maniacmum

In praise of a beautiful lady

2012-01-06T13:10:00.004Z

When I first joined the Romantic Novelist's Association umpteen years ago, I was at home with two very small children, working as a freelance editor and attempting to write in my pitifully meagre spare time. For the first year I was a member, I don't think I had email, and I certainly didn't have any contact with any other members of the RNA. But that all changed when I was invited to join what was then known as the RNA cyber chapter, an email group open to all members of the RNA. There I found a whole host of welcoming, lovely writers, who were happy to give advice, help and support to a newbie like me.

Among those writers, one was to turn into a very good friend. Not being a Mills and Boon reader (that is not to knock the genre, romantic fiction is a very broad church and M&B just isn't my particular cup of tea), it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that the lovely Penny Halsall who took time out to give me advice and offered to critique my work, was in fact none other then Penny Jordan a best selling Harlequin author of quite staggering proportions. Her output, dedication and commitment to her trade was second to none, and her well deserved success in her chosen field could have meant she was snooty and overbearing with wannabes like me. But Penny wasn't like that. She was modest and self effacing and loved to help fellow writers on the path to publication. And she certainly helped me.

Some time later, I was invited to join another email group of which Penny was a member, consisting of writers at different stage of publication, who all support one another in our daily lives. There Penny was a great support to us all, always quick with sympathy if anyone had a problem, ever ready to give advice one asked. She was also uproariously funny, and many of her posts made me laugh out loud.

During this period, I was struggling to keep on top of being a mum, still editing, trying to be a writer and coping with my elderly inlaws. There were many points at which I despaired and nearly gave up. Penny was one among several people who persuaded me to keep going. Her thoughtful and honest appraisals of my writing helped me to hone and perfect my skills. And when the new Avon list started, it was Penny who suggested to me that I try there. Without that nudge, I might not be where I am today, and I will always be grateful to her for that.

As is often the case with email friends, I didn't actually get to meet Penny until a couple of years ago, when I encountered an incredibly glamorous woman at the Harper Collins party, surrounded by friends, who greeted me like a long lost friend. Although it was the only time we met, I felt like I had known her forever.

Like a lot of us, I was aware that Penny had some health problems, but she always played them down, so until last week I had no idea she was seriously ill. Typically generous to the last, she sent me messages of support through my own travails with Rosemarie, without once dropping a hint of her own condition.

It was a huge body blow to hear how ill she was, and then to discover she had passed away so quickly after that, but knowing I am not alone in grieving her loss, is helping. And knowing that I was privileged enough to have had her support and love all these years is a huge boost at a difficult time.

RIP Lovely lady, you will be sadly missed, and not just by me.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T16:55:00.002Z

Thanks to life spiralling quite spectacularly out of control in the months leading up to Christmas, I have I know, been a very poor blogger in the last little while. I'm crap at keeping New Year's Resolutions, but I hope to keep the one about blogging more often. Well I can hardly blog, less then I did last year...

Anyway, if anyone is still out there, a Happy New Year to you all, and I hope you had a lovely Christmas.

This year, ours was a time of mixed blessings, as my lovely mother in law finally passed away in the early hours of December 23. Being Rosemarie, she took care to leave us just before the festive season so our plans weren't spoiled, and even giving the boys time to get to the funeral director's on the Friday. She departed with the minimum of fuss, so though we were called to her bedside, she'd gone before we got there, and we entered her room to the sounds of Radio 3 which had been playing all that week in the background. I would have liked to have been there, but one of the many wise and wonderful nurses at the hospice told me that she thinks these things are meant to be, and as Rosemarie knew we were coming, I can only assume she wanted to go in her own good time.

I have spent the last week or so planning to write a piece about her, but then I heard last Friday, that a very dear writing friend, Penny Jordan was ill with cancer. Sadly she too passed away on New Year's Eve, and I am not alone in mourning her loss. So if you'll bear with me, my next two posts are going to be tributes to two women I loved dearly, remarkable in their own different ways.

I am hoping for better things from 2012...

In the meantime a Happy New Year to you all, and may it bring you all the joys and good things you desire and deserve.

New temporary blog

2011-11-09T09:53:00.001Z

For a long long time I have wanted to write down the story of aged mil's life, and I haven't been able to work out how to do it. After my post yesterday I suddenly had the inspiration, that I could do it in a series of vignettes, and tell her story in snapshots, the way she's told me. I may in private also right some of the stuff going on at the moment alongside, I may not, but for now, I'm putting her stories here:

http://storiesfromagedmil.blogspot.com

I hope you like them.

When my mother in law met Louis Armstrong

2011-11-08T15:43:00.002Z

My life is a bit surreal at the moment to say the least. A bit of me wants to write about what is going on, and more of me wants to keep it private, so instead, I thought I'd share with you some of my mother in law's amazing stories from the war.

Rosemarie grew up on an estate called Isenschnibbe on the outskirts of a small mediaeval town called Gardelegen, about two hours drive west of Berlin. Her father was an estate manager who ran Isenschnibbe for the Prince of Lippot Detmolt, who thanks to the war, never came to visit. So her father, Walter was a man of great importance in the town, being in charge of all the estate workers.

At the end of the war, Gardelegen was eventually handed over to the Russians, but first of all the Americans took over Isenschnibbe. And the two Major Generals in charge got on famously with Rosemarie's family. As she had learnt English at school, Rosemarie was often required to translate.

One day, one of the Major Generals came to Rosemarie's parents to invite them to a concert. Louis Armstrong and his band were going to entertain the troops. I'm not sure how long they stayed, but Rosemarie couldn't believe the lavishness of the event- Louis Armstrong was flown over from the States, roses were flown up from Rome, for a family who lived off the land and wasted nothing, it seemed the height of waste, luxury and extravagance.

What was Louis Armstrong like I ask? Nice, says mil - but that's what she always says, everyone is nice to mil - they all were. And we enjoyed listening to him play. For several Christmases afterwards, he wrote to Rosemarie's mother. We still have copies of those cards.

So you liked him? I say. Oh yes, says mil, shutting her eyes and going back to sleep. He was tip top, very nice. It was lovely.

Oh the shame...

2011-10-19T15:11:00.002Z

This blog is beginning to be the least written in the world. I am sorry. But life has just been exceptionally manic of late. Aged mil has been in hospital (again ugh). I won't go into grisly details, suffice to say that the latest report on care of the elderly in NHS hospitals chimed totally in with our experience. And this time I did write to complain... There was one health care assistant who was very very lucky not to get thumped, but somehow I restrained myself...

Having said that, not all the staff were bad, and the ones who were good stood out like beacons of luminosity. I was particularly grateful to a health care assistant who actually offered me a cup of tea, which is pretty much unheard of. The junior doctors on the ward she ended up on were delightful, as were the sisters in charge. It was just a shame she had to endure five days of misery in the wretched Clinical Assessment Unit, aka the dumping ground for people in A&E to stop them blocking up the corridors. There is no consistency of care there, and precious little evidence that anyone actually cares. The best people we met there were two young trainees, and they weren't even training to be nurses, but paramedics:-)

Having managed to get her out of there (my mother in law has the strongest will of anyone I have ever met, and made herself practise walking so much that her mobility improved immensely quickly), she hasn't been that great since, and as a result of one weekend where we were away (Bruges, for a belated 20 wedding anniversary treat, two years late. And yes, very nice thank you, I may even get round to blogging it some day.), and she was very poorly, and last week when she succumbed to an infection and was so ill she could barely stand, we made the decision to move her in with us. So yesterday, bil, sil and I packed her stuff up and then bil manfully carried mattresses etc down the road, while we settled her in, and then with Spouse got the rest of the bedframe on top of the car roofrack. This morning she was most surprised by her bed. "Oh, it's like the one I have in the flat," she said, Er, yes... that's because it is the one you have in the flat.

We don't know how much longer she's got, we don't know if we will be able to manage, and it may be eventually we have to let her go into a hospice, but for now, it's a great relief to have her under our roof and know she is safe.

But net result is, I am a tad busy, and probably won't be posting much. But will do my best to at least get some pictures of Bruges up here anyway...

And two months later...

2011-09-22T15:21:00.002Z

... and she still hasn't posted. Not even about Dr Who. Shame on me....

I don't really have any excuses, just a general lack of focus/time. Will try and do better.

And the news from my summer was, that we had a lovely lazy time in Spain, and then came back and had a slightly less lovely, less lazy time thanks to teens testing boundaries. But all is well nowish...

Also had a very lovely time at the end of the holidays climbing the Shropshire hills in readiness for writing the next oeuvre, in which I return to Hope Christmas. I've cheesily entitled it This Christmas, and yes, I think there is going to be Next Christmas too. Couldn't resist.

It's taking me a while to get my Hope Christmas mojo back, but thanks to an eureka moment in the swimming pool earlier in the week, I think I'm getting there.

Which is just as well as I have a deadline of just before Christmas.

Better get on then, hadn't I?

In other news we are now officially in exam land and will be for the next decade ish as no 1 takes GSCEs this year (how did that happen, exactly? She was a baby a minute ago), no 2 chooses GSCEs, and I am trying to make sure that no 3 doesn't feel left out as her important Year 7 settling in period gets overhshadowed by her big sisters. I feel like a whirligig. Where's Hermione's time turning machine when you need it?

Oh dear...

2011-07-27T17:02:00.002Z

Have been terribly remiss and not posted for ages, because life has been end of term manic, and there just isn't enough time in the day...

So in the first window of opportunity I've had all week, I just wanted to say, that I have had so much fun at all the events I've been doing. The Bromley Literary Festival was a hoot, and I met lots of lovely other writers, plus having the added bonus of popping in for a coffee with the lovely Medium Rob and his wife, whose brilliantTV blog The Medium Is Not Enough, which I read avidly.

I also had an hilarious time signing books in Redhill and Sutton on one of the rainiest days of the year. This was an advantage in Redhill Waterstone's which is in a shopping mall, but less of one in Sutton, which isn't. At Redhill I shamelessly bribed small children with chocolate so their mums felt obliged to buy copies of The Summer Season, but the good folk of Sutton were seemingly unbribable. Some of the responses I had include: No: I only read non fiction; my wife doesn't read and I don't like those kinds of books; and, my favourite: I don't buy books.

Despite their best attempts to thwart me and no 4 (who'd joined me doling out choccies), I did amazingly manage to sell some books, and was hugely supported by the lovely staff in both shops.

I wound up with the event at Cadogan Hall, which turned out to be an intimate gathering, but hugely enjoyable nonetheless. People were either being tremendously polite, or were genuinely interested, and so asked lots of fascinating questions. I also had the opportunity to meet a couple of Twitter/blogging friends, Sarah Salway and Sara Sheridan (who gave a fascinating talk about adventurers in the nineteenth century and researching historical fiction.)

All in all it's been a lot of fun. But now I have to disappear into my other job, as oh yes, the children are home. It's going to be a long long summer....

Out to Lunch at Cadogan Hall...

2011-07-13T14:46:00.003Z

If perchance, you would like to come and see me talk at Cadogan Hall, next Thursday, 21 July at 11.15am, followed by the lovely Sara Sheridan at 1pm, could you possibly email:
outtolunch@cadoganhall.com to confirm, as they need to know numbers. It's free, you know, and I'm scooting off from daughter's leaving assembly especially to be there, so how can you resist?

WOOHOO!!

2011-07-08T11:35:00.002Z

Finally got my lovely shiny new website up and running. Well, I haven't the lovely Aimee Fry at The AuthorWorks did all the hard work and was very patient in the face of much technical difficulty.

Here it is.

www.juliawilliamsauthor.com

You can listen to all my soundtracks AND everything...

Also while I'm here, anyone in the Redhill/Sutton area, am signing copies of The Summer Season at Redhill Waterstone's on 16th July at 11am and Sutton Waterstone's on 16th July at 1.30pm. If you're in the area, do come and call!

And a reminder that I will be at Cadogan Hall on 21 July talking about writing and editing from 11.15am -12pm. Do come if you can!

http://www.cadoganhall.com/outtolunch/

Squeeing all the way to Hollywood...

2011-07-06T18:33:00.004Z

Rather late in the day, am squeeing loudly for my lovely friend Marie Phillips, whose, fabulous book Gods Behaving Badly (and if you haven't read it, WHY NOT?) is going to be made into a film. With an awesome cast. Tremendously exciting. Although I don't think I could be as excited about it as Marie obviously:

http://www.mariephillips.co.uk/post/7280618697/gods-behaving-badly-the-movie#disqus_thread

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/christopher-walken-alicia-silverstone-cast-208128?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thr%2Ffilm+%28The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Movies%29

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. And can't wait to see the film. Christopher Walken as ZEUS. My gods... GENIUS casting.

Bromley Literary Festival

2011-06-22T07:51:00.003Z

Just a reminder that I will be on the Ladies Who Love Panel at the Bromley Literary Festival on Saturday, 2-3.30pm, Bromley Library Hall, along with Dorothy Koomson, Juliet Archer and Victoria Fox.

You can also attend a fabulous workshop by my brilliant RNA chums, Sue Moorcroft and Christina Courtenay, all about Romantic Heroes. Well worth it!

For more details, go here:
http://bromleylitfest.co.uk/

(Tediously links don't seem to work on my blog and I can't figure out why, sorry about that!)

The Summer Season

2011-06-13T09:42:00.002Z

Look what I got in the post on Saturday? Doesn't it look lovely?

With thanks as ever to the marvellous Avon team who miraculously pulled this out of the bag given the author's by the skin-of-your-teeth deadlining. Especially the designer whom I think you'll agree has done a lovely job.

Books will be available in the shops on 23 June I believe, but I expect you can buy them in Amazon already.

And I will be taking part in a panel discussing Chick Lit at The Bromley Literary Festival on 25 June at 3pm, 4th Floor Bromley Central Library and on 21 July you can hear me talk about being an author/editor at Cadogan Hall as part of their Out to Lunch free lunchtime concerts. Details here: http://www.cadoganhall.com/outtolunch/

Do come along and say hi if you're in the area!

And a rider, to my previous post...

2011-05-27T11:51:00.004Z

I had meant to link it to this excellent article by Dr Max Pemberton who writes a column in the Daily Telegraph, which I think sums up the problems at the heart of the NHS.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8526344/Finger-on-the-Pulse-Max-Pemberton.html

I am in favour of reform, and it is not all about cost cutting. Some of the things I talked about in my blog post can be done without spending money. For a start, patient b who was sent home from hospital before Christmas would have possibly saved the NHS a considerable amount of money if the patient had been kept there till better, and not wasted two ambulances coming out needlessly. I agree with Max Pemberton that the business model is a flawed one. (I have similar feelings about education). I have always worked in the commercial sector and while aghast occasionally at some of the ways the public sector seems to work, I don't think business and health are a happy mix. A wealthy nation is also a healthy and educated nation. If we keep people well and educate them properly, business can flourish. That shouldn't mean an open cheque book, but neither should it mean health and education are shoe horned into adopting business practices that don't make any sense and don't promote the needs of the patients/pupils.

I am also deeply aware that the majority of the staff working in the NHS are overworked, often underpaid and dedicated to what they do. But to give you one small example of where things are going wrong, let me tell you this story, which happened to us only last week.

Mil has recently needed to go to hospital on a regular basis for blood transfusions. Last week we were told she had to be ready for 8am (entailing a carer coming in at 7 to help her get ready), as she needed to be in the hospital by 9am for a blood test prior to having the transfusion. I would have taken her, but had the school run to do. I was slightly anxious about how the transport people would cope with her, so I dropped the kids off and got back to her flat at 8.45 to discover no sign of the transport. They eventually turned up at 9.45 and seemed surprised to learn they needed to push mil onto the ambulance in her wheelchair (this is a private company outsourced by the hospital, NOT the brilliant ambulance crews we have met on several occasions). The person pushing her seemed never to have used a wheelchair before and kept getting it stuck over the threshold of her doorway. We eventually arrived at the hospital at 10 am, so it was 12.30 before mil could have any blood (it takes time to make the blood up). She required two units of blood, which take 2 hours per unit. The earliest was getting away was 4.30pm. I had to shoot off for the school run so bil stayed with her. He reported that transport turned up at 3.40, twenty minutes before they were booked, and the attitude pretty much was if she doesn't go now, she doesn't get a lift home. Apparently if you are booked one way, you have to be booked the other, so bil wasn't allowed to do it himself. The result was she didn't have the second bag of blood. HOW can it be that transport dictate the treatment patients receive? This is a clear case of the tale wagging the dog.

On a more positive note the staff at the haemotology unit where she is being seen are uniformly excellent, but they agree with me that dragging an 86 year old, very infirm lady in in this manner once a week is not ideal. Nobody it appears is looking at the whole picture. And I am sure this is not unique to mil's situation.

I am reminded somehow of a powerful piece of thundering rhetoric in one of my favourite Dicken's novels, Bleak House. When the road sweeper, Jo dies in poverty, in shocking circumstances and Dickens launches into a rant about the inherent wrongness of his death.

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

I think, if Dickens were alive today, he'd be tempted to say the same about the elderly dying in our hospitals, don't you?

Care of the Elderly

2011-05-26T09:10:00.006Z

This is a post I have wanted to write for a very long time. It's something I care about passionately.

I have always been fond of the elderly. As a teenager, I used to visit a local old people's home at school. Having no grandparents of my own, I was endlessly fascinated with the stories they had to tell of lives lived in a world that seemed so different from my own. The downside was the inevitable (it seemed) mental decline of people in care homes. Ladies (they were mainly ladies) who started off relatively sparky and witty ended up demented and forgetful. At fourteen I was unable to cope with this and remember making a vow never to end up old.

At eighteen I spent four months as a volunteer caring for an elderly lady called Janey. She was 87 when I knew her, confined to a wheelchair and needed help with pretty much everything. She was sharp as anything though, and despite our age gap we formed a firm friendship, so much so that I was absolutely devastated when she died 18 months later. It was the first proper experience of loss I felt, and I think I felt it more keenly because, I'd met her so late in her life, she was such a vibrant person, and I would love to have known her better.

Those experiences were a great grounding did I but know for the way my life has panned out in recent years. I have spoken frequently here about my mother in law, now herself approaching 87. She too, is a remarkable woman, with a list of care needs as long as your arm, but a bright and optimistic approach to life which means she copes with every bit of crap that gets thrown at her. Her mind though it wanders occasionally, is pretty much all there, and I am currently in the process of writing down the remarkable story of her youth, which she recalls with vivid clarity.

Up until two years ago, mil had never been to hospital. Ever. But after a succession of falls we found ourselves in a situation where she was in and out of hospital for several months. Today the The Healthcare Ombudsman have published a damning report about care of the elderly in our hospitals. Everything they have reported: lack of help feeding elderly patients, loss of dignity, inability to communicate adequately with the family, chimed in with our hideous hideous experience of having an elderly relative in hospital. On top of that I have been chatting to a friend, whose elderly mother has experienced similar, and another relative on my side of the family was also dismally failed by the system.

In order to protect the identity of the people I am writing about, I am therefore going to give you three case scenarios. All of which have happened in OUR hospitals.

Case 1) An elderly person suffering from life threatening cancer admitted to hospital with renal failure. Remarkably the drugs this person was given pulled them round enough so they were well enough to go home. The patient was delivered home to the spouse, with inadequate provision for their considerable personal needs, in the middle of the heavy snow last winter. Subsequently the patient's 75 yr old spouse & another older relative sat up in the middle of the night caring/cleaning the patient. The District Nurses were "too posh to wash", and decided the snowy conditions rendered it too hazardous to come over, the GP didn't come near the patient and the spouse was at the end of her tether. The patient should NEVER have been sent home without adequate care provision being in place. But it happened.

Case 2) An elderly person was in and out of hospital for many weeks. During the time spent in the local hospital it was nigh on impossible for the family to speak to a consultant to discuss any aspect of care. Information about the patient's needs were repeated endlessly and fruitlessly to staff, and ignored. Often the patient was sitting without a blanket when visitors arrived, usually on a continence mat as little care was taken about toiletting the patient. In time the patient was moved to a community hospital where at least the nurses had time to care properly, but before Christmas there was a clearout and the patient was sent home with a catheter without discussion with the family. Pleas from the family that the patient was simply too ill to come home, as the correct care package wasn't in place were swept aside. As a result the patient was seen by the GP on Christmas Eve, emergency doctor Christmas Day, the District Nurse a few days later, and was readmitted to hospital on January 2.

Case 3) An elderly patient with alzheimers was admitted to a hospital a considerable distance from where they lived. The family tried discuss the care package with the social care team in the hospital and found it impossible. The patient also spent time in a care home before coming home, and wasn't being seen by her own GP, so continuity of care was very difficult. When the patient eventually came home, to the 80+ year old spouse, it was with 20 different medications. None of which the patient or spouse were capable of administering. The carers who were looking after the patient are unable to administer ANY drugs without a dosset box provided by the local chemist's. The system doesn't allow time for those kind of procedures to be in place, when people are sent home, leading to all kinds of difficulties for the family.

On top of those case studies, these are things I have witnessed for myself with other elderly patients, who have been in the same ward as mil at different times.

1) when she was in the first ward where people are sent to be assessed before being placed on a general ward, I saw an elderly man who had had a fall and was in considerable pain, being sent home, where he clearly lived alone, even though he looked in no fit state to care for himself. Not only that he asked the nurse for pain relief, which never seemed to appear. He was groaning so loudly as he got dressed I wanted to go and help him. Perhaps I should have done. No one else did.

2) A lady with cancer shared a ward with her. She was thin as a pin, and also in considerable pain. I talked at length with her daughter, who ironically was a nurse. Do you think she looks ready to go home? she asked me. No, I really really didn't.

3) All the elderly women in the ward mil was in sat on continence mats. A lot of attention was paid to weighing them, measuring their blood pressure and taking their temperature. Ticking boxes in other words. Very little was paid to making sure they had time to go to the toilet/were reminded to do so, and as a consequence many had accidents. That is a basic care need. I was appalled to see the lack of consideration for people. If it was your mum would you want that for her? I longed to ask.

4) A friend reported visiting an elderly lady in our local hospital over the Christmas period. They were short staffed and using agency nurses, who clearly didn't care at all. My friend wasn't given any information about this lady as she wasn't a relative. Repeatedly she requested that this lady was cleaned after she had soiled herself. Such help wasn't forthcoming. In a modern hospital in a civilised country such lack of care is shocking, and makes me fume.

These are not isolated incidents. They happen all the time, to our grandparents, our parents, and eventually, they will happen to us.

The NHS needs serious reform in this area. I'm glad the Healthcare Ombudsman has issued this report. It's long overdue. Please God someone takes notice.

That article - again

2011-05-24T11:39:00.006Z

Oh and here is what a few of my other Romantic Novelist buddies have to say about THAT article.

This is what Romantic Novelists are REALLY like.

Cross? Us?

http://kate-walker.blogspot.com/2011/05/claudia-connell-journalist-of-year-not.html

http://nicolacornick.co.uk/blog/2011/05/this-is-what-a-romantic-novelist-looks-like/

http://www.julie-cohen.com/blog/2011/05/23/whered-i-put-that-damn-support-hose/

http://jan-jones.blogspot.com/2011/05/rna-summer-party-2011.html

http://mortongray.blogspot.com/2011/05/romantic-novelist-protest-blog.html

http://talliroland.blogspot.com/2011/05/sexism-ageism-alive-and-well-in-britain.html

http://paranormalauthors.blogspot.com/2011/05/this-is-what-romantic-novelist-looks.html

http://liz-crump.blogspot.com

And here's what we look like. Not a blue rinse in sight.

http://romanticnovelistsassociationblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/rna-summer-party.html

http://phillipa-ashley.com/blog/2011/05/19/rna-summer-party-pictures/

http://www.romanticnovelistsassociation.org/index.php/activities/photo_gallery/category/rna_summer_party_2011

Following on from my earlier post...

2011-05-23T19:32:00.003Z

My lovely gorgeous young Romantic Novelist friend, Kate Johnson has come up with a witty internet response to the Daily Fail. Using the hashtag #thisiswhataromanticnovelistlookslike, several us have put our faces on Twitter, FB and our blogs.

So here's mine. I'm sorry to report that I neither have a blue rinse, a twinset, or wear support stockings. I do occasionally wear pearls that my brother gave me, but I think that's allowed.

If you want to see a really lovely young RN, go to Kate's blog and see what she looks like too.

http://etaknosnhoj.blogspot.com/2011/05/this-is-what-romantic-novelist-looks_23.html

A tale of two parties

2011-05-23T10:25:00.002Z

I went out last week. I know. Rare occurrence, getting away to the Big Smoke. And the reason I went? It was the RNA's Summer Party. Now I have banged on boringly here often enough about how much I love the RNA (Romantic Novelist's Association in case you don't know). Not only is it THE most supportive writing group I belong to, its members are warm, funny, clever, brilliant and I have enjoyed every RNA event I've ever attended. From my very first summer party, which I dragged myself up to, heavily pregnant with no3. That time I knew one person & felt pretty nervous entering a room where clearly everyone knew everyone else. But by the end of the evening thanks to the warmth and friendliness of the people I met, including the amazingly kind Katie Fforde, (already a major seller, taking time out to be nice to a newbie wannabe) I felt really at home. Since then I've got to know most of my RNA chums online, meeting them in the flesh on the all too rare occasions when I can get to a function, and I have a blast every time I do.

So, I set off on Wednesday expecting to: meet friends new and old (check); have a great time (check); network (uncheck, was too busy yacking); have scintillating & sparkling conversations (check); be dazzled by the glamour on display (check); and see the best shoe collection in London (double check).

As expected, I had a really fun night and though I was too busy to take any pics, you can see the full glamour on display(complete with a few shoes) http://romanticnovelistsassociationblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/rna-summer-party.html

So it was some disappointment that I read this ridiculous article in the Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1389272/The-Blue-Rinse-Bodice-Rippers-In-twin-sets-pearls-meet-ladies-Britains-steamiest-novels.html
OK it's the Daily Mail. We all know what to expect, right? But talk about giving a wrong picture of the event. I didn't spot a single twinset or blue rinse - (though Katie Fforde our outgoing chairman and incoming President has admitted to wearing pearls) - and I find the whole thing so bleedin' patronising towards our older members, many of whom could win a glamorous granny contest hands down. Not only that, she's missed the point about the RNA, which is a hugely broad church - there are people writing chick lit, sagas, historical, M&B - you name it the RNA probably produces it. The old fashioned image of Barbara Cartland dictating steamy scenes to her adoring secretary (hilariously parodied by Matt Lucas in Little Britain) is so far removed from the truth as to be laughable.

The RNA isn't full of batty old ladies writing rude stories, it encompasses women from their twenties, up to their eighties, who write stories about human relationships in all their forms, it provides pleasure to millions of readers and it is very tiresome of the Daily Mail and their ilk to still sneer at us, when frankly romantic fiction is selling in its droves at a time of considerable economic hardship. I have never understood why romantic fiction is sneered at when romantic films are not (the majority of them are written by women, anyone?), but such is sadly the case. But it would be nice for once, if a journalist, who was invited to our party could have for once put away her preconceived ideas and actually looked and listened to the people who were there.

Personally I think she travelled to another dimension where Barbara Cartland has cloned herself and has us all chained to our desks writing books in her honour. She certainly didn't attend the fabulous party I went to. Which is a pity, as she might have learnt something if she had.

The Doctor's Wife

2011-05-16T09:02:00.003Z

Ok, so I didn't blog last week's Doctor Who, because it was frankly, a bit crap and a terrible waste of Lily Cole I thought. Oh well. You can't win 'em all.

However, as a long time fan of Neil Gaiman (a friend who used to run a comic shop introduced me to The Sandman series years ago & I was totally blown away by his imagination & storytelling abilities. If there was ever a writer I would love to be like, it would definitely be Neil Gaiman. And yes, I know I don't write fantasy - yet...) I was beyond excited when I discovered he was going to be writing for Dr Who. My favourite fantasy writer and my favourite TV programme? How good could that be???

Of course there's always the worry that it couldn't be good at all ... but thankfully that didn't happen.

So here, with all the Spoilers in the world is my take on one of the most gloriously batty, weird, and wonderful Dr Who episodes of recent times.

It was a great tease to give the title of this episode the Doctor's Wife, but even better when we realised why. The story begins with four strange, typically Neil Gaiman characters: a rather mad looking woman called Idris, a spooky couple called Uncle and Auntie, who appeared to be sewn together with bits of other people and a rather scary looking Ood with green eyes, known as nephew. We're in a junkyard at the end of the Universe and Idris is about to be sacrificed by an unknown entity called House.

Meanwhile on the Tardis, the Doctor hears a knocking at the door - in the deepest of deep space he's got mail (Oh lordy lord, how I just loved Neil Gaiman's script, it was witty and elegant & goddamned beautiful). And it seems to be from a Time Lord. There's a possibility that they're not all dead, so how can the Doc resist. Even when Amy says, You just want their forgiveness - Doesn't everyone says the Doc. How much pathos can you get into that line, Matt, hmm, hmm? The episode was full of such moments. Matt Smith really excelled himself, but Suranne Jones as Idris was complete revelation. As it turns out, of course there aren't any Time Lords in the junkyard at the end of the universe, the malevolent House has been tricking them all AND stealing the soul of their Tardises into the bargain. So Idris has taken on the persona of the Tardis and the first time in their joint history the Doctor and the Tardis can actually speak to one another. What do you call me? You sexy thing. / Are humans bigger on the inside? And a whole brilliant riff on who stole whom... Seeing the Doctor and Tardis interact in this way was one of the most joyous Doctor Who moments I think I've ever seen. It was brilliant, and Suranne Jones was mad and wonderful and sad (her body was dying the minute the Tardis went into her - we KNOW how the story will end right from the get go) & also wonderfully funny and the dynamic between her and the Doctor was fabulous.

Not only that, Gaiman piled in a whole lot of scary stuff - Uncle and Auntie are stitched together from bits of Time Lord bodies, eurgh, and once House realises this is the last Tardis, he no longer needs them and they drop down dead in front of the Doctor and Idris. In the meantime House has taken over the Tardis with Rory and Amy trapped inside, and then starts playing some very very messy mind games (My ONLY gripe would be, why the fuck did Amy and Rory keep letting go hands, when every time they did they got separated), which ended with Rory apparently dying thinking Amy had left him and the words, HATE AMY scrawled everywhere. Taking aside the fact that Rory apparently died AGAIN (maybe there's a point to that people?) it was a chilling moment. Rory, lovely amiable Rory (whom my children now love more then they loved Mickey, which is saying something) being so full of vitriolic hate for Amy - ouch. I thought the thing about him keeping the memories of waiting 2000 years for her locked up was important, I'm guessing it really really is now....

And I also loved the bit when the Doctor watches the Tardis disappear and says I really don't know what to do, that's new (not quite he had a moment of that with Donna when he got trapped in the Medusa wotsit didn't he?) - but still that's scary. The Doctor ALWAYS knows what to do...

The solution to escaping was of course cobbling together all the bits of the old Tardises (again the pathos of Idris, they are all my sisters and brothers - The Doc is not the only last of his kind), and another witty exchange - You never read the manual/I know what I'm doing - the argument about Ikea flatpacks beloved by couples everywhere, genius. The dialogue was so sparkling and swift, I didn't catch it all, but as well as all the weirdness, Neil Gaiman has delivered a rom com in the tradition of Cary Grant movies. OH I SO WANT TO BE ABLE TO WRITE LIKE THAT!!!
Even to the moment when the Doctor is scratching his head unable to work out why he can't get it moving and Idris tells him how dumb he is - he needs her and he can't work it out.

