Firstly, it’s fantastic news that my mother has had her first ’successful’ eye operation in over a year – finally there has been an improvement in her vision. It has been a stressful and tiring past 12 months for her but finally we feel as if progress has been made. Fingers are crossed that this is a change in luck. My mother is staying in London with me for the next few days to recover from the surgery, returning home on Friday. I’m sure that before we know it, my eagle-eyed mother will be driving home, somersaulting into the sea and catching sharks for dinner.

I can’t really do an email update without mentioning the recent events in London. It’s obviously a bizarre time to live here; a friend of mine was caught in the bus blast and apart from the stitches and bruising, he’s not handling things very well due to the things he saw immediately after the explosion. Another friend got off one of the tube trains two stops before it exploded.

Nonetheless, London is still my favourite city. I’ve had more time recently to find new spots, restaurants, pubs etc. I’ve even gone inside Tower Bridge to see how it all works (I was particularly excited that the bridge was being raised whilst I was on the crossing above it, only to find that from that spot, you can’t actually see the bridge…)

The best London thing I’ve done recently was actually a birthday present from Emma: We went to see ‘We Will Rock You’ – the absolutely amazing Queen/Ben Elton musical. I’ve been rather concerned about the quality of musicals I’ve seen in London (apart from ‘My Fair Lady’, we’ve seen some pretty awful ones). However, We Will Rock You was cracking from start to finish; I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Despite my re-born enthusiasm for the capital, this doesn’t mean I’ve missed out on holidays! Emma and I had two small trips; one to Paris and another to Dublin. There’s not too much I can say about Paris – it’s a great city. Their passion for hosting the Olympics was unbelievable; everywhere we turned there was something to advertise it (oh well..!)

Dublin, on the other hand, was one of the most boring places I’ve ever visited. It had nice restaurants and pubs (of course), as well as the great Guinness factory, but there was absolutely nothing else! It’s supposed to be the capital city and I swear there are more tourist things to do in Knaresborough! As always, photos are on www.carlobezoari.com.