes me feel I don't belong is my accent. In England I blend in, in Belgium I have a 'joli petit accent anglais', in other places I'm plain foreign, but here...well, off we go on the 'you see, I'm Italian, but...' trail...

With eleven years at a boarding school run by Irish nuns and thirty married to an Ulsterman, you'd think I'd be able to come up with something ... after all, I can do Tanzanian-Indian-Italian and French accents in English quite passably. But this irish accent, the northern version, just is hard.

So on the way to the local pool the other day, I practised. I'm not just interested in accents, but in turns of phrase, and there's a very attractive 'tag' which is used in this part of the world, that goes 'It's a lovely day, so it is' or 'Maud's gone to the post office, so she has'. Anyway, there I was, in my best County Down accent, driving my husband crazy: 'That's a tree, so it is, we're half-way there, so we are, we could retire here, so we could, it's stunning, so it is,' and when we got to the pool he said 'Okay, over to you.' We went in: 'We'd like to go for a swim, so we would,' I say, with him sniggering behind me. 'Is that just a swim or a swim and sauna,' the lady behind the reception desk said, in an accent straight out of Cheltenham's Ladies' College...after all my efforts.

Here I am in the library (so I am) in Warrenpoint; I have a quarter of an hour's computer time left (so I have). Libraries in this country are WONDERFUL (so they are). You become a member in one,and you can borrow books anywhere (so you can), and use computers for free! Come to think of it, swimming pools are wonderful too (so they are). You just show up, pay very little, and swim. No medical certificate, no ID cards, no cap, no flipflops, no hassle at all.

Oh how I love my Irish holidays. And I am loving this one so much that my next life in Brussels seems VEEEERY far away. On holiday we always say 'Is this where we'll retire?', and this time, I think we're getting close. Not far from the kids, stunning views, in a small town (Rostrevor) with a big town close by (Warrepoint), a bigger one pretty close (Newry) and a huge one quite accesiible (Belfast/Dublin). Just give me a warm house with an Internet connection...I have written lots of stuff on my laptop but can't find a way to transfer it to cyberspace - I think that if i bought a memory stick and transported stuff from my cottage to the library, they'd look at me funny, so they would...

Time to go, so it is, talk to you all soon...