Then it was so much fun, watching them escape, with Idris doing a telepathic link to Rory - the pretty one - The pretty one? queries the Doc - showing him how to find his way into the archived Tardis console (hurray, a lovely shout back to DT days) - which cleverly allowed them (sorry can't quite remember how need to watch it again) get back control of the console proper to allow Idris and the Doctor back into the Tardis, where it was a matter of moments to despatch House before the episode wrapped up the only way it could with Idris dying and releasing the Tardis back into the bluebox again. You knew it was coming all the way through, but oh god, didn't Matt Smith play it well - the joy of having finally spoken to his lifelong companion - the one who's always there when everyone else has gone and then losing her again was just terrible. Of all the losses he's faced, I'm not sure if this one is the worst, even perhaps worse then losing River (though of course there was a neat nod to her in the last words Idris spoke to Rory, which I'm sure will be terribly significant). And the ending with the Doctor talking to the Tardis and stroking the console, You sexy thing, was very very sweet.

Fabulous, fabulous episode. I do hope Gaiman gets to write for Doctor Who again. Even better, can he take over as show runner when Steven Moffat gives up. Please, pretty please....

I wear a stetson now...

2011-05-03T12:17:00.005Z

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Time wimey stuff, Matt Smith in a stetson, aliens you forget as soon as you look at them, Amy Pond in danger, River Song kicking ass, Rory doing his Rory thing, and a dead cool FBI agent called Canton Delaware... It can only be the return of my favourite TV programme.

I was going to blog the first episode last week, but what with all these HOLIDAYS, I ran out of time, so I thought I'd try and get my head together and see if I can make any coherent sense out of the first two episodes. Both of which I've seen twice now. And do you know... I still can't.

Which is why I love Steven Moffat's writing so much. Cos he raised more questions then he answered, and by the end of episode two we were no further forward in knowing who a) the little girl was b) who River Song is and c) what happened to Amy's pregnancy.

But I really really don't care, because from the moment Amy, Rory, River and the Doctor met and had what turned out to (apparently - I don't trust you on this one, Mr Moffat, the Doctor can't possibly be dead) be a last supper of sorts, we were on a roller coaster ride, and I for one didn't want to get off.

There had been much teasing beforehand about who was going to die in episode one, and my money had been on Amy, because I really didn't think anyone would dare kill the Doctor - not properly, in the middle of his regeneration - but that's exactly what Steven Moffat did. Wow. I was totally blown away by that, and felt pretty much like Amy did, thinking SURELY someone can do something... when of course it turned out that the Doctor wasn't dead at all. Well not yet... it was a 200 year older self who died, and who'd known he was going to his death, so he sent his younger self an invitation to meet up with Amy & co to solve whatever mystery had to be solved in 1969. And bingo. We're back in Steven Moffat timey wimey hurty head land. And from here on in, I haven't got a CLUE what's going on.

Well, that's not quite true... thanks to the fourth mysterious guest (the aforementioned Canton Delaware) pitching up with some handy petrol to send the dead Doctor off in a blaze of glory, our intrepid heroes end up at the White House where a very puzzled President Nixon has been receiving mysterious phone calls from a young girl. In the meantime, Amy keeps seeing scary aliens - or doesn't. When she turns round she forgets they are there... I have to say I wasn't particularly spooked by the appearance of the much trumpeted Silence, but as ever Steven Moffat's special genius is making you afraid of your own shadow. The idea of an enemy hidden in time, all around us, only we forget them the minute we turn away is brilliant, and very very scary. AND the scene in the second episode where Amy walks into an empty room, and then looks up and sees a whole bunch of aliens, sleeping upside down like bats was properly spooky. EEK.

Episode one ended with the reappearance of the astronaut who apparently shot the Doctor at the start, causing Amy to react by shooting the astronaut, before she raised her visor and we realised that it was the mysterious little girl. Eek, and double eek. THAT was horrific...

Jump forward to episode two and it was as if the previous week's episode almost hadn't happened. We've fast forwarded three months, the Doctor is being held prisoner, Amy is chased to the edge of a cliff by Canton, and shot, Rory to the edge of a dam to meet the same fate, and River (oh River, you are so bloody marvellous!!! I could hug Steven Moffat for introducing an older actress into my favourite tv show) throws herself backwards out of a tower block to escape...

Of course, there are going to be people who bitch about this (in fact I've already read a couple of online reviews griping about it), as nothing from episode one was resolved and we didn't actually discover how they found out who the Silence were considering they are so easily forgotten. Except... I can't help thinking based on our previous experience of watching series 5, Steven Moffat is playing with us. There is going to turn out to be a reason for those missing three months you mark my words. And I bet it has something to do with Amy's on/off pregnancy. Why for example did Amy HAVE to tell the Doctor about the pregnancy in the middle of a stressful situation? I suspect timey wimey stuff will be at the heart of it, and she had to tell him before she forgot again/or it was a future version of Amy who told him.

As to who the baby is - I'm convinced it's got to be River Song, who may also be the little girl. Although this theory got kicked to touch when the little girl started apparently regenerating right at the end of episode two. BUT... the Doctor KNEW who she was when she shot him, and River Song is in prison for killing a good man... And I've thought from the off there must be some connection between River and Amy... And I'll probably be proved wrong in six months, time but what the hell, it's fun speculating. And I feel sure that Rory' s ability to compartmentalise his memory is also going to be important somehow...

Anyway, I digress. Once we'd established that Amy & Rory had only been shot to bamboozle the Silence, we were back to business as usual, with the Doctor going to rescue River as she fell out of the tower block - Open the doors to the swimming pool - hilarious; and a plan to discover who the missing little girl was, which led Amy and Canton to a really scary orphanage, where Amy discovers a room with pictures of the girl, including one of her holding a baby, before being taken prisoner by the Silence, while the Doctor breaks into the Apollo mission to do something clever as part of his scheme to defeat the Silence. Now here again, I'd say time went a bit wibbly wobbly. We had an AWFUL lot of time concentrating on Canton and Amy, and very little about what River, Rory and the Doctor were up to. Deliberate I'll bet. And I'm sure we'll find out why in Episode 13...

And time was very wibbly wobbly for Amy - given that she can't remember the Silence, nor how long she's been held prisoner, is it just possible that they have stolen her baby, and she doesn't remember? They certainly seem to be using the little girl for reasons unknown...

And weren't they defeated a little too easily? After all that time being invested in earth, would they really have given up without a fight. Surely, having created the Silence, Steven Moffat's not going to leave it there?

That said, those are questions which may or may not be answered by the series story arc - I decided to forget all that and simply enjoy the spectacle of the Doctor and River flirting (how Matt Smith acts so old/young is brilliant & makes their relationship utterly believable) and River taking out all of the Silence (only don't tell the old man how many, he doesn't like it.) I also loved the Doctor's line about her shooting people, I shouldn't like it, but I do a bit... Yes, sweetie, she's got the measure of you.

It all ended in a dazzling shootout, earth being saved, Canton accepting his inability to be the first married gay FBI agent (hilarious dialogue again between him and the President which left all my children, even the older two who think they know it all, going Duh?), River being dropped back at her cell door (but oh, the poignancy of the it's his first/her last kiss moment) and the Doctor, Amy and Rory off for another adventure. But being Steven Moffat, he can't just leave it there. We not only have the conundrum of Amy's is she/isn't she pregnant? , but also inexplicably the Doctor decides not to pursue the little girl. Why? Particularly as she appears to be a Time Lord (or does she? I am hazarding a guess she absorbed his regenerative powers when she killed the Doctor). And is there a significance to her regenerating nine months after the beginning of the story or am I overcomplicating things? I am sure there is an answer, and it will become clear. Only probably not till episode 13...

PS. Ooh, ooh, just had another thought. WHY didn't River realise the Doctor hadn't kissed her before? Once she'd established that this version is 200 years younger then dead version with whom she happily compared notes, she must have known they hadn't snogged yet. Soooo.... more timey wimey stuff? Did something happen to the doc those three months when he was in prison? Is it one of those apparent continuity errors which turn out not to be anything of the sort? Answers on a postcard please. Preferably, Tardis blue.

PPS OH, and another thing. Y'know the beginning, where I thought it started oddly with Amy & Rory at home just mooching about waiting for the Doctor, and Amy says, trying to attract their attention is the sort of thing the Doctor would do? - WELL, if eldest child is to be believed and this two parter is in fact the beginning of this series finale, which would be typically mind bending time changing nuttiness from Steven Moffat, perhaps she's right. Perhaps this series is all about adventures which have ALREADY HAPPENED, and Amy and Rory have to go back to the beginning to change it all, so it doesn't end with the Doctor getting shot by a psychotic child in a space suit. Now my head is REALLY hurting...

Germany or bust

2011-04-20T11:22:00.002Z

I have, as you may or may not have noticed, been rather quiet of late. This is mainly because I have been up to my ears in rewrites on The Summer Season (which deserves a whole post of its own, frankly). I finished going through the proofs last Thursday, just in time for us to embark on an epic trip to Germany on Friday.

We haven't managed a trip to Germany with mil for four years. Two years ago, we had a big 85th birthday party for her, so lots of friends and family came to that, and then she was ill, so last year was a right off. Quite frankly, I'd have said we'd never do it again, because mil's now so infirm, it is an immense undertaking.

Except... in January we had the sad news that her only sister was dying, and Spouse and I just felt we should get her there. Our initial idea had been to leave the children here, and just go with her, thinking that we were going to be attending a funeral. But then, mil's sis being the incredibly strong character that she is, pulled round, and managed to get herself home. So... our trip turned into a last chance saloon visit. As it's the Easter hols, and no 1 was going away with the school (coincidentally on a choir trip to the Rhine), we all went. It was just as well no 1 was away, mind you, as we couldn't have fitted our luggage, the zimmer, and wheelchair in, had she been there... (Taking an elderly person away is nearly as bad as travelling with a toddler...)

To say that I have been stressed about this trip is putting it lightly. Particularly as we had an extra little excitement in the form of mil needing a blood transfusion the week before we went. I kid you not. It could only happen to us. The docs at the hospital were all very wary of us taking her away, as her white blood cell count is low which means she's prone to infections (as she has people in and out of her flat all day, plus visits from the children, and Spouse who probably bring loads of germs home, I don't think she's more likely to get ill when she's away, quite frankly). Luckily our very kind and thoughtful GP seemed to think it was no worse then driving her around Epsom, so off we went...

Friday morning, therefore found Spouse dropping no 1 at school for 5.45am while I got mil ready with no 2. We miraculously managed to get on our way by 7am, arriving at the Chunnel (NO WAY were we going to manage the ferry!), early enough to get on an earlier train. So far, so few problems.

The first thing that happened was that I had a panic attack. Damn. That was unexpected. It took me till we got to Holland to calm down, but I had managed to get over it by then, just in time for us to try and organise a loo break. Then it took us ages to find a reasonable loo with disabled facilities. I thought Europe would be better at that kind of thing then we are, but apparently not... On top of which, just as it was getting more and more crucial we find a loo, the sat nav decided to take use the wrong way, so we ended up driving twenty minutes in the wrong direction. Once we'd sorted ourselves out and found somewhere reasonable to stop,we had the fun of getting mil in and out of the car which was a nightmare, as she'd seized up on the journey... Oh joy.

Up until this point we'd been doing very well time wise. I had been merrily sending no 1 texts telling her which country we were in (she was a bit worried that we might all die in a car crash and she'd have to go and live with her uncle), but once we hit Germany and the Ruhr it all went pearshaped. The roads were heavy with traffic, and it took much longer to get to the outskirts of Hannover, then normal. Hannover is still an hour away from Wolfsburg where we were staying, but it took us two hours plus because they seemed to be digging up the road everywhere.

We finally arrived at the hotel around 7pm. I enquired at the desk about the disabled room I had allegedly ordered, and they told me mil could go on the ground floor. Spouse and I inspected the (lovely it has to be said) room, and decided the bed was too low for mil, so we thought it better if she came upstairs in the room next to us. Which was our first mistake...

Having got mil settled, we phoned various people that we needed to, while we waited for dinner. This caused much embarrassment to Spouse as mil is deaf so she was shouting down the phone that we would be meeting her friend Herbert at 6pm the next day. By the time she'd finished, the whole hotel knew, including four young lads in the corner who were having hysterics. Mil of course, is blindly oblivious to such embarrassment, as she has spent her whole life speaking loudly and inappropriately in public (sil had a mortifying experience in M&S with her once when she demanded tights with a large gusset at a thousand decibels), but by the time we went into dinner Spouse was trying to crawl away...

At bedtime, no 2 and I went to the lift to take mil to bed. The lift then decided to play silly buggers, and went up, and down, and up and down, and then... stopped. Five inches below the ground floor. I pressed the emergency button and got a service engineer, who seemed every cross to be disturbed, and no 2 ran off to get the man on reception, who had a heated exchange with the engineer, before asking if Spouse could come and help him. So Spouse arrives, gets in the lift and lifts the bottom of the wheelchair, while Mr Receptionist lifts the handles. As Spouse puts his head up, mil puts her head down and crack! Spouse manages to nut his 86 year old mother. It could only happen to us...

The lift clearly wasn't going to get mended straight away, so we changed our plans and decided to let mil sleep downstairs (much to the kids disgust as she had the better room). Luckily the lowness of the bed wasn't an issue. Though the lowness of the toilet was, and the lack of handholds in the walk in shower meant a shower wasn't an option. We did muddle our way through, and by the end we'd perfected a reasonable system, but really... You'd have thought a chain like Best Western would have at least ONE disabled room. As it was, they advertised one on the website and the staff told me apologetically they didn't have one. I don't suppose many English families bring over 86 year olds in wheelchairs, to there isn't much call for it, I guess...

Fortunately Friday was the most stressful moment of our stay - Spouse and I were practically hysterical in the bar, wondering what on earth we'd done - but by the next morning Mil had perked up, and was able to move around less stiffly. So we were able to take her to visit her sister, which was the point of going, as well as getting her over to see her cousins in the country near the town where she grew up. In the evening we managed to meet the friends who'd caused the lads so much hilarity the previous day. (Said lads turned out to be from Hamburg football team, St Pauli FC, who were playing Wolfsburg in the Bundesleague. To our amusement there were German paparazzi and fans waiting at the entrance as we left in the morning. Had we known, we would have taken lots of pictures...)

Sunday saw us with mil's sister again, plus a trip to her home town of Gardelegen where she met up with some other friends. We were also able to take her on a brief visit to the house where she grew up, and back in Wolfsburg, we took her for a spin round the castle, where her mother grew up. The children were amused to hear that as a child Omi, was only allowed to play with the children of the Count, as the village children were deemed too common!

It was an exhausting trip, possibly one of the hardest we've done, but a real eye opener to see how well Mil rose to the occasion. She is so positive and has such a great ability to put difficulties behind her, it meant that hard as it was, it was a lot easier then I'd imagined. And this is probably the last time she's going to see her sister, and we never thought we'd get her there. Sometimes, you have to do the thing that has to be done, however difficult...

And Another Thing...

2011-03-17T09:13:00.002Z

I'm really proud to be taking part in the Firestation Book Swap tonight, at Windsor Firestation Art Centre at 7.45pm.

Organised by the inestimable Scott Pack and Marie Phillips, Book Swaps involve a couple of authors (tonight, it's me and Robert McCrum), talking a bit about books, while periodically the audience get to plug a book they've brought along and swap it with another. I'm bringing The Book Thief, which is my favourite book of the year so far, and probably deserves a proper review when I have time...

Authors for Japan

2011-03-16T17:10:00.006Z

As we all know a devastating earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan last week. The very brilliant Keris Stainton has swiftly put together an author auction which runs until 8pm this Sunday. All manner of people are taking part, and you can not only bid for signed copies, but for critiques on your work, to have your name used as a character in a book, or have a book dedicated to you.

I am very proud to be part of it, and have donated a signed copy of The Bridesmaid's Pact, and will donate one of The Summer Season when it's available. I have also offered to critique the first three chapters and synopsis of a children's book.

You don't have to bid for my stuff, but I do urge you to go to :

http://authorsforjapan.wordpress.com

and support the auction, as it's something small we can all do.

All proceeds go to the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal

Oh woe is me....

2011-03-15T14:06:00.007Z

... and huge huge spoilers....

BEING HUMAN IS OVER. Now what am I going to watch?

The good news is that series 4 has been announced, YAY!!! Well, frankly the Beeb couldn't let it go after that finale. That would have been nearly as bonkers as recommissioning Outcasts.

Of course,

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It's not going to be the same show without Mitchell, who finally met his wolfshaped bullet, in the shape of George, a stake and a friend saving his soul, in much the same way as Mitchell saved Lauren in Series 1, but I have faith in Toby Whithouse's visionary genius. I also think this series has suffered sometimes from having four main characters to follow, so having three may be better, just so long as they give the girls more to do, and stop having them act so stupidly, which is my major criticism of series 3.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before I launch into my thoughts on the series finale, I just wanted to do a quick recap on the whole series. There have been faults it's true - Annie needs to get some gumption for a start, and be allowed to be this powerful ghost we've seen hinted at, but frustratingly not used to her full potential, and both she and Nina were soooo stupid at times - but on the whole I think the series has worked brilliantly. And for me, it's possibly been the best series so far. It has been dark - very dark at times - bleak, touching, compassionate, funny, and always unexpected. What I particularly like about it, is the fact that the makers of Being Human don't flinch away from the darker side of the world they've created. Mitchell is appalling at times, and during a lot of this series has been self serving and pathetic, but at other times heroic in his attempts to control the evil within him (such as offering Herrick Nancy, and then thinking better of it). He does do evil. The Box Tunnel Massacre is every bit as horrific as we think it is, and Mitchell has faced the consequences of it throughout the series. George, Nina and Annie are all affected by their relationship with Mitchell, and when Herrick reappears at the end of Episode 4, it is noticeable that George and Annie, so often Mitchell's conscience won't think twice about getting rid of Herrick. It is only Nina, who has no idea of what Herrick is capable of, who treats him with any kind of compassion.

I blogged at length about episode 1, but episode 2, which introduced teen vampire Adam (a means of sending people off to the spinoff series Becoming Human, which I've also been watching online), was a lot of fun. If a little inappropriate when watching with a fourteen year old. It was funny enough (if you are a fan of Gavin & Stacey, that is) that our favourite quartet had decamped to Barry Island, but it was a STROKE OF GENIUS to cast Stacey's mum Gwen as a vampire into S&M. Hilarious. I loved the way Nina and George became all parental (foreshadowing their particular storyline) around Adam, and their realisation that far from sending him to a better life, where his addiction to blood could be "managed", they'd left him in weirdsville, and had to go and rescue him. George confronting a group of vampires with a pot plant was particularly sweet.

Wonderful too, was episode three's introduction to Type 4, a zombie called Sasha, brought back to life thanks to Mitchell's trip to purgatory to save Annie. At first repulsed by her - a being even more monstrous then any of them - the characters all found themselves ultimately showing compassion, as Sasha dies a slow and tragic death. It is also the catalyst for Nina to accept the pregnancy she has threatened George she will abort (patter of furry feet, people, oh yes!!!), and for Mitchell and Annie to reveal their true feelings for one another. (George and Mitchell's exchange about Annie fancying Mitchell was a hoot. I do love their conversations, and shall certainly miss that aspect of the show next time around.)

Episode 4 was quite possibly my favourite episode. First we had Annie and Mitchell trying to cement their new found relationship by a weird kind of threesome, as the only way Annie can "feel" anything is if she is touching someone touching Mitchell (the scene when the three of them encounter George in the landing was hilarious, as was Annie's goody two shoes attempts to talk dirty). Unfortunately, Mitchell's predilection for blood/sex rather gets in the way, so it's a more chaste relationship for our undead duo. Meanwhile, George and Nina go on the hunt for McNair and Tom, believing them to hold the secret to giving birth to a werewolf baby. McNair, it turns out is not too keen to be tracked down, and not at all keen to befriend werewolves who shack up with vampires. Plus, turns out he's not really Tom's dad at all, having adopted him after killing Tom's real parents.

Mitchell's hostility to McNair, thanks to a worry about that wolf shaped bullet (which of course he can't tell anyone - that was an aspect of this series that did annoy me. I get that Mitchell has a peculiar set of problems, but FFS TELL the people closest to you, why don't you, man? Except of course, there would be no series if he did that), leads him to betray McNair to the vampires who are planning another cage fight. And this was the bit of the programme that had me hyperventilating, because of course, Mitchell's plan goes horribly wrong, and it's NOT McNair who ends up in the cage, but Tom, Nina and George. Eek. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the finale of this episode, with Mitchell and McNair forming an unlikely alliance to rescue the trio, and if that wasn't enough, the episode ends with our first sight of Herrick, in a straitjacket, in a mental ward, apparently not knowing who he is. I could barely speak. Spouse and no 1 thought I'd finally lost it, but really. What a way for an episode to end...

Episode 5 was a very different beast, but teasing, subtle, dark and clever, it totally messed with our minds. Had Herrick (or Mr Herrick as Nina insists on calling him) really forgotten who he is? Are George and Nina, right to give him another chance, and not let Mitchell stake him (I think we know the answer to that one), and if he doesn't know what's going on, how come he's so keen to show Nina the scrap book about the Box Tunnel 20 that Mitchell's hiding in the attic. This episode for me was dominated by Jason Watkins' awesome and restrained performance as Herrick, playing him as a mild mannered slightly confused man, who really doesn't know who or what he is, and even appears to be frightened of the dreams that torment him, and yet, and yet.... Annie's comment when he asks, Who are you? , On to you, is spot on. Herrick, even an amnesiac Herrick, is dangerous...

My least favourite episode was episode 6, where George encounters his dad again, first of all thinking that he's dead and a ghost. It was quite sweet I suppose, and amusing at times, but overall, I felt it was just a bit dull, and although the Box Tunnel stuff was bubbling away in the background with the arrival of Nancy, a very nosy cop, the menace present in the rest of the series was lacking here. Plus Annie was irritating the fuck out of me. HOW could she not guess that Mitchell was responsible for the Box Tunnel 20? Particularly after what she says to him when they get together and he tries to confess - she claims to know what he's done in the past, but knows what kind of a man he can be. Right. Mind you, as she also tells McNair, this is the girl who's first boyfriend put a video of her on the internet, second suggested a threesome with her mum, and third killed her. Mitchell would seem like marriageable material by comparison. But she knows what he is, surely she must have an idea of what he could be capable of? I know love is blind, but...

So moving swiftly on... episode 7 picked the action up again nicely. With Nancy getting closer to the truth, Mitchell's desperation to discover how to dodge the wolf shaped bullet, leads him to try and offer her to Herrick to help restore him to his former self; Herrick being the only one who can give him the secret of escaping death. Luckily for Nancy, Mitchell's conscience gets the better of him, and she's reprieved ... for now.

Discovering that Mitchell's prints are not only all over the Box Tunnel 20 murders, but a murder that took place in the 60s, Nancy realises she's run into something weird, but how weird, she doesn't discover till confronted by a superior back at the office, who turns out to be a vampire, just waiting to recruit her to the cause. Luckily this time, Annie (in her self imposed - deeply irritating - role as avenger of the Box Tunnel 20) saves the day. Annie of course then discovers the truth about the massacre, and decides to dob Mitchell in...

And then in classic Being Human style, everything kicks off, and nothing turns out the way you might have imagined. It's full moon so the werewolves (McNair has been injured, so they turn up to join the party) are out in the woods, but McNair has smelt Herrick (responsible, it turns out for putting him in the fighting cage in the first place) and is intent on revenge. The house is empty apart from Herrick and McNair and it's showdown time...

Nancy turns up to arrest Mitchell and Annie reveals what she knows, leading Mitchell to give himself up for her. Nancy triumphant, thinks she's got her man, not realising quite what's waiting for her in the attic. Oh dear, oh dear, just when you thought she couldn't possibly be a victim now, it's time for her to meet a resurgent Herrick, who's stabbed McNair and is beginning to remember himself.

But THAT wasn't the worst... Nina and George return to find Mitchell has been taken away, George, furious with Nina for having tipped off the police in the first place, rushes off to help his friend, and then Nina meets Herrick...

OH GOD. The scene when Herrick stabbed Nina has to be one of the most shocking BH moments I can think of. I really thought he wasn't going to do it... and then he did... BLOODY HELL....

Which takes us finally to the final episode.

Things I didn't like: Annie was still being stupid. I see her need for justice, but I don't see how she can think what she is doing can help.

I really hated the fact that Lia's wolf shaped bullet was all made up to mess with Mitchell's head. I'd have rather seen Annie having been let in on what was really going on when in purgatory and being part of the plot to teach Mitchell a lesson.

And I'm now a bit confused about what happens when you die. What about the men with sticks and ropes we kept hearing about in Series 1? Where did they all end up? Lia can only have been manipulating stuff this series, as she died at the end of the last, so who were the people trying to get Annie to cross over?

That aside. BLIMEY. What an episode....

Just as it looks really bad for Mitchell (who FINALLY tells Annie about the wolf shaped bullet) , up pops Herrick in his policeman's outfit to rescue Mitchell, casually revealing what he's done to Nina. As Annie gets to the hospital, she's in time to see one of the policeman at the scene die, so she can follow him through to purgatory, and discover what Lia has been up to.

Meanwhile, Herrick's plan is to get Mitchell together for a little tete a tete in the cage. Oh yes, the wolf shaped bullet. It will be George after all. Oh no. It won't, because George is not going to fight Mitchell as he has suspected all along that he is responsible for the Box Tunnel 20. Oh yes, he will because Herrick's killed Nina, and it's all Mitchell's fault... Oh no, he won't because here's Tom, having found out what happened to Daddy (Oh what a touching fatherly farewell from McNair - nice one Robson Green), intent on revenge. In a stand off, the two vampires leave together, Mitchell now forever bound with Herrick (You're dead to me, says George bitterly. Noooo George, you can't do that to Mitchell!), George desperate to find Nina....

... and he does, in time for Annie to be back from purgatory and be there to wake Nina up. And breathe. Nina is still alive... and yes, so apparently is the hairy baby. I was convinced it was going to be a goner...

So Mitchell is back to his bad old ways with Herrick. Apparently. Except, before they go and find a nice quiet village to destroy, Mitchell takes Herrick on a trip to the seaside. And there having confessed he doesn't want to come back anymore, and discovering that once you're staked, you stay dead, quietly stakes him.... ANOTHER disappointment I had hoped we'd get to see more of Herrick, but I do get that maybe their story has played itself out now.

So it's back to normal at the B&B, except of course it can't be after all this, so here's Mitchell offering himself to George, saying George has to be the one to stake him, to make up for all the stuff he's got involved with thanks to Mitchell. (Vampires, so dramatic, huffs, Nina. Quite.)

But, can George actually do it? They all know Mitchell will kill again - George gears himself up, he's on the brink and oh no, Mitchell escapes again. Because now the Old Ones, led by a mean dude called Wyndham (whose conveniently sorted out all awkward questions with the police) are back, and they want Mitchell as their attack dog...

George picks up the stake, turns to Wyndham, who says, don't be stupid, and oh no, it's not Wyndham he's after, it's Mitchell. Unable to bear the thought of his friend being forced to kill again, George stakes him after all. I'm doing this because I love you ("a bit gay" was the response of the 14 year old), Oh George, we know, we know...

So Mitchell has finally copped it. No way back from that, me thinks, particularly as Aidan Turner is off to be a hobbit. I have to say, though I found it teary, emotional etc, I thought that was a fantastically fitting end for Mitchell, and bold and brave of the BH team to go through with it. Where could they go from there? Mitchell had to die, and did so magnificently.

And if that wasn't enough, George's last lines to the threat of Vampire War, "You've got a fight on your hands" had me cheering. Good old George, what would we do without you? Though quite how Being Human will work without the Mitchell/George dynamic I don't know as it has been so central to the show. Still maybe it will give the girls a bit more of a chance. I do hope so. It would be nice to see Annie behaving like a proper scary ghost, instead of being as limp and wet as she has been this series. We have seen periodically what she can do, it would be great to see her let rip properly...

So all in all, a fabulous end to a brilliant, if sometimes flawed series. On balance I can forgive what's wrong with it, because it's edgy, dark, has me on my toes and makes me laugh out loud more then any other programme I watch. I don't know how I'm going to cope till next year. Time to invest in some Boxsets, methinks...

Being Human...

2011-03-13T19:13:00.003Z

...Finale tonight. Just sayin'

Am beyond excited of course. Last week's episode was so awesomely jumpy, unnerving and dark, I cannot possibly work out now how it's all going to end, except...

I think Mitchell is going to meet his wolf shaped bullet,

I don't think Nina and George will be hearing the soft padding of tiny feet, after all. Indeed, will Nina even survive...

And I'm not sure that

a) Annie's and Mitchell's

b) George and Mitchell's

c) (supposing she makes it) Nina's and George's

relationships will make it either.

Intriguing.

And as to what Herrick will get up to... Yikes! Can he do anything worse then he's already done?

I do hope I'm not disappointed.

And that I will have time to breathe...

International Women's Day

2011-03-08T12:01:00.006Z

Ok, though I am at heart a feminist (less of one admittedly then I was in my youth, realism and motherhood have rather impinged on my youthful ideals), I have to confess the idea of International Women's Day makes me cringe. However... there's a rather brilliant YouTube video that's just been released in which James Bond aka Daniel Craig drags up to prove a point about how unequal we still are. Sorry having trouble cutting and pasting links at the moment, but you can find it on You Tube by keying in International Women's Day.

And my blogging/twitter friend Sarah Salway has just written a post about her five female literary role models at www.sarahsalway.net, and I felt duty bound to write my own.

Off the top of my head, I tweeted: Jane Eyre, Maggie Tulliver, Beatrice, Joan Foster and Granny Weatherwax, but I've just decided I should have had Antigone in Beatrice's place. And here's why...

Jane Eyre.

I fell in love with this book at the absurdly precocious age of ten. I was lucky enough to grow up in the sort of house where books were always lying around and came across it one day in my bedroom, picked it up and read it (understanding perhaps a third). I immediately identified with Jane. She was so put upon, and had the harsh orphan life I fondly imagined as being somehow romantic in the rather grotesque orphanage games we used to make up. But more then that, she is stoical, and tenacious. She loses everything and is prepared to walk away from the man she loves for the sake of principle. And despite being plain and ordinary, she is anything but. I reread the book recently and was struck by different things then on that first reading: I found Rochester's teaching of her patronising when I reread the book as a young woman, but now I'm inclined to think they learn from one another, and although it is a matter of debate whether they are true equals, by the end of the book the balance is definitely restored in her favour.

Maggie Tulliver

Mill of the Floss was one of my A Level texts. I'd never read George Eliot before, and it was a revelation. I was particularly taken with Maggie as she has dark hair, like me, and struggles with being clever in a man's world (ok, at that point our paths differ). She is passionate and feels things deeply, and her impulsive nature leads her time and time again into trouble. Like Jane, she does the principled thing, by walking away from a relationship with Stephen Guest, which leaves her reputation in tatters, but unlike Jane, she doesn't get the happy ever after. The image of her drowning with her brother Tom at the end of the book is one that I still find haunting after all these years. She's a metaphor for our grandmothers and greatgrandmothers; the ones who weren't lucky enough to get the education we take for granted today, and as such, a perfect choice for International Women's Day.

Joan Foster

Lady Oracle was the second Margaret Atwood novel, I read, in my early twenties. I loved the character of Joan Foster - a fat girl who becomes thin, a famous poetess who hides her hidden career as a gothic novelist from her oh-so-serious communist husband Arthur. She is full of wit, invention and the capacity to recreate herself. A modern heroine for a modern age. Oh and her propensity for writing gothic romance may just have influenced my career choice...

Granny Weatherwax

I might have mentioned before Terry Pratchett (along with Margaret Atwood) is one of my favourite living authors. Apart from writing hilariously bonkers fantasy books which neatly parallel the absurdities of our own world, he has a genius (unparalleled I think, among male fantasy writers) for not only understanding women but capturing them brilliantly. (There is a line in A Monstrous Regiment about ironing, which with no intended disrespect to the men of my acquaintance was so true to a woman's experience, that I wouldn't have believed a man could have written it). Granny Weatherwax is my favourite female character in the Discworld novels. She's cantankerous, difficult, tricksy, ballsy, always funny, and always (usually in a roundabout way) on the side of right. Her spiritual heiress, Tiffany Aching, the teenage witch who features in The Hatful of Sky quartet, also deserves an honourable mention. In Tiffany I recognise a lot of my teen self, and Granny Weatherwax provides a great model for growing old crabbily (for disgraceful growing old you need to look at Granny's partner in crime Nanny Ogg, whom I love, but not quite as much). Her pet phrase "I ent dead yet" is one I intend to use till my dying day...

