We went to the Bali Spirit Festival. There were no psychics or people communing with dead people just a lot of people communing with their inner spirit and doing yoga. Yeah Yeah, get over it, I wanted to yell. But they outnumbered me by about one thousand to one. They were everywhere, shaking, dancing, ashtangaring, saluting the sunning, raw food evangelising and  displaying their beautiful bodies like it was a competition for who could be leaner, tighter, do the highest handstand, contort the longest, smile the most serenely, move the most gracefully yada yada. It was  a competition I was bound to lose.  I’m just jealous. I wish I could get a body like that by saluting Bintang beer and chocolate brownies.

Alula got to pet a snake, bang a drum, hoola hoop, find her inner light and get her face painted like a tiger.

Ubud, Bali is like Brighton crossed with the Hamptons crossed with an ashram. It’s like a lusher, less stressful version of India. But with the added benefit of there being a dvd store that sells every film you could ever want, except Generation Kill, for £1 a pop, and a little man on the street corner who sells the best fake sunglasses on the planet.

Alula has started at nursery – a place  so perfect John pronounced it the most gorgeous school he’d ever seen (because prettiness is so much more important than academic standards). It sits amidst rice paddies and all the lessons are in Indonesian and English.

So everything is perfect. Except for the fact John is making me cycle everywhere.