A BLISSFUL AND MURDEROUS FESTIVE SEASON TO YOU ALL..

Christmas was spent in Mallorca at the Bon Sol hotel, a beautiful, warm, special place clinging to the coast line just outside Palma. On Christmas Eve, we segwayed around Palma, taking in the sites in a few hours that it usually takes a day to tour, and stopped for hot chocolate and those mini pizzas which aren't called mini pizzas but look like mini pizzas. And visited Miro's home where echoes of his greatness and success still linger. He's a testament that dreamers do get paid too and you can be creative and commercial and not lose your soul and sense of purpose in the process. He's a good role model to any aspiring creative who's told by fearful and possibly well meaning parents that accountancy will always be a safer prospect.

On Christmas morning we skimmed stones on the beach at Puerto Portales in twenty degrees although we didn't go for a swim as the owners father of the Bon Sol would do every single day of the year. Then we walked along amongst the bijoux shops and the market place where the healthy and wealthy wandered with their well groomed children and their well groomed dogs (they always remind me of thoroughbred horses - beautiful, fragile, good to look at and ever so slightly pointless). I drank a spiced wine and Tom ate some sort of spiced cookie and then we walked along to the large yachts where the oligarchs hid behind their tinted glass, occasionally peering out at us peering in. A lot of them came from the UK - the yachts that is not the owners, well I presume not any way. We travelled back along the coast on foot, admiring the view and the skyline. And watched Ab Fab which was good and Doctor Who which wasn't.

New Year I spent in Stratford Upon Avon amongst seventy other wannabee sleuths, on a murder mystery weekend organised by the larger than life Joy Swift who started the concept of murder mystery over 30 years ago. About eight actors act in character during the entire weekend and you mix with people, couples, families, you don't know, and are given clues, witness murders and meet police officers who tell you who did it at the end. You get prizes if you guess who, what, where, how and why. There's an incident room where the clues are put up on the walls and as the weekend progresses more are put up. Some take it very seriously others just enjoy the ride. It is incredible fun. I would recommend it highly and have done so to everyone I have met and have written about it in full for several magazines. I don't think it's suitable for young children as Joy herself would admit as the plot lines are frequently quite dark and the dialogue between the actors so realistic it is unnerving. I have since taken a very keen interest in all things Poirot, Marple and Sherlock (I knew he wasn't dead - it was Molly I'm sure on the bike) and will be returning to see if I can improve my score, this time with Tom in tow. Google Joy Swift. Her murder mystery weekends are ingenious, incredible fun and worth every penny.