Antigone

I first read Antigone (in translation natch, I don't know any ancient Greek), when I was a student. It's the third play in Sophocles' retelling of the Oedipus story (Oedipus the King/Oedipus at Colonus are parts 1&2 though confusingly, I think Antigone was written first), and it tells the story of Antigone, one of Oedipus' two daughters from his incestuous marriage to Jocasta. After the truth is discovered in the first play, Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus blinds himself and is sent into exile. During Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone looks after her blind father in his exile, until his death, but Antigone finds her back in the palace at Thebes. In the meantime her uncle, Creon has become the city's dictator and in the civil war he has had to undertake to gain power, Antigone's two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices have both been killed. But whereas Eteocles is buried with full burial rights, Polyneices is declared a traitor and his bones left to rot outside the city walls. Antigone defies an order from Creon to give him a proper burial and goes outside the city and performs the rites. For this crime, she is walled up in a cave, where she subsequently hangs herself. What is so wonderful about this play is it demonstrates the disconnect between civil duty and family duty - Creon demands that Antigone puts the state ahead of her family duty, but Antigone cannot do that. Even when given an opportunity to repent her actions, she remains defiant, being prepared to lose Haemon, the man she loves, in order to do what is right. Another principled brave heroine. In a world where daily many women are called on to make sacrifices that I cannot even dream about, Antigone seems to me to be a pretty good role model, her story as relevant today as when it was written over 2000 years ago.

I think all my heroines share a strong sense of principle and self, a ready wit, and the ability to stand up and be counted. All qualities I deeply admire. I'd like to be like them all, but Granny Weatherwax most of all(-:

The Summer Season

2011-03-03T12:09:00.002Z

Woohoo! Here is the cover for my new book, The Summer Season. ISN'T it lovely? Hats off once again to the wonderful designers at Avon. They really do a fabulous job.

I know Joanna Trollope last year, made a very sensible and rational plea for cover designers not to always go pink and girly on romantic fiction covers, but... there is a disconnect with what the sales team says the market wants, what in an ideal world we'd like to see, and what people will actually go and buy. I know this is a very commercial cover, and I love it, so there.

(Am particularly pleased with the pansies aka heartsease round the borders, as heartsease has an important part to play in the story)

Being Human squee!!

2011-02-21T13:58:00.002Z

AGAIN, I find myself without sufficient time to blog about Being Human in all its immense glory.
And I really thought last night's episode was a cracker. Totally different from last week's action packed, on the edge of your seat thriller, it was much more subtle, nuanced, and nastily brilliant.

What I will say,

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

Nina, This is my Uncle Billy.

Genius. I LOVE the way Nina thinks on her feet.

George, turning back into the gibbering wreck of series 1, though possibly gibbering a bit more then that. I LOVE you George. But we all know that...

Mitchell, having to choose between what is necessary and his friendship with George.

I CHOOSE YOU. What a fab fab moment.

Herrick, What are you Little Lady.
Annie: On to you...

Sent shivers up my spine. Annie is great when she gets tough. They don't let her often enough. They ought too.

Hats off to to Ruth from Spooks turning up as a stressed and overworked psychiatric nurse. She was BRILLIANT. I don't know if she's going to be in it again -BH has a great tradition of twisting people, so she may not be all she seems, but if she was playing it straight, oh lordy, lord, wasn't Nina's response to her CRUEL. Again, I love that about BH, they have to behave monstrously to keep their secret - or to do what is necessary as Mitchell puts it.

IS Mitchell going to be killed by Nina? My money is on it, except that.... Maybe George will do it if he feels his family is threatened enough. Hmmm.... Or maybe it will be McNair after all.

And what IS Herrick up to? Does he really not remember? And is his evil innate or learnt?? Because if he DOESN'T remember he's still being the manipulative charming devilish character we remember from series 1.

LOVED LOVED LOVED what they did with Herrick. Looking forward to seeing more of him....

Oh I seem to have posted quite a lot more then I meant to, but it was sooooo good. And scary, and dark, and nasty, and still managed to be a bit funny in between.

Hats off to Toby Whithouse, this series he's got me even more hooked then ever...

Have mentioned this before, but...

2011-02-18T12:02:00.002Z

Today is youngest's ninth birthday. She hasn't been excited... much. We've already had some of her presents, and she helped make her birthday cake last night. Rest of presents are going to be unwrapped with mil after school, but we're celebrating properly tomorrow as everyone is out tonight.

Today, is also the eighth anniversary of fil's death. The year he died, the first daffodil bloomed the day after the funeral. A year later, it bloomed on no 4's birthday. Today, I spotted the daffs at the front of the house, straining to pop out.

Hello, Fil. And Happy Birthday, no 4xxxx

The Summer Season

2011-02-16T09:49:00.007Z

To celebrate finishing the revises of my latest oeuvre(and to prove there is more to me then being a Being Human fan), which quite frankly has been a sod, I thought I'd let you know a bit about what I've been scribbling about for the last year.

The new book is called The Summer Season, and will be coming out in June. I don't have a cover to show you yet, but I have had a sneak peek of the design, and it will look fab .

This book is a slight departure for me, as I have for the first time (and not without a little trepidation) strayed into the realms of historical fiction, by devising a story that starts in the 1890s and weaving it in with my more usual contemporary story.

As usual, my original starting place for this story (four divorcees living on a road they jokingly call Divorce Alley) has metamorphosed into something else entirely. My editor felt my original idea was a little too harsh, and wanted my characters to have something other then singledom bringing them together. She was right. She is very wise.

I was scratching around for a linking idea, and for some reason, started to think about gardens. I was a little worried about this to begin with, given my first novel, Pastures New was big on gardening, but I do love gardening as a theme: all that new birth and renewal is good for a romantic novel, and I figured if I made it sufficiently different, I could possibly do something new.

My inspiration came eventually from thinking about the garden in the house my husband grew up in. My parents in law were only the second people to own the house, and it had a beautiful garden, lovingly tended by my green fingered father in law. At the bottom of the garden, there was the remnants of a rose garden, made by the original owner of the house for his wife when they married. Fil told me that, when as a very old man, he lay dying in the house upstairs, in a room which didn't overlook the garden, he would ask about the rose garden, and be told it was looking beautiful, when in fact it had fallen into rack and ruin. I always thought that was spectacularly sad, and touching, and from there the germ of an idea was born...

So the premise of this book, is that in the nineteenth century, a Botanist, Edward Handford, designs a Knot Garden for his wife, Lily, as a wedding present. (Knot gardens are a Tudor invention, comprising usually of box hedges, forming interwoven geometric patterns with other herbs, but the Victorians were really big on them). Over the course of time, and through the ups and downs of their married life, the garden falls into a state of disrepair. Fast forward to our own time, and the house is now owned by Edward's great great grandson, Joel Lyle. Joel has moved in with his wife Claire, intending to restore the house and gardens to their former glory, but when his wife dies suddenly, all such plans are put on hold. At the start of the book, Joel is in stasis, unable to move on from his grief, until Kezzie, a self styled guerrilla gardener, bursts into his life and persuades him to start work on the restoration of the garden...

There's a bit more to it then that, as Kezzie, Joel, and Lauren (Joel's childminder) also get involved in the organisation of the Heartsease Summer Fest, which is raising money to restore another of Edward's works, the Memorial Gardens he created for the people of Heartsease. But the garden, and the mysteries they uncover during the restoration of it, are at the heart of this book.

I have to say, though at times, this one has been a REAL bugger (am coming to the doleful conclusion that each book I write is harder then the previous one), I have on the whole enjoyed writing it. I've learnt all about flower meanings (the Victorians were keen on symbolism in flowers, so naturally, Edward plants his garden with care), been fascinated by Knot Gardens (and accidentally found myself visiting one when attending a recent funeral), and realised how deep the subconscious is.

As part of my research, I have been rereading The Secret Garden (a much loved book from childhood), to give myself a flavour of the period. I waited till after I'd written the first draft to do so, and was most amused to discover that Kezzie has an encounter with a curious robin. Fans of the SG will know, of course, the robin is a very important character... I think the whole notion of a secret garden is such a charming one, it's hard to resist.

I also realised, as I was finishing off this draft, that in my head at least, the garden is reminiscent of a magnificent garden I played in as a child. We only had a small patch of scrub to play on - living in a suburban London street where space was at a premium - but this garden (which belonged to a friend of my parents) was magnifcent. It seemed vast to me, aged, I suppose 6 0r 7. There were miles of green to run around in, bushes to disappear behind, and logan berries to fill your face with. But the memory that has struck me most, was of a redbrick wall, that surrounded the garden, and it's that detail, particularly which has snuck its way in. Which also reminds me of another favourite childhood book: Tom's Midnight Garden, which features a boy who lives in a drab flat by day with a tiny yard, only for it to be transformed at night into a magnificent garden. Somehow that garden I visited in my childhood, and the one from the book, have become conflated in my mind, and have partly inspired the garden in The Summer Season.

Funny where your subconscious takes you, innit?

Oh. My. God.

2011-02-14T00:17:00.002Z

To quote Annie in tonight's episode of my favourite TV show. (Being Human. Keep Up.)

No spoilers, no time for proper review(am finishing book , people!!) but one big fat SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

for this episode. Which was fantastic. And brilliant. And had me on the edge of my seat. Specially last five mins. so SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE again for that. But really major SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE for last 30 secs and SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER

AND ANOTHER SPOILER

HERRICK'S BACK. In a strait jacket

Am excited BEYOND BELIEF.

Eldest daughter thought I was hyperventilating. I wasn't. ... MUCH....

Will do proper review shortly, but I really really do have a book to finish...

Werewolf babes

2011-02-06T23:21:00.001Z

George. Nina. Little hairy baby.

Just sayin'...

OH YAY! The Return of Being Human...

2011-01-27T10:23:00.005Z

Readers of this blog may be aware that Being Human is one of my all time favourite TV shows, so please indulge me while I do a huge self indulgent SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! of a post to celebrate its return. I fell in love with show when the pilot episode was aired, and then was devastated to discover there wasn't a series at the time, but my patience was rewarded two years ago with Series One, during which I fell head over heels in love with a werewolf called George. I know most people fancy Mitchell, but George is just so - George - and I adore him. Series Two was fantastic, though not quite as good as the first, but still good enough to leave me gagging for more. Particularly as it ended on such a brilliant cliffhanger with Annie having been spirited away to purgatory and Daisy and Cara reviving Herrick who I have to say I really really missed last time.

Because I am a saddo obsessee fan I frequently visit the Being Human blog where they have been teasing us with Annie's Broadcasts from Purgatory (tho I do think they missed a trick in not showing more of that in episode 1 cos they were proper scary as my 12 year old would say), so was very very excited about the new series coming back on Sunday. For the first time we let no 1 watch (she has been infuriated with me for the last two years because I keep telling her how good it is but that she's not allowed to watch it) because otherwise we'd have either had to send her to bed at an unacceptably early hour, or we'd have watched it unacceptably late. (Oh teenage children, how they force you into difficult choices). Actually, I gather Misfits is ruder, and I KNOW she's watched that, so I don't feel I can censor BH any longer.

Anyway, we all sat down to watch with great anticipation (and also a lot of nervousness on my part, because I soooo want it to stay good), and hurrah hurrah, Toby Whithouse delivered once more. And with such style...

So we see Mitchell, Nina and George moving into a new home in Barry Island - an ex b&b which is perfect as it has a convenient basement for Nina & George to change in, a bar, and a Hawaiian picture on the wall. Perfect. I thought I couldn't love their new home as much as I loved the Bristol flat, but I was wrong. Particularly as I've just watched Nina take me round it on the BH blog. I love the detail that there is one of Robson Green's tapes on the shelf. Hilarious. (Robson Green is a new character, McNairn, a cage fighting werewolf.) It is that kind of detail that makes me love the BH team.

Mitchell sees Annie on the TV telling her she is being sent to hell and decides he has to go and rescue her, though George doesn't want him to go (I can't lose you too. Oh George is it possible for me to love you more?), and Nina warns him to be sensitive when she finds him a terminally ill patient to follow through the door to purgatory. I did love the scene when Mitchell and George are waiting for him to die - George tries to read Jewish prayers, driving Mitchell nuts, while Mitchell does crosswords, but the moment of death was beautifully filmed, with Mitchell displaying tenderness and concern for the man as he takes him through (no mention of the men with ropes this time, I note...)

The moment when Mitchell went through the door was the moment this episode really took off for me. There was a lot of other stuff going on - we get introduced to Robson Green's McNairn, who is kidnapped and forced into a cage fight with an poor unsuspecting human, while his son encounters George in a forest both preparing to change (George and Nina are taking it in turns to share the basement so he is out in the forest setting himself a trail to follow), which leads George in turn to follow him and end up accidentally meeting a group of doggers. It could only happen to George and created a brilliantly hilarious BH moment when George is arrested, despite telling the police, in that George voice I love, I've got a condition, and locked in a cell just as he is about to change. Meanwhile he manages to get a phone call to Nina, who is also on the verge, and she has to come and rescue him from his police cell. Let's hear it for Nina! I am so glad she is properly a lead now. I love Nina as much as George. My favourite werewolf couple. Though, what is going on with her hair, people?

Nina trying to resist her werewolf tendencies while she gets George out of jail by persuading the cops that his condition is so serious they'll be in a lot of trouble if they don't release him was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. But then just to ratchet up the tension, we also see the preparations for the cage fight (people holding up placards: Ten Minutes to Full Moon. Genius), and George and Nina desperately racing to find somewhere to hide so they can change safely and then having to lock themselves in together, despite George's fear that they'll kill each other. Another beautiful moment when they tell each other they love one another before falling to the floor in agony. Woohoo. And THEN seeing the cage fight, where full marks to the BH team, they didn't flinch once from the full horror of it. It was brutal and bloody and terrible, with the truth of the situation suddenly dawning on the victim in a terrifying way. But worse then the werewolf were the baying mob, and the leader of the kidnappers (played by a very sinister Paul Kaye) being disappointed that he's lost his bet that the human would last two minutes...

And while ALL this is going on, Mitchell is in Purgatory down a long corridor with many doors, with his spirit guide, Lia. Who knows he's a vampire, and knows stuff about him and keeps saying H12, to his and our confusion. Mitchell keeps asking to see Annie, but instead she offers him the choice of which door to open. As a catholic, I LOVED this version of purgatory, it felt really like it might be like that (my aged fil had a near death experience after his stroke when he was in a corridor knocking on doors and people on the other side wouldn't let him in. He wasn't at all religious but was convinced that's what happened till the day he died.)

Mitchell's choices force him to look at who or what he is, so the first door takes him back to WW1, just after he was turned, when he goes back to his regiment and ends up poisoning his friend Arthur and taking his life. He doesn't want to confront what he's done, but Lia leads him to see that he couldn't really help it, he was confused, and a victim too. They move onto the next door and its back in the 60s and this time the victim is a young girl called Sally. Now things are different, Lia tells him, Mitchell claims it got chaotic - he says he was out of control, she points out he was in control enough to have sex. It's almost as if you enjoyed it, Lia says and Mitchell claims he is not that man any more. When a desperate Annie shows up on the tv screen again Mitchell begs to be told what to do, but Lia says its his choice... At that moment Mitchell nearly gives up, It was brave of you try, says Lia, but then he can't leave without Annie, so chooses another door.

And suddenly we're in the carriage of the train in which he and Daisy went on a feeding frenzy last series. As this was one of the most shocking scenes from series 2 - I had got so used to Mitchell as the good guy it was truly horrific to see him fall from grace - it was brilliant to see Mitchell have to confront what he'd done. Suddenly he has an explanation of who Lia is, H12 - the seat she was sitting in, she's one of his victims too. Lia introduces him to the others: the train driver with five kids, the woman who'd survived breast cancer so he can see the ripples of his actions - till Mitchell can bear it no more. He says sorry, and relentlessly she tells him its not enough, she forces him to look at the way he hides from what he's done: Mitchell excuses it by saying its a compulsion, he was angry, Daisy made him do it... Lia tells him he's after forgiveness, and uses the good things he does to make up for the bad, and finally Mitchell confesses that he's an animal and he doesn't deserve forgiveness. I was dead and I never felt so alive, he says and admits to being addicted to a lack of conscience. It was a thrilling and wonderful performance from Aidan Turner (and suddenly I'm feeling all that Mitchell love...), as for the first time Mitchell properly faces up to his past actions, without the excuses. And this time, Lia warns him there will be consequences, as the price for getting Annie will be his death by way of a wolf shaped bullet. Mitchell is the final piece in someone else's story, and they have to kill him. Ouch.

So Mitchell has got Annie back. Nina and George didn't kill each other but shagged instead (I predict the pitter patter of wolf cub feet), and McNairn's son killed the vampire kidnapper (I missed that till the last minute, duh) and tells him about having seen George.

Being Human's well and truly back. Major major SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Toby Whithouse. I think I love you.

Breast is Best

2011-01-14T08:59:00.004Z

... This is the mantra that has been drummed into new mums by what I just heard referrred to on the radio as The Breastapo for years and years.

When I started out on this parenting malarkey I think The Breastapo were just coming into their own. I can remember going to an antenatal class (NCT - natch, I'm middle class, but GOD I hated those classes, run by well meaning but narrow minded folk who could not accept that sometimes babies don't arrive easily, sometimes pain relief is necessary and sometimes, god forbid, even intervention is. As a result of their well meaning efforts I felt a complete failure after no 1's delivery which involved an epidural, forceps & episotomy), where a very bossy woman stood up and repeated the Breast is Best mantra which quite frankly, in my child bearing years I grew to hate. She told us, I seem to remember that as an alternative to breast milk had only been around for fifty years or so, this was nature's way of saying that babies should only be fed from their mothers, and that ALL mothers could feed. A statement so sweepingly ignorant it failed to recognise that pre-formula milk being available babies DIED because their mothers couldn't feed, or used wet nurses. It just simply isn't true that ALL mothers can feed their babies. Most probably can, but some just can't.

I was lucky. I produced enough milk to keep my babies going probably far longer then the currently recommended six months, but jeez, how I hated breastfeeding. Saying that in itself is the ultimate heresy for The Breastapo. It's like declaring I don't love my baby. But before I had babies the idea didn't appeal, and once the whole messy painful procedure presented it to me in all its glory, I discovered, that me and breastfeeding, really really didn't get along. So it was that within six weeks of no 1 being born I switched to bottle feeding (and did the same with all my others to no ill effects that I can now see. None of them being stupid, or behind at school as threatened. Two of them true are asthmatics, but asthma is in my family and I don't believe for an instant that my breastfeeding a bit longer would have stopped them getting asthma), albeit feeling so guilty I remember hiding the bottles when the midwife came round. Can you credit it, a grown woman in her own house, sneaking around like a guilty schoolgirl? But that's what The Breastapo reduces you to. Bonkers.

I mention all of this because in the time since I had my babies, the power of The Breastapo has grown to the extent that thanks to a directive form the WHO that says newborns should be fed exclusively breast milk for the first six months of their lives (surely a policy that is more relevant in third world countries where they are at greater risk of infection), now all new mums are bullied - I mean advised - that they should not give solids until six months.

When I first heard this policy I thought wtf? Not only did I stop breastfeeding mine early, but given how hungry they were (all of them were over a week later and 8lbs+) I also fed them solids at three months. Yes I did say three months. They were hungry. I had got to the limit of how many bottles a day I could give them (along with dire warnings about making them fat if I gave them too much formula. Are we the most bullied generation of mothers, ever? Discuss.) and once they were on solids they slept through the night. Result. I feel immensely sorry for the poor women who are struggling to keep their babies on breast milk for the whole six months. If their babies are anything like mine were they must be worn to the ground.

So I heartily applaud the sensible study which today led by a paediatrician from UCL's Institue of Child Health, whom I presume knows what of he speaks, has suggested that breastfeeding for six months exclusively is not necessarily always in the best interest of the baby, who may not receive the right amount of nutrition (hello, isn't that rather obvious?) and in some cases may end up iron deficient as a result. Of course the Royal College of Midwives, the heads of the Breastapo have jumped on this claiming it is a study that only helps the baby food industry. Bollocks. It will help mothers to make a more informed choice about how long they breastfeed for, and in turn that will help their babies.

I am not for one minute suggesting mothers shouldn't breast feed. (Nor am I suggesting that all midwifes and health visitors are bullies. Most are sensible people who give you good advice and are obliged to follow the latest guidelines however misguided they are.) It has been proved without a doubt that there are health benefits to mother and baby (and yes, you do lose your baby weight quicker when you do it, one of the only reasons I kept at it, quite frankly), but this bullying one sided coercion of new mothers in particular (who are very very vulnerable and need sensible support not bullying) has to stop. Breast is certainly best for babies, but feeding them is a multifactoral thing, and what suits one mother and baby doesn't suit another. New mums should be given enough advice for them to make up their own minds and then be allowed to get on with it.

Breast may be best, but I think most mothers know best as far as their babies are concerned anyway...

New Year, New Me, New Post

2011-01-07T18:44:00.002Z

It seems a bit late on January 7 to be wishing y'all a belated Happy Christmas, but helas, this year time was agin me round the festive season. First, I had a deadline, which took up the first half of December (along with rather a lot of snow), then I had to catch up on present buying/wrapping, card sending etc the week before the kids broke up, and THEN in a moment of utter folly I decided to clean the house the week before Christmas. A totally pointless exercise, as within minutes of Santa's arrival it looked like a bomb had hit it (though today's post festivity clean up actually was easier as a result, or that's what I keep telling myself). We went up to my mum's for a few days after Christmas, and then I just basically lounged lazily about, and hardly was online at all (it doesn't help that I have to fight for computer space when the offspring are home), hence my pathetic lack of seasons greetings.

Anyway. Hope it was a good one for everyone reading this. Ours was quiet. And uneventful. And restful. Which after a stressful couple of Christmases is just the way I like it. I actually felt like I'd had a break for once.

Now back (sort of) in the swing, so hope to be a better blogger in 2011 then I was in 2010, when I seem to lose my blogging mojo a bit. I have had lots of things I wanted to blog about recently: the snow, Christmas, the return of Primeval (yay!), and better still the imminent return of Being Human, (double yay!), but the moment has passed. As I am about to get embroiled in the rewrites on my next opus, Summer Season, I maybe slightly quiet for the next few weeks, but hope to write something here. At some point. I promise...

And now for some light relief.

2010-11-24T08:37:00.005Z

Ok, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I just HAVE to post about this year's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. I know: terribly puerile programme, watching overpaid, undertalented people shame themselves all so they can secure that tv/book/record deal. It's totally reliant on schadenfreude and bad jokes by Ant & Dec. And it is my guilty pleasure. Oh yes, it is.

I remember first watching it the year Peter Andre & Katie Price were in it (2004?). I had never really seen it before, and I only started watching because no 4 was in hospital, and there was bugger all else to do of an evening when you are tied to a hospital ward with a coughing two year old, other then watch crap tv in the parents' room. Meanwhile, Spouse at a similar loss at home ended up watching it too, and we were quickly addicted. Admittedly Spouse now watches it, grumbling all the time about the lack of sensible things for them to do - he would rather it was about proper survival skills and working together, rather then sitting round all day bitching and then taking part in the odd trial - but I think that is part of the fascination of the programme. Throw a bunch of egotistical people with something to prove or sell, who don't know each other together for three weeks, give them hardly any food, and nothing constructive to do, light blue touch paper and retire.

And boy this year, has the action been explosive. In case you have been inhabiting Mars for the last two weeks and hadn't noticed, Gillian McKeith (aka once-upon-a-very- long-time- ago- before-she-got-found out as "Dr" Gillian McKeith) has rather stolen the show this year, or certainly the column inches in the newspaper. By dint of being the absolutely wussiest person ever seen on the programme (previous contenders include Paul Burrell and Natalie Appleton), and having phobias about everything you can think of, and probably several you can't, Gillian McKeith has been chosen for every single bushtucker trial apart from the ones she's exempted from on medical grounds. (FFS, she's 51, Jenny Eclair is 50 - what's so wrong with her she can't do certain trials?) At every single trial Gillian has screamed, shuddered, and three times "fainted" and been given oxygen. The last time was live on air, and perfectly timed. She's clearly an actress manquee.

Up until last night I just thought she was a self delusional, slightly mad, selfish old bag. But then she gave herself away. Having been sent to Jungle Jail for cheating (Oh yes, you did cheat, Gillian, but then you've made a career out of that), she went hysterical - and if the Sun is to be believed, declared she was pregnant - and then spent the next 24 hours bitching about being there. When confronted by Stacey Solomon (who has turned out to be one of my unexpected favourites on the show simply because she has such a sweet personality) as to why she didn't go home, given how many phobias she has (indeed, given how phobic she is about insects why go on the programme at all, huh, Gillian??), she revealed that if she breaks her contract she'll "never work in TV again" (You're doing a good job of ensuring that anyway, Ms McKeith) - ie, there's a new tv programme in the offing.

She then went off to do a trial with Dom Joly (who's behind her back comments have been absolutely hilarious), revealing when it turned out to involve water that a) she couldn't swim and b) she's phobic about water. Surprise, surprise, thanks to Dom's help (the man has the patience of a saint. Dom for King of the Jungle, on that trial alone), Gillian "overcame" her phobia, and got 5 stars for the camp (a damned sight better then the nul points she brought back the other night when she couldn't even be arsed to do the trial). She is now so much "better" she was able to walk calmly across the bridge rather then crawling across as she has done previously. Later on she mentioned to Stacey that the person who will understand her position most is Katie Price, who got endlessly voted to do the trials last year, thereby giving away that far from having never seen the show before, she's clearly studied it carefully to see how she can maximise her airtime. And guess what it's succeeded.

My prediction is that as soon as she's out of the jungle we will hear she's signed up a deal for a new TV show in which "Dr" (she'll probably make up some degree in psychology or something) Gillian McKeith will help poor unfortunate sods more desperate for fame even then she is, to overcome their phobias too. Given her caring empathetic manner, they will be in for a very very bad time.

It's actually quite a shame that Gillian has taken over the show like that, because it means we've seen less of Lembit Opik (or Lemsip Biscuit as my genius niece christened him) , who is clearly as mad as a box of snakes, and possibly the most irritating person in camp after Gillian. Nigel Havers found him so annoying, he's claiming he would have killed him had he stayed. (That I would have liked to have seen.) Neither has there been a chance for Jenny Eclair to really dig her nails into Kayla wotsit (the Playboy model, only there for the gratuitous shower scenes by the pool), and you can see she's dying too.

My favourite slebs are Shaun Ryder (hilariously rude to Gillian, and then all politeness in apology, which she rudely rebuffed, as well as doing a good line in bitching about the other campmates with Nigel Havers), Dom Joly (just plain funny, down to earth, and I don't know why you're there Dom, unless you're putting your kids through private school), Britt Ekland ("she's a better actress then I am" surely one of the quotes of the series), Sheryl Gascoigne (gracious, kind, and you have to like someone who said about Lembit Opik when put in Jungle Jail with him, "I think he's got a touch of OCD. That's ok, I'm used to that.") and Stacey Solomon (who's cheery good nature might be a bit annoying, but is so well intentioned you can't help but like her - says the woman who found her infuriating on X Factor, so that's a bit of a turn up for the books).

I was really liking Nigel Havers till he walked, but after his hissy fit in the courtroom, and revelation of how much the others bored him, I went off him. Plus I think he should have stayed a bit longer. I still haven't worked out what Alison Hammond does, but she seems quite cheery. Jenny Eclair makes me laugh, but I haven't seen enough of her to form a proper opinion. Linford Christie was awesome on the trial he did, but I suspect is a bit of an arrogant tosser. Kayla is a blond bimbo unless proved otherwise. Aggro Santos is the male crumpet, unless proved otherwise (but seems harmles enough). And Lemsip Biscuit is in a category all his own. He does give me the creeps a bit. He's my age ffs, with a 21 year old girlfriend. Plus he has a very strange chin. And to think he was in parliament all those years. Dear god, we get what we vote for...

Am disappointed to discover that thanks to some football or something, I'm A Celeb isn't on tonight, but it does mean I won't have to choose my other guilty schadenfreude pleasure of The Apprentice, which makes me laugh equally.

Grown woman gets her kicks from watching the insanely desperate slug it out on TV.

Sad, but true...

Dulce et Decorum Est

2010-11-12T09:40:00.003Z

When I was 12 years old I was really fortunate to have an incredibly inspirational English teacher. Among the many brilliant writers he introduced me too, Wilfred Owen remains one of my favourites. At that age, of course I knew about World War One and was dimly aware of the great sacrifices that had been made (whenever we were on holiday, my father used to make a point of finding the local war memorial and taking a moment to honour the dead), but I hadn't really grasped how terrible and futile it all was. That was until Mr Ward introduced me to this poem:

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time:

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes, and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

I think it was the image of the man's drowning face that really brought it home to me. Up until then, my notions of warfare were very much based on old war movies, and boys in the playground playing out war fantasies. Ever since then, I've been simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the stories I've read about that particular war, which seems to have been more pointless then most.

Normally on Remembrance Day I tend to think about my dad and fil who were both lucky enough to survive World War 2, but yesterday, I found my thoughts straying to those two great uncles I mentioned in my previous post.

Ernest Ophir Clark (or "Ophie" as he rather sweetly appears on one census when he was small) joined up in 1915, serving in the 5th Battalion of the London Rifle Brigade and died in December 1916. He wasn't killed in battle, but died of an illness (I'm not sure what) that he presumably contracted from being in the trenches. He was 20 years old, and Jemima's third child, and second son, and is buried in Merville Cemetery in France.

Alfred Thomas Clark, enlisted with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in 1915, but ended up with the Hampshire Regiment. He was Jemima's oldest child, and she must have thought she'd got away with it, as he survived all the way to the last week of the war. He died on 4 November 1918 in the Battle of the Sambre - the same battle Wilfred Owen died in.

Last night we caught a wonderful programme that Jeremy Paxman had made about Wilfred Owen. I knew he had a period suffering from shell shock, but I hadn't realised how thanks to some progressive treatment from the doctor who treated him (normal treatment of shell shock at the time consisted of firing your frontal lobes with electric shocks to reprogramme the brain to get back to battle), he started to write the war poems for which he is remembered today. Neither did I realise how influential Siegfried Sassoon had been on his work. Ironically, Sasssoon ended up in the same hospital because the government didn't want him writing any more anti-war treatises, only for him to influence a poet who went on to write some of the greatest anti-wa r poems ever written.

It was an incredibly moving programme, not least because it was cut through with readings from letters Owen wrote home to his mother and sister, in which he spared no detail of the horror of what was happening. Touchingly, in the last letter he wrote, just before the battle of the Sambre, when he and his men were sitting in a dugout, he talks of the peace he has found with them, and how unafraid he is, though the battle rages above him.

The Battle of the Sambre was the last offensive of World War 1. The aim was to take the German line on the other side of the Sambre-Oise Canal. But as the British approached to put up temporary bridges, they came under heavy fire - and it was in that bombardment Wilfred Owen (and I'm guessing Alfred too) lost his life. Tragically, Owen's mother got the news as the bells were ringing to announce the armistice. He was, by all accounts exceptionally brave, having opted to go back to the War so he could keep reporting how it was through his poetry, and was posthumously awarded the Military Cross.

Alfred on the other hand, as far as I know, didn't have an exceptional war, and won no medals that I know of. His loss though, for his mother and family must have been equally catastrophic. I found myself wondering about how he and Ernest would have been, had they lived. I knew all their surviving siblings: Mabel(May) my grandmother, her sister Madge, and youngest brother Herbert. I recall them all with much affection, though May died when I was relatively young. It seems strange to think there were two other great uncles whom I might also have known. And that is the tragedy of World War 1 for so many families, no one in the country was unaffected by it. Owen's phrase "the pity of war" was an apposite one.

