Today's the day...

... When we find out what secondary school no 1 is going to go to.


Of course, if you have been paying attention to the news this week (which quite frankly must be dull as ditchwater for the majority of the population who don't have children changing schools), you would have thought we would have known yesterday.

Wrong...

As I suspected all along the magic date of 1 March was the day the letters got sent out.

Had I been brave enough to apply online (I wasn't - the stress of filling in a paper application nearly killed me, and had I cocked it up in anyway I decided that it wasn't worth risking a divorce over, so I played safe), I would of course know the answer by now.

Although the onliners didn't have it all their own way - by the end of school yesterday none of them had heard either.

Ironically, my best school run friend and I both had letters to say that our respective no 3s had got into the junior school. To our eternal shame, so preoccupied were we with the fate of our eldest offspring, we er, had both forgotten that their little sisters were changing school...

So anyway, here I am, and the LETTER has finally arrived, but I can't open it because I promised no 1 I wouldn't, so now it is sitting on the hall table burning a hole in it. Honestly. The tension of not knowing is worse then waiting for a positive response from an editor!

We are extremely fortunate, that in our case we have the choice (I use the word advisedly, as in alot of areas in our lives, New Labour had employed doublespeak to make us think we are making choices when in fact we are merely stating preferences. It is up the the powers that be to make the choice on our behalf) a good girl's school in the town we live in and an excellent grammar three miles away. I am assuming that we haven't got our third choice which ain't so great, as that will skew the game plan somewhat!

I don't want to get into a debate about the merits of selective schooling here, apart from to say if we all had a proper choice of good schools then the selective ones wouldn't need to exist.

I do, however, think that it is the right of every parent, be they rich, poor, middle class, working class, black, white, or little green aliens from Mars, to try to get their child into the school they think will benefit them most.

I am very fortunate to have bright children who study hard, and I wouldn't want any of them going into an environment where they were distracted by kids who come from families where those things don't matter as much.

In our town we have four secondary schools. One of each sex, and two mixed schools. There are no selective schools at all in Surrey. In fact, from what I can gather about Surrey's education policy the emphasis is so much on equality for all they seem to have forgotten that a) while we all want equality some kids are er actually brighter then others/sportier then others/more arty then others and b) there is nothing wrong with striving to be the best at what you do.

When I was at school we used to have a saying: Aim for the stars and you might hit a tree. Aim for a tree and you'll hit the ground.

Too often these days it seems to me, we all accept - or are told to accept - that aiming high is seen as A Bad Thing - particularly if you happen to be that pernicious thing, middle class. (And Oh, I am soooo sick of being made to feel guilty that I am middle class. It isn't my fault, honest, guv!)

Now I'm not saying that it is right for the middle classes to buy houses next to good schools and drive out the poorer families, because I don't think it is, but neither is it right that people should be made to feel bad if they want the best for their children.

Of the schools in our town, I would happily send the girls to the local girls's school (the head teacher endeared herself to me at the open day by saying at WHATEVER level children came into the school, the aim was to get each one to achieve her potential - quite right too), and one of the comprehensives. The boy's school is a mixed bag. I do know people who are happy with it. They have a good record on special needs, and I know one mum who is very anxious because she feels they will cope best with her son who has behavioural problems. But there are also dreadful stories about bullying, and while there is a fast track system for the brighter students, there's also a lot of stigma attached to that, so if you have a bright sensitive academic boy as several of my friends do, you really wouldn't want them going there. The other comprehensive is a sink school quite frankly, and no one should have to send their kids there at all.

The comprehensive school I would have considered (I would have had to put them down as first choice) is bang smack in the middle of a council estate. It has state of the art facilities, and could easily have become a very expensive failure. But by dint of choosing a proportion of children from each ward in the borough (surely the fairest way to ensure a mixed social group?), there is a good mix of different children and backgrounds. Of course we don't have the social problems of the inner cities here, but it's not all sweetness and light either. And the result of this particular school's policy has been to raise its standards and its profile, so now it is a much sought after school. But there's no point moving house to get your child in, as that won't help you in this instance.

I suppose whatever system is employed there will always be cries of Not Fair! Personally, I am alarmed at the idea that the situation in Brighton where a lottery has taken place (and from all accounts one that doesn't help the poorer families it was intended to), should be repeated elsewhere in the country (I do after all have to go through this process three more times), as it smacks of a particularly insidious type of social engineering. And all I can see it doing is making good schools worse and poor schools fail even more. Oooh, great, let's really dumb things down some more...

