Hello? This is 1997 calling....

I think I posted the other day that I wished it could permanently be 1999, as I was sick of getting older and growing up.

It's not quite what I had in mind, but I am currently sat in my mum's spare room feeling like it is the end of last century, tippy-tapping away on my mum's laptop, accessing the wonderful world of the internet through dial up. And not just dial up, my friends - pay as you go dial up.

Before you start resorting to stereotypes, this is not because I am in Northern Ireland - it is simply that my mother will not listen to my protestations that it really would be more beneficial for her to get broadband. It is intensely frustrating, now that the web is pretty much geared towards broadband, and I keep having to wait what seems like ages for pages to load. How did we ever put up with this?

But it is lovely to be back home for a week - first time in 6 months. I am getting in the christmas mood already, much more so than I would be in London, as all the adverts on the telly remind me of christmases past. One bizarre trend in advertising over here is that entire TOWNS have adverts on TV, trying to attract christmas shoppers to come and spend their money. Never seen that before. Lisburn, Cookstown, Coleraine and of course Ballymena, all trying to portray themselves as the shopping mecca of Ulster.

Ballymena has gone for total overkill to be honest, with the town itself and both shopping centres saturating the schedules. It's like a little Oxford street in the Glens of Antrim according to the hype.

Mind you, somewhat bizarrely, H&M have just opened a store here. I stand by the fact that I was born 15 years too early. When I was a teenager, the only place blokes could buy any clothes at all was "Sam's Boutique" on Wellington Street, which was thought of as trendy because they stocked Lee Cooper and Wrangler. Now the place is packed with skate shops, high street stores, surf shops, "urban" places stocking yer Boxfresh and Carhart, and now bloody H&M! Even Primark, which has been here since year dot, has re-invented itself - from the shop the poor kids at the high school shopped in, to the cutting edge of couture. I find it all slightly over-whelming.

I'd forgotten how utterly repellant the weather can get up here - the wind has been howling and rain lashing down since I arrived. I left the sun roof open in my mum's car last night which proved to be a bit of a bad move. Cue mum out with hairdryer this afternoon. Tomorrow, we're going to the beach for a walk. Only in Ireland, to be sure, so it is. In all seriousness, it should be really nice as long as the rain stays away. Will stick some arty shots of the raw majesty of the North Atlantic crashing over the Antrim coast on the blog afterwards. Aka "some pictures of clouds and that".