Do you remember back in May how I went to Amsterdam to see my beloved Radiohead and when we arrived there was a sign written in the Times New Roman of Doom that said the show was cancelled because Phil The Drummer's mother had passed away suddenly and I plunged into despair which was quickly followed by crushing guilt for being disappointed considering the circumstances? Remember? Remember?

Since then I've felt bad about being too huffy to properly enjoy my time in such a fine city. At the Van Gogh museum the day after the Cancellation, I stared gloomily at one of his paintings, something involving hay or flowers. I read the caption about him chopping off his ear and thought, I hear ya buddy. Then I smacked myself in the head with my camera for being such an obnoxious twit.

So really, I felt duty bound to return to Amsterdam and see it properly! YES! And it had nothing to do with the concert being rescheduled and this being the very last show of their tour and lord knows how long it would be before they toured again. But our tickets were still valid and there were cheap flights from KLM. I'm sure a chap as environmentally worried as Thom Yorke would frown at our frivolous flying, but I couldn't resist!

It was a whirlwind 48 hours in Amsterdam, but we gave it a red hot go. From the canal boats to the cafes to the coffeeshops to the hot chips in the paper cones, we really wolfed it all down. Now I'm deep in the throes of vacation withdrawls, just aching to be back in Super Happy Fun Holidayland. Every time I walk down a street I glare at it with disappointment because it doesn't have a canal running through it. Stupid non-Dutch streets.

Dinner by the canal.

The concert was incredible. Oh baby. Radiohead just get better every time and make me feel glad to be alive. Don't go telling me that they went crap after OK Computer. I am still in my Super Happy Fun Concertland bubble and I'm not coming out yet. La la la!

People always bang on about what a miserable bunch Radiohead are, but I heartily disagree. The show was foxy and fun and the band looked to be having a grand old time. The new songs went down a treat and Thom did his crazy dancing. Jokes were cracked!

I am also happy to report that unlike last time, I stayed conscious for the entire gig!

Most importantly, here is the Ed O'Brien Report. Which I'm sure is only of interest to me, but I like to note these things en blog and track my obsessions through the ages.

So, in the three years that have passed since our last encounter: Ed is still more ridiculously handsome than should be legal. He is still deliciously tall, sings beautifully, plays nice guitar and does lots of fiddling round with various bleeping machines, further proving that he is not just lanky eye candy, dammit.

SHAUNA:  I also noted tonight that in the three years that have passed since our last encounter, Ed is now wearing a wedding band.

GARETH:  And so are you!

SHAUNA:  Oh... yeah.

I took a few photos during the show but they were universally rubbish, as my view was hindered by the rows of tall, strapping Dutchmen in front of me; plus it is hard to focus the camera in a heightened state of arousal poor lighting conditions.

Monday night I went to the Edinburgh Book Festival for a session called 'Tips On Getting Published', my attempt to seek inspiration beyond self-publishing avec photocopier.

A lot of people turned up for the Tips. They filled the hall and sat up straight in their chairs. They opened their notebooks, clicked their pens and waited to be filled with information. I just had some tissues and a box of mints. Amateur!

On the panel was a literary agent, three publishers and a lawyer. They expelled much wisdom about queries and manuscripts and money (or lack thereof) and agents and enthusiasm, and the crowd dutifully scribbled it down.

Then it was time for audience questions.

"Please keep your questions nice and general," requested the host.

"You were talkin' about libel," growled a large man with shaved head, "Well, say you just got out of prison and you've done a memoir about bein' in prison and in the memoir you talk about people who're still in prison... can they sue you from there?"

Then someone else piped up, "How much would it cost me to send you my manuscript? Is it going to be expensive?"

"You mean like... postage?" asked a baffled publisher.

"Yes!"

The stereotype of the tightarsed Scot won't be dying out any time soon.

We went back last night see David Sedaris. I'd never been to an author reading before so this was a brilliant place to start. SJ got me hooked on his stuff many years ago, so I admit to getting the dopey Fan Girl grin as he read his stories. And he was extremely charming and hilarious during the audience questions too. It's one thing to be a brilliant writer, but to be brilliant out loud, without cigarettes or weeks of editing too? Bonus.

Afterwards, I joined the typically lengthy but civilised queue to get my book signed. I was anxious and wanted to spew, because a girl in the audience had asked Sedaris about the most stupid or irritating thing fans have said to him. He said book signings can be nervewracking for all involved, because you have just a few seconds of contact and you feel some sort of pressure to say something interesting. Apparently some smartarse will always say to him, "Do you talk pretty yet?" and it drives him demented. So what was I going to say? Love your work? I didn't have delusions of being funny or engaging, I just didn't want to be a starry-eyed dickhead.

I was distracted from my angst by an evil triumvirate of journalism students behind me. They made me shiver with their retro shoes and carefully careless hairdos. I pegged them as second years, because they were still in that Holier Than Thou phase of a journalism student's career in which all you can do is MOCK STUFF, or tell the world of your disdain for The Media with its unethical chequebook-weilding practices and how you will Never Be Like That, because you are a real journalist with Integrity!

