The sweet musing on the possiblity of becoming 25 again for the price of an EasyJet ticket to Barcelona has congealed into an irritation with my obsession with that moment in my past. I'm not sure that becoming 25 again does me much good. This was thrown into relief this week when my parents, sister and her two kids came up to London for an annual visit to see the Christmas lights combined with a lesson on the second world war (my sister home schools her kids in order to prevent them learning about evolution). The lesson on the second world war consisted of filling out work sheets in the Imperial War Museum (the work sheets provided by the school liaison department). As we walked up the path to the entrance, we passed a slice of the old Berlin wall, displayed as a reminder of the legacy of the second world war. One side was covered in paint - presumably the western side - and the words 'change your life' were written on it. My father sighed heavily and said, 'if only I could'. I was immediately transported to the last time I had been to the Imperial War Museum which was with my father about two years ago on one of the very few times in my life when I have spent any time alone with him. He had lapsed into a litany of regrets which I found deeply dispiriting. Here we go again, I thought. 'So what would you change it to then, Dad?' I asked, no doubt a touch aggresively. 'The whole lot, I'd just like to start it all over again' he said, blithely unaware of the impression his naked dissatisfaction has on me and my sister.

So it was that I thought that I either have a genetic disposition to regret, or I am merely experiencing the normal degeneration that occurs to those on the windward side of the forties. Either way it is something to resist. I spent most of the time in the pub on Thursday with Glenn telling him about that time: three months of blissful love cut short by Joan's 'what relationship?', my desire to leave Barcelona hardened into a desire to hurt him once he had told me he had changed his mind and realised that he still loved me, the love affair with Spain and Spanish which I saw developing through a move to Madid and subsequently to South America derailed by the crushing of any self belief in an interview at International House in London by a woman whose comment 'well, you're obviously not much of a self starter' led me to break down in tears once back at home in Haslemere (I can see myself at the dinner table in the old dining room, crying in front of Mum and Dad in sheer self-hatred and pity). So when I was informed that there was a job for me in Turkey (obviously the requirements to teach English in Turkey were such that they'd send complete nicompoops to do it), I didn't miss a beat before saying yes, like a starving dog thrown a scrap from the table. All this then, is what being 25 signifies for me - a time of humiliation, anger, confusion, terror, but most of all of hopes dashed and dreams shattered, of a shunting off down a siding which was to end in the despair of sitting on a beach in Sharjah at the age of 33, sobbing as I sat and drank my cans of Stella, finally hitting the buffers at the end of a pointless journey away from myself.