Another great poem speaks to me of their loss. It's an almost tender lament for the loss of so much of the nation's youth. Read it, remember, and weep.

Anthem for a Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Following on from my previous post...

2010-10-25T12:33:00.003Z

Here is my great granny Jemima Clark (nee Cleary) getting kissed by the Mayor of Ramsgate. Couldn't embed it sadly...

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=24285

Jemima must have been about 77 then or possibly a bit older, I suspect she may have been a trifle dishonest about how old she was, as I've had rather a lot of difficulty tracking her down. Mind you that is also because she doesn't appear anywhere as Jemima till she's 18, and before that I suspect she was going under the name of Mary Ann Cleary, a name she unfortunately shared with a cousin, so it's easy to get them muddled.

What I do know about Jemima is that her father Thomas Cleary drowned when she was very young - according to the stories left behind by her youngest son (my G uncle Bert), Thomas had an unfortunate habit of taking his coat off over his head without undoing the buttons. He made the mistake of doing this on Barking Docks on a windy night and fell in the Thames and was drowned. Mind you, Bert also claimed that Jemima's hair went white at 16 when she saw someone fall down out of a window and die in front of her. As shock of said experience also turned her deaf, I think Bert may have been embellishing a bit. He was a bit of a one for tall stories...

My mother describes Jemima with a degree of dislike, as she lived with them after her husband (the wonderfully named Ophir, who was a mill worker), and was a bit of a drama queen to say the least. (Her younger sisters on the other hand, describe with glee the way that Jemima taught them rude words when they were very young). My own grandmother, reacted to Jemima's histrionics by always keeping a very tight lid on her own emotions, something she passed down to my own mother. Mostly, I think it's a good thing, but occasionally, I suspect Jemima's is a better way. Though, I am also inclined to agree with my grandma that forcing Ophir to convert from the Baptist faith to the Catholic one on his death bed was not her finest hour.

She lived apparently as a very merry widow, and numbered several male friends in Ramsgate, as well as the mayor. Though history, alas, does not record whether she kissed any of them...

I can understand why my mother found Jemima's histrionics difficult to stomach, as my grandmother had to manage alone during the war, with six children and a sick husband (who died in 1944, the same year as Jemima), and probably needed a demanding mother like a whole in the head, but since I've been researching her, I've some sympathy with her too.

She not only lost her parents young (haven't tracked down what happened to her mother yet), and lived with extended family for most of her childhood, as far as I can tell from the censuses, but she lost not one but two sons in the First World War. Ernest, her middle son, died of illness in 1916,aged 20, and Alfred the oldest died in the last week of the war, in the battle of the Sambre, the same battle that Wilfred Owen died of. Factor in the loss of twins, Wilfred and Winnie, who died at 6 weeks and were so small they had to buried in drawers (a story that held fascination for me as child, and now seems unbearably poignant), and I think she probably had every right to the odd moment of histrionics. Of her seven children, only three survived to adulthood. I can't begin to imagine that must do to you.

I currently have a strand of my current wip which focuses partly on WW1, and Lily, the heroine shares some of Jemima's experiences. She's not at all like Jemima, but I've been inspired by what happened to Jemima to come up with Lily's story. Best be warned though, you need to get out your hankies...

I'm rather glad that Jemima was able to live the life of Reilly in the 30s, seems to me like she deserved it, histrionics, and all...

Happy Families

2010-10-13T12:30:00.005Z

About a year I blogged here about my cousin Angela Marshall who had sadly just died. I may have mentioned that she was a pretty amazing person. She was certainly incredibly generous and one of my favourite relatives growing up. This was quite an achievement, as I have A LOT of relatives...

The measure of just how special Angela was, is that I am not the only one in the family to feel this way. I am not even the only member of my immediate family (there are eight of us), to feel this way... There are 35 of us in my generation (yes, that's right I have 28 cousins on my mother's side, and according to latest records about 57 second cousins)and Angela meant something to us all. She had no children of her all, but she was like our own special fairy godmother as children, and she didn't leave us without showing her extraordinary generosity once again. In her will, as well as leaving something to her first cousins (my mother and her siblings), and her nieces and nephews, she also left something to each and everyone of us cousins. All that she asked was that we had a party in her honour.

So on Saturday we did. And what a party. As I mentioned in my previous blog about her, Angela worked for Elstree Studios for many years providing sound effects for films as varied as Star Wars, The Omen, and Mel Gibson's Hamlet (I can still remember the gasp round the table from a dozen women at a family wedding when she casually announced that she'd met Mel - this in the days before he turned into a religious fanatic). On the same occasion she also regaled us with tales of the "Shout" (an exercise when she got a group of people together to make a particular set of sound effects) she organised which involved lots of deep breathing and panting noises for a scene in the second Hell Raiser film (if you've seen it, it's a scene involving writhing bodies under sheets returning from hell). Some time afterwards she and a friend were in a bookshop in LA when they spotted Clive Barker, and proceeded to stand behind him making similar noises...

So thanks to the Elstree connection, we were able to have the party in the function room at Elstree studios, complete with cardboard cutouts of Angela in her youth standing next to such luminaries as Patrick McGee (her first job was working on The Prisoner) as well as the inevitable Storm Trooper. Angela, was, we were reminded by one of her colleagues extremely dismissive of SF when they worked on the original Star Wars... (It didn't stop her taking us to see the film at Leicester Square though, which has left me with a lifelong love of SF, so I have to be grateful to her for that too).

There were several speeches from both family and friends, but one of my cousins had managed to put together a video of Angela's life with a Star Wars theme which was both memorable and moving. The same cousin had also found some Pathe reel footage of my Great Grandmother Jemima Clark (nee Clary) being kissed by the Mayor of Ramsgate at some shindig on Ramsgate beach. The story goes that my aunt was at the cinema one day, when the Pathe news came on, and one of her friends, said, Sheila, isn't that your grandma? And it was. As I've spent the last few months researching Jemima (among others)for the family tree, and her story has informed quite a lot of what is happening in the latest wip (about which more in a later blog) it was really brilliant to see her in the flesh as it were. Particularly as it brought forth a rash of stories from my mother and aunts about what a raver she was. Who'd have thunk...

The children were only slightly overwhelmed by the vastness of their family (last family party took place when they were all very young and time & geography means they've not met many members of the extended family before), Spouse has got used to it over the years, but elected to stay put with his fellow Outlaws for company,which is probably a wise move. As even one of my cousins said, It's quite overwhelming for US, let alone any other poor sap we bring into the family...

However overwhelming or not, it was fantastic to see so many of the family (only 3 in my generation didn't make it and they're all abroad), there was (inevitably) not enough time to get to meet everyone, but a really fun time was had by all.

Angela wanted us to party, and we did.

Shame she couldn't have been there too...

Have you missed me?

2010-10-05T11:05:00.002Z

I have just looked at the blog and realised to my shame that it has been over three months since I last wrote here. Damn. That sounds like I am going to confession - Bless me readers for I have sinned and it is far too long since I've made an entry here.

I'd LIKE to say it's because I have been having a wonderfully riveting time, or that I have been deep at work in my new book, but neither would be strictly true.

I did have a pretty good summer - after last year's debacle I had got myself a little (ahem) hyped up before flying out to Turkey, but thankfully not only did I withstand the flight without turning into a gibbering mess, I also had the most relaxing holiday I've had in years. And I mean literally YEARS. So I think we can safely say that my anxiety levels are way lower then they were this time last year, and I am feeling normal again. Yippee doda.

I had meant to blog all this on my return, but somehow got into such a laidback state of mind, never quite managed it. Suffice to say we hadn't been to Turkey for years, and really enjoyed going back. We stayed in the middle of nowhere (after some slightly misleading info from the travel company about how close we were to the local town), which was great for peace & quiet but slightly inconvenient when trying to cater for a family of 6 (the only "shop" was a little hut by the beach where a woman sold beer, milk and bread - all the necessities then - and there was one cafe, which was nice, but the menu got a bit limited). We therefore had to rely on the dodgy bus provided by the site to take us supermarket shopping, which ran mainly on Turkish time, which is very different from the UK variety.

That aside, we did manage a couple of trips to Bodrum by boat (a trip that also ran on Turkish time - the boat journey being 2hrs longer then advertised), which was impressive but way more touristy then last time we were there and Ephesus which was was fantastic. If you ever get to Turkey, go to Ephesus - it's the best place I've been to for really imagining the past - even if the info from the guides was dodgy to say the least. And miraculously, the kids even enjoyed it, especially wandering round the enormous ampitheatre at the end.

So, Turkey, was a major success, and when we got back we were swiftly up to Derbyshire to visit my family, and belatedly celebrate Aged Ma's 80th birthday. This too was enormous fun - we all booked cottages in the village my sis lives in, and for a week it was pretty much like the Moffatts had invaded. We did some great walks, had a wonderful picnic at Chatsworth, Spouse & I managed to nip over to Sheffield Cathedral to find the George Chapel where fil has a seat in his honour, and it didn't RAIN ONCE. I have never ever known it sunny in Derbyshire, and it was lovely. This being us though, we couldn't escape a teensy bit of adventure, so when we got back from Sheffield, Spouse and I then had to go straight to Derby Hospital as the eldest had an hand injury sustained from nephew's rather sharp football shooting skills. Luckily, it turned out not to be broken, which is what usually happens to us. The next day we took the kids to the cinema, and when I came out I discovered the car was making funny noises (Spouse had gone home by this time). I thought I'd managed to blow the engine up (there's nothing like being confident about one's driving skills), but after a call to the AA I ascertained that some bastard had stolen our catalytic converter. Yes. That's right. Apparently the scrap metal value from catalytic converter's is high. Sodding thing cost £547 to put right and OF COURSE our insurance didn't cover it. Grr.

Got home and discovered Spouse was reorganising bedrooms, so the rest of the holidays was spent throwing stuff out and trying to make the little ones' bedrooms habitable. To which end I have actually succeeded, so for the first time in years, you can (most of the time) actually see their bedroom floors.

So that's the summer done and dusted. And now we're well into the new term, and I have managed to do some writing. In fact it was all going great guns till last week, when I developed the cold from hell, from which I am just recovering. As I have a deadline of the end of the month, I had better get moving sharpish.

So hear endeth the lesson for the moment. I had hoped to blog about sooooo many things... The brilliance of Sherlock for example and my new crush on Benedict Cumberbatch to match my old crush on Martin Freeman; the books I'd read on holiday - highlights including Somewhere Before the End by Diana Athill, and Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger, weirdly compulsively haunting, great atmosphere, crap lots, but lingers in the mind nonetheless, and Tamsyn Murray's My So Called Afterlife, a lovely moving teen ghost story; Bouquet of Barbed Wire and my weird crush on Trevor Eve considering he always plays jerks; the return of Spooks and my not so weird crush on Richard Armitage, but my deep fear that his time on Spooks is probably numbered, to name but a few.

But alas Time's winged chariot and all that, and I Do have a book to write. But at least I've blogged again. Thank you for your patience if anyone is still out there, reading. I'll try not to leave it so long next time....

Dr Who Series 5

2010-06-30T11:00:00.005Z

I have been really crap at blogging this year, I am not entirely sure why, but it's the reason I haven't blogged AT ALL about Dr Who apart from my very excited response to Episode 1 here (and I never got onto the Ashes to Ashes finale which I loved, sigh.)

So to make up for it I thought I'd round up my thoughts in general about the new series of Dr Who and how I've coped without David Tennant (sob).

THERE

WILL

BE

SPOILERS

AHEAD

The answer to that is, pretty well, actually. Considering how much in love with DT's Doctor I was, Matt Smith has done a brilliant job of coming up with something new & different from Tennant's Doctor. It doesn't always work - he wasn't very convincing in the Daleks episode for instance, and sometimes I long for the more emotional version of the Doc we had from David Tennant, but for his enthusiasm, bonkersness, and sheer chutzpah, I am really loving this version of the Doctor. It's also great to have him paired with a companion as mad as Amy Pond is, who apart from that brief flirtation when she tried to snog him (oh and yes, as pointed out by Medium Rob her rather callous attempts to do so again on her wedding day, tut, tut, Amy), isn't really interested him, and he isn't at all interested in her, except as the girl who doesn't make sense. This doctor is a bit more detached, and well alien then the previous version, and I rather like him for that.

After the dazzlingly brilliant start to the series, there was I suppose an inevitablity that not even the Moff could keep up that pace (I have to add here, that as not only do I share my maiden name with the writer, barring an extra T, I also share my married name with one of the characters. I am therefore, obliged to love this version of Who(-:), and at times it was rather uneven. As others have pointed out, Moff could really do with editing the scripts he hasn't written better - Amy was poorly served by one or two other writers - Chris Chibnail I am looking at you - and turned at times into a cipher who just did a lot of girly screaming and not much else. She (and we) deserve a lot better then that.

I didn't mind the Daleks episode, which seems on the whole to have been universally loathed, but it wasn't as good as the rest. The Daleks revealed their hand way too soon, and it would have been more fun to have the Doctor trying to persuade everyone they were evil for longer (I did LOVE the Dalek offering tea), plus the guy who played Churchill was a bit crap, so not one of the series' better efforts. I was also not wildly keen on the Silurian double parter, but that was because it was penned by Chris Chibnail who wrote the inexecrably awful first series of Torchwood - and considering that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

However, I pretty much loved the rest of the series, from Sophie Okenedo's fabulous Liz 10, to Toby Whithouse's vampires in Venice (Vampires? Venice? Written by Toby "Being Human" Whithouse? I couldn't fail to like that one), it's been inventive, fun, and as the Moff has said had a fairytale quality to it.

One thing that didn't quite work initially, as Rory's relationship with Amy - the main questions being why would feisty Amy settle for such a wimp, and why would he stay with someone who is being so horrible to him - which lacked chemistry at the beginning, and until he apparently died in Amy's Choice (another cracking episode - hugely helped by Toby Jones' masterful depiction of the Dream Lord) I didn't think Amy cared a jot about him. However after that point, it was clear that the relationship was deeper then it appeared & his second "death" though it felt a bit repetitive at the time gained extra significance as the series drew to a close. Particularly poignant was the moment in Vincent (crap monster, but otherwise another brilliant & incredibly moving episode), when Van Gogh asks her why she's crying and she doesn't know, and she knows she's forgotten something important but can't remember what, which paralleled with the Doctor's reactions to her forgetting gave a pathos that was much needed. I love Steven Moffat's writing, but I agree again with Medium Rob he doesn't always get the emotional depth that RTD did, and while it has been a nice change to have more restrained emotions, there are moments when RTD would have given it more and Steven Moffat failed to do so, which has meant that at times things have felt flatter then they should.

Having said that, the emotion ratchetted up beautifully for the series finale. Oh God how I loved the series finale. It was such a roller coaster of a ride, and for the first time in a two parter, with Amy shot by Rory, Rory really an Auton, River stuck in the Tardis, and the Doctor locked in the Pandorica I really did believe there was a possibility that this time the Doc might not be able to sort it out. I felt sure Rory wasn't going to live to tell the tale for a third time, at least... I also loved the Rory/Amy storyline - Rory realising Amy had forgotten her, Amy remembering at the point that Rory realises he isn't human, Rory shooting Amy, Rory waiting 2000 years for Amy - Why are you so - human? asks the Doctor, Because right now I'm not, fantastic! - them being reunited in time to forget the Doctor. Wonderful, heart rending, touching stuff.

I know it was a huge cheat for the Doc to get out of the Pandorica with such ease, but oh, the sheer fun of all the time hopping, and the madness of the Fez, and the Pandorica opening in front of Amelia (Caitlin Blackwood was awesome as Amelia, hope she can come back somehow!) and Amy being inside, meant that I didn't care really. Because despite the cheats, and the Doctor being dead, but not really because he was lying, Steven Moffat tied up the loose ends and the odd bits (like the Doctor coming back to Amy in Flesh and Stone - a scene I found really touching first time around seeing it from Amy's pov, but had such added resonance when we realised what the Doctor was actually saying to her & why it was so important for her to remember what he'd told her when she was seven. Just realised I haven't mentioned The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone - two of my favourite episodes this series, for a) having River Song in them,let's here it for River! and b) bringing the angels back and making them scarier), and also left some things unresolved. So we still don't know why silence will fall or who is saying it (I don't know why, but I keep thinking of poor mad Dalek Caan, sounds like the sort of thing he'd say, if he hasn't been rewritten in this new improved universe), nor do we know why the Tardis exploded. And from what River said to the Doctor at the end, it sounds like we're going to find out who she really is, tantalisingly soon.

River Song has been one of the best bits of this new series for me - she's a match for the Doctor, the witty repartee between them is top notch (I loved the Honey, I'm Home/You're late exchange, fabulous!), and as the series drew to an end I think their relationship has deepened and become more interesting. I can't wait to find out what's going on there.

So, while I still miss David Tennant, and I am at times finding the tone of the new series so different from the old as to be a bit jarring, overall I think this has been my favourite series so far. There were some misses, but not many, it could do with more emotion, and I hope they get the script editing sorted next time, but it was fun, it was exciting, it felt different and new again.

Do I really have to wait till Christmas to see Matt Smith in action again?

Dammit, I do.

PS The proof of the pudding is that the kids who were so attached to David Tennant they were threatening not to watch the new series have been totally blown away too. Top marks Mr Moffat, top marks...

A tale of two signings...

2010-06-25T10:32:00.007Z

This is only the second time I have gone into a book shop with copies of my book and signed them. There is something both incredibly egotistical and also exposing about standing up in front of people and politely asking them if they'd like a signed copy of your book. (A metaphor for writing perhaps. You have to be egotistical to do it, but it also exposes you in a way that can be quite scary.)

My first signing session took place in my local Waterstone's a couple of weeks ago. It's a bright friendly shop, well stocked, in the middle of a busy shopping centre. As I know plenty of people locally, I was hopeful that I could bring a few punters in. But going upstairs and seeing a table set up piled high with my books was a tad unnerving. As was the cheery, I'll leave you to get on with it then, shall I? from the manager.

Luckily, I had a hidden army with me in the form of not only my offspring but several of their friends. I sent them out with bowls of chocolate, and instructions to tell people to come up and get a signed copy of my books, and it worked a treat! Though the majority of books I sold were to people I knew, I also managed to palm off a few on some complete strangers. In some instances the sale was dead easy. Apprentice wannabes, eat your heart out!

I was hugely grateful to a couple of my online friends, @craftyfuschia and Caroline Praed for making the effort to come out and join the fun, and was pleased to have sold in the region of 30ish books by the time I left - it may have been more, my pilates teacher arrived after I'd gone home and came knocking at my door with more copies for me to sign.

The town was very busy with punters going to see Jordan (unlike her, I didn't demand you spend £20 on my books before I talked to you(-:), but as most of her punters weren't really interested in my books, I don't think I lost out...

Last week was a whole different experience. I popped up to Church Stretton to sign copies at Burway Books. (Have I mentioned that Burway Books is my favourite bookshop in the world?? No, really?? You can find them here.)

Although the shop itself is tiny, the knowledge of its owner, Ros Ephraim is encylopaedic, and there isn't a book she can't get you if you want it. There is a store not only of huge knowledge here, but Ros and her colleagues Emma and Hils make bookselling a really fun thing to do. I spent the best part of a day with them, and haven't laughed such a lot in a long time.

Church Stretton were having their summer festival that day, so to promote both the bookshop and me, Emma dressed up as the Walker bear (I was very glad I wasn't wearing it I can tell you...) and we went out with flyers to bring the punters in. Church Stretton is a lovely town at the best of times, but the atmosphere was wonderful as people ambled about the different stalls, some in costume, some singing, some dancing. It's the sort of thing you can't do where I live as the community is too big, but it made me want to up sticks and move up there immediately.

After an hilarious hour giving away flyers and confusing children as to who the bear actually was (I felt like I was in an episode of The Apprentice), we hightailed it back to the shop, where I provided bucks fizz and chocolates to anyone who'd take them, in return I hoped for a signed copy of my book. To begin with Emma and I sat outside the shop, but people seemed to think we were chatting to one another (well we were!) so in the end I did it solo, and despite being hugely hard work, and feeling even more like I was in an episode of the Apprentice, it really paid off. The sales were slow but steady, and at the end of the day I think I'd sold the majority of the stock (Final totals: BP, 20, LC 5, SL 2 -not bad at all). I'd also learnt a lot about how to make the best out of a signing situation, and it really is about being bold and putting yourself out there, excruciating as that can sometimes be, while retaining a smile on your face and encouraging people who might not otherwise be interested to look at your book.

I thoroughly enjoyed both days out and am grateful to the staff at Epsom Waterstone's and the fabulous Ros and Emma at Burway Books for making it so easy!

And a very quick plug....

2010-06-10T11:14:00.005Z

On Saturday 12 June I will be signing copies of this at Epsom Waterstone's in the Ashley Centre from 12-2pm

Alternatively, you could go and buy some very expensive riding gear from her at Lester Bowden in Epsom. If you have ever been in Lester Bowden (think the Grace Brothers from Are You Being Served), you would know just how incongruous this is...

Alternatively, if you can't make either event, please come and find me at Burway Books in Church Stretton on Saturday 19 June from 12-2pm, where my competition comes in the form of the Church Stretton Literary Festival.

If you could make it, would love to see you at either event!

We have a winner ... or two!

2010-06-08T09:47:00.002Z

Many apologies for the delay in announcing this. My feeble excuse is, half term (including a sleepover which went on FOREVER) and an inset day yesterday, which involved a trip to Chessington (I have therefore seen Hell's holding station twice in the last week...) I'm sure that Caroline is A LOT more organised then I am, but I am delighted to announce, not one, but two winners. Mainly because lots of you didn't realise you needed to come up with an idea for a holding station for dead people. So all those of you, I put in a draw to get a copy of Black Boxes, and drew it at random. I'm delighted to say that MissieLizzie won.

I loved all your ideas for holding stations - good work, people - and was very tempted by both the idea of a bookshop (reading for eternity, heaven!) and Wimbledon. However, I couldn't resist Aliya Whitely's inspired idea of a cross channel ferry. It was the seafood buffet wot won it(-:

A holding place for dead people... that would need lots of comfy seating, some light shopping opportunities and maybe somebody playing the piano badly, just so everybody has something to moan about other than how they karked it... I'd go for a cross-channel ferry. Hull-Rotterdam, maybe. I seem to remember that has a seafood buffet - that should cover up the stench of death. I think I'm taking this too seriously. But I really would like a copy of the book.

Thanks to everyone who took part, sorry you couldn't all win (though as the head teacher of my childrens' infant school used to say, you're all winners, really). And I hope you even come back and visit here from time to time. I do post more often this usually... honest!

Like Bees to Honey by Caroline Smailes

2010-05-28T07:05:00.004Z

A book review and a competition. Two for the price of one, eh?

Nina, her son Christopher in tow, flies to Malta for one last visit with her aging parents.

Her previous attempt to see them ended in tears. Disowned for falling pregnant while at university in England, she was not allowed into the house.

This will be her final chance to make her peace with them.

But Malta holds more secrets and surprises than Nina could possibly imagine. What she finds is not the land of her youth, a place full of memories and happiness. Instead she meets dead people. Lots of them.

Malta, it transpires, is a transit lounge for recently deceased spirits and somehow Christopher enables her to see them, speak with them and help them.

And, in return, they help Nina come to terms with her own loss. One so great that she has yet to admit it to herself.

I've followed Caroline Smailes' blog for several years now, and I am a big fan of her quirky style and imaginative way of marrying her words with briliant typography. Unique is a word that gets bandied around far too much, but Caroline's style, is just that - unique. I can't imagine anyone else writing the way she does, because I don't think anyone else could.

I was lucky enough to attend Caroline's launch party at the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green on Tuesday (fans of indy bookshops, please go if you are ever in the Wood Green area, it is fantastic. You can find out all about it here) I had already decided I was going to enjoy Bees, when I read the blurb, but the minute Caroline read out an extract based in Liverpool (like me, she's an English grad from Liverpool), I knew I was hooked.

Actually, the Liverpool connection is a fairly minor one, but that doesn't matter, because Caroline takes us on a journey to Malta (an island I've never visited, but would love to now) that is so vividly haunting, the memory of this book will linger with me for a long time.

I loved the idea of Malta as a transit lounge for the recently departed - when Nina, the heroine visits her mother, she also gets to meet a variety of ghosts, who are there to help her come to terms with the secrets of her past, and to help her find redemption.

This is in many ways a very spiritual book - there is a lot of religion in here -but it's a kind of spirituality that's really earthbound. I loved the depiction of a hippyish Jesus, who paints his toenails because his feet are ugly, and drinks cans and cans of Cisk (Maltese beer -which Caroline kindly provided at her launch party and I can confirm tastes very lovely indeed) to see if he can get drunk (he can't). I loved the character of Tilly - a resentful house ghost, who is very very angry (touchingly we get to learn the source of that anger & see it healed) - but most of all I loved Nina, a woman who has cut ties with her past, and whose grief at what she subsequently believes is a punishment, is blinding her to the possibility of happiness in the future. As Jesus tells her she is caught in a hell of her own making - a hell on earth, which only she can escape.

This isn't always an easy read - there were moments when I was wide eyed with shock at things Caroline's characters revealed, and I wasn't always sure how she'd tie everything up. But as she deftly draws the strands together at the end of the book, I was completely transported, greedily devouring each page, unable to bear coming to the end. Mostly nowadays, when I read a book, lack of time means I rarely get to reread it, and often I'm not drawn back to it gain. Like Bees to Honey is such a thoroughly absorbing, and alluring read, that I am sure it is a book I will return to time and time again, because it's the kind of book that grows and ripens with each rereading.
I loved it. I'm sure you will too.

To celebrate the fact that Caroline and I shared our publication day yesterday, I am today giving away a signed copy of Like Bees to Honey to the person who comes up with the wittiest idea for a holding station for dead people. Particularly if you can tell me why.

Competition runs till midnight on 31 May. Please leave comments on my blog below.

Caroline is doing the same with The Bridesmaid Pact, so if you want to win a copy of that, hop over here now!

I'm so excited... I just can't hide it...

2010-05-21T18:41:00.002Z

I'm about to lose control and I think I like it...

Tonight is the last ever episode of Ashes to Ashes. I have been very bad about blogging A2A this time around, not quite sure why, but may try and attempt a whole series round up next week.

Suffice to say, at the moment I am in the blissful but enjoyable position of not having A CLUE about wtf is going on, except, that a) I think the number plate of the Quattro is significant b) the box which Gene kept the roll of film in is one which all returning WW1 vets had (I got this courtesy of Spouse as his grandad had one), so am guessing the disfigured soldier Alex keeps seeing is a WW1 soldier, possibly related to Gene. In fact, maybe it is Gene... Have a feeling they are all dead and about to cross over or something and Gene needs to LEARN a Lesson... but I may be wrong about that.

In the meantime, I shall sit back enjoy the music (the soundtrack to A2A is SUPERB) and ogle at Gene for one last time, and laugh at Alex's Dennis the Menace jumper as it is EXACTLY like one I knitted for Spouse c 1987. He insisted on having it in mohair, and then put it in the wash, so it ended up fitting a teddy bear. Hmm.

Am devastated it's the end for Gene, but I guess he can't go on forever.

I just hope in true cowboy style he goes out in a blaze of glory....

The Bridesmaid Pact

2010-05-11T14:06:00.003Z

As I am rapidly losing the will to live as noone still appears to be in charge (I was rather beginning to favour a Labservative deal, myself (-:), I thought I would share this joyous event with you instead. Today copies of The Bridesmaid Pact have arrived, and it is indeed a thing of beauty to behold. I can't believe all the hard work has finally paid off, but it has. I keep looking at it, it's so lovely. And now you can too.

It looks like I will be signing copies of The Bridesmaid Pact sometime in June in Epsom Waterstones, and I am also returning to Burway Books on 17 June to help sell books in their lovely shop. Will keep you posted about both events.

So I was wrong...

2010-05-07T18:42:00.003Z

Hope is a very annoying word and I won't be using it again...

And the winner is... none of the above and certainly not us. If it's a Lib/Tory coalition Labour voters disenfranchised; if it's a Lib/Lab coalition Tory voters are (plus that would be obscene); and as LibDem voter I feel utterly disenfranchised. No one voted for this. The country needs strong leadership and is going to get muddled mixed message leadership and financially we're going to be in more of a mess then we would have been with an outright winner. What's clear is that the electoral system is in desperate need of reform. Tories are at least talking about it, but can they - will they? - deliver.

The good news is Nick Griffin didn't get in. Hurrah, hurrah. And all the BNP councillors in Barking & Dagenham lost their seats.

Oh and that nutty evangelical Tory in Sutton & Cheam also failed to oust the sitting MP.

And Jacqui Smith lost her seat. So not ALL bad...

Question is, how long can Gordy keep pretending he's still our PM. And will they have to pull him physically from no 10, shouting It's ME they want. You know it makes sense....?

I optimistically told no 1 she'd be old enough to vote next time, but I think we might going to the polls again, rather sooner then that...

The Future's Bright... but is it orange??

2010-05-06T19:06:00.000Z

Well I hope you all voted. I feel passionately that everyone should vote, not only for the suffragettes (Every day, I walk past the cottage hospital where Emily Davison died after throwing herself under the King's horse at the 1913 Derby, and while I think she was bonkers, I appreciate the sacrifice she made so I can vote), but also for all those people in the world today who don't have a free and fair vote. Our electoral system might stink,but at least you can get out and exercise your democratic right.

Now the question is, what colour are we going to wake up to tomorrow morning. Despite Nick Clegg's surge following the Leaders' Debates I doubt he's going to pull it off, so I don't think the future's orange, sadly. I'm expecting a kind of muddy brown, which seems appropriate. Dear God, though, please don't let me wake up tomorrow to still find Gordy in charge. I really couldn't stand that. Nor am I overthrilled at the prospect of David Cameron being held to ransom by 9 MPs in Stormont. That doesn't strike me as exactly democratic.

What I DO hope can come out of this election is that the parties will be obliged to work much more closely together for the good of the country. Lord alone we need it. What none of the buggers has been saying clearly (with HOW much more conviction I would have cast my vote if one of them had) is what a godawful financial mess we are in. Whoever is in charge, cuts are going to be made, and they are going to be painful and deep, but for us to keep afloat, sadly necessary. If Labour hadn't squandered the fruits of seven years (or more) of plenty, we mightn't need it, but sadly they did and we do.

I would have also gladly cast my vote for a proper coalition government, which put aside party politics for once and put the needs of the country first for once, and took the great and the good from all the parties, and turned their minds to the common good, namely how to solve the financial crap without destroying people's homes, livelihoods and sanity. I know it's a pipe dream, but hey... in the words of my favourite Doctor, Hope, nice word. I like it. So whatever the future holds, orange or no, here's hoping we get better government, our electoral system is reformed and we can all look forward to that brighter future.(cue a playing of Over the Rainbow).

My cynical head says of course, that the songs for the election are Tell me Lies, by Fleetwood Mac and Won't Get Fooled Again by the Who, but for once I'm going to ignore my inner cynic.

This at least has been the most exciting election of my adult life, plus the debates appear to have generated a renewed interest in politics which can only be for the good, and maybe, just maybe, we are on the cusp of a major change.

Hope. Like I said. A nice word. One I like...

#Nickcleggsfault In praise of Twitter

2010-04-23T12:38:00.003Z

Around this time last year I belatedly woke up to the fact that all my online contacts seemed to be rabbiting on about something called Twitter. I realised the Famous in the shape of Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross were on it, but I couldn't really see what it would do for me. I was already on Facebook (frankly a part of social networking I've never got to grips with, as it seems pretty infantile to me, though that maybe because I mainly FB with my children), I blog, and according to my husband (who may well be right) I spent far too much time on the internet as it is. So I turned my back on Twitter, as for the same reason I don't update my FB page (why on earth would anyone be interested in me having a cup of tea?), I didn't think it had anything to offer.

