Nice easy day today. New Years Eve. Spent the day writing my script, and tweaking the book proposal I have to get in some time next week. Watched a few movies for research purposes while doing so, in particular "Vampire Lovers"and "Countess Dracula", two lovely old Hammer horror movies from the 70s.

Both movies star Ingrid Pitt, the wonderful Polish actress, who as I recall from my youth was the subject of countless sexual fantasies for both me and my peers. Man alive, at 32 when those films were made she was what you would call today "well fit" although as I've always said (being a child of the 70s) "a nice bit of crumpet". I love that phrase. She still makes steam come out of my ears even now.

Watching the movies I remembered the events of a couple of months ago, on hearing that Ingrid was in hospital for an operation I emailed her web site "Pitt of Horror" to find out how she was. Her people told me that she was ok, but wasn't going to be attending the NEC Memorabilia show in November... I told them I was crushed because I was probably going to be there. Turns out I couldn't make it in the end, so it all turned out okay.

So anyway, I decided after watching the movies to check with her people if her operation went ok. And Ingrid answered my email personally! Ingrid Pitt! It's amazing how 70s sex goddess film stars have the ability to turn a seemingly mature man into a gibbering schoolboy. I had the same thing when I met Valerie Leon. Long boring story, but - Cor woof! (Ahem!) After I calmed down and stopped running around the room, I replied to the email and told her I was just watching those two movies and how I loved her performances in them.

I bet she gets that a lot, especially from guys of my age, ie. over 40. But then she did set the tone, a role model almost, for a generation of young men as to what they looked for in a woman. She's one of my special favourites of that era, that's for sure. She's in a lot of my favourite movies too, like "Where Eagles Dare" with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. She's great. And she's still very beautiful even though she must be over 60 or so by now. Sigh!

Okay, snap out of it, bozo! (SLAP!) Time to go over to Matt and Ali's for New Year's Eve. More tomorrow.

The big day, I get to make Puerco Pibil for the first time in public. It's a slow roasted pork dish from the Yucatan made popular by the Robert Rodriguez movie "Once Upon A Time In Mexico", and I like it a lot. Plus as previously stated I owe Matt and Ali Kelland big style so I need to make a splash.

I started cooking the meat at about 11.30am and it was ready about 3.30pm. It was wonderful. We had it over rice and drank pear cider from Finland and Gloggi which is a kind of Finnish Christmas Drink. A good time was had by all. I was a bit later putting the meat in the oven because the chunk of pork I bought was so damn big it was really hard to butcher it into 2 inch chunks for the cooking. I basically had to spread out about three mats and cut it on one, store the uncut meat on another and store the chunks ready to go in the sauce in yet another. It was an hour of manhandling 2.5 kilos of slippery meat on a time limit. I was absolutely shagged after I finally got it in the oven.

But the food was great and we had a really nice time. They are inviting me over for New Years Eve tomorrow night, thereby I guess negating all the good work I've done to claw back a few favours I owe them but hey... I might as well get used to the fact I'm never going to pay them back totally. But then what are friends for? They can rely on me to be there for them whenever they have a problem. Maybe I better buy them a Lotto ticket every week so that one day they might win and we'll be all square. :)

I spent the evening watching "Midsomer Murders" my favourite old style whodunnit series, and polishing the first 11 pages of script. Then I stayed up quite late surfing the Internet and wasting a bit of time, because I'd spent too much of the day being productive and working. Had to restore the balance.

Okay first full day without Mia or the kids in the house. What did I do. Not a great deal. But then that was the plan. I'm having Matt and Ali Kelland and their kids over tomorrow to eat Puerco Pibil and cook for them to make up for the like 118 times they cooked for me when I was living on my own and subsequently. I owe them big time and this is just a small payment on account.

So I gathered the spices together and ground them, and made a list of ingredients I didn't have, and whipped down to ASDA to get them. One of the main things I didn't have was an ASSLOAD of pork to roast. But the recipe calls for 5lbs of pork, and ASDA only marks weights in Kgs. Balls. I'll have to get the meat tomorrow.

