Colorado

Having assiduously avoided business travel for a year, I was well placed to snag a free mini-break on the coat-tails of a partnership opportunity in Boulder, Colorado. Prescient future readers of my yet to be written autobiography will be well aware that I have roots in Colorado - here dwell my self-styled American parents (Bob and Sharon Fryberger), here I lived for a year in total over three separate trips (1994, 1996 and 1998) and here I met my future bride. And much besides.

The flight into Denver was rough, to say the least, so much so that I was actually grateful for the inane discussion re 'dancing with the stars' taking place between the middle aged women seated on either side of me. As a word of caution to the frequent flyer, do not leave your laptop on a plane, and, if you do so, try and remember before you get to the terminal, and, in any event, refuse to believe the ground staff when they say they haven't found it. Laptop retrieved and body and soul still united, I made my way to the car rental office where the completely normative wait reminded me why I loathe business trips; endless hours spent in limbo even before you die...

Things improved from there on out, despite the Chevy Cobalt and the winter storm, everything went like clockwork, with Vanilla Sky like serendipity. I had a wonderful dinner with Bob and Sharon. My hotel, The Boulderado, celebrating its centenary this year, was one of the best I've ever stayed in. The business meetings went very well. The unrelenting snow was beautiful and not especially disruptive. I met up with my old roommate, John Dennett, and found him in rude health and great spirits; we had dinner at the remarkably authentic Brasserie Ten Ten. I also had a great lunch the next day with Robynn, Miles and Milesy Tripp, and found them much as I had left them (organized and very funny), even if Milesy is now as tall as I am. And I spent a lovely afternoon with my old friend Jessica, her husband Francisco and their charming and remarkably well-behaved tot, Max.

The only tinge of melancholy was felt on my pilgrimage to 'the hill' in Boulder where I met Rachel. The coffee shop where our eyes first met is no more, and I was forced instead to stare at the spot where it used to lie from the vantage of another such establishment on the opposite corner.


Pearl St, Boulder, CO


It's almost arty!


No trip to Denver is complete for me without a stop at The Market in downtown's Larimer Square. It's a little island of civilization in the Wild West. I love it despite the fact that I still vividly remember the moment I thought I'd lost Valerie Tripp here when she was just seven years old. She was of course completely fine and not at all lost, and I expect has no recollection of the non-incident.


Jessica and Max. Jessica and (the apparently continuously relaxed and amiable) Francisco once again completely refused to let me pay for dinner, much like everyone else I caught up with in Colorado. Thanks everyone - but seriously you guys, this has got to stop - it's OK, I have a job :-)