I changed my mind when a blogging friend dipped her toe in the twitter water and I was so intrigued by the tweets appearing by the side of her blog, I sort of followed her in. At first I was completely confused, and I still didn't get why people would care what I was up to at any given moment, but I quickly realised that the joy of twitter is that it can go from the absurd to the profound in a matter of moments. The sheer fact of having to put thoughts into a mere 140 characters is a great discipline for any writer, but particularly for one as verbose as me. And to my surprise there was alot less navel gazing, and I'm scratching my bum what are you up to? then I was expecting.

Sure there is some stupidity, and when the occasional twitterstorms (such as the one surrounding Jan Moir's distasteful article about Stephen Gately's death) arise, there can be an element of the nutty mob about it, but in the main, the people I meet on twitter are not only supremely sane, they are witty, sophisticated, wise and fun.

Take, for instance, yesterday. I don't buy the Daily Mail, and hadn't seen the headlines, but gathered quite quickly that the dear old self restrained DM had been gunning for Nick Clegg on the grounds of his Nazi sympathies. Erm? Nick Clegg? A Nazi? What was going on? Within seconds, thanks to a twitter friend, I'd been pointed in the right direction of the offending article that Nick Clegg had written eight years ago. Yes I did say eight. You can find it here. I agree with every word as it happens. I wonder if that makes me a Nazi? Not only that he gleefully pointed out the Mail's own less then glorious Nazi past here. So we engaged on a twitter conversation about all of that, before slipping into less profound topics (as you so easily can on twitter) such as the comparative merits of white asparagus (as eaten in Germany) against green .

It is probably fair to say that the twitterati are not big fans of the DM. So very swiftly a new hashtag appeared #nickcleggsfault and created a trending topic (to those unfamiliar with twitter, people get on the bandwagon with a particular topic and identify it with # - and as a relative twitter newbie I don't think I can explain it much better!) People blamed pretty much everything yesterday on Nick Clegg (me too - the fact that my house is in untidy remains his fault), from running out of houmous to not being able to get any writing done. You've got to even blame the volcano on him. It was a glorious spontaneous response to the anti Nick Clegg crap in the papers (even from people who DON'T support him), which had me hooked to the computer for most of yesterday, and reminded me of just why I love twitter. We may not have much going for us as a country at the moment, but boy do we still have our sense of irony. Today I note the topic is still trending. My favourite comment of the day so far, is Labour is a wasted vote #nickcleggsfault...

As a result of the time spent yesterday on twitter (yes, yes, husband you are right) when I should have been cleaning, I was very late putting the washing out, didn't have time to do the shopping before the school run/swimming lessons and opted to do sainbury's at 7pm. Which is how I found myself unpacking shopping at 8.15, and putting sheets on beds at 8.45 And that I promise you is ALL #nickcleggsfault

Better late then never...

2010-04-09T19:42:00.002Z

... And about a thousand years after all the other Whovians online, here's my response to New Nu Who.

What can I say? It's the Easter holidays, I was away last week, and have painting a bedroom this week, so I haven't had any time to blog about the return of two of my favourite TV programmes (Thanks BBC for bringing Ashes to Ashes back the same weekend as Dr Who, magic...)

Anyway on to the new Doctor. Unlike a lot of people it seems, I wasn't too worried about Matt Smith. I'd seen (and liked) him in Party Animals, I think he has a very alien face, and I loved his opening lines at the end of the last Special. Plus, Steven Moffat is in charge. Steven Moffat who's written every single one of my favourite Nu Who episodes. Of course I would have loved to see David Tennant go on for ever, but I suspect we all might have got sick of him in the end, and part of the joy and brilliance of Dr Who, by the very nature of having a hero who periodically changes, is that it can constantly reinvent itself. And hurrah for that.

So, I was prepared to like it. I was prepared to even forgo the loss of David Tennant for the sake of Steven Moffat's writing, but I wasn't prepared to be so utterly blown away by last week's opener. It felt invigorating, energising, and most of all fresh again. I was just as excited as I was five years ago when Dr Who returned with Christopher Ecceleston. Spouse and I sat down to watch it rather nervously, wondering what RTD would do to our favourite nostalgic TV show, and then as now we were blown away by the sheer fun and raw energy of it. That fun and energy has ebbed away of late, much as I loved DT's swansong, so it's nice to get it back again, even if, being Steven Moffat we got a lot of monsters under the bed too.

From the moment the Doctor burst into young Amelia Pond's life, it felt like we were on a roller coaster - I loved the swimming pool in the library, the way he kept twitching, the food thing (fishfingers in custard - inspired!!). I loved young Amelia/Amy. Loved it that he came back twelve years too late. Loved grown up Amy handcuffing him to get some answers. Loved her calling him the Raggedy Doctor. Loved the scary aliens. Loved the retro feeling (both the village green and the hospital reminded me of the Jon Pertwee era). Well, I just loved the whole thing really.

I didn't love the new theme tune, but hey, that's a minor quibble. In five minutes Matt Smith made himself the Doctor and pretty much eradicated all thoughts of David Tennant from my mind. Pretty impressive (though I can't fancy someone who is young enough to be my son). I think I am going to really enjoy this version of the Doctor, he's quirky, bonkers and fun, while Amy is clearly going to be a match for him.

SO Woohoo, for new Nu Who. Can't wait until tomorrow.

Lucky I have Ashes to Ashes to keep me going till then isn't it?

The RNA Pure Passion Awards Lunch, otherwise known as a Shoe In

2010-03-23T09:01:00.005Z

As a mother of four, I really really don't get out much. And the chance of me going somewhere posh and putting on a pretty frock are normally zilch.

However, this year the RNA, ie my favourite writing group in the world, celebrated it's 50th anniversary. PLUS, I was on the longlist for the main award which was dead exciting. However, the awards ceremony was on a Tuesday, and the domestic commitments I have at present, meant I felt I couldn't commit to going unless, I miraculously made the shortlist (needless, to say, dear reader, I didn't). Having decided NOT to go, step up the hero of the hour in the shape of my lovely mother, who decided I needed a treat and was very happy to come and do the school run and cook tea on the day in question. Yay for lovely mother, particularly as she stayed for several days and did all sorts of helpful things round the house. It was like having my own personal fairy.

So my personal fairy having waved her magic wand, Cinderella could make it to the ball. I had with help from the youngest bought a posh dress (see here for a picture of me wearing it. If I was an organised blogger, I would have PICTURES. But I'm not, and I am a bit short of time, so am sending to you my friends' blogs instead, sorry about that. You can go here for a Proper Report and pics of the winners, and here for pics of the partygoers, and very glam they look too!). I had also at Christmas bought myself some luvverly sparkly shoes. The first rule of any RNA do is that you are going to have a good time. The girls (and some boys) of the RNA really really know how to partaaay!! The second rule is you HAVE TO HAVE lovely shoes. I am absolutely crap at describing clothes & shoes and wouldn't know my Jimmy Choos from - well any other kind of posh shoe maker (bit of a bugger that, when writing contemporary fiction, always have to get my editor to tell me where to look(-:) - but it is a RULE at RNA dos that the most important item of clothing you wear will be on your feet. So a pair of lovely sparkly shoes was an absolute must.

Alas, dear reader, two minutes before leaving I had a catastrophic shoe disaster. I put my glam shoes on and the elastic on the strap broke. It was irreparable, I was inconsolable, AND I had a train to catch. Amazingly for me, for once I had actually left myself enough time. So realising that not only did I have to wear a scrappy pair of sandals, but also the only tights I could find were THICK BLACK UGLY WINTER ones, I decided there was nothing for it, I was going to have to scour the streets of High Street Ken (dammit, why did we have to be in such a pricey part of town?) for a pair of new shoes and some lovely soft shiny tights to wear with them.

So I came out of the tube station and went straight into some serious shopping. My first foray into Clark's was a total waste of time. They only seemed to sell what the children would no doubt have referred to as "Old Lady" shoes. The next shop up the road, I walked into and straight out again when I saw a price tag of £100 on a pair of shoes that looked like they'd have been overpriced in New Look. I criss crossed up and down the road, with an increasing sense of desperation. Either the shops I went into didn't do sparkly party shoes, or they did at exorbitant prices.

Finally, I decided I had one last shot, and entered a really blingy shoe shop with shoes bearing such outrageous sparkles, it had to be designed for a potential RNA partygoer, and there on the first shelf I looked at, miraculously sat a pair of sparkly shoes very similar to the ones which had earlier let me down. My fairy godmother was certainly working overtime.

So it was that ten minutes later, having also purchased some suitable hosiery from Boots, I found myself tottering into the loos at the Kensington Garden Hotel and completely changing my footwear. Now suitably shod, I was ready, at last to enter the fray...

And what a fray it was. Within minutes of arrival I had encountered a fellow writer who lives in my home town, whom I've been promising to meet for months, several writing friends whom I haven't seen for a couple of years, a friendly agent, my lovely publishers, one of my fellow Avon authors, Miranda Dickinson and shortlistee (sadly she didn't win), who I've been tweeting with since the autumn and so on...

Thanks to my very very late purchase of a ticket I was on a table where I only knew a couple of people, but this being the RNA, it really really didn't matter, as I may or may not have mentioned another RNA rule is that a) everyone is incredibly friendly and b) most of them love to talk. So do I. Which is why I feel right at home.

Our wonderful Chair, Katie Fforde gave a lovely and funny speech, despite battling a hideous cold and then passed over to guest of honour, Barry Norman,who gave a warm and witty speech and endeared himself to every writer in the room by telling us, that while filmstars didn't make him starstruck, writers did, because he knows how hard it is. Fittingly, as the RNA is such a stalwart supporter of unpublished (or prepublished, as some of us prefer to think of them) writers, he made no distinction between those of us who've been lucky to secure a publishing deal and those who are still working on it, which is just as it should be.

There were six awards this year:

The RNA People's Choice was won by Louise Douglas for Missing You
The RNA Love Story of the year by Nell Dixon for Animal Instincts
The RNA Romantic Comedy of the year by Jane Costello for The Nearly-Weds
The Harry Bowling Prize (for a prepublished author) by Debbie Johnson
The Romantic Film of the Year was An Education and Lynn Barber accepted the award.
The Romantic Novel of the Year for Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts by Lucy Dillon.
While I was naturally disappointed that Miranda didn't win, I was also really delighted for Lucy whose stories are lovely, and for her editor Isobel Akenhead who is another twitter friend.

Meanwhile two lifetime achievement awards were given to the awesomely talented Maeve Binchy and Joanna Trollope, both very worthy winners.

After the excitement of the awards, everyone got down to the serious business of partying and we all took ourselves over to the Goat pub across the road, where I was delighted to meet another couple of Twitter friends: Tamsyn Murray (get her fab book My So Called After Life now!! )and Brigid Coady, as well as meeting the wonderful Jill Mansell in the flesh after having been online friends for ooh, at least eight years. If you ever want a good heartwarming read, with dollops of real life, and brilliant humour, Jill's your woman. Rumour Has It saved my sanity last summer on holiday, and am already in the queue for her next one.

The only downside to RNA parties is that there are so many people you can't get to meet them all, so there were a few writing pals I waved at briefly and never spoke to, but I'm hoping to make up for that in the summer, when (sssh, don't tell Spouse) I hope to get to their summer conference.

All in all it was a fabulous, brilliant day (oops I was one of the last to leave the pub), and huge congrats go to the RNA Committee for putting on such a great bash. I had a great time. And would have, with or without the right pair of shoes...

More shameless self promotion, oh yeah, yeah. (Or How Not to Write a Book)

2010-03-12T09:11:00.003Z

Actually have been very very slow to announce this, but here is the gorgeous cover of my next book, The Bridesmaid Pact which is coming out on May 27th.

The Bridesmaid Pact tells the story of four friends: Doris, Sarah, Caz and Beth, who watch Diana and Charles getting married as eight year olds and and make a vow to be each other's bridesmaids when they grow up, and then for a variety of reasons fail to do so...

I think I am quite pleased with the end result (though so far all readers seem to have cried, I presume this is a good sign(-:), but I can honestly say this book was an utter pig to write.

When I started it, it all seemed to be going so well too - as I blogged here - though I recognised from the off this book was going to be a slightly painful one to write, the first few scenes did literally write themselves.

But oh dear, god, once I got going, it was like getting blood out of a stone. I spent the best part of last year not being able to settle to it - as I may have mentioned before Prevarication is my middle name - and whenever I did sit down to write it seemed to go painfully slowly. Initially I was supposed to finish by the end of the summer term. FAIL. I was only a quarter of the way through. My lovely editor kindly extended the deadline to October, and my plan then was to take my laptop away on holiday and write while my children splashed happily in the pool. MAJOR FAIL. As blogreaders may remember, thanks to a panic attack which sent me to Casualty the day before we went, I was in no fit state to do anything when we got there. I did, however discover, that writing by hand made the story flow better. So I bought some notebooks and started to scribble away. This was all fine and dandy up to a point, but when I came home my panicky state meant I could barely bear to go near a computer, so I ended up writing the majority of the book by hand.

It was only when I came to type it up that I realised a) how little I'd actually written (the book was probably about 20 000 words light on its first draft and b) how very long it takes to type things up. So it was I had another deadline FAIL and Spouse wasn't best pleased when we went to my mother's for the weekend and I spent the whole time typing away on the laptop.

However, I got there in the end. Finished book sent it off and waited for a response.

Now, my normal MO for writing is, I get an idea, the characters form in my head, usually a pivotal scene jumps out at me, all during my prevarication period, and THEN I sit down and write a reasonably detailed synopsis. It's kind of like an essay plan, or a hanger on which the bare bones of the plot are laid out, and I fill in the gaps. I've got into that way of writing, and its where I feel comfortable. However, this time, my brilliant system went tits up.

For a start, the characters all started clammering to talk to me. Although Doris is my main character, the others wanted their share of the limelight too, and they all wanted to tell their story in the first person (something I haven't attempted since my very first failed ms), PLUS there had to be a lot of switching back and forth between past and present which quite frankly did my head in. And I was conscious the whole time that I needed to get their individual voices right - Doris was relatively easy, she's quite dappy but also terribly smart (I knew two fearfully clever girls at uni who were brunettes but behaved like dizzy blondes, then freaked boys out by being cleverer then them, and I thought it would be fun to have a character like that), and Caz, who is probably the spikiest and least likeable character I have written was great fun as she belligerently popped out of nowhere, but in my first draft Sarah (the sensible one) and Beth (the shy one) were in danger of appearing interchangeable, though I hope I've sorted that now.

Another reason that this book was hard, was because while I haven't had any of the experiences my characters have, I did dip into a whole well of emotion from things I have experienced to tell their stories, and it turned out to be quite a difficult thing to do. I think it would have been tricky anyway, but the writing and rewriting coincided with one of the most stressful periods of my life in recent years, and hence the first draft was a little short on humour, shall we say. Again, I hope I've fixed that now(-:

Finally, when I came to do the first rewrites, my lack of planning showed through woefully - my editor said wisely that it was like trying to fit a jigsaw puzzle together, and I can tell you getting the bits in the right place was bloody hard work. And I had another Major Fail when I missed that deadline twice (I really thought I could do it before Christmas, but no, and then promised to get it in in January, and Christmas was such a disaster I missed that one too.)

I am IMMENSELY grateful to all the lovely people at Avon who a) have been sympathetic and understanding beyond the call of duty during my trials and tribulations and b) have bust a gut to make up for my tardiness, whilst also working their rocks off to get me the loveliest cover imaginable. Thanks guys, I promise to do better next time.

When it came to rewrite 2, I then realised that for a wedding book, it wasn't really very weddingy. So I spent ages researching dresses (I am really really crap at describing what people wear), and tapped into as many wedding memories of mine and other weddings I've been to, to get the right feel. Phew. I think the balance is right now.

But my worst moment was at the copyediting stage, when I had less then a week, as it came in over half term, and I realised to my horror that NONE of my dates matched up. I think I've got it right now, as I had to write a proper timeline (NOTE TO SELF: Do this at the beginning next time), but if you do happen to find a mistake, please don't send me dozens of emails to tell me. I really don't want to know...

Still, I got there in the end, and like I say, to the best of my ability (it is almost impossible to judge your own work accurately) I think its ok. I certainly like the characters and their situations, and I hope I can make you laugh and cry with them.

Having done it all wrong this time around, I am hoping to learn from the experience next time. So my latest plan is to disappear periodically to the library with my laptop to escape the perils of internet timewasting and make me feel like I'm properly going out to work. Working from home, particularly with my current set of domestic responsibilities means it's all too easy to put work on the back burner. I am hoping if I can discipline myself a bit more, I stand some chance of meeting my next deadline. Well that's the plan....

As usual, my story has a soundtrack, and for the Bridesmaid Pact it goes like this:

White Wedding by Billy Idol - had to be soundtrack for the book, didn't it? I've always loved the energy of this song, and I think it's particularly apposite for Caz's wedding at the beginning of the book.

You Know I'm no Good Amy Winehouse for Caz. You have to hand it to Amy, she has a brilliant knack of turning her personal disasters into fabulous songs. Caz is the wild child of the quartet, so this song sums her up.

However, when I heard Wire to Wire by Razorlight on the radio one day, I thought wow, this could have been written for Caz. It really fits her self destructive sadness, and sends shivers up my spine. Fab, fab, fab song.

I love the high energy of Let me Entertain You by Robbie Williams , which is a great party track and totally suitable for Doris' joie de vivre, battiness and hen night with her mates.

Pure by the Lightning Seeds is one of my favourite love songs, and just for Doris and Darren's relationship. Pure and simple all the time. I'm always a little in love with my leading men, but I adore Darren. He's very cute.

The Shadow of Love by the Damned is a great gothic song which fits Caz very well - if she were to get married, I can see her doing it goth style...

and Always on my Mind by the Petshop Boys (yes I know they covered Elvis, but I do love their vierson) is just right for Caz and Charlie

Thanks to a flurry of tweets on Twitter one day, I had a great Fleetwood Mac fest, and have ended up with Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac for Sarah - is there a better break up song?

As well as, Love is a Losing Game by Amy Winehouse - the sad poignant melancholy of this song fits Sarah's sense of loss perfectly.

Caz doesn't know her dad and feels the loss keenly, so Oh Daddy by Fleetwood Mac (thank you Twitterverse) was the obvious choice here, more for the emotions then the lyrics. I think it is powerful, sad and heartrending. Perfect!

Songbird more Fleetwood Mac for Beth, who hides a painful secret, and somehow this song sums up her pain for me as well as giving hope for the future. Plus it's just BEAUTIFUL.

The Man with the Child in his Eyes for Beth and Matt - don't know why, it seems to fit their story somehow.

The Sadness Runs Through Him by the Hoosiers is another heartrending song which fits Beth and Matt, whose situation particularly gets to me.

Before I fall to Pieces by Razorlight is for Caz, who has to stumble a little on the way to finding redemption. Again this song seemed to capture her perfectly.

Hurt by Johnny Cash is the pivotal song of the book, for Doris and Darren particularly, but for al the characters in their own different ways. And it always makes me weep...

And finally, Doris is obsessed with all things Disney and this is a book about friendship, so You've Got A Friend in Me by Randy Newman from Toy Story is the perfect swan song!

Vote for me, oh yeah.

2010-03-11T20:18:00.003Z

OK, so here's the thing. My publishers have suggested I enter this blog competition and for pubbed/unpubbed authors who blog, and asked me to ask you lovely people to vote for me. At which point I have come over all English and embarrassed (picture me BLUSHING here) and feel like a total twat. In fact I feel just like Laney Boggs in She's All That when Zac suggests she run for Prom Queen. (Waddya mean you haven't seen She's All That - go and watch it right now, if only for the fantastic dance scene at the prom.)

Anyway. I've entered. Vote for me. Yeah, Yeah. Otherwise. Vote for someone else whose blog you like more. Really, I won't mind. Well, not much...

That is all.

IF you do feel so inclined you can vote for me here and earn my undying gratitude. That was worth it now, wasn't it?

PS have tried and failed to add a widgety thing. But apparently I should have this on my blog too. Am so no good at this kind of stuff(-:

Boy meets Girl

2010-03-10T12:04:00.002Z

I seem not to be blogging very much at the moment, though I'm not sure why, as ironically I seem to have a little more time, but somehow not much inclination.

I HAD planned to blog about the finale of Being Human, but seem to have missed the moment, so I'm saying nothing except, waahaahaaaay!!! for that ending, I was on the edge of my seat all the way through and nearly jumped up and punched the ceiling when the identity of the vampire brought back from the dead was. Bring on series 3!!

Next week looks like being busy, and I should really be blogging this Monday, but I'm going to get ahead of myself for once, and do it now.

Next Monday you see is a very important day for Spouse and me as it marks a quarter of a century of us being together. Oo-er, now I feel PROPERLY old. When my parents used to talk about 25 years ago I used to think how can you remember that far back? And yet I can remember THAT day incredibly clearly...

Spouse and I first met in the October of 1984. I'd been at Liverpool University three weeks, and on my very first day had made friends with someone who later became my flatmate, and remains a good friend (albeit that she now lives on the other side of the world). My friend had spent two days in Liverpool the previous year. and had there encountered someone on Spouse's course. They got on rather well and spent the rest of the year writing to one another (my friend hadn't quite twigged that he had a romantic interest in her). Needless to say this boy had mentioned her name ad nauseam all year, so that when she turned up at Liverpool, Spouse and his mates were keen to meet the mystery woman.

In fact it was two of Spouse's pals who met her first, and one of them, a rather gobby Scouse medic took a shine to her. Such a shine that he invited her out to a nightclub with him. He made the mistake of asking her in front of a group of us who were sitting having coffee in her room.
Panicking slightly, my friend said yes, on condition he invited all of us. The medic panicked equally and turned up at Spouse's house, demanding back up.

And so it was, that I found myself one cold October evening in the Willow Bank Pub on Smithdown Road (later to become a favourite haunt) , with my girlfriends and a bunch of blokes who were so shy they all hunted in packs. One of them, needless to say, was Spouse.

I'd like to say at this point, that Cupid shot his arrow, it was love at first sight, etc etc, only that wouldn't be true.

What actually happened was, my Adonis, was crouched over the bar, fag in one hand, beer glass in another, and in a gesture which I later realised was the result of crippling shyness, he covered his hand over his mouth every time he spoke.

He seemed nice enough, and was delighted I was soft southerner like he was (there weren't many of us who'd ventured up north), and immediately started talking to me about nightclubs in London. I think he was showing off, but it made no impact on me, as I'd only managed to go out to one nightclub at that time, and hadn't rated the experience. We had several polite conversations during the evening and that was that...

Now one of his friends, on the other hand... well he made an impact on me, but sadly I didn't on him.

If you'd told me at the end of that evening I'd be marrying the shy dentist who chain smoked I think I'd have probably laughed in your face.

Over the course of the next few months, we met at various parties. Though I was never part of any kind of cool dudey gang, it certainly gave us first years a certain cachet to get invited to all the second year parties and feel more grown up then we did in hall. As time went on I found myself more often then not talking with Spouse in the kitchen at parties, usually sharing the bottle of vodka he'd secreted in his voluminous (obligatory) student black coat. With his entertaining conversation, black jacket, skinny jeans, black pointy boots and GREAT taste in music, I wasn't exactly falling for him, but certainly a party when he wasn't there was rather dull. Mind you, not sure my twin would say the same. She was first introduced to Spouse in a cab after a very wild drunken Liverpudlian night out (I used to go and stay with her in York and have CIVILIZED weekends), and the memory haunts her still... There was also the memorable time when Spouse, one of his mates and I were at a party that was heaving with so many students it was a wonder the house didn't collapse. As a result of the chaos the police were called, and we got to see the strong arm of the law up close and a little too personal. (I will never forget the sight of a female copper, built like a brick shithouse, pushing some poor sap against the wall for making some sarcy remark as he left.).

Come the January, I was still thinking we were mates (I was interested in someone else, who alas wasn't interested in me - do you see a pattern here?), until one party when I spent ages talking to him and he seemed really solicitous of me. Rather stupidly it didn't occur to me that things could develop into anything else, so I thought nothing of it and then didn't see him for a while. I might have been kidding myself there though, as I do remember looking out for him at various points and being disappointed that he wasn't there.

Come the week before term ended, and it had been several weeks since we'd seen each other. On the Friday night there was a disco in hall, and I had bought a ticket. However I had arranged an evening with my other, inexplicably-disinterested-in-me love interest, so I decided I wasn't going. Getting back at midnight, I still thought I wasn't going, but the disco was so noisy I knew I was never going to sleep. plus, Id spent MONEY on a ticket, so I changed my mind.

And so it was that I wandered into the Rathbone Hall Disco on March 15 1985, rather late in the evening and clocked Spouse in the corner. I must go and say hello I thought, but got distracted dancing and talking to my mates. Eventually at about 1.45, fifteen minutes before the end of the evening (nothing like leaving things to the last minute, eh, but I didn't know Cupid was about to start playing funny games with me), I summoned the courage to talk to him. Now why was I feeling nervous, when I thought I didn't fancy him? Hmm, funny that...

We got chatting and chatting and I was dimly unaware that he was trying to ask me to dance. In fact I was so unaware of the fact, that it was quite surprising to later discover his friend was poking him in the back, saying Go on, ask her to dance. Eventually Spouse took the hint, and we headed for the floor for the last few dances of the evening. I can't remember which order they were played in, but I do know we danced to: I Want to Know what Love is, by Foreigner, and Drive You Home Tonight by the Cars - pathetically after all this time, I still go weak at the knees when I hear those songs...

I don't know how it was with you when you were young free and single but the general etiquette when I went to discos was that if you weren't interested you pushed off after the first dance. I didn't know that I was interested, but I was in the mood for a little fun, so I hung on for the second dance, and had a moment before the third when I took the split decision to be chilled and see what would happen next...

What happened next was much snogging and me walking out on his arm, much to the surprise of all our friends. THAT was so much fun, seeing everybody's mouths agog, as I hadn't admitted ot anyone I was interested in Spouse (hell, I hadn't admitted it to myself till that moment). We went back to my room and spent the night talking (yes, talking, really, I was quite innocent in those days), and I suddenly realised, hey I like this guy, like really like him.

As he left we tried to arrange a date.
Can you do tomorrow he said - nope, had already got a date with Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats at Liverpool Empire Theatre.
What about Sunday? (Oops going out again with other love non interested in me party, tricky one). Busy I'm afraid.
We got as far as Tuesday and arranged a date to go the cinema. I can't remember what we saw but I still remember the nerves of choosing what to wear, followed by the panic that he might blow me out, and the weird realization that I'd gone from being quite relaxed in his company to insanely nervous. How had that happened? We were supposed to go out the next night, but he'd forgotten he had an exam (I mean, how do you forget exams??). Two dizzying evenings together followed, (during one of which he introduced me the Mamas& Papas and the Zombies - California Dreamin' and She's Not There, also make me go weak at the knees) and then I was going home on the Saturday, so we went out the Friday night and pulled another all nighter, before he took me to the coach station. By the time I left I can remember counting the seconds till we were parted and wondering how I was going to bear a whole month away from him. Within a week I had gone from vaguely interested to completely smitten.

I'd had a blinding and very funny week, but as he saw me off on that coach, much as I wanted it to,I really didn't think it was going to come to anything. We'd had a fun end of term and that was it, or so I thought.

Shows how very very wrong you can be...

Having dinner with your parents...

2010-02-15T14:10:00.004Z

Yesterday, of course, was Valentine's Day, which as a writer of romantic fiction, I can hardly ignore, can I? In case you thought Valentine's Day is for unrequited lovers, let me put you right, according to this article here, St V was more interested in established partnerships and the real man for the job is St Raphael (handy that I put him in Last Christmas then).

Spouse and I tend to use St V's day as a rare opportunity to get some quality time together. This can be a variable feast. Last year we ended up in a cold chalet at Pontin's, but you can't have everything you want in life.

This year the day falling on a Sunday, and us normally having aged mil for Sunday lunch, we felt going out for dinner was a bit of a waste of time, and given no 1 had a party till 8.30 on Saturday (sigh, her social life is sooo much more interesting then ours), going out then was a no no too. So we went for the Eating In is the new Eating Out option (or one of my pet hates, "date night", ugh). When the children were little, this was a relatively easy way for us to have some grown up time to ourselves. But now of course, they go to bed really late, so trying to get a quiet intimate dinner round the table takes some doing.

Added to which Spouse always thinks a trip to Ann Summers is in order before we have any time to ourselves. A slightly mortifying proposition for both of us - he lives in fear of meeting his patients, I live in fear of meeting school run mums, or worse, their husbands... I am always impressed by the sang-froid shown by the younger generation though, who genuinely don't seem to be as embarrassed by the presence of so many rampant rabbits as I am. And don't mind at all being asked by the staff if they need help. It is bad enough that I have managed to get myself through the door of Ann Summers. I most DEFINITELY do not want help when I get there.

As a result of my mortification, my first trip Ann Summersward , left me coming away empty handed. But then Spouse had the bright idea of a Sutton shopping trip on Saturday. While he distracted the children in Primark, I was sent off to buy something nice in Ann Summers (and actually once I get over the discomfit, I am not averse to buying nice underwear - if I was buying it in M&S I wouldn't even blink). It was quite liberating knowing the chances of meeting someone I knew were zero (though have just had the awful thought in a few years I shall probably be meeting no 1's friends in there, eek), so I came away with something suitably slinky. Result.

What then ensued was that when we got back home and I decided to slip into my something slinky for a later point in the evening when the offspring had all departed to bed, no4 took it upon herself to nosily wonder what I was up to. Her notion of what I was up to involved her imminent birthday, not any idea of her mother having some kind of Other Life which most definitely does not involve children. So every time I tried to secrete my new purchases from my bag the door would fly open and in would burst my youngest saying, suspiciously, What are you doing, Mummy? (you have noooo idea...). This was slightly less tricky to deal with then the time no 2, then aged 7 came running in when I was trying to force my somewhat bulging post baby body into places it really shouldn't go, which involved buttons pinging off inconveniently and I had to hide behind the bed and have a conversation with her (yes, really, and so as not to waste the embarrassment, I put a similar scene in Pastures New, oh yes.) In the end though I sent her packing and locked myself in for ten minutes, so she probably spent the next half an hour scouring my bedroom for birthday presents.

Then it was time for Saturday evening with the family. Usually this involves Chinese from Sainsbury's, but I forgot to buy crispy Duck, so had to make do with a duck we had in the freezer which took forever to cook. In the meantime I had to go up to visit mil to do various tasks, before picking up the eldest from her party at 8.30pm. By the time we got back at nine, everyone was still up, and no one had eaten, so any chance of Spouse and I having some ahem quiet time together vanished into the distance.

Honestly, he said, it's worse then living with your parents.

This is very true. OTOH, I feel that maybe we can add an extra spice into life by managing to keep that side of life going without them guessing at all. After all, as far as they're concerned we're practically old enough to have bus passes, so I'm sure they don't think we get up to THAT sort of thing anymore at all.

In fact as far as the youngest knows, who has had the Daddy puts his seed into Mummy's tummy chat, we've only ever done it four times.

Yup. That's right. Four times. And it was so disgusting we'll never ever do it again.

Or at least, not until our children have grown up and left home...

Being Human Series 2

2010-02-01T09:28:00.005Z

Last year I blogged here ,(rather incoherently )here, here and here about Being Human, which was my favourite programme of 2009. I loved it so much I was desperate for the new series to start, and so far while it hasn't quite matched the dizzy heights of last year, neither has it disappointed. I would have blogged about it earlier, but life has been a tad busy, and you may have noticed I haven't been blogging much at all anyway. But last night's episode was soooo good, I couldn't put it off any more, and have to do a bit of squeeing and say, yaayyyy, for Being Human being back, yaaayyyy for Gorgeous George, yaaayyyy last night for Tough Annie, yaaaayyyy for Moody Mitchell's moral dilemmas and yaayyyy for Toby Whithouse for coming up with something so inventive.

