A good friend of mine from Wales was back in the homeland a few weeks ago, and brought me back a fecking huge lump of cheddar cheese - a dry, crumbly variant, by far my favourite type. It served me well over the last weeks, but today valiantly gave its last to complete a tasty turkey and pesto bread roll.

I shall miss you, Welsh cheddar.

When I was in Switzerland the other week, I made sure to pick up some frightfully smelly mountain cheese. The sort of stuff that makes you recoil slightly when you open the package for the first time, and leaves your hands mildly stinky for the rest of the day regardless of how often you wash them.

That brave soldier met his demise sprinkled lightly over some peppered scrambled eggs last Friday.

So now it's back to Gouda, the only widely available cheese in Berlin that isn't irritatingly expensive. It's blubbery, it's bland and has no redeeming features, other than the fact that it is cheese.

I'm off to Lithuania on Thursday, I wonder do they have something to keep me ticking over til I go back to Ireland for a weekend in November...