Last week I was filming in and around a lovely, hot Bordeaux. On my second day there, after a strenuous day at "wine school" (who knew such a wonderful institution existed?), I came across the Marathon Du Medoc.

I'm back from Canada and straight into filming. It's all is a bit of a shock to the system when you've been in Politeland for a month. Over there, the only stress is having to say hello and smile at everyone you pass by (it'll soon pass, now I'm back, but it always takes a while to start scowling at everyone again).

I remember reading an article about major celebrities raking in the money by doing naff adverts in Japan which they thought nobody would ever see.

The weather has become a constant source of debate here in the last week of my Canadian Lakes holiday. We arrived in Toronto about three weeks ago on the back of a July heatwave that had everybody talking – "One day it was 47 degrees centigrade... well, not actually... but that's what it felt like." Canadian weather forecasters tell you the exact temperature but then adjust it for the humidity to tell you what it "feels like".

This year, on my annual Canadian lakeside holiday, I'm on Lake Rosseau, one of the three connecting lakes – the others being Muskoka and Joseph – that I fell in love with 10 years ago and have been summering in ever since. We have driven up from Toronto in a rented enormo-car, which is parked and scarecely used again, as we go everywhere by speedboat. For three weeks, our life becomes water-based, with the car used only to transport the various inflatable toys we have bought over the years. Inflatables are quite an industry up here – every cottage has its own assortment bobbing up and down in front.

When, last week, I wrote about Canadians and their view of Brits being not a little influenced by Mary Poppins, I urged us to beef up our PR. Little did I imagine that the country would take this so literally. Britain's image, as seen from over the Atlantic, has changed dramatically.

I am happily ensconced on the sunny shores of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada, and enjoying the first holiday I've actually deserved in a very long time.

My tour has finally come to an end. At times, it seemed as if it was going to stretch on into infinity, as I spent two hours every night essentially repeating the same stories, the same jokes – a Sartrean fate that would, until very recently, have been my own vision of hell. But I have loved touring, and I'll miss my two hours of adrenaline every night when I'm recovering in the postdiluvian calm of the Canadian north.

Coming back from the horrors of EuroDisneyParisHellOnEarth I encountered a classic slice of travel bureaucracy. As I checked in at the Gare du Nord, an official informed me that my tickets allowed my wife and I to use the first-class lounge but that my four-year-old daughter could not go in as her ticket didn't allow it. I asked him what he expected me to do with her? Should I send her off shopping while we quaffed stale croissants and mingled with the middle-management glitterati? He said that he was sorry but that there was nothing that he could do. He didn't look sorry, but then they never do.