As usual....

There

Will

Be

Spoilers

And

A

Bit

of

Squeeing

If

You

Can

Stand

It.

I have to fess up to having felt a little let down by episode 1. It didn't help that we missed the first five minutes and children kept coming and interrupting us so I didn't have my full attention on it, but I just didn't quite enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Firstly, it seemed a little flat - maybe this is natural, after all, the whole concept isn't new and fresh like it was last year, the immediate threat from Herrick and the vampires has gone (leaving not only Mitchell without purpose, as George points out, but perhaps the series too), Annie seemed to have gone back to being vapid and girly again, George was mean and moody and dark (though I liked that actually, for once I didn't like him), and I was at a loss to see the point of Daisy and Ivan pitching up and Daisy seducing George. It also lacked focus, in that I wasn't quite sure who the baddies were this time - the slightly insane Christian group who appear to be trying to cure werewolves by injecting them with something and putting them in a pressure chamber to stop the change happening. Only so far it's a bit disastrous as the werewolves can't cope with pressure and tend to have their brains spattered against the walls - or Daisy and Ivan, who just seem there to cause mischief.

However, I did go back and rewatch it on iplayer, and it worked better on a second viewing. It is still very much a picking up the pieces, where do we go from here, kind of episode, but there are some funny moments - Mitchell meeting Lucy in the loos & telling her "As much as I sympathise if we're comparing isolation and disappointment I think I win", and realising as far as women are concerned he's turned into George - and some extremely touching moments, when Nina finally reveals to George that she is a werewolf too, and George stops Daisy from killing her daughter. Not quite up to par with last year, but still good, because of top notch performances from everyone, including of course lovely Russell Tovey as George, who thankfully by the end of the episode had got over his grumpiness and was sad in pain, sweet George once again.

Episode two was much better, but again we watched it in a fairly disjointed fashion as we missed the first fifteen minutes, and then watched them later to try and find out what we'd not seen, which didn't really work. Thank god for iplayer, eh? Cos watching it again it all made much more sense. I loved this episode, it was really really scary, with Annie, being befriended by Saul, a man she's met in the pub, only for it turn out that Saul has had a near death experience and is having visions from tvs and radios telling him to get Annie to come with him. The creepiest of these was via Terry Wogan on Perfect Recall (a programme I didn't know even existed till I coincidentally caught it a couple of days later). I love Wogan as blog readers probably know (and am still mourning his loss in the mornings), and I thought he was a brilliant choice for this role - delivering his lines with his usual avuncular style but with a dash of hidden menace which gave the whole thing panache. Top casting, and really really spooky. And I never thought I'd say that about Terry Wogan.

In the meantime, Nina is having issues with George about the whole werewolf thing, and Mitchell is having huge issues with the vampires. Thanks to the loss of Herrick, there is no longer a system for disposing of incovenient dead bodies - and one turns up in the shape of the human lover of one of Mitchell's vampire friends, Karl. Despite Karl being clean for years, he has finally given into his desires and ended up killing his lover (oh what an understatement, when asked how the lover looked, Karl says, "disappointed"), and now, there is no system to cover it up. So Mitchell arranges for Karl to fake a suicide and then he and George, with the help of Ivan spirit the body out of the hospital, and away to a new life in Brazil.

While all of this is going on, Annie has problems of her own - the spooky voices on the tv having persuaded Saul it's a really good idea to drink loads and go out for a little drive, with the inevitable consequences. Annie duly turns up at Saul's bedside, only for her to discover, when he dies, and a door appears in the ward, that she and Saul have both been tricked by the voices on the other side. In a totally nightmarish sequence, which scared the bejeesus out of me in a squeeing kind of way, Saul tries to drag her through the door, while all the radio plays music (not quite sure what it was but fab choice) , and the voice talks about the men with sticks and ropes, and black black feathers (eek) waiting to play with Annie on the other side. Fortunately for Annie, Saul decides he can't do it and as George falls into the room, Annie is sitting shocked as the door has slammed shut with Saul behind it. Do you know, I hope we NEVER get to see what's behind the door, because I know it will be a disappointment...

If that wasn't enough to freak me out, when Annie turns up at her next shift at the pub, Hugh, the landlord who's been in love with her can no longer see her, and Nina ends up leaving George at the end of the episode, telling Mitchell they've all gone native, only to fall into the hands of creepy Christian guy at the end (in ep 1 the creepy Christians managed to bug the flat so they know all about Nina)...

By episode 3 I felt Being Human was getting back into its stride - it started with a blackly funny flashback to the 16th century when the tunnels under Bristol were used by Witchfinder Generals (or perhaps Vampirefinder Generals - wonder if any of them were called Van Helsing?) to flush out the vampires living there. There was a horribly funny moment when the Vampirefinder General was readng out their punishment and stopped to ask his assistant to move the light so he could read better, before sending them all to have their teeth smashed out and leaving them stuck down in the dark. Properly nasty that.

Back to the present day, and it appears that vampires are running amok in Bristol, without Herrick to control them, nothing is preventing them coming out to play. Mitchell's new love interest, Lucy, who's a doctor at the hospital, was already joking about the gay vampire lover last week, and now has a patient whose girlfriend has been killed, and who has come in with puncture wounds to his neck. Mitchell realises this has got to stop, and is forced into an unholy alliance with the chief of police, who though human was in cahoots with Herrick and will keep the "process" going if it means the vampires can pay him off, and they concentrate on killing lowlives to keep the crime rate down. I loved this episode - once again, Mitchell is trying to do the right thing, but in order to do so, he has to take some morally dubious decisions. First of all, agreeing to blackmail the human pathologist who has refused to sign anymore false death certificates, by threatening his grandchildren, and then more horrifically having to prove to the rest of the vampires he is really in charge. Egged on by Daisy who points out quite rightly, that Mitchell (who wants them all to go clean ) is asking them to do something against their nature, Mitchell tries to take control of the situation, getting the system back in place, by getting the vampires back at work in the funeral parlour, just as they had been under Herrick.

Contrasting the darkness of this, Annie decides to get Hugh back with his ex girlfriend, by making George go out with her and being so rubbish about it, she'll realise what she's missing in Hugh. This leads to some very funny scenes, with George sure she'll hate it if he takes her to a subtitled German film, only for it to be her favourite type of movie, and then thinking she'll hate being taken for a kebab afterwards, which of course she loves. His piece de resistance, to read a very very bad poem (which he'd composed for Nina), ends up with her throwing her arms round his neck, and snogging him silly.

There's also a hilarious sequence when Annie tries to get them to have a flat meeting (Mitchell, being otherwise preoccupied hasn't been pulling his weight), and instead of talking their problems through and team building, the boys demonsrate how much from Mars they are by deciding all they need to do is get pissed down the pub, and then Mitchell has a huge and extremely funny hissy fit when he realises that The Real Hustle's schedule has been changed, which is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

The relationship between Mitchell and George is also explored rather poignantly, when George tells Mitchell he's missed having his best friend around, and Mitchell tells him he should grow up, and stop feeling so sorry for himself, he says that's what's mates are for. What? says George, to be insensitive? No, says Mitchell, to tell each other the truth. I felt like cheering - it's those little moments in Being Human that make it so fab - the relationships between them are so strong and their frailties so human, you accept the moral difficulties they have, even if in Mitchell's case they are taking him into a very dark place indeed.

Having sorted out the problem of the boy in hospital with puncture wounds on his neck (simple, dodgy chief of police sends in colleague to inject him with something and make it look, rather uconvincingly like suicide), Mitchell then ends up with another problem in the shape of Cara, who takes it upon herself to attack two fifteen year old girls in a shopping centre. Cara, is probably the most gross of the vampires - a not very bright former cafe assistant, turned by Herrick because he was bored, she has become lost since her "father" died, and doesn't understand at all the constraints Mitchell is trying to place on the vampires. Mitchell cannot allow her to go freelance in this way, and once again, challenged by Daisy, takes her down to the vaults underground, where the vampires eventually adopted the same punishments as the humans did, to control those who need it. One of Being Human's greatest strengths is subverting expectation, and suddenly, from having despised and loathed Cara, when Mitchell took her down there, knocked her tooth out and left her sobbing in the dark, I felt immense pity - not even Cara deserves that fate, and it makes me wonder where this is going for Mitchell. Is he going to end up Macbeth like steeped in blood so deep, he's going to return to drinking? The scene where the vampires cheered him as their new king was heady and terrifying - what IF Mitchell becomes the new Herrick? I love the possiblity of that happening, even if I want Mitchell to stay on the straight and narrow.

George in the meantime takes heed of Mitchell's strictures that he should take responsibility and goes to Hugh's ex, Kirsty, and reveals that he hasn't been honest with her as he's still in love with someone else, leading to an unusually happy note as Kirsty and Hugh get back together. George of course isn't allowed to be happy, so the episode ends with Nina ringing to say goodbye, and making him promise that he will start a new life and live it properly for her. And in between sobbing for George and Nina (you have to you know, they are so meant to be together and clearly cannot be on account of their both being werewolves, and presumably in time having lots of little werewolf babies), I got the shock of my life, when it turns out that not only has Nina got conned into the whole weird Christian thing,but the doctor helping her is LUCY. Oh boy I so did not see that coming. Well done BH team for THAT twist...

I felt SURE this would mean that Nina was for the chop this week. Like I say, I cannot see a happy ending for her and George, much as I want to (and I think it would imbalance the trio of George, Mitchell and Annie - maybe part of the problem with ep 1 was that Nina was in the mix and it didn't quite work), so I felt sure we were going to see her head exploding in that pressure chamber, but it didn't work out like that...

I have to say this episode returned to proper Being Human form for the first time. It was very very funny in places - George writing himself lists to get his life back on track, getting a job in a language school and teaching this students bad language, Mitchell being offered an emo to suck, as she's advertised for it, George and Mitchell behaving like Annie's two dads when she brings home a ghost who saved her from going through another door, George developing Werewolf Tourette's after his plan to put the werewolf to sleep while he changes goes horribly wrong...

And of course this is all interwoven with the usual dark stuff, and boy was some of it dark. Annie's facing up to the realisation that the people behind the door are going to come and get her, and begs Sykes, the ghost who's saved her for help. At first he refuses, but she persuades him and soon he' s teaching her to spot auras, turn off scary tv/radios when the people behind the door start speaking through them, and eventually (in a brilliant Annie on top and in control, yayyy to that woman moment), how to close the door when it opens. He seems to have helped her, and I think he's on her side, but I am not entirely sure. In Being Human, anything can happen, so I wouldn't be surprised if Sykes pitches up later and turns out to be on the side of the men behind the door.

George has thrown himself head first into his new job and new life, even finding himself a potential new love interest (which is taking Nina's advice a little too literally if you ask me), emboldened by his discovery that he can put the werewolf to sleep with tranquilizers, and lock him up in the cage George has had built for this purpose (of course he has now become known in Bristol for S&M activities, but in George world that's better then being a suspected werewolf(-:) Unfortunately, the bi product of this is the wolf is pretty pissed off and is taking over George at random times in the day, leading to his Tourette's style swearing, and over aggression, which eventually leads him to beat up the smarmy head of the college George teaches at, for sneering at him for fancying the college secretary. To see George's loss of control and realisation of what he's done is heartbreaking, because as ever he's been trying to do the right thing and it's all gone horribly wrong.

Mitchell's attempts to get the vampires clean, seem to be working somewhat better, especially when he manages to persuade Ivan (who as the oldest vampire among them carries much weight) on board. Of course, nothing is that simple, and Ivan can't do it, so now he's going to Mitchell's BA meetings and swearing blind that he's given up the red stuff, when Mitchell knows he needs feeding and ends up giving him to the emo who Mitchell rejected at the beginning. Oh Mitchell, you're on a slippery path now...

In the meantime, when it looks like Nina's head is going to be exploded against the pressure chamber, Lucy persuades them to stop - we see from her back story she's written a thesis about an evil gene, and mad Christian man has persuaded her to join him, so she can actually research it. But Lucy is clearly having doubts, pointing out that Mitchell is trying to get the vampires clean, while mad Christian man, is sure that now the system is back in place Mitchell is reverting to type, because vampires can't be saved....

I absolutely loved this episode, it was sharp, witty, scary, tense - and every bit as squee making as any of the episodes last year. I think series 2 has finally discovered its groove, and I can't wait to see what next week brings (Mitchell falling off the wagon and Lucy potentially putting a stake in his heart by the looks of it...). AND I've just realised we're only half way through as this series of Being Human has eight episode. Squee, squee, and squee some more....

A labour of love

2010-01-20T09:56:00.003Z

In my very first job in publishing - ahem - years ago I worked in the production department of an academic publisher. I remember one of the first things I was told was that a book's gestation is usually around 9 months. It can of course be quicker then that, but factoring things like authors failing to deliver ms on time(guilty as charged), copyeditors/proofreaders not sticking to schedules, designers/desk editors getting snowed under and not sticking to schedules etc etc 9 months is about right.

Now I'm on the other side of the fence I'm discovering a book's gestation from the first spark of an idea to finished ms, is significantly longer then 9 months. And in the case of my latest book, The Bridesmaid Pact, the labour has been long, drawn out and rather bloody...

When I started thinking about this book, way back in 2008, I talked about the emotions driving me to write this particular story here . I knew it was going to take me into emotionally uncomfortable places (though I hasten to add, none of the dilemmas I've given my four characters are ones I've faced, but alot of the emotions they experience, resonate with me). My early attempts at writing things down seemed to flow rather nicely. For the first time since I've been published I have written in the first person, as something about the story made me feel it needed to be told from each character's perspective. This turned out to be trickier then I thought, as not only did I have to ensure my characters had four very distinctive voices, but they also seemed to dictate how the story unfolded. So for the first time I didn't have a plot to follow, which was the writerly equivalent for me of doing the highwire without a safety net. And is quite possibly why I found myself this time last year writing here about my lack of inspiration.

From that early free flowing start, nothing about this book has been easy. I procrastinated (well, that's nothing new, I am champion at that), couldn't get down to it, when I did get down to it it was like getting blood out of a stone. I felt my mind was in a total fog when it came to structuring the damned thing, as I was flipping back and forth between past and present, and on more then one occasion I wondered what on earth made me think I could produce a book like this.

On top of all this, I had more then my usual fare of domestic distractions, as at the start of the year my mother in law was ill. By the time she fortunately picked up in the spring, we were busy planning her 85th birthday party, which was wonderful and a great success, but rather took over my life and prevented any writing getting done. As the summer term crept to its end, with two children leaving to move onto other schools, my world was a whirlwind of attending leavers' events as well taking the eldest to endless rehearsals for the two shows she was in. As a result I was barely working at all, and I realised I was heading for a major FAIL in the delivery department.

By July instead of finishing the damned thing, I was only a quarter of the way through. So I resolved to take my laptop on holiday, having fond notions that I would sit by the pool in the afternoons, while my beloved family cavorted around me in the sunshine. I should have know THAT was a stupid idea. As readers of this blog may remember, I ended up in A&E the day before our hols, when I hadn't quite finished packing, and I was feeling so bloody ill when I got on the plane, any thought of taking my laptop with me was long gone from my mind.

I DID however discover that I could write a fair amount by hand, so I managed to scribble quite alot over the fortnight I was away. Coming home, I reckoned I could continue while the kids were still on hols, given that they're all a bit older now and don't need so much of my time. But that was a total disaster too, as I was having panic attacks on a near daily basis and couldn't settle to anything. And the mere thought of either sitting at a computer or putting pen to paper set me in a flat spin, which was really frustrating, as I have lots of things that make me angsty but writing isn't one of them. Thinking about it now, I think it was probably my panicky state reacting to a looming (and already missed) deadline, and also the fact that I WAS delving deep into various emotional crises I've been through making the writing experience more traumatic then normal.

Once the kids were back at school in September, I thought I'd get back into it, but no. Real life came biting me on the bum again, and my mother in law had a fall, and since then we've been on a roller coaster of time spent in care homes/hospital with the odd scary moment when she's home. None of which, is at ALL conducive to writing, I can tell you. On top of all this my lovely editor announced she was leaving. This book was her suggestion and she's been with me all the way, so I really wanted her to read it before she left. If there's ever a greater incentive to a procrastinating author to get a manuscript finished before her editor goes, I'd like to find it. Eventually I was done, even though, much to Spouse's annoyance I took my laptop on a trip to Shropshire with me, to get it finished. Because, the other insane thing I found about writing this book was, because I'd written it by hand, I ended up having to type the whole thing up later, which not only took forever, but I suddenly realised I had skimped in places because my hand was getting tired, and some of my chapters were waaaayyy tooo short.

However, I got it there. Eventually. Only three months late (sorry lovely Avon ladies).
In November I went into the Harper Collins office to say goodbye to my lovely editor and meet my lovely new editor, and we thrashed out the many many things that were wrong with the first draft. Optimistically (and idiotically - mouth, brain engage properly why don't you?) I thought I could get it done before Christmas.

But oh dear god. Whenever I sat down to look at it, I had major brain drain. I knew it needed restructuring but I couldn't for the life of me see how what or where. I sat for hours looking at the computer, conscious of my pigsty of a house, conscious of the Christmas shopping I needed to do, conscious I was completely wasting my time and still nothing came...

So come the week before Christmas, I had to admit failure and crawl to lovely new editor and promise to do better next time. I then agreed to get the ms back for the beginning of January, thinking that maybe when the kids were all playing on Wii Fit which I'd guessed Spouse had bought me, I might be able to sneak away to my study periodically. Wrong! Of course it didn't work like that, as mil came out of hospital just before Christmas and between us and bil and sil we were balancing crises on a near daily basis. So once again, much crawling was done in the New Year, and a promise to get the book in by last Thursday, completely doable I thought...

And then of course the snow happened....

In the end I had to just ignore my family and get on with it. Luckily in one of my more organised moments at Christmas I had made lots of meals and frozen them, which came in handy, I can tell you. Also due thanks go to the sterling efforts of Spouse who organised the kids in a way that I can't to get their rooms tidied, and even picked up a hoover, for probably the first time in our marriage (it's ok, he does other domestic tasks, but not normally the hoover). I sat up till 1am last Wednesday finishing it off and then reading things through, and had to stop when I had a major crisis and discovered two chapters which had saved half my changes and hadn't saved the rest. I spent last Thursday amending it, and eventually got it off by school run time.
At which point I collapsed in a little heap on the floor, and have stayed in a state of semi collapse since.

I'm delighted to say that despite all the travails in producing this latest labour of love, lovely editor seems to like it (and I am ENORMOUSLY grateful to both her and the rest of the Avon team for putting up with me over the last few months), and I now have a little break before I start thinking about the next book. Which is scheduled for delivery in ten months time, which is just about the right gestation period...

Belated New Year Greetings.

2010-01-08T13:28:00.002Z

Happy New Year to you all. Sorry to be so dilatory in my greetings, this is a) because aged mil went back into hospital again last Saturday, b) the kids went back one day before the snow so I have had a houseful again and c) I am officially in deadline rewrite hell. So can't stop long. Would show you a picture of how pretty my garden is but the camera isn't working. Which sort of sums up my life somehow.

Anyway, was just sent this rather lovely good well wish for the New Year, from a friend, and thought I'd pass it on:

If 2010 is going to rain, let it be showers of blessings.
If it's going to be sunny, let it be sunshine to make your life shine.
If windy let it blow good tidings your way.
And if dry let it dry the evil might come your way.

I wish all my blog readers old and new (and especially the new readers who've thoughtfully found me out to let me know they enjoyed Last Christmas), the very happiest of new years. Hope many good things come your way in 2010!

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-25T07:48:00.002Z

I have been really snowed under this week and haven't blogged at all, but just wanted to say to all you lovely people who read my blog, thanks for dropping by this year. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and hope Santa puts many good things in your stockings!

And for all the many people who've gone out and bought Last Christmas (and there really appear to have been an awful lot of you!) I'd like to say thank you very much. At a particularly difficult time in my personal life, it has been very welcome to have a little bit of fairy dust in the shape of a book which I loved writing doing so well. To blow my own trumpet a little bit, thanks to all you nice people, I've been in the Heatseekers chart for six weeks ( I dropped down to no 3 this week), and made it into the top 20 pb bestseller lists for two weeks. I reached the dizzy heights of 15 last week, but have now gone back to 22, which is still fabulous. It has been very exciting and a lovely and unexpected treat. So thank very much for buying it! Fans of Hope Christmas might be pleased to know that going to see our local nativity last night, I came up with a GREAT idea for another Hope Christmas story. Well I think it was great. A fair bit of red wine has passed by me since then...

Anyway, must go and check on the turkey (current plans for the day include transporting a turkey and trimmings up the road to mil's in the wheelchair we borrowed to get her down here. It's going to be an unusual Christmas(-:), and see whether the children have started fighting yet.

A very happy Christmas to one and all!

On second thoughts

2009-12-18T20:57:00.001Z

Earlier today I posted a bit of a rant about our current family situation. I was feeling angry and upset and letting off steam. On second thoughts, I've decided it was a bit too personal and so I've now deleted it. I'd really like to say thanks for the support I got though. The blogosphere rocks!

RNA Awards

2009-12-14T12:36:00.003Z

Normally at this time of year, the Romantic Novelist's Association of which I am HUGELY proud to be a member (in my book the RNA is the best friendliest and supportive writer's organisation going) asks its members to publicise the longlist for their annual award, which has just been announced here. I'm always delighted to do so because the RNA has supported me from my very first feeble attempts at writing and more often then not there are one or two of my pals on the list. However, for the first time this year, I'm on it too. I wouldn't brag about something like this normally, but I do feel it is such a huge honour to be on this list, which includes many many more worthy names then mine, I wanted to say thank you to the RNA for my nomination, and also all the readers who voted for me. Am utterly gobsmacked to say the least!

I'd also like to congratulate my fellow RNA nominees: Sarah Duncan, Katie Flynn, Jean Fullerton, Veronica Henry, Erica James, Judith Lennox, Mary Nicholls and Nicholas Sparks, and my fellow Avon writer, Miranda Dickinson whose Fairytale of New York is quite rightly speeding up the charts.

I am under no illusions about making the short list, the competition is far too hot! However I am delighted to have been privileged to be nominated at all - a completely unexpected pleasure. Having just updated my website: http://www.juliawilliamsauthor.com/ I'd better go and update it some more...

Hullo I must be going...

2009-12-11T10:10:00.001Z

Busy busy busy here so not blogging too much.

However, if you should find yourself in the vicinity of Burway Books in Church Stretton tomorrow, I shall be there from 2pm signing copies of Last Christmas.

In the meantime am frantically doing rewrites on The Bridesmaid's Pact. (It's like getting blood out of a stone, since you ask). In order to help me with some much needed inspiration I've been listening to Razorlight's Wire to Wire. A truly fabulous song that sends chills up my spine and is the theme tune of one of my characters. So being a generous sort I thought I'd share it with you...

Is there a doctor in the house?

2009-12-02T11:18:00.003Z

I am a big fan of the NHS. My mother was in the first post NHS nursing set at the London Hospital in 1948. Two of my sisters have worked as nurses, a bil works in NHS management and my husband is an NHS employee.

As a family this year we have had huge cause to be grateful to the NHS. Not only did I have my little A&E encounter in the summer, but I've also had checkups both for heart disease and breast cancer (both thankfully ok). On top of that no 4 has had several hospital visits, including an ultrasound, an MRI and a bone scan to check out a strange lump on her foot (nothing serious either, phew). And if that weren't enough we've had mil in casualty after her fall two months ago, and then back again a month ago when she couldn't get up one day.

From the fall it was established that mil has a blood disorder common in the elderly which means she isn't producing enough red blood cells. Our GP got her into hospital and suggested she needed a blood transfusion. It transpired that she didn't, but she has remained in hospital ever since because her mobility is variable and her blood count is still low.

The first week she was there, she was very poorly, and we feared the worst. She spent two days being assessed in a Clinical Assessment Unit, where no one seemed to know anything, and despite bil and sil's best efforts, we had only fleeting contact with doctors. Then she was moved to a surgical ward because there was no room on the medical one. There, the flow of nurses was constant, there seemed to be no consistency of care, and we all felt we were banging our heads against a brick wall, when we repeated constantly that she suffers from a benign essential tremor and her medication had been altered, that she probably had an infection because she was confused, that it was likely she would just nod and say she was fine when she wasn't. And still we found ourselves unable to get any sense out of a doctor as to what was actually wrong with her.

Eventually she moved into the medical ward, which was much better, as it had just been done up. But there you feel a slight despair about the money that gets wasted in the NHS. As she arrived on the ward, there were engineers putting the finishing touches to a new state of the art, TV/Radio and phone system - so state of the art it's being trialled first in our hospital. The room mil was on was full of the elderly and infirm. Not a single one of whom was going to get any use or show any interest in this new system. I'd rather the money was spent on better communication with the medical profession frankly.

The only person I spoke to who seemed to have a clear understanding of mil's problems, and who also took on board our concerns that her level of confusion had worsened since her stay in hospital, and was different from the confusion caused by her infections, was a wonderful young OT girl. She wrote everything down I said, but whether anyone else took notice I don't know, because it seemed everytime we spoke to a nurse they had to consult the notes, or didn't know anything about mil.

On two occasions bil was told that the consultant would be in in the morning, only for him to turn up and no consultant would arrive. Eventually, after three weeks, though we did manage to see him. He was very nice. He was very informed. He knew what the problem was, but hadn't a clue that she was confused or that had got worse. But why, did it take us so long to get hold of him? The system caters always to the patient, asking the patient what their needs are, which is obviously a good thing. But anyone who's ever spent time in hospital will know, that even if you are relatively young and compos mentis, you will be hard pressed to remember what a doctor has said to you. For an elderly confused individual it must be impossible, and it's abysmal that no one thinks to consult the relatives more. What frustrated me the most is that, having spent the best part of this year being fully conversant with mil's problems, I know what medication she is on, I can give an accurate case history of what has happened to her, and I know (as we all do) that her condition is worse then when she came into hospital. There should be a better way of using people like me as a resource.

The care mil received was perfectly fine, but the ward she's been on was a busy one and not suitable for an elderly lady who needs a lot of help to get back on her feet. So fortunately last week, she was transferred to a local community hospital, where the pace is slower, the nurses ensure she is up and dressed every morning, she's getting physio every day, and she is much calmer and more content. And praise be the lord, the first day she arrived, the sister in charge of the ward actually asked me what had happened to her, and then said the magic words, what outcome do you as a family want? Better late then never, I suppose, but it shouldn't have taken three weeks.

As always in these situations, I can't help thinking about those poor sods who don't have irritating rels like me to fight on their behalf, or the elderly and infirm who don't know how to stand up for themselves. There must be so many of those kind of people who get lost in the system. I saw an elderly man discharged from CAU, who had had a fall. He could barely walk and was clearly in a lot of pain. It didn't seem right that he was being sent home. Neither did it seem correct that another lady who I assume was suffering from cancer, and who also was clearly in great pain, was being sent home to her daughter with whom she lived. The daughter said to me in despair, do you think she looks well enough to go home? It was quite clear she wasn't.

We have a lot to be grateful for in the NHS. It is there for us in emergencies. It is free and the majority of those working in it are dedicated and caring professionals. But there is too often a huge waste of resources, and communication could be hugely improved. I know people are busy and they have a job to do, but it is all too easy to lose sight of the person, and focus on tasks that need doing, particularly when dealing with the elderly. We are lucky that mil has ended up somewhere where she can be properly looked after, particularly as swingeing cuts mean that the number of beds available in community hospitals are being severely reduced, but it shouldn't have been so hard to get her there or fight for information. The patient is entitled to be told the truth about their condition, but when they are not in a state to make informed choices, families need to know to. Because after all, we can help.

Twenty Years of Freedom

2009-11-09T10:34:00.004Z

Twenty years ago today, the East German government took a momentous decision and finally allowed its citizens to travel freely in the West. In our family this day had and still has a special resonance.

Mil comes from a little town in East Germany called Gardelegen, a beautiful mediaeval town which ended up just within the East zone after the war. Ironically, the Americans arrived there first, but Gardelegen ended up being part of the area which was given to the Russians followng the decision to split Berlin into four sectors. By then the Americans had passed on and Gardelegen was being run by the British. Mil's father was an estate manager in charge of an estate called Isenschnibbe which is about a mile outside of town .

Unfortunately, if you look both Gardelegen and Isenschibbe up the likelihood is you will find the story of a massacre which occurred on the estate in the dying days of the war. According to mil, there were several days of chaos while the Americans waited outside the town, too frightened of their own shadows to enter. During that time a trainload of slaveworkers from the factories in Nordhausen who were being shipped out by the SS (who had orders to kill them) to prevent them telling the Allies Nazi secrets, found they could go no further. They were rounded up by their SS guards, taken into a barn on the Isenschnibbe estate, locked in and the barn was burnt down. It was an horrific atrocity in which over 1000 people died. Those few that did escape were hidden by the Gardelegers, who from my understanding of the story had nothing to do with what happened and were powerless to prevent it. Mil tells me that her father had locked themselves within the walls of the estate, because everything was so lawless outside, so they were unaware of the tragedy till after it had happened. From fil, whose regiment came to Gardelegen to relieve the Americans, we have a series of horrific photographs showing the extent of the atrocity. I always had the impression from him that the Gardelegers were not accountable for it, and I'm inclined to believe it. In this country we're lucky enough not to have lived in a dictatorship. Nothing in Nazi Germany was straightforward - if you were a member of any of the professions: a lawyer, doctor, teacher, nurse you had to be a member of the Nazi Party or you couldn't work. Mil's family were not Nazis, but I don't think it is possible for us to understand the knife edge that ordinary people must have lived under, in a regime that they detested but could do nothing about.

When the Americans did move into the town, they quickly discovered what had happened (mil has always felt if they'd been more decisive and got into the town straight away it might have been prevented). They stayed for a while, and used Isenschibbe as their base. They were reguarly visited by entertainers, including, get this, Louis Armstrong. Mil still has a Christmas card he sent her dad.

I'm not sure how long the Yanks stayed before handing over to the York and Lancaster regiment, which happened to be fil's outfit, though he didn't get to meet mil till later. Mil's father built up a good working relationship with colonel in charge of the regiment. I presume this is why the colonel told mil's dad that the Russians were coming, and suggested that mil and her sister should be sent to the west. (Mil's best friend had even less time to prepare, she and her family literally had to abandon the family farm and leave all their belongings behind.). So one sunny morning in May 1945, mil and her sister set off on their bikes with a young soldier who was supposed to be looking after them. From mil's accounts he was a bit of a waste of space, and when her bike developed a puncture, she mended it not him. They arrived safely in Heidelberg where they had family and stayed for a couple of weeks. Astonishingly mil's dad was able to take a tractor to Heidelberg (which is quite a hike from Gardelegen) loaded with belongings, but he then went back to make sure the people of the estate who were under his care were ok. As a result, he along with four other key members of the town ended up in Buchenwald, where he remained for three years.

He was one of the lucky ones, in that he came home alive, but his health never recovered. The one and only time Spouse and I have been to Buchenwald (best remembered for the infamous Beast of Buchenwald, Ilse Koch who committed hideous atrocities on prisoners there), we found a memorial stone to the thousands of Germans who died in the years after the war at the hands of the Russians. We were there in the early evening and as we looked into the gloom of the wood, we realised we could see hundreds and hundreds of wooden crosses. Maybe some of those people deserved their fate, having committed atrocities of their own under the Nazis, but I'm sure the majority were, like my grandfather in law, decent enough people who were caught up in events they were powerless to prevent.

