We've just spent 3 weeks in language school learning Spanish and now we're able to order beer with aplomb. Not much else sadly, most of the learning seems to have gone in one ear and straight out of the other. But we do have a lovely couple of certificates to hang on the wall. Brian enrolled in the super swotty swot-swots' class, full of people wearing glasses and lace-up shoes who arrived early for class with their pencils pre-sharpened and a lunch made by their mum. They all spoke earnestly to each other in Spanish during the break and formed homework groups. I was in the Remove and we were too busy flicking ink pellets around the classroom, putting drawing pins on the teacher's chair, carving our initials in the desk and doing our homework in the taxi on the way to school to bother with all those boring verbs.

Over the past couple of weeks we've re-acquainted ourselves with the Buenos Aires hotspots and indeed the coldspots, namely the ice-cream shops, where Brian tries a range of delicious flavours and I stick to the tried and trusted dulce de leche, which is like a superior caramel, with big sticky blobs of dulce de leche in the middle. It's sheer heaven, and only 5,000 calories a scoop. We've also been sampling a variety of Malbecs in order to complete our tasting chart. Unfortunately we keep losing the chart down the back of the sofa and having to start over every few days. Tsk, we need a better system, or a smaller sofa.

We met up with Dave, (ex-Folkestone Dave) who of course now lives here, and has just got back from a fortnight in England. Quite why he chose to visit in February is a mystery to all of us, including him. Severely frost-bitten when he got off the plane and aghast at recent Daily Mail reports that the crime-ridden streets of Britain are awash with terrorists protesting over only having their rubbish collected on alternate Tuesdays, it has taken nearly a week of gently drip-feeding with Malbec to return him to his normal entrepreneurial self.

Meanwhile, the future Mother In Law is bearing down upon us for a 2 week holiday and I am sharpening up my best Daughter In Law skills in anticipation of random suitability spot-checks in order to marry into the Irish nobility. Have been practicing my shillelagh skills and eating potatoes in preparation. Brian tells me I could also try practicing being a bit more submissive. You can imagine my response.