It's a new year. Time to go on holiday.

I know it's a new year, because the traffic coming to work is horrific. On the Vespa, it should take 35 minutes. At the moment, even with ducking and diving...and no doubt upsetting untold numbers of car drivers, it's taking an hour. And every fifty metres, I seem to hear the wail of another police/ambulance/fire engine siren. I don't know why it's like this, but it is every January. All I can think is that every Christmas holiday, people sit at home contemplating life, and realise that life is too short to be shoved up against foul-breathed, sweaty strangers in a tube carriage. So they take the car. Until they realise that the frustration of sitting noise to tail in the smog is likely to turn them into a mass murderer, at which point they return to the clutches of London Transport.

Of course, new year means time to start thinking about holidays. We selected a nice little three day jaunt to Iceland - somewhere the boy and I went to a few years back, and emjoyed every sulphur-smelling moment of it. We loved standing with one foot on the American tectonic plate, and one leg on the European. We loved the Blue Lagoon and we loved nearly vomitting for a whole two hours whilst we went whale watching. And of course not to forget the original Geyser and Golden Waterfall. We did avoid the shark meat that is buried in soil for a couple of months before being served. It's a delicacy best enjoyed by Bjork. And I did panic when a five year-old Boy insisted on running around a glacier that was full of crevices. But what was missing was a trip to the highlands to see the moonscape that is at Iceland's heart. So we picked a trip which included that and then asked the price. With the optional extra trip to the Langjokull Glacier (Europe's second largest) the cost was 20,000. That's each and we're talking great British pounds not dodgy Icelandic Krone. That's £40,000 for three days. I fell off my seat in uncontrolled laughter. No it really wasn't a mistake. And there must be some people that could and would afford that. But for three days? In Iceland? C'mon...it's not that good. I must have picked up the brochure for gullible idiots. Single handedly I feel we would solve their debt crisis. So it's back to the drawing board on the short break February holiday.