After two weeks in Heidelberg, it was clear that mil's relatives who were struggling as they had to have refugees living in their house, couldn't keep mil and her sister, so hearing that the York and Lancasters were in Wolfenbuttel, mil and her sister left to go there. Here was the lucky part of the story for mil, because she was able to get a job at the Officers Club as a translator, which meant she could have her sister lodging with her as her refugee. And it was here, that she finally met fil (who'd in the meantime met her dad in Gardelegen at some point). By all accounts they were difficult days as food was scarce, the family mil was staying with didn't know what had happened to the father of the family as he was a POW and there wasn't much money. But judging by the photos, taken when mil and fil went with friends on skiing trips to the Harz mountains, they were happy days too. I'm not quite sure at which point they decided to get married, but by then mil's father was in Buchenwald, and she had to make a huge decision about coming to England. Apparently she asked an uncle, who'd lived in England prewar what he thought. Well, he said, pondering her dilemma for a moment, England is very like Germany. There are lots of trees. I think you'll like it. A slightly spurious basis, perhaps, on which to leave your homeland, but given the choices she faced staying, I think it probably wasn't such a hard decision.

Fil by now had got back to England, and he and another friend were trying to get mil and the friend's fiancee over. Fil's friend had managed to charter a plane at vast expense, but fil was able to wangle them a passage on a boat at a much cheaper price. His friend was so grateful he promised to buy fil a drink every time he came to London, which he did pretty much until he died.

When they arrived off the boat at Hull, fil and his friend were there to greet them, as were several photographers, and fil told them to keep schtumm and pretend they weren't German. When they got on the train to London, they had a carriage to themselves, and somehow had found a record player. So they danced all the way to London, which I think is dead romantic!

Eventually, mil's sister was able to join her in England, but her mother remained in Gardelegen, building a house which she and mil's father lived in when he returned. He did manage to come over once on a false passport, and was tickled pink to go to Windsor Great Park and stand next to George VI, when he was in the country illegally. Mil and fil also went over to Germany a couple of times, with Spouse's two brothers and fil's parents. Spouse's granny told me the story of how they went to a clearing in the woods, from where they could see a watchtower with a sentry, which scared her rigid. As they waited in the clearing, people started arriving with food stalls and the like. Eventually they spotted movement in the woods. All the people from East Germany were dressed as peasants, sweeping the fields, and they swept their way into the woods where they then made their way to the clearing and found their families. I'm not sure how long they spent together before they then had to go home, but that was the only physical contact mil had with her parents for many many years. And when her father died in 1958, she was unable to go the funeral. Imagine that. Not being able to go to your dad's funeral because there's a danger that the State won't let you go again, never mind that you have become a British citizen and have a family back home.

Mil's mother stayed on in Gardelegen, having developed some kind of motor neurone disease which mil always puts down to the stress. Eventually she became so decrepit the East Germans didn't want her, so mil had to go out to get her back to the West. Even this was fraught with difficulty. Newly pregnant with Spouse, she spent three months in Germany, bribing the German guards with cigarettes every time she crossed the border. She wasn't certain of success till the very last minute, and all the time was on a knife edge thinking if she said or did the wrong thing she might end up being detained.

Because here's another thing, which from my cosy safe pov, has always seemed unimaginable to me. People mil knew did disappear. One family she knew were imprisoned for a year, just for unwittingly posting a letter from a dissident; the sister of one of her closest friends escaped from Gardelegen in a train full of wood, hidden in a fake compartment underneath. She was one of the last people to get out this way, as the next poor unfortunates who tried it were caught. While she was escaping her brother and his family were being closely questioned by the Stasi, and had to pretend they hadn't seen her for days. By all accounts, though people lived and worked, and got on with their lives in East Germany it was a tense and unnerving place to be. The tragedy of the division in families never more poignantly apparent then visiting towns which were literally split in two by the border. One we saw, near Wolfsburg where we usually stay was 30km from the nearest border crossing. So in order to visit family members you had to not only apply for a permit but take a round trip of 60km just for the privilege. It is staggering to think how difficult that must have been.

When in 1989 we first started to get wind that things were changing in Germany, mil I don't think wanted to dare think about it. She'd left her home town in 1945 and only been back that one time to get her mother. We started to hear rumours of people escaping via Hungary - in fact the daughter of one her friends did exactly that. Then we heard that there were marches, in Leipzig and Dresden, and eventually even the Alexanderplatz in Berlin - we waited with bated breath, worried that we might be about to witness another Tiananmen Square. But it never happened. So today twenty years ago, mil finally heard the news she'd waited most of her life for, that she was free at last to go home.

On New Year's Eve 1989, she rang us up rather tipsy, having watched the people of Berlin climbing on the Wall and tearing it down. In Germany traditionally people literally jump into the New Year. Mil always celebrates twice, first at eleven for Germany, then at twelve for England. Fil had fallen asleep leaving her to celebrate alone. We were rather alarmed when we discovered she'd been jumping off the sofa, not once, but twice, but somehow it seemed appropriate...

Last Christmas I gave you my heart...

2009-11-05T14:01:00.006Z

I have been very very slow in shouting out a big hurrah for my latest ouevre hitting the shops. Blame it on half term last week and on sod's law making my continued search for my happy place rather difficult. I think I have whinged quite enough about my personal life of late, so I'm not going to whinge anymore, because I do have something to celebrate.

Last Christmas is out now and available in: Smiths, Waterstones (hurrah, I'm on their 3 for 2 table!), Tescos, Asdas and via Amazon.

As ever am hugely grateful to the Wunderkinder team at Avon who have pulled out all the stops for me this time.

You may find me splurging on about all things Christmas related all over the web, as I have a very hardworking pr person getting me all manner of features (waves thank you at Tory!)
I've done an interview with Femail First here and written a piece about coping with large family gatherings here. Hoping I don't sound too bossy and like my character's alter ego, The Happy Homemaker, who is a purely ironic creation...

If I get myself organised I may be tweeting recipes via my website which is under reconstruction. But that depends on the gremlins that are currently screwing up
my life giving me a break. Which they don't seem quite willing to do right now (sigh).

I'd really like to say a big thank you to all the people who've bought/read the book so far, because I've been getting some really positive feedback which for an author makes the job hugely worthwile. And like every writer I am a complete neurotic freak at heart, so it's nice to hear that people like my scribbles!

And here are those lovely boys from Wham! to get you all in the mood...

Where was I?

2009-10-15T19:13:00.003Z

Oh yes...

Trying to find my happy place. This hasn't been quite as possible as I'd like it to be because life does keep conspiring against me. Today's part of the conspiracy was to hear the sad news that a much beloved cousin on my mother's side had died. I don't normally go this personal here, but I think she deserves a shout out for being an utterly brilliant human being.

My cousin Angela was like the best of all fun aunties to have (though she wasn't an auntie and we never called her one). She came at Christmas and birthdays providing exciting presents the likes of which we never got anywhere else (being one of eight teaches you to be grateful for what you get quite frankly). She came on holidays with us and was a source of fun and joy, usually conspiring with us the kids against the grown ups. I think everyone deserves at least one adult like that in their lives in childhood.

But the best thing about her was that she had the coolest job of anyone I never knew. Which you can read all about here, namely to find or provide sound effects for films. When I was 12 years old Star Wars came out. Angela had not only worked on the sound effects but get this, she knew Mark Hamill ,who was my pinup then (much prefer Harrison now). Apparently she'd met him once in the bar at Elstree or Pinewood with I think it was an alligator on his lap. Quite why I don't know, but that seemed dead exciting to me at the time. As our Christmas treat that year she took the whole family (all ten of us, immensely generous!) to see Star Wars at the Empire Leicester Square. I'll never forget the impact of those space ships going over my head. Seems so tame now but it was genuinely groundbreaking at the time, and we got to see it before anyone else at school. For a glorious week in January 1978, I was actually cool at school thanks to Angela. Later on she did the same for Superman, which she also took us to see. She also did the soundtrack for The Omen, allegedly recording one sound in the local catholic church which then had to be exorcised. At my sister's wedding she made all the female guests jealous by mentioning she just happened to have met Mel Gibson (this was when he was still a sex symbol and not weird.)

In her private life, though she never married, she spent years involved in local drama projects - much to her elderly mother's (my great Aunt Madge, another awesome character) disgust. "Don't know what she sees in all that drama," Auntie Madge used to sniff, even though it was Angela's raison d'etre. They were devoted to each other, but in the way two women living alone often do, spent most of the time sniping at one another, so it was easy to miss the deep love between them.

When Angela needed people for sound effects, she used to arrange what she termed as "Shouts" getting lots and lots of people together to make the sound she was after. Although we frequently got invited on these occasions, as we lived in North London and she lived in Essex, to my disappointment I never actually made it to one. I'm sure knowing Angela they'd have been a right laugh.

Over recent years I hadn't seen much of her. My family commitments mean I can't often venture into Essex, where most of my mother's family live (sounds pathetic now I write it down, but there really is not time when the kids are at school and the holidays go too fast). Recently though an aunt was over from America and knowing everyone was meeting at my godmother's house I made the effort to get over to see them all. I knew Angela had been ill, and was delighted to hear from my mother that she was out of hospital and would be there. However, when I arrived it transpired that she'd been taken ill again. On the way home my older sister was planning to stop off to see her. I dithered for a minute, knowing I was needed at home, then thought, bugger it, I'm never in this part of the world, who knows what will happen. So I made the effort and went to see her. I'm so glad I did.

Angela was clearly not well, but still cracking jokes as much as ever. She laughed at the miserable old woman in the bed next door who kept saying she wanted to die, and talked longingly about getting well enough to get involved again in her beloved drama. She was delighted to see us, and remembered (as I to my shame had not) that the last time we'd met was at no 3's christening. When we left she got up and walked us to the door. I had a feeling we weren't going to meet again.

She did get out of hospital again, but was admitted last week. Yesterday she spent the afternoon laughing with her cousins (my mother and my aunts). She seemed in such good spirits my mother judged it ok to go back home. Sadly she deteriorated overnight and died at 6.30 am this morning.

I cannot mourn her passing for the fact that her quality of life was so very grim, and she isn't suffering anymore. But I am sorry the world has lost someone with such a joyous sense of fun, who enjoyed the absurdities of life to such a great extent.

I've been thinking about her all day, and the memory that has come back more then most was of a couple of nights before my wedding. She and her mum were staying down the road at a little bungalow, attached to the house of the landlady. She'd put Auntie Madge to bed and come up to us for dinner, but because of Auntie Madge she couldn't stay out late. My dad decided she couldn't go back to the bungalow empty handed so provided some alcohol (beer?) to keep her spirits up. We went clanking down the road with all the bottles, giggling like a bunch of school kids, especially when we went into the bungalow and were trying not to waken the very stern landlady. The harder we tried not to laugh the more we laughed. It was a joyous moment with the two people in my life who've taught me there is always time for giggling and being silly.

So, a sad day today, but I think, thanks to Angela, I've been reminded of the importance of laughter however grim life seems, and I've found my happy place. Or certainly one of them. I hope she has too.

And lo it came to pass...

2009-09-29T09:53:00.002Z

No sooner had I written that post about the panicometer then one of my worst fears was realised. Namely that mil would have a fall. Not only did she have a fall, but she did it at night and the wretched panic button which she's had for 12 years and never needed didn't work. On top of that she'd left the grill on. So she lay all night on the floor in her bedroom, which is where she managed to crawl to. On the bright side, at least she didn't burn down the flats and all the occupants therein. She was found in the morning by the carer, who was let in by one of the neighbours. Typically Friday morning was the only day in weeks that I'd managed to leave my mobile behind, so though I am the nearest I was the last to get the call. Given my current levels of anxiety this was a blessing, because by the time I found out what was happening the paramedics already had her in the ambulance and Spouse was on his way home. We then spent the day in Casualty with her, while bil and sil dealt with the flat. I laughingly joked at 11am that we'd still be there when it was time to do the school run, and of course that's what happened. Luckily the hospital is literally between the two schools. And as it happened we were booked in for a tour of the children's ward where no 4 is having her op. So hey, we could kill two birds with one stone. Always a bright side I find...

In a funny kind of way the fact that this has now happened has made me feel better. It's been a big fear, and it was all dealt with. Which isn't to say it hasn't been a stressful weekend. It has. Not least because on top of that, we had an emotionally charged social arrangement which had been making me feel like crap all week. The stress of mil's fall took the edge off that however, and I did manage to get through the evening without succumbing to the panic attack which hovered around the edges for the whole night. As Spouse needed a calming beer or two I had to do without my diazepam, and having coped allright with that I felt somewhat better the next day.

However, looking after an elderly relative on top of running a busy household isn't without its stresses, however much you want to do it. And on Sunday night mil suddenly announced she wanted to spend some time in a care home. Up until now she's always wanted to stay at home so it was a huge shock. Added to which we always wanted to be the ones to look after her, but it really isn't possible on a longterm basis. Spouse and I both hated the home that fil went to for respite care, where we felt he wasn't treated with the respect or compassion he deserved, so we were both angsting on Sunday night about the best course of action. Bil and sil looked into some local homes, and luckily there is a fantastic one on the way home from school. We went to look at it yesterday and sil and I both felt that she's going to get really good care there. The aim is to get her up and running and back to her flat, but really, if she had to stay longer, for the first time I don't feel worried about that. She'll be in a place where she will be treated with dignity and importantly there will be plenty of other people to talk to. We can come and go as we please, so I can bring the kids in after school, which will be wonderful not only for mil, but for them, because this whole thing is a bit unnerving for them all.

So for the first time in 13 years I can scrub no 2 of my panicometer. At least for the next three weeks I really won't have to worry about mil, because I know she's going to be all right. I can't tell you what a relief that is.

The Panicometer

2009-09-22T13:36:00.005Z

Please bear with me. I'm trying do some self therapy here. Although, thankfully, I have been given the all clear by the cardiologist (I do have a slight heart murmur, but it's nothing to worry about), sadly this hasn't meant an instant end to all that angsting and neuroticism. Hell, I've been building it up for YEARS, so it's not going away in an instant is it? I've been given a lot of good advice over the last few weeks, and had stonking support (particularly here, thanks guys), and best of all no one has told me I'm bonkers. Which is very nice of them, because frankly, when I followed some of that good advice and wrote down all the things that worry me (scrub that - all the things that freak me out), I realise the list is as long as your arm, and a normal person should just be able to shrug most of them off. My problem is too much imagination. A very good thing in a writer, but as I've mentioned before, a really rubbish thing in a mother.

So in order to help myself out of this angst ridden hole I've decided to rate my worries on the Panicometer. There are rather a lot. So I maybe some time.

1 Let me start with the children. How do I worry about the children? Let me count the ways...

a)I worry they'll be ill. They can never just have a cold, automatically (at the moment) I'm assuming it's swine flu. When they have a temperature, I still check for meningitis. In my defence I did have nos2 & 4 in hospital several times with asthma attacks when they were tiny so it has led to a lingering fear. But really. They are perfectly healthy. I am very lucky. Ergo I should stop worrying...
Panic rating 100

b) I worry about them growing up. This merits a whole post in itself. Overnight no 1 has gone from being a stay at home Peter Pan to meeting her mates down the parks. I always know where she is, but suppose she stops telling me. She's starting to meet boys. They might start drinking. I keep hearing tales of sleepovers where boys and girls share rooms. There are drugdealers in the local park... I want her to be independent, I want her to have fun, but oh boy oh boy do I want her to be safe. She thinks I'm an overprotective mother hen. She is probably right.
Panic rating 150

c) I worry about them being upset. Last term was a case in point. One by one they came to me with problems relating to school friends. I know they have to go through this stuff, but god I hate it when it happens. Can't bear to see them miserable, then I panic about how bad it is for them, when they are long over it. So should I be...
Panic rating 50.

d) currently angsting hugely about no 4 who has to have a very minor and straightforward operation on her foot. Yesterday she had to have an MRI scan. Was in much more of a state then she was during it. Her lips looked all red, and at one point I was convinced she was bleeding. Why on earth did I think an MRI scan would make her lips bleed? I really have no idea...
Panic rating 200

2 I worry about mil. Is she eating enough? Is she drinking enough? When it's hot, is she too hot? When it's cold, is she too cold? If she falls over in her flat will she be wearing her emergency phone button?(actually she has of late). Will something happen to her when I'm on the way to the school run? Will I be the one to find her ill/dying? The last is not totally unreasonable, considering I am physically nearest to her during the day, and I was first on the scene when fil died. I am also having a belated reaction to her having been very very ill last winter. But still. As the sensible casualty nurse said to me when I voiced the fear that she might die, well we all die. And it's not as if I am the only one to have to deal with this now. But you know. The panicy bit of my brain revels in this kind of stuff. So...
Mil gets a panic rating of 200+

3 I also worry about my own mum. Who is getting older. And lives a long way away. But she is pretty fit and healthy for a near octagenarian. So that's a worry that's currently ridiculous. Like so many of the things I panic about, I panic about if before it happens, then panic when it happens. It's like I punish myself twice. The joys of catholic guilt.
So Ma, you get a panic rating of 0. I don't need to worry about you yet.

4 Get this. I worry about the computer. About how much time I spend on it. How little I achieve when I can spend a whole day twittering and blogging. Oh and occasionally writing a novel. When I first came back from holidays I could barely sit at the computer without an immediate wave of panic flowing over me. This is getting better. But not gone yet.
So panic rating 50

5 I worry about the housework. Yes. Truly I do. I hate housework. I also hate an untidy house. There is always too much to do. And I never feel on top of it. And when I'm working it makes me feel guilty. And when I'm doing housework I feel guilty about not working. And when it's done the children can undo the work in a moment. And then I get cross. And then I feel guilty. And then I am anxious because the house is untidy, and I'm not in control. And ergo. I am a control freak in desperate need of a cleaner. Or a wife. That would help.
Panic rating 100

6 New born babies. I suppose that counts with children. Except I don't have any anymore. But when I did have my own, while I loved the newborn bit I simultaneously hated it. Couldn't stand the fragility of the little buggers. Just wanted them to get bigger, so they didn't seem so bleeding vulnerable. Spent the first six weeks of no 1's life in state of high anxiety, even stopping the car once because I was so convinced she'd died in the car seat (she did look rather waxy and still). Spouse got so fed up with me he accused me of wanting her to be ill - I didn't, I just was terrified she would be (see worry 1 above). And now I don't have newborn babies of my own, I am absolutely terrified of holding anyone elses's. Lord alone knows how I'll ever cope with grandchildren if I'm lucky enough to get any.
Panic rating 150

7 Dogs. This is a life long phobia entirely driven by family mythology. Before I was born we had a dog which apparently ripped my mother's best dress to shreds. I've never been able to cope with dogs, but a couple of times in late childhood I found myself on the wrong side of a barking dog, and was literally rooted to the spot. Spouse has worked much positive therapy on me over the years (he would love a dog), so I can actually bear to touch them now, and I always try to pat them in front of the kids because I don't want to pass on the fear, but really? If I could I would always walk in the opposite direction to our furry friends. And though at once stage I thought maybe we could get ourselves a pooch, the reality is I couldn't stand to be in the house alone with one as would have to be the case. So dogs. You're still near my top worry and you get a panic rating of 300.

8 Family holidays. Aagh. I used to love holidays before I had children. Then they came along and we were limited to campsites and grotty English hotels, and children being sick before, after and during our trips. When we finally ventured abroad to France, the place we stayed in shut down for September so there was nothing to do to entertain four children under the age of 6. Then we had a disastrous holiday in Spain over which a veil should be properly drawn, and two very wet camping trips. The second of which involved driving round Europe, breaking children's limbs, being burgled, and staying on the worst campsite in the world. Not surprisingly we came home early. We've also done several trips to Germany with mil and the children. Relaxing. Not. Plus on top of that I get to have all my usual worries about the children, are they ill, will they have an accident, are they about to drown in foreign country. Magic. Recipe for a stress free time. Is it any wonder I had a major panic attack the day before I went on holiday? Ironically of course, had I not been panicking so much, I would have had a really relaxing time...
Panic rating 500

9 Panicking about relationships. Oh I am champion at this. I have a strong oversensitive streak, which leads me to analyse every single conversation I ever have with people. I play back conversations in my head, worry that I have caused offence when none was intended, worry that this will affect my relationships, then inevitably it does affect my relationships. I am particularly prone to this in my online dealings. So. if I ever offend you, I never meant to. And if you think I'm overreacting to something, that's probably because I am.
Panic rating 300

10 But top dollar has to go my greatest fear of all. Fear of flying. Jeez. How I hate getting on bloody aeroplanes. If God had meant us to fly he 'd have given us wings. I didn't start off phobic about flying. In fact I used to quite like it. But then we had a trip back from Istanbul when we could see a plane flying above us which spooked me, and it's all been downhill from there. Yes, yes, yes. I know it's the safest form of transport. It just doesn't feel safe. I am just about ok if stare fixedly ahead and read my book for the duration of the flight, and thanks to the wonders of diazepam I can cope, but no, I'd rather not do it. Which is of course plain stupid. If I opt not to fly I won't ever go anywhere again. And there's a big wide world out there. Most of which I haven't seen. My fear is so stupidly irrational, I hate flying without the children, which I've done a couple of times, because it feels selfish to do something which might kill me when they're not with me. To follow this through to its logical conclusion, as a friend pointed out to me, I'd rather be in a plane crash and we'd all die, then me die and the children be safe. And of course, I could be run over by a bus tomorrow. Or have a heart attack for that matter.
Panic rating a big whopping 1000+

So there you have it. Ten of the things that worry me most. And I never even mentioned driving...

Next bit of self therapy. How to find my happy place. I sure could do with knowing exactly where it is...

Such a Perfect Day...

2009-09-09T09:38:00.003Z

After my last rather melodramatic post, I thought I'd write about something a bit more cheerful, and as it happens I am feeling a lot better so ergo I am more cheerful. I will probably be returning to my angst ridden state, if only to take the piss out of myself - laughter really is the best medicine I find, but not today. Today is about much happier things.

Twenty years ago today was the day I tripped down the aisle (actually it's a very short aisle so it was a mere few steps) to marry Spouse. So I thought I'd celebrate by blogging my wedding day, which remains the most perfect day of my life. (I know technically I should include the days the children were born, but hell, there was ALOT of pain before they came out, so I'd say the moments they were born were perfect, the rest was not).

As I am also currently writing about weddings, it also seems rather appropriate to delve into the old memory banks to get me in the mood for when I get back to work in a minute...

Spouse and I met at university (this deserves a whole other post as in a few weeks time it will be 25 years since we met. Eek. I can't possibly be that old) and were among the first of our friends to get married, which I seem to remember causing mild consternation at the time. One of them even begged us not to do it - mind you fil wasn't too happy when we announced our engagement either, but then Spouse's brother had just announced his divorce so our timing wasn't the best (-:

Although I grew up in London, my parents took off to Shropshire the year before we got married, so we were blessed with being able to have a country wedding in a tiny church which I still go to when I'm visiting my mum. I'd show you a picture, but my scanner's on the blink, which means you aren't going to get any wedding pics either. Sorry about that.

However, the course to our wedding day wasn't an entirely smooth one. Is it for anyone? I doubt it somehow. For a start, dearly as I love my mother, she is an organiser extraordinaire and gets very definite ideas about things. One of which was that we should send everyone home at around 7pm. This was mainly so she could avoid us having a disco as she hates them. Given a choice I'd rather not have an argument with anyone, but we had invited people from all over the country, most of whom would be staying the night. The town my mum lives in is lovely, but there isn't a whole lot to do after dark, especially not twenty years ago. So I put my foot down and won that one. 1-0 to me.

Then two months before the wedding the woman who ran the hotel we'd booked ran away with the chef, so the business was being sold, about a week before we were due to get married. It was too late to book another venue. My poor mother was beside herself. So was I. But I was totally wrapped up in wedding mania by then and I wasn't at all sympathetic to her suggestion we got a marquee in the back garden. I don't know why, but I thought it would be a bit naff. So I remember having a very teary and fraught conversation on the phone (it's incredibly tedious organising a wedding from a distance of 200 miles I can tell you) sitting on the floor of our new home which was devoid of furniture and fittings and rather summed up the despair I was feeling at the time. My mum was adamant though. There wasn't any other choice really. 1-1.

As it happened she was completely and utterly right. We hired a local firm of caterers, my dad was able to get all the wine he wanted from the local wine merchants without paying corkage (people still talk about the wine at our wedding), and it was a lovely intimate setting on the day. Much much better then being an impersonal hotel. I'm thinking of suggesting it to my girls if they ever get married. So 2-1 to my ma really. In the end.

The second disaster to hit us was the small matter of our wedding rings. Being incredibly naive, when we got engaged, Spouse just took me into a shop in Hatton Garden, which is near where I worked at the time, we chose a ring, wandered off for half an hour while they resized it and that was that. We were so frantically busy before the wedding we'd left buying rings till the last moment. Well. Two weeks before at any rate. We had no time to pop up to Hatton Garden so we went into our local jewellers and ordered two rings. To our consternation they told us the rings would have to be sent away to be sized and would come back in two weeks time. Oh, we said weakly, that's when we're getting married. Luckily, they had an express service. The rings could be back within the week.

Only they weren't. I went in on the Saturday before the wedding. Nope. No sign of them. I then pushed off to Shropshire, leaving poor Spouse and various kind relatives to pay daily visits to the shop to no avail. By Thursday the situation was critical, so my mother suggested I tried the local jeweller, who was unable to sell us rings but helpfully offered to lend us some. I can't have you going up the aisle, naked m'dear, he said in his soft Shropshire burr, to my delight.

Needless to say, despite Spouse having a rare hissy fit in the jeweller's the day before the wedding, we still had no rings, so when he arrived ashen faced at 4pm I was able to whisk him to my new best friend and we were furnished with a pair of rings to see us through the day. Unfortunately I wasn't able to prevent the priest from blessing them, but I did stop the photographer in his tracks by announcing I was giving them back on Monday when tried to take a picture.

So rings all sorted, we were raring to go. Well, I was. As you might have noticed by now, I am a champion worrier(-: However, I tend to do my worrying months in advance. So come the big day I was serene and relaxed. Spouse on the other hand is a seats of your pants kind of person. So he never thinks about things till he has to. Hence he was in a terrible state the night before the wedding, suggesting we ran away to Gretna Green just so we didn't have to stand up in front of all those people (Spouse unlike me, who am heap big show off, doesn't relish a crowd, and the thought of making a speech made him feel physically sick). Tempting as it was, I wouldn't let him whisk me away, but we did spend a very happy evening in the local boozer with all our mates.

I'd like to say my wedding day dawned fair, but sadly it was cold and grey and cloudy. Weirdly enough though, I was so elated all day long I didn't feel the cold at all, in fact I was quite surprised when one of my aunts told me later that she'd been frozen all day.

I can't remember quite how early I woke, but I was up and out and at the hairdressers by 9am. The great thing about getting married in a small town is that everyone I spoke to knew about it. Even though my parents hadn't been there very long, they were sufficiently well known in the town for people to stop me and say, Oh you're the bride. It was a fantastic feeling that. Made me feel like a popstar. The other great thing was the town was also full of our friends and relatives so I kept bumping into people.

When I got back the house was a hive of activity. The lady who'd arranged our flowers arrived with the most gorgeous bouquet of gold and yellow roses for me, and two sprays for my grown up bridesmaids (Mad Twin and my other closest sister both gorgeous in gold) and a little posy for my lovely 5 year old niece. The flower lady was amazing, and lived in a wonderful old cottage somewhere up a Shropshire hill. She took my ideas and produced something really special (and she's just about to go in a book as a result (-:) What a happy house, she declared as she left. And it was. Both a happy house and an ecstatically happy day.

At some point I must have had a bath, as I remember being mortified to be found in my dressing gown when the best man arrived to pick up the button holes (gold of course). Then my second eldest sister pounced on me to do my nails (she's a bit like that, dead bossy), so I spent a tedious half hour waving my fingers out of the window to make them dry. I am champion at smudging nail varnish, so I really didn't want to scuff them. I can remember just being incredibly serene, despite the busyness around me.

Then my niece arrived with her mother, just as I was getting into my dress - very plain, shot silk with lace for the train, made my immensely talented mother. (She also made the cake. I think my girls will have to make do with the bride shop (-: ) You look like a princess, she said. I felt like one too. I was never one to obsess about a white wedding as a child, but without a doubt, I felt incredibly special that day. And I loved wearing my dress and veil and being the centre of attention. Told you I was a show off.

The morning had dragged, but suddenly from lunchtime onwards things seemed to speed up. My brother was despatched to Shrewsbury to pick up an aunt and uncle (long story but basically my aunt made a - we think - bigamous marriage to an American second cousin, then became very difficult. First they were coming to the wedding, then they weren't, and at the last minute, suddenly they were again.) - however he got there and they weren't there. Instead they pitched up at the house as the car arrived to take me and my dad to church.

My uncle - well actually I never really thought of him as such - was a strange looking creature. He had a turtle like head, and a rather dessicated look about him. And I was much taken with the bobbing up and down of his head as he shook my hand earnestly and said in his Californian drawl, Oh, what a beautiful bride. In the meantime my eldest sister was subtly trying to get them into her car, so they wouldn't actually arrive at the church after us.

Then I was left alone with my dad. A moment of high tension for both of us, until we both realised how nervous we were and fell about laughing instead. I had the greatest time with my dad that day. When we got the church we laughed and laughed at the hapless photographer who'd probably never had such an unhelpful subject as my dad, who simply refused to take it seriously and kept looking the wrong way and pulling silly faces. One of my favourite photographs though, is of us holding hands and looking back at the camera, with the bridesmaids framed in the background. Wer'e both laughing, a happy spontaneous moment, from a wonderful wonderful day.

We giggled some more when we got to the door of the church and didn't know what to do as someone had shut the church door. In the end we shoved it open and then walked down the aisle in a matter of seconds (it's a very small church), and then my dad slipped away and I was sitting next to Spouse. Who looked dreadful. He was white as a sheet and looked as if he was about to throw up (I learnt afterwards he'd had to have about four G&Ts to steady his nerves. But he still managed to whisper You look gorgeous, which still makes me go all gooey when I think about it.

The wedding itself was a catholic nuptial mass - a bit of an ordeal for most of our agnostic friends, but I did want a ceremony that had meaning and wasn't over quickly. For our readings we chose John 4:&-13 and Psalm 128 which my parents had at their wedding - one verse of which now seems incredibly appropriate: Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house/Your children will be like olive shoots around your table (hmm, not sure we were expecting four olive shoots back then, but we're not sorry now.) When it came to our vows, I refused point blank to honour and obey, so we opted for cherishing one another instead, which is much much nicer anyway.

After the service was over we had endless photos in the garden. I am laughing in every single one. I just couldn't stop laughing. Every time I turned around someone clicked and took a photo of me. It was like being a film star for the day. And everywhere I turned there were friends and family congratulating us. It was just brilliant.

Then it was back to the house, and Spouse and I scooted straight through to make sure we got to the reception line before any of the guests. The caterers were already in the house and so were my late arriving aunt and uncle. Spouse had never met them before, and hilariously mistook the man solemnly shaking his hand and saying What a happy day for a very enthusiastic caterer.

I can't tell you what we had to eat that day. I don't think I ate very much of it. I was on such a high. I talked and laughed, and talked some more. I don't think I even drank very much. I didn't need to. I was drunk on the day itself.

My ma in law though, did get a little squiffy - she doesn't drink alot and the champagne went right to her head. This led to her having a very tired and emotional moment, so I spent at least half an hour trying to calm her down. Where were the men in the family, you ask? Nowhere. The first of many lessons in how the Williams men will run a mile at the first sight of emotion...

Eventually mil calmed down and Spouse and I worked the room, making a point of talking to each other's families. This was somewhat more daunting for Spouse then I. My family is HUGE. Not only do I have seven siblings, but my mother has five, so there were lots of uncles and aunts to get to know. It took Spouse at least three family weddings to feel comfortable with them all.
He was still stressing about his speech. Me being more stridently feminist in those days didn't see why the men got to do all the talking. So I made a speech too. I giggled my way through most of it, so it probably wasn't my finest hour, and the boys who didn't want to speak at all couldn't understand why I did, but I really didn't see why I shouldn't be allowed to get a word in on my special day. Both my dad and Spouse made speeches which were short and to the point, and the best man did a sterling job of staying the right side of good taste, so after that everyone could relax a bit, till it was time for the disco.