But I watched a bunch of Hammer horror movies tonight and punched out the first 11 pages of script. Not bad for what amounts to only about two to three hours work. On that score it should only take around 24-36 hours to write 120 pages? S'yeah, and flying monkeys might launch out of my arse. I'll be lucky to get half of it down before everyone comes back on the 2nd. But that will be enough to show people, and do readings for the main characters, so no bad thing. I'll be happy with making 60 pages.

Loving Ingrid Pitt's work in "Vampire Lovers" though. She was so curvy and lovely in those days. I met her a few times at fan events and she's still very beautiful, although obviously a lot more mature. I met Valerie Leon at the same do and she's still gorgeous too. Which reminds me I must watch "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" again.

Drove the kids to a service station on the M5 to hook up with their mother. We were about 10 minutes late due to the fact I underestimated the amount of time it would take us to get there.

But they are off now and I can spend a guilt free day just wasting time, which I am, watching movies one after the other and resting. I'm having to force myself to relax, because otherwise I hop about looking for something to sort out. I spend so much of my life sorting out problems, driving, having to be somewhere else other than where I am, I'm just enjoying the sheer innocent pleasure of doing nothing. Okay I'm watching movies, doing research for my script, but I'm lying still, relaxing. It's relaxation.

I agreed with my friend Matt Kelland when he says you should never book a week's holiday, always two. It takes you the first week to stop fidgeting and settle down. Then you have the second week to enjoy your break. Sound advice. Shame I only have a week without anyone else in the house. Ah well. I'll just have to speed relax. :)

I could do some tidying and hoovering tomorrow, or clean the car, but I don't think I should. I think I should chill totally. We'll see.

After days of having to sort stuff out, I'm finally back to having nothing to do, and it bugs me a bit so I galvanise the troops into action.

We drive to ASDA for the inevitable food shop, then I take them and the dog for a walk into town. We cruise the town looking for shops which are open, which is very few, but fortunately the ones which are are the ones for which the kids recieved tokens over the festive season. So they filled a few shopping bags, got some fresh air and we spent some quality time together. Plus the dog got the first of what I hope is a daily walk. I've been a bit lax about walking her and she's getting fat, poor love. Getting her ready for her vets appointment means I want to forstall any, "and of course she's overweight" type comments. She's big boned, dammit.

The kids have to get their stuff ready for going away to their mum's place tomorrow, so we spent a bit of time doing that and watching the new Johnnie Depp Willy Wonka movie, which was brilliant. We watched it again. Depp is playing it like a child who's run away to join the circus and never really grew up. He's playing it like Michael Jackson. I bet they never say this in public, but I bet that was their intention. It's just too cool. Watch the movie again and think Jacko. See what I mean?

When Mia got up this morning, I had it all done, just about, with a few compromises. We just about had time to saddle up and drive her to Bristol airport.

I got back and the kids were just getting up. I had just about enough time to get them brunch before falling into a deep sleep watching "From Russia with Love".

I woke up much later and the kids were happily playing their games so we watched a movie together before bedtime. Unfortunately before the movie got halfway through I was asleep again.

Christmas day. We woke and opened presents and then I pretty much started cooking the English Christmas dinner. I can't stand turkey, personally, so we had chicken, plus roast potatoes yorkshire puddings, brocoli and cauliflower, and gravy. For pudding not christmas pudding but mince pies and custard. That tears it, I'm full for a week now.

Nice easy day, but I have an eye on the fact that tomorrow, Boxing Day, is the day that Mia goes away to Finland for a week. I'm really going to miss her. We've hardly been out of each other's company since we met, and it's going to be kind of weird.

Later on, I realised that we had a lot of work still to do on Mia's brother's wedding video so I started editing the rest of it while everyone watched movies and played games they got for Christmas. I was still editing when everyone went to bed. Mia stayed up to help with a few edits but then she went at 4am. I basically spent all night trying to figure out why certain things weren't working.

Long night.