(This phase ends when you graduate and soon realise there's nae jobs and perhaps you shouldn't have been so hasty in turning down that cadetship at the Hicksville Herald.)

Once they had argued which university had the superior student newspaper, they discussed what they were going to say to David. Should they approach as a trio, or go separately?

"If we go up together and say something collectively brilliant, maybe we'll appear in his next story!"

"Yeah! Although he might blend us into one character. With boobs, two penises and six legs."

"Brilliant!"

More interesting was the veterinary student waiting in front of me. She was making efficient use of her queuing time to study. First it was something about cells with intruiging blobby diagrams, and then she moved on to a page of case studies.

Female intact dog presents with dullness, lethargy and vaginal discharge. She was on heat eight weeks prior.

What the hell was an intact dog? You'd presume it would have to be intact if it had managed to present itself, especially if lethargic. But what about the discharge? Is that terminal?

I scribbled down the case as I peered over her shoulder, word for word; because I had come prepared with a notebook this time and I had make use of it somehow.

I was so busy pondering the plight of the intact dog that I forgot to think of anything interesting to say to David Sedaris, and before you could say "dullness and lethargy" it was my turn.

"Hello!" I said.

"Hello!" said David Sedaris.

He asked my name and I said Shauna and he asked how to spell it so I said S-H-A-U-N-A and he said M-A? Shauma? And I said, No it's N-A you know like Shaun with an A attached. He said Oh I see then asked where was I from. I said Australia and he asked whereabouts in Australia and I said, Oh just a country town that nobody's heard of.

And then he said, "I like those flat whites you have in Australia."

"Oh yeah! Flat whites. You don't really get those over here do you."

"Actually I think there's a cafe in Soho that does flat whites, it's called -"

"Flat White! I heard about that!"

"Yeah!"

"It's all those Aussies in London," I mumbled helpfully, "They really need their flat whites."

And then followed what I perceived to be a pained silence. We were all out of words, so he handed my book back.

They always say you should never meet your heroes. Whenever I read a David Sedaris book from now on, I will remember that vaguely uncomfortable expression and my complete... flat whiteness.

I slinked away and the three Journalists of Tomorrow stepped forward. I should have told him about the dog with the vaginal discharge. That could have been interesting.

Hey comrades, it's confession time!

I've been wanting to write this entry for over five years but have chickened out, time and time again. But now it's got to the point where I'm so anxious and exhausted from keeping this dumb little secret that I need to come clean and get it over with.

It's a long story, so go make a cuppa if you need to.

The Edinburgh Festivals are quite a different experience now that I'm not living in the middle of Edinburgh. It used to be a short bus ride or walk home after an evening show. But these days if we miss the last train, it's an epic journey on the 1AM bus.

It's an eclectic mix of screeching hens, football revellers and middle-aged Girls Night Out-ers, with the odd posh couple hiding beneath the wife's pashmina as they wonder whose idea it was to leave the car at home.

The air is thick with beer breath and nobody seems to know each other, but drunkeness unites. It's all belching, farts and bellowed banter.

LADY 1:  Can you stop the bus please, driver! This lady is gonnae be sick!

LADY 2:  Dinnae worry, hen! I'll be sick in ma handbag.

LADY 1:  Dinnae worry, driver! She's gonnae be sick in her handbag!

LADY 2:  [BLUUURRK]

LADY 1:  Lucky you had that handbag because I wouldnae be cleaning up your sick. I'll clean up piss, but I hate cleaning up sick.

BLOKE:  Oh that's good coz I'm totally burstin'.

When we finally got off the bus we had to jump right over the stairs and onto the footpath, because some lady had spewed all over them.

Last weekend we made our triumphant return to the very top of Scotland and my favourite village... TONGUE!

You may remember our last trip to Tongue and the bazillion photos I'd taken of signs that said TONGUE this and TONGUE that. Turned out I'd missed one!

Before we got to the Tongue we were in Inverness, stopping off at Culloden - the site of the last major battle to be fought on British soil. It's quite interesting and moving wandering through the field, visualising the brief and bloody battle. But I have to admit my favourite bit was this sign:

We also popped by the Clava Cairns. They date back to 2000BC but they'll be more remembered by us as The Place Where Shauna Did An Enormous Fart That Echoed Through The Trees, Not Noticing The American Tourist Standing Behind Her.

But back to Tongue. We ate dinner in a pub beneath the Tongue Hotel, where the locals played darts and spoke with bizarre accents. They were such decent folk that the barwoman wandered off for twenty minutes and nobody stole anything! Not even a wee bag o' pork scratchings. That wouldn't happen where we live.

We stayed in a lovely B&B that served delicious breakfasts with Madonna's Greatest Hits playing in the background. Our room became slightly less lovely when I stupidly opened the window to let in some fresh air. A giant black cloud of midges immediately stormed in. D'oh! So we spent the next ten minutes swearing and thrashing the air with towels, in the hope of snuffing out the little biting bastards. And then a further ten minutes was required to wipe their smeared corpses off the walls. But it was too little too late. I was awoken on Sunday morning by the sound of my own fingernails frantically scratching dozens of giant red lumps all over my body. And let me tell you, those little shits are NOT shy about where they bite.