By way of making up for the fact that we hadn't been able to use the hotel, the ex owner, managed to wangle it so we could use the banqueting room attached to it for the evening. So we did, and had the disco there. My mother, having not got her way on the disco, managed to create a compromise and got us all doing Scottish country dancing to get the ball rolling. 3-1 to my mother I think. As fil was keen on this too, they both took it rather seriously. However by the time we got to it, most of our guests had imbibed far too much of my father's incredibly generous allocation of wine, including Mad Twin who was doing the calling. Factoring in also that our generation predates Strictly Come Dancing, not a one of us had a clue what we were doing. So the result was a riotous disaster. But what the hell. It just made me laugh all the more.

The evening passed far too quickly and by midnight we were supposed to have left. But the best man had organised a special surprise for us in the shape of a rolls royce which was driving round the Shropshire countryside for most of the evening so was rather late reaching us. We ended up being sent out after a round of congratulations. Spouse by now was well past the point of rational thought. As we sped off down the country lanes to the hotel where we staying the night, he blinked around him, and said, Gosh, this is a jolly big black cab. Probably the only time he's ever likely to go in a roller. And to this day he doesn't remember a thing...

So... here's the thing.

2009-09-01T12:02:00.003Z

I have thought long and hard about blogging this, but given that a) (and I say this with some irony) my next book deals in part with a variety of mental health issues b) I think as a nation we are still far too good at brushing such issues under the carpet, and c) I thought it might help anyone who is going through/has been through similar, I have decided to lift the lid on the last six weeks, which rate as among the most peculiar in my life. Please feel free to look away if you think this is pile of self indulgent clap trap. I won't be offended, I promise...

I used to be a bit cynical about psychological issues - I always liked that joke in Crocodile Dundee, when Mick can't get his head round why everyone in the States is in therapy - where he comes from, if you have a problem, you tell Wally, he tells everyone, no more problem. I thought that for a lot of people going to therapy was a form of self indulgence, and it was certainly not something I would have considered.

That all changed eleven years ago, when a series of lifechanging events, some good, some not so good sent me spiralling out of control, and I realised I was suffering from a mild form of depression. I had never sought help after my father died, but my GP suggested bereavement counselling might help. I went for six weeks, found it every bit as excruciating as I'd expected, but did realise that I had been knocked off kilter by events, and that I would bounce back, which I duly did.

Five years ago, I found myself at my wit's end, feeling overwhelmed with the combined responsiblities of looking after the children, and mil. I took myself off to the doc again, and he prescribed anti depressants. I did take them for a short period, but on that occasion, the act of seeking help, was almost enough, and I found that in time I didn't need them.

I don't think I'm suffering from depression now, but I am feeling the effects of long term stress. I don't wish to sound like an aggrieved martyr or anything (because I don't view it like that), but Spouse and I are unusual among our peers in very soon after we became parents, we took on some of the responsibility of his parents, when my fil had a stroke. We had an eight month old baby, fil was in hospital for three months, and when he came out it was clear that they couldn't manage in their house. Fortunately we were able to find a flat up the road from us, which has been a great boon, and meant we have been able to be on hand and look after them both originally and mil now. We haven't been alone in this as Spouse's bil and sil are luckily also on hand, but as I'm the one at home, I do tend to do a lot of the day to day stuff. All of this, coupled with looking after four children has been at times quite stressful, particularly this year when mil has been very ill. (On the plus side, the children have seen a lot of their grandparents, and I know fil took huge pleasure from that, and mil still does, so it ain't all bad.) It is no wonder, though, that my body has now apparently said enough is enough.

When I came back from Menorca and saw my GP, I was so relieved that I wasn't about to instantly cark it from a massive coronary, I felt much better. I had some trusty propanalol (beta blockers) to take in case of adrenalin surges, I knew exercising, of which I do a reasonable amount, helped, and most of all I knew what was happening to me, which meant I could regain some kind of control of the situation. Wrong.

As it turns out the last three weeks have been a hideous hideous experience in terms of all my many many anxieties about life, some real, some imagined have exploded in my head and left me in a ridiculously heightened state of anxiety about absolutely everything.

Viz. We had a weekend with my family& some friends visiting the Globe to see Romeo & Juliet a couple of weeks back. Given that the Globe is my favourite place in London now alongside the Tower of London and I have been desperate to see a show there for ages, this should have been a great day out. And it was. For everyone else. For me, though I enjoyed it on one level, on another level there was an undercurrent of worry that ran like a hidden stream through my whole day, to the point at which I was talking about my writing to someone - something which absolutely does NOT make me anxious, and even that set me off.

The next day lots of family came to lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day. The kids had a blast in the pool and garden. We sat soaking up the sun in a relaxed and easy manner. I was thrilled to be with my siblings whom I don't see nearly enough of. And yet, that too was marred by the undercurrent of worry which persistently refused to go away.

The next week wasn't too bad. I had moments of anxiety, but as I wasn't doing a great deal, and not straying too far from home, it all felt manageable. So much so that on my follow up visit to the GP I felt emboldened to say that I felt my anxiety levels on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst, were at about 4. Which only goes to show how wrong you can be. On the Saturday, we did have a lovely family day out - one of the best of the whole holiday. We went for a long tramp across the downs, and ended up kite flying. Aha! I thought, I have found my happy place (a suggestion of my twin was to find my happy place and try and go there when the anxiety gets too much), and I have vanquished my undercurrent deep underground.

But the following day the undercurrent burst forth in a veritable flood. We went to visit Brooklands for the day, and I felt so bad I was reduced to surreptitiously blowing into a paper bag in the car hoping that the kids wouldn't notice. I had bargained without eagle eyed no 2 however. I tried to fob her off with a, there's nothing wrong with me (yeah, right) kind of conversation, but realising it panics her more not to know what's happening I've given her an edited version. Thank God for Friends. She knows all about panic attacks because Janis had one once apparently...

Last week then went from bad to worse. I was waking early overcome with crippling feelings of anxiety, which rode my body in waves. The days were spent staving off the anxiety, and trying to ignore the hammering in my chest, the tightness in my throat, and the prickling in my arms.
In desperation I turned to a relaxation tape my brother had kindly sent. Only to discover that when in the grip of intense paranoia about the workings of your body, you do not need to get taken to such a deep place of relaxation that all you can hear is the beating of your heart. I must be the only person in the world who feels more anxious after they hear a relaxation tape then before...

By Thursday I was at my wit's end. We were going away for the weekend, the whole thing was beginning to feel really debiliatating, and I didn't know how I was going to get through each day. So I rang my GP, who decided that I needed some low level (and non addictive antedepressants) to help me regain my balance. Producing too much adrenalin (if I've understood this right) creates a chemical imbalance, and depletes your cerontonin levels, which need some help to get restored.

Now. A few years ago, like I say, I'd have said no way to drugs of any description. Surely, I thought you can pull yourself out of things by willpower. People who succumb to anxious feelings are just giving in. However, now it's happening to me, I realise this just isn't the case at all. I can no more control my anxious feelings then I can fly to the moon. And what's worse is they're with me every minute of every day. Sometimes they come more to the forefront, at which point I am in hell, and sometimes they subside, but I'm conscious they are still there, ready to bite me on the bum when I'm not looking. I just can't function like that. And I can't afford to take weeks off to recover, because who'll look after the kids if I don't? I am fortunate enough that I can ask for help (something I am very bad at) from a whole group of supportive friends, but can't do that on a permanent basis. So I need something to get me through. And if that's a mother's little helper, then so be it. ANYTHING to stop feeling the way I have been for the last six weeks.

Unfortunately, the antedepressants haven't kicked in yet, so while we managed to have a nice time away, I spent some part of every night awake, drinking hot chocolate, and breathing into my wretched paper bag (I'm not even sure that works very well for me.) to try and keep my feelings at bay. Last night, however was off the scale. So it was back to the doc's this morning. He tells me it will take time, and the drugs haven't kicked in yet. But clearly the propnalol aren't working, so as a temporary measure I'm back on diazepan just to calm me down enough till the other drugs kick in.

Like I said, I'd never have gone for this option in the past, but I have realised being on the other side of this that the view is somewhat different from here, and nothing is as straightforward about it as I might have once thought. It's been an educative lesson in discovering that even though I have a happy life, and am blessed with a wonderful husband, beautiful children and good friends, I am not immune to things going wrong. It's difficult to accept you're ill when it feels like it's all in your head. But I am ill. And I will get better. I just need a little time...

It wasn't all bad in Menorca...

2009-08-24T11:01:00.002Z

I realise from my last post I probably gave the impression that the whole of our holiday was a total disaster. It wasn't actually. The first week, it's true I did spend a lot of time feeling intermittently anxious, and the full blown panic attack in the restaurant didn't help, but...

... Cala Blanca where we stayed was really pretty. When we arrived I had a raging temperature which I couldn't get down till the evening, when a helpful wind blew up and my last dose of paracetomol finally did the trick. So we went for a walk and discovered we were five minutes from the beach, where the sea lapped the shore gently, the reflected light from the beachside cafes and restaurants glittered in the water, and we encountered two riders, which seemed impossibly romantic. It was the first moment of the holiday when I relaxed and was glad to have made the effort to come.

It took me several days to dare to swim though, which was a shame as the water was fantastically clear, and when I did get in, I realised brilliant for snorkelling. Given that I am quite a strong swimmer, and the sea was dead calm, it was frustrating not to do it, but I was so spooked by the whole you may have a heart murmur thing, I was just a tad terrified of getting too far out and then having a problem swimming back. Luckily I realised after a bit, that even where we could swim beyond the buoys, it was a relative steal to get to the rocks, if I did have a problem, so I got over that one in the end, and thank goodness I did, as I think it was some of the best sea swimming I've ever done. The great thing is now that, finally, the years and years I've put in poolside dragging the sprogs to swimming lessons have paid off. No 1 can swim as far as Spouse and I now, and no 2 nearly as far. No 3 was a bit spooked by pre holiday reports of jellyfish, but when we did persuade her in, she rewarded both herself and us by swimming further then she imagined. No 4, though, was the relevation. This time last year she could barely swim at all. And then she was put in the next swimming class which involved going in the deep end and I had a term stressing about her possible drowning in front of me, but suddenly she was swimming like a fish. And she too swam further in the sea then she thought she could. We took a pedalo out one day and all of them being wusses apart from no 1 meant she and Spouse went on on their own, leaving the rest of us to swim for shore. I was certain no 4 would need to hold onto me most of the way, but to our mutual amazement she swam all the way back. Result. It may have cost me a fortune, but swimming lessons may well have been the best investment I've made in my children...

The other great thing about this holiday was, that this time around in Menorca, we had a car. When we went two years ago we didn't, and as a result Spouse and I ended up a bit stir crazy from spending our time between the pool and the beach. This time around we got to explore the island a bit more, and realised just what a lovely and unspoilt place it is.

Our first trip was to La Mola, a massive fort at the entrance of Mahon harbour, which we'd wanted to go to last time but couldn't manage without a car. This is the sort of trip that eventually has the kids moaning about their boring parents' obsession with castles, which is what happened this time too (my suggestion to no 2 that having visited so many castles would stand her in good stead when she met a castle loving boy was met with a withering, what if he doesn't like castles? response), but I think they enjoyed exploring the myriad of tunnels underneath.

Other then La Mola, we also visited Ciutadella which is Menorca's second town, and very pretty. The children were less then impressed to be taken to a bronze age museum though. As it happens, so were we. Despite the ridiculous security arrangements (we had to divest ourselves of all hats, bags, moneybelts, cameras etc), there was very little to see, and all of it was in glass cases anyway. I had been most excited about seeing some trepanned skulls (about a million years ago, when I was studying history O Level we did a course on the history of medicine and I've always been fascinated by trepanning since), but they turned out to be a damp squib as the holes had all healed up and could have easily just been dents and nothing to do with trepanning, I mean, how does anyone actually know, huh? Aside from the skulls, a few Roman coins, jewellery and a stone sarcophagus, there wasn't er, anything else to see, so we swiftly departed to find somewhere for four very grumpy children to eat, before heading back home to the villa and pool.

The villa this time around was fantastic. Spouse and I had a balcony off our bedroom - mind you we tried sunbathing one day and it was far too hot, so we didn'tg et as much use out of it as we might, the kitchen was actually a decent size to cook in (not that I did much of that for the first week), and the pool was lovely. The only downside was that the fabric of the buiding seemed to house the biggest ant's nest in the world. They started off in the kids' bathroom and no 4's bed. After dispatching them with the local Fuckoff Scary Creatures spray called Zum, they then pitched up marching through the big one's room. Spouse sprayed some Zum outside the room, which had the effect of thousands of the little buggers pouring through the plug sockets. Having despatched with them there, the little buggers set off on an herculean climbing exhibition and managed to make it all the way to our balcony, across it, and into our bedroom before Spouse went to war with them there too. By the end of the holiday (remarkably) they'd discovered the kitchen, where they seemed to take a peculiarly masochistic pleasure in finding refuge in the kettle.

Ants weren't our only holiday persecutors. The people in the villa next door were Menorcan and therefore kept erratic hours. Their social life seemed to consist of coming home at midnight, then starting to eat, swim and do the sorts of things we boring English people do at around 8pm, particularly when we have small babies in tow. They never seemed to move until 5pm. I swear they were vampires.

What with our noisy neighbours and my ridiculously heightened sense of anxiety, I didn't sleep terribly well, so I am immensely grateful for Boris Johnson's Have I Got Views For You and Bremner, Bird and Fortune's You Are Here for cheering me up in the middle of the night. Insomniacs worldwide, I'd recommend both books, and also Dawn French's fantastic autobiography, Dear Fatty, for much cheering of the spirits in the stilly watches of the night.

The lack of sleep and noisy neighbours didn't really cause that much problem though, as the joy of holidays of course is that you can have forty winks on the beach. And the joy of Menorca with a car, is that you can enjoy forty winks, and sunbathing and swimming on such a plethora of gorgeous beaches you start taking them all for granted after a bit. The beach all the holiday reps tell you about is Cala Galdatana which featured in the Bounty advert. And it is very pretty. But rather full of sunbeds. We preferred the beach we were able to stroll to from there (it was a hot thirsty walk mind), but our absolute favourite was one called Cala Turqueta. As it's name suggests it had the most beautiful turquoise sea, I've ever seen. But it was also really unspoilt, as you have to walk to it from a car park, and there isn't even a cafe when you get there. It did get frantically busy as we arrived, as three boatloads of tourists were despatched to have their lunch, but once they'd gone it felt quite empty again, and the swimming was absolutely fabulous.

All in all, I'd recommend Menorca, particularly for anyone with children. Had I been well, we'd have had our best holiday in thirteen years. As it was, considering everything it wasn't half bad. If I can only get my head round my stupid flying phobia, I'd even be prepared to go again. Bring on the pethadine...

Be Careful What You Wish For...

2009-08-13T07:58:00.007Z

Over the last few weeks of the summer term, in between all the usual mayhem, a schoolmum chum and I were on a mission. We both felt in need of a little bit of weight adjustment. Not massive, just a few pounds here and there, but we were both finding it difficult to shed any weight at all. Presumably now we are middleaged we've lost that youthful springiness that allows your body to lose weight as and when you feel like it. Anyway. In the middle of a conversation about weightloss frustrations among the middleaged, I said, do you know, sometimes I wish I could just have a tummy bug or something, just to kick start it. Oh dear, dear reader. If ever there was a lesson in being careful what you wish for, this is it...

As I possibly mentioned in the blog post I wrote before I went silent for a fortnight, the end of term was just a tad manic, with two children leaving two schools, which seemed to involve me going into said schools on a near daily basis for yet another Leaver's Event (it got the point where we were all saying, What, haven't they left, yet?). All of which left me rather wrung out emotionally as well as having the detrimental stress factor of making sure I didn't progress at all with any work that I am actually meant to be doing.

Eventually though, term ended, the horror was over, I was finally (tearfully) done with infant school forever, no 2 was finally (tearfully) done with junior school forever and I suddenly realised I had two days to prepare for our holiday. Oh shit.

I can't quite think now what made me plan our summer holidays straight after term broke up, as I know from bitter experience this is about the most stressful way possible of doing it, but I think it was something to do with the prices being a bit cheaper the last week in July (shakes her fist at greedy holiday companies who screw responsible parents who don't take their kids out of school). Anyway. I wouldn't recommend it, frankly. I needed at least a week to come down from the end of term shenanigans, and I didn't get it, which was probably a hugely contributory factor in what followed...

We were going to Menorca, where we had a fabulous holiday a couple of years ago, and I was hoping for a repeat to make up for the many many disastrous family holidays we've had which usually involve rain (every time we go on holiday in England)/children being ill (pretty much every holiday till no2 was about 7)/crap accommodation (last year) etc etc.

The downside of going to Menorca means of course, that I have to fly. I may or may not have mentioned I am a) in general a big wuss and b) specifically a huge wuss about flights. Two years ago I ended up in hysterics on the flight back, and have since been prescribed diazepan to get me through it.

I was clearly thinking about it alot, as two nights before I sat up drinking far too late with a very good friend and was apparently wittering on about flying rather a bit. I got up the next morning feeling pretty hungover. More fool me. A self inflicted wound, as my fil used to say. I then proceeded to race around the house, packing, tidying etc and (to the children's disbelief) forgot to eat anything. It was quite late when I took a break from housetidying and decided I needed to pay some bills and do some last minute shopping. As it was late, I took the car, and decided we'd have a Macdonald's before attempting chores. Big big mistake.

Now I am not really all that partial to Macdonald's (can I say that without being sued?), which are always better in anticipation then in reality, but I was hungry, and so I had a big Mac. Within ten minutes of eating it, I was feeling very very peculiar. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest, I thought it was going to explode, I felt a strange bubbling feeling in my central thorax, and I felt so dizzy I was sure I was going to pass out. Needless to say I didn't really wish the children to see this, so for ten minutes tried to pretend all was well. After which it was clear that all was not at all well, and no 2 asked if I was feeling allright. Feeling a bit of a div, and thinking, well I am surely being punished for my overindulgence with the mother of all hangovers, I asked her to get me some water. I clearly wasn't going anywhere for a bit, so sent no 1 off to buy some shoes, while I waited to feel better. Another fifteen minutes elapsed and I really felt no better. Shall I call Dad? suggested no 2. Now, given my husband's profession, this is always a hard call to make. Is this situation serious enough to warrant yanking him away from his patients (who won't be grateful) on the day before he goes on holiday? Deciding it wasn't, and also deciding that calling an ambulance wasn't the best of ideas with four kids in tow and a car stuck in the car park, I settled on calling the aforementioned good friend, who arrived twenty minutes later with her brother, who not only nobly drove the car for me, but also took the kids home and looked after them, while we went to casualty.

By now my lips had gone numb, my face was weirdly flushed and I was getting a strange prickling sensation in my arms along with feeling sick as a parrot and dizzy. I felt so awful I'd convinced myself I was having a heart attack. Never mind that I'm only 44, fortunately suffer rude health the majority of the time, and am pretty fit, my stupid overactive imagination decided that Heart Attack was what was happening so my body mimicked what I thought were the symptoms. Wiser readers then me will have probably spotted that actually I was suffering from a panic attack brought about by acute stress.

Unfortunately, this was not what was diagnosed at the hospital, where they took one look at my wildly high blood pressure (I've never had high blood pressure before, but hey, there's always a first time) and racing pulse, and got me through the triage bit to the A&E nurse quicker then you can say waiting time. I have to admit, the NHS for all its faults is admirably swift when they're worried about you, but when you are in the grip of a panic attack this is not terribly reassuring. Luckily the casualty nurse was fantastic, and was brilliant at calming me down, suggesting an ECG when he realised I had a ridiculously overanxious preoccupation with my heart (amazing thing the mind, up until three weeks ago I'd have said that the fact my dad died of heart failure had no effect on me whatsoever (-:), and telling me that yes, I would be going on my holidays the next day.

The ECG was fine, and by now they'd hooked me up to a saline drip as they'd decided I was dehydrated, so I started to feel a bit better. My friend had been popping in and out to give home situation updates, so I also knew Spouse was on his way home and the kids were all having a nice time. I could feel my pulse rate starting to slow down, and the sickness was abating. Until...

Oh dear god. The casualty doctor, I'm sure he meant very well. I'm also sure he was covering all angles and I'm grateful to him for checking me out to the nth decree. But what I didn't need to hear the day before I was due to fly off on holiday, when my blood pressure was way too high and I was feeling the most neurotic I've ever felt in my life was that he could apparently detect a heart murmur, which needs investigation and quite possibly might need an operation. He also helpfully gave me this information at a point when I was on my own, and was clearly unprepared for my hysterical reaction. Well, wouldn't you have been? But bless him, Dr Death's bedside manner wasn't the best. He actually said to me, Do you want the good news or the bad news? He actually said that. Then told me that the bad news was that I had poorly painted toe nails (-:

Apparently having a dodgy heartbeat isn't anything to worry about though, no really. It's probably been there forever, you are free to go on your holidays and fly in a plane which will render any previous panic attack a mere blip as your blood pressure will probably lift you through the roof...

By the time Spouse came to pick us up, I was a gibbering wreck, and remained so for most of the night before we went, when I lay in bed panicking about going on holiday, then panicking about not going and ruining it for everyone else.

In the end, feeling a tad better when we got up, I dosed myself up on diazepan and off we set. Remarkably, apart from a flurry of nerves as we pulled up at Gatwick, I did manage to cope with the flight fine (diazepan is a wonderdrug, but I'm beginning to think I probably need pethadine which got me through all my labours fine and dandy. I'm a complete space cadet on pethadine, and could probably be happy as larry if I flew under its influence). However, when we got the other end, it suddenly dawned on me I was in a foreign country, with a possible blood pressure problem, a possible dodgy hearbeat, and no idea what the local health facilities were like. My mood was not enhanced by the rep from the holiday company looking at me and asking me nervously if I was fit to travel. It's a bit late for that now, I thought...

As it transpired, by the end of the first day I was feeling a little better, but my guts weren't, and after a few days I ended up at the chemist's convinced I had gastritis. By now I was on the detox to end all detoxes, having a diet which mainly consisted of bread and water with the occasional camomile tea for luck. Spouse had his work cut out trying to look after everyone else, cook meals and manage to relax himself, but we were sort of rubbing along fine, until the night we went out to a restaurant and I had a repeat of my McDonald's experience, except this one involved hyperventilation too. Although, I had no idea that I was hyperventilating at all till Spouse said, stop breathing so fast. Luckily for me, he is much much better then I would have been given the situation the other way round, and he talked me down by making me breathe slowly and deeply till eventually both breathing and pulse calmed down. By now, I was all for heading to the hospital, but it was pretty late, the hospital was the other side of the island, and Spouse had correctly identified that I was just stressing myself up about everything.

For the second week of the holiday, I did actually manage to feel better. So finally I dared to swim (was a bit worried about passing out in the water), did lots of snorkelling, wrote masses of my new book (by hand in a notebook, novel experience!), and generally started to relax. It all went tits up of course the day we left, when all the same old panicky feelings returned, my insides started puddling upwards, my heartbeat went mental and I was frantically stuffing diazepan down my neck as we got to the airport in a vain attempt to calm down. Eventually the diazepan did work, but I was left with a feeling of exhaustion over the weekend, a tightness in my chest, and huge acid heartburn. I can't recall ever feeling iller in my whole life. And coming back to a letter from the cardiac clinic wasn't exactly conducive to relaxation either...

Luckily for me, I have an absolutely fantastic GP. Who as soon as I saw him on Monday said, You are perfectly fine. Your pulse is racing a bit, but you are just suffering from stress. There is NOTHING wrong with your heart. Which is all I needed to hear.

I hadn't realised that acid builds up in your stomach as a result of adrenaline rushes caused by panic attacks. Neither had I realised the weird prickling I was feeling in my arms was due to an imbalance of my bodily ph as a result of hyperventilating. This is why you need to blow into a paperbag - the CO2 you lose as you hyperventilate is then breathed back in restoring the correct ph balance. I tried it last night at 3am and it works.

I'm sure I'm not quite out of the woods yet, after all stress builds up over a period of time, but I cannot tell you the relief in discovering that I am not likely to drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow which was my biggest worry.

As a result of all this, I have had a bit of a life evaluating moment, and realised to my eternal shame, that I don't really enjoy my children as much as I should. Lying in my sickbed listening to them having fun in the pool was one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had. Despite how crappy I felt, I was so pleased they were having a good time, and it was worth the stress for that alone.

The other bonus is that I have in fact kickstarted the diet my friend and I were discussing, and have proved to myself I can live without alcohol (I was beginning to worry about that one). But you know, what I said about being careful what you wish for? Despite my clothes being a bit looser, I still don't appear to have lost any weight. Not a jot. Which strikes me as really, really unfair...

Last Christmas cover

2009-08-11T17:27:00.003Z

I can show you this though. Woohoo!!

As usual a fabulous effort from the fantastic Avon team, and their very long suffering but brilliant designers.

Thanks guys!

Yes, I am still alive...

2009-08-11T13:56:00.002Z

I realise I have been abysmally silent on the blogging front. This is mainly because I have been both on holiday and ill. Unfortunately, for me and my poor family these two events occurred simultaneously. Therein hangs a very long tale, about which I may write more later, but as I am still feeling a bit under the weather, I don't have much energy for anything right now. That being said, Menorca was lovely, I did manage to do some swimming and I even have a fast fading tan, so it's not all bad... Also, I did manage to write a fair bit (all by hand as left the laptop at home) and the being ill abroad experience is marvellous writing material, so there's always a silver lining, eh. The annoying thing is, despite a week on bread and water I don't seem to have lost weight though. How didn't THAT happen??

PS I wouldn't recommend being ill abroad. I really, really wouldn't.

Tired and emotional r us.

2009-07-20T12:45:00.003Z

I've just come back from no 4's leaver's assembly. Finally, after nine years of having children attending the infant's school, my servitude is over. What is more, I'm only going to have two schools to deal with next year, yay!

When no 1 started there, no 4 wasn't even thought of, so it does feel quite emotional saying goodbye. My early years at the school are a blur of fraughtness, double buggies, assemblies with babies on laps and toddlers on the floor and a generally bad tempered mindset. No 1 had a pretty disastrous start as her teacher went off on permanent sick leave halfway through the year (was it something she said?) and they had a host of supply teachers. At the time I wasn't much impressed with the way the school dealt with the situation and the lack of communication which was then forthcoming. For a long time, I wasn't all that impressed with the school fullstop but since no4 got there, it's been steadily on the up, and she has had a great run of it. Particularly this year, when she's had a really enthusiastic teacher, who together with the other Year 2 teacher has organised a great night walk on the common, a fabulous school trip which included pond dipping (luckily the lively boys in my group didn't get dipped), two brilliant school shows, and last Friday a Punch & Judy show (which I had to mainly miss as no 1 had her piano exam at the same time).

Hilariously, though no 4 is the noisiest of my children, the school keep telling me she is quiet, well behaved and looks after everyone else. So for those reasons, today, she was awarded a certificate for the girl in the class who had made the most impact, an honour never before given to one of my children. I had been prepared to blub at hearing One More Step Along the World I Go (I have NO idea how teachers can manage ever to get through that song in one piece), but I utterly disgraced myself for no 4's moment of glory instead.

The thing is, I am an inconsistent old cow. When nos 1&2 were in infants, especially, the daily grind was so bloody hard, I couldn't wait for it all to be over. And yet, now I'm finally here, of course I don't want it to end. Greedily, I want to keep hold of those fleeting moments of their childhood, as they run through my hands like so many particles of sand. Where, oh where have my babies gone? And why didn't I enjoy them more, while I had the time?

Like I said. Completely inconsistent.

If that's not bad enough, tomorrow I have to go through it all again for no 2. Who, having been totally sanguine about going on to secondary school, has spent the last year having a succession of "Year 6" moments, and is highly likely to lose the plot tomorrow, just as her big sister did two years ago. And to make it worse for her mother, I met two of her contemporaries in utero, in ante natal classes eleven years ago. No more babies, indeed...

Best take a big pack of hankies, I think...

Misdummer Madness

2009-07-17T10:26:00.003Z

Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun apparently. Well Mad English Families also get stuck unexpectedly in thunderstorms in high exposed places...

Last night we went here to see them:

(The Saturdays, in case you didn't know). Alesha Dixon was also on after them.

Our plan was to be sneaky as only locals can be, and find a spot on the downs where we could hear the concert for free. (We did have a great evening three years ago watching Texas from the grandstand but at £22/a ticket it's a bit pricey for 6).

There have been other bands we could have seen: Status Quo on 4 July (Status, Who? said the offspring), and Bjorn Again last week. But we've been busy, and tired, and the kids only really wanted to see the Saturdays, so off we went at 8.30 last night, hoping for a Fun Family Outing...

Weather looks a bit ominous, I said as we piled into the car. Hmm... Five minutes later the heavens opened, and we arrived on the downs to a full scale thunderstorm, complete with forked lightning and everything. Of course, like eejits we were totally unprepared (in our defence it had been so hot earlier), and only had one umbrella between us. Do you think this is sensible? Spouse asked worriedly as the lightning seemed to be getting closer. Possibly not, was the response, though I did point out that the Grandstand is much higher then we were, so chances of getting struck perhaps lessened...

After five minutes trudging through the rain, we found ourselves in the tunnel which is the only crossing point of the racecourse when a race is on. This, it turned out was a very very bad move as hordes of hysterical teens were crowding the entrance, it was pitch black, and we got stuck trying to get out the other side. All sorts of horrible images were going through my mind, but luckily we emerged unscathed on the other side. Memo to self, never do that again in a rainstorm...

We then walked round to the finish line of the racecourse. By now we were all soaked through and freezing cold. Spouse was all for going home, but the two big ones wouldn't hear of it. So we geed up the little ones, and managed to keep them entertained long enough to witness the end of the last race of the evening. Despite having no clue as to who was running, or who won, it was till dead exciting to see the finish. We've watched the start of the Derby before now, but never watched the end of a race, and it was fab.

By now no3 had had enough and definitely wanted to go home, but we managed to persuade her to stay on long enough to watch the first song. I had thought maybe once the concert started the little ones would find it fun enough to forget their woes, but as soon as Spouse suggested going back to the car, they accepted with alacricity. So that left me, the two big ones, and an umbrella with a metal spike on it, which despite the height of the grandstand, was rather alarming as the lightning storm seemed to get ever nearer. The whole sky was lighting up at points, and before too long the rain was coming down in sheets again.

Having twisted my arm to listen to two more songs (which mainly consisted of covers, bo-o-oring), even the kids decided it was time to go. Luckily we were able to cross the racecourse without heading for the tunnel, but blimey. I didn't know it was possible to get wet in such a short time. Or how scary a five minute walk can be. Apart from the threat of lightning strikes, we also had poor visibility, cars coming at as from all directions and huge potential for skidding. In fact, when we got back in the car, and headed for home, Spouse nearly had sideon collision with an idiot who tried to cut across him as we came around a roundabout.

Luckily we got home in one piece, soaking wet, but perfectly fine. As (according to Spouse) the Officially Most Risk Averse Person in the World, I can do a fine line in worrying about the most risk free activities. But even I never imagined, how dangerous a trip to the downs could be...

A Room of Her Own

2009-07-15T12:56:00.003Z

My lovely twin sister who often comments here as Mad Twin, has just started a blog of her own:
here. She's very kindly plugged me in one of her first posts, but you know all about me. So scroll own down to read Midwinter, a sample of her terrific writing. Also a brilliant evocation of our joint childhood. She neglected to mention, though, that after the party with the lion posters one of us was sick on the other one's head. Neither of us can remember which. We have a collective twinly memory where sometimes memories are held jointly between us and neither of us can lay claim to them. Yes. I know that's weird.

What's interesting though, is that though we certainly share stylistic tics with our writing, we also write about different things/in different genres/and respond differently to the same genetic memory. So we aren't, as our oldest brother always used to tell us, one person really. Very much two. Just came out of the same egg. Coincidentally, today.

So happy birthday Twin, and happy blogging too.