I can’t help but imagine myself as Colin Firth from Love Actually (minus the bloke bits of course)

I think I am harbouring an illusion of a grand scale. Ever since I booked my flight to London, I can’t help but imagine that I am soon going to find myself in a little lakeside villa in Portugal/Spain/Greece, a villa that is located of course in a beautiful picturesque little wood with only the birds and squirrels to distract me from the task of writing my book. Oh, and the attractive Portuguese housekeeper/cook of course, who doesn’t speak any English so we will only be able to say hello (obrigado) and cheese (queijo). Thank god I love a good cheese toastie.

All sound a little familiar? OK, OK, I confess. I stole the idea from Colin Firth, or whoever wrote Love Actually, or the set designer for the movie. Someone like that.

The only major difference between Colin’s little villa setting and mine being of course that I am a woman and the hot Portuguese housekeeper will be of the male variety. And I will be using a laptop not a typewriter. And my manuscript won’t end up in the lake. But otherwise, exact duplicate.

See, here he is. Hard at work.

Mmmmm. I do like Colin Firth. It’s because of that old lake scene from Pride and Prejudice. Gets all the girls swooning and I will readily confess I am not exempt. Perhaps he wants to be my housekeeper/cook instead of the hot Portuguese bloke.

Anyway, the reason I can’t stop visualising myself in this scene is because of the following conversation that I seem to have about 10 times a day.

“So, Kathryn (genius, soon-to-be-best-selling-novelist), have you booked your flights yet?”

“Why actually, yes I have. I fly out to London at the end of January.”

“Fantastic! And where are you going to stay when you’re over there?”

“Well, I thought maybe a month in London and then relocate to somewhere warmer/cheaper like Portugal/Spain/Greece. You know, live with the locals and all that.”

“Ohhhhhhhhh…..maybe you could find a house on a lake…you know, just like that one from that movie….you know, with Colin Firth when he’s an author and he’s writing that book….and he hooks up with the Portuguese housekeeper….oh, you know….Love Actually!!”.

After hearing this quite a number of times, I have started to believe that I can actually make this come true. However, there are a number of potential problems that I need to take into consideration:

-     If you Google this house, yes, the real one from the movie, it is actually located in France. Somewhere in the South. That really expensive part. I am sure lake side retreats in the South of France rent out for an absolute song.

-     It is surrounded by woods. At night, this would probably freak me out…just a little. I blame Blair Witch but I think it all actually started with Poltergeist.

-     How do you just nip out to the shop for a quick soy flat white?

I think these problems may be too difficult to overcome – particularly the soy flat white one. I need to be located in close proximity to a café. That serves soy milk. In Portugal. Hmmm…I see another potential problem.

How do ask for soy milk in Portuguese?