After breakfast I picked up some souvenir I HEART Tongue fridge magnets for my colleagues, then we crawled along a single-track road to Durness. Oh baby! Caves! Sheep! Pristine sea and spectacular white beaches! And the sky was more blue than a pervy old man's video collection. Scotland is so breathtakingly beautiful it just makes your bones ache.

I'm aware this has been a What I Did On My Weekend blog lately, but it's summer and one has to turn off the computer and go forth and Do Stuff because soon it will be too dark and depressing to get out of bed. Rather than ramble on further, go forth and check out the photies! They have glowing captions too, so you can see I am doing my bit for Scottish tourism and not just slagging off the food!

The Mothership was Cinderella and she was not ready for the ball. Rhiannon and I had arrived at her hotel last Sunday morning, all set to whisk her away for a day of fun and togetherness before she headed back to Australia. We were having a family photo session then afternoon tea at a posh hotel. But after three weeks on her European Contiki For The Middle Aged tour, her wardrobe was looking slightly rumpled.

So we swung into FairyGodDaughter mode, hurrying her down to Oxford Street in a double-deckered carriage. With efficiency that made Trinny and Susannah look amateur, Rhi secured a suitable outfit within five minutes of the shops opening. She sat Mum down right there in the change room and worked her magic with the make-up brushes. Meanwhile I went and paid for the garments, then sneaked them straight back in so she could get changed. It was all coming together beautifully.

But then we decided the bra wasn't doing her any favours. We whisked her away to Marks and Spencer and had her fitted for new scaffolding. Hello boys!

A swipe of red lipstick was the finishing touch. This is the kind of thing you miss when you live on opposite sides of the world. Rhiannon and I ganging up on Mum and telling her what to do.

The now-glam Mothership queued up to pay for an empty bra box. She looked mighty gleeful when the teenage lad behind the counter asked her where the bra was. "I'm wearing it RIGHT NOW!".

And so the three of us trotted hurriedly through Mayfair to the scene of our photies. It had been ten years since we'd had family snaps. That was when we still lived on the farm and involved wholesome denim and cheesy poses on bales of hay. Urgh. Plus it was so rare for the three of us to be in the same country at the same time - we hadn't been in the one spot since April 2004 - that we thought we should capture the moment. Who knows what gravity will to do us before we meet again.

The photo session was good fun. And mercifully brief too, because I couldn't wait to get to the scones. Scones rule at the best of times, but scones served on fine china in a posh hotel would surely be even more delicious.

We were presented with a grand towering tray of dainty sandwiches, fussy French pastries and of course the scones. The Mothership began her travelogue as I lunged for the strawberry jam.

Each story went like this: "Have you ever been to -------- ? Oh, you gotta go. You GOTTA GO. It's amazing. And the history. THE HISTORY. I just love the history!"

Among the places we gotta go, we just gotta go, are the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Monaco, Pompeii and Hitler's Nest, which is what she endearingly called Eagle's Nest, the Fuhrer's mountain retreat.

And that's another thing you miss when you live on opposite sides of the world. The Mothership's loopy stories where she mispronounces all the place names, her teacher voice growing louder as she gets enthusiastic.

"Well here's some history for you Ma," said Rhi, "This here hotel was the favourite of The Queen Mother."

"Oooh, I should write that down."

"Aaaaand, Alexander Graham Bell made the very first telephone call here."

"Excellent!"

I kept drifting in and out of the conversation, as I was transfixed by the clotted cream. I'd never eaten clotted cream before. It was so thick you could slap it onto bricks and build a house.

"Have you ever been to the Sistine Chapel? Oh you gotta go. You just GOTTA go."

I wondered how much clotted cream you could pile on a scone before you wound up with clotted arteries. And there was just the one lonely scone left. Would I have to arm wrestle anyone for it? I knew I could win. I'd been working out.

"It's amazing what he did, really."

I emerged from the Scone Trance to contribute. "Yes, truly amazing. He was Scottish, you know."

"Who?"

"Alexander Graham Bell!"

"What?"

"He's Scottish!"

"We're talking about Michaelangelo now!"

"That's who I meant," I mumbled, snatching the last scone. "Michael McAngelo."

Yet another thing missed when you live on opposite sides of the world. Sitting round a table laughing like idiots, spraying crumbs everywhere.

Later I moved on to the most spectacular looking item, a triangular sponge cake filled with raspberry mousse. I cut it into three chunks and offered the plate to the Mothership, "Righto, have some of this."

"Oh no! I've had enough sweets."

And that was when the whole whole room somehow fell silent - the silver spoons ceased to clink on the china cups, the pianist stopped playing - just at the precise moment I bellowed, "Come ON! You'll never get this fancy shit again!"

The final thing I miss when we live on opposite sides of the world. Acting like an oaf in public and making my family wish they could disown me.

Now Mum's back in Australia, Rhi's down in London and I'm here in Scotland missing them both like mad.