Well, Christmas 2005 zipped past. I spent most of the time cooking and eating the fruits of my labour and then sleeping it off. Which may explain why I have acquired (cough!) a bit of a podgy belly. I roasted a chicken to perfection (then sent photos of it to mates) and I got to grips with my spangling George Foreman grilling machine. Oh yes. What a fantastic invention! Sure, there are other grilling machines on the market but we don’t really need to talk about those. I’ve whacked chicken fillet breasts, beef fillet steaks, prawns, asparagus, peppers, cod fillets…some marinated in spices so yes, I’ve not been afraid to experiment. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so form an orderly queue, gentlemen…and move aside Nigella…ahem!

Apart from Christmas television, something else I avoided were the post-Christmas sales. For about a week. Look, I found myself wandering around a nearby shopping centre on New Year’s Eve (approximately a week after some of the sales started) and I was appalled – there was absolute crap in the sales! 

Every shop looked like a jumble sale with an assortment of mismatched garments literally hanging off the hangers for dear life and the queue in La Senza was so shockingly long and slow that I just turned on my heels and walked out. I hate long queues in shops. So much that I’ve started to shop online especially when my size is always out of stock! I get so mad when that happens and lately, it’s a regular occurrence. Only big sizes are available so how come we’re a nation that complains of not being skinny enough?! I tell you, there are a lot of skinny women out there if all the size 8s and 10s are always off the shelf before I get there.

January is such a dull month, no? Everyone is still asleep and the weather is really pants, so I guess my friend Charlie wisely chose to get away for a month and head to the US in search of more odd Elvis gubbins for his book. He’s in Mississippi at the moment, and then he’ll head to Memphis. Nice! Alright for some. Can I convince someone to let me go shopping around the world if I promise to write a book about it? That's Charlie in the picture, posing with a guitar in a shop where Elvis bought his first guitar. Of course it could have been taken anywhere. Could have been in Crouch End for all I know. Lucky man is also going to Las Vegas AND Hawaii. What am I doing wrong??

So as I mentioned in my previous editorial, I received a floatation tank experience gift for my birthday. Great, I’ll do that some time in the new year, I thought but no, my friend who gave me the present twisted my arm to do it sooner as she couldn’t wait, so we trotted along to the place at the weekend. It looked a bit dodgy from the outside, situated in some dark and dingy back street in London Bridge and inside, it was a like a chuffing maze! Arrows directing you to the reception and once we’d checked in, we were told promptly to go to the erm, little girls’ room first. That made me snigger but sure, it made sense.

Right, unless you haven’t clicked on the link, what happens is you have your own tank in a private room (which looks like something out of a sci-fi film), filled with about 10 inches of water and a serious amount of salt (not the table kind, proper minerals) which helps you float. And that’s it. Like floating in the Dead sea except you’re in a tank. Once the daft music stops (after 10 minutes), you relax for an hour in a dream-like state. Except I forgot to put my earplugs in so I had to get out and get back in again. It’s funny when I told people about the floatation tank because the first thing every person asked was, “What do you wear?” I asked that question too funnily enough. Well, what do you wear when you have a bath? Certainly not a wet suit. The first 10 minutes was really uncomfortable, mind. Apart from trying to get my balance right, parts of me were stinging thanks to the salt. Ouch! They didn’t warn me about that. Sadly it was over before I knew it, and now it feels like I never went there at all! I’m contemplating about going again. Costs £35 a pop though…

OK, that’s enough from me. I hope it was worth the wait. Happy new year too! I’m going to crawl back under the duvet now…