Welcome to Paradise

I'm living in a postcard. An actual postcard.

As a writer I don't use the word 'beautiful' very often. It makes me cringe and wince slightly whenever I hear anyone say it. But Sarasota in Florida is beautiful. Stunningly so. We're staying on Siesta Key, which is a small island connected to the city by a small road. The beach boasts at having 'the whitest sand in world' and its no lie. It actually hurts to walk out onto the seafront without sunglasses. The weather is perfect everyday -so hot that a film of sweat erupts all over your body the moment you leave the airconned motel room. There's palm trees wherever you look, and mahogany people smile at you as they pass. I actually challenge anyone to come here and try to be miserable - it's impossible.

Rich and I have been trying to overcome jetlag by lying on the beach. It's a hard life. The island we're staying on has a stretch of beach about four miles long and the edge of the turquoise water is full of Americans walking or jogging back and forth. There's a surprisingly (and slightly disappointingly) few amount of stereotypical 'fat' people here. In fact its more the other way. Rich and I have been basically ignoring each other as we check out every rippled tanned six-packed body or toned gorgeous beach goddess type that walks by. Despite applying liberal amounts of Johnson's holiday skin and doing my Davina workout DVD at least twice before I came out here - I feel like a stereotypical pale blobby English person.

We've done a lot since we got here. On our first day we visited this amazing marine laboratory that looks after all the marine life around Sarasota. This meant getting up and close with manitees, dolphins and sea turtles. One of the turtles was an albino and wasn't allowed out in the sunshine which I found half hysterically funy/half really sad. We went out last night to 'Siesta Village' - a small beach-driven community - and drank bottles of remarkably cheap beer while people played the steel drums in the corner. But I suppose the best thing we've seen is the Drum Circle - which I've just come back from tonight.

We were told to go down to Siesta Beach on a Sunday night to check it out so we turned up apprehensively about an hour before sunset. A huge mass of people were congregated in this giant circle on the sand. About two dozen people had brought drums with them and they were all playing together as people danced. It was astonishing. People from every social spectrum were there enjoying it. The popular jocks and cheerleaders, aging baby boomers, uptight-looking middle aged women wearing bumbags, kids running round chasing each other. Everyone was moving their bodies to the beat in such a primal way, and as the sun set the drummers built to a crescendo and it turned into a carnival. By the time it was dark there was over a hundred people dancing, about 200-300 people watching, and dozens of people doing fire-poi or running around with glow sticks on. I couldn't believe it was a Sunday night. It certainly beats watching the Eastenders omnibus while it rains outside fighting the desperate urge to slit your wrists (or is that just my Sunday night ritual?) I took a low-quality video on my camera is a desperate attempt to try and capture what it was like before the sun set - which I've added for your viewing enjoyment. But wow. Seriously. Never witnessed anything like it.

Sorry. I know I'm going on and on, and I hope I'm not turning into one of those travelling people I've always hated. If it makes you feel any better: I've not witnessed any poverty, I haven't yet had the shits, I'm sunburnt, and I in-no-way feel a growing infinity to the un-noticed beauty of the world. I just got quite excited by the drum circle.

Anyway I'll stop rambling on and should probably try and go to sleep. Rich and I have an exciting early morning date tomorrow at this place called 'The Broken Egg'. A place just off the beach that is apparently voted the best-breakfast-place in Florida. I plan to get very fat indeed.