The problem at the heart of education in this country does seem to be that the idea of striving to better oneself has become a dirty concept. As if by wanting the best for your children you are some kind of heartless moneyed beast with no social conscience. And yet, the test my daughter sat was full of children from Asian families - they have no such moral qualms. And why should they? They want the best for their children too. And talking to a friend recently (who has four children by two different partners, lives in rented accommodation and grew up in a council house) about what she wanted for her kids, she wants the best for them too. She pushes them hard to try and achieve their best at whatever they set out to do. As any decent parent should.

It should be what everyone wants. But the sad fact is there are parents out there who don't give a flying f*** about their childrens' future, and failing schools are full of kids who don't give a stuff for authority (I'm not necessarily blaming them, they learn that behaviour somewhere), or about working hard to get on in life. No one would or should want to put their kids into an enviroment like that. So we have the catch twenty two of the failing schools being abandoned by the parents who do care (if they can afford to move away), or if they can't being stuck with their children getting a lousy education (there is one infamous school around here that is so poorly staffed the kids are only taught four days a week, which is scandalous), and the good schools being hugely oversubscribed. In that situation someone is always going to be disappointed. Our children only have one shot at an education, is it any wonder that the more unscrupulous of the middle classes bend the rules to get the best for their kids?

The scandal is that in a country like ours, in the 21st century, after ten years of a Labour government, we have any failing schools at all.

We should all have a proper choice about our children's education.

And that choice should be that every child in the country has the option of going to a good school and having a decent stab at getting an education, irrespective of class, colour, creed or finances.

But sadly, I think we're a long way from achieving it.

Another Birthday, Two Hangovers, and a Whole Lot of Cooking...

This week it was Spouse's turn for birthday festivities, so I had invited some friends and family for dinner. As it was the start of Lent last week, I had decided to forswear alcohol for the duration. Less out of any spiritual reason and more out of the feeling I need to dry out somewhat.

I should have known this was a non starter, as I think this every year and every year Spouse's birthday inconveniently falls on the wrong side of Lent.

It didn't take me long to break my vow of abstinence, as on Friday night my lovely luscious sister arrived to see us. Lovely Luscious Sister, really is that. When we were growing up we used to joke that she could wear a black bin liner (indeed she probably was, it was the era of punk) and look good. And the same still applies today. I should of course hate her for this but I can't because she is far too lovely and luscious to be hated, and if I did I wouldn't be party to her very entertaining and erudite discourse. So of course as she is so lovely and luscious I love her without a hint of envy (oh, ok maybe one or two, but I can live with it.)

LLS being a fully paid up member of the drinking red wine elite that is my family of course brought some with her. When I feebly suggested I shouldn't be drinking both she and Spouse chimed in with, but it's Friday. Which was enough for me to shed principles to the wind and dive in there. And as Spouse has a healthy supply of a rather nice 1996 rioja that he bought cheap from Majestic, it did seem a bit of a waste not to join in.

As a result I was not unnaturally soon pretty wasted myself. As luck would have it I had gone on a cooking blitz the previous evening and made soup, a chicken dish and a fish pie, so my lack of cooking ability didn't matter, as I could just produce the chicken dish from the fridge and put it together with some couscous. Instant cooking. Easy when you know how...

What was not so easy, was focussing the next day. By the time we hit the sack, far too much red wine had been consumed, we had all watched V for Vendetta through an alcoholic haze, and then Spouse and I had insisted that poor LLS stayed up to watch our favourite moments in film. What you haven't seen Last of the Mohicans? we cried, you MUST see this - quite what she made of watching five minutes of one of my top five films (mind you it was the best five minutes, when Daniel Day Lewis exhorts Madeline Stowe to stay alive whatever she does), I don't know, but being lovely and luscious she was of course very polite about it.

Luckily for her, we couldn't find the Thirteenth Warrior - an obscure (and some might say rightly so) film about a bunch of 9th/10th/ who knows? century Scandinavians who rope in Antonio Banderas who plays an Arabic scholar, as their thirteenth warrior in the fight against evil bastards who want to destroy them. Much murder and mayhem takes place before the epic ending (and arguably again the best five minutes of the film), in which all the Norseman stand up one by one at the start of the battle and repeat a litany that begins, Lo there, I see my father. Lo there I see my brother, and my mother and sisters, and all the warriors that have gone before. etc etc. The last line belongs, naturally to Antonio, who gets to follow up the penultimate line about all the warriors going to join their ancestors in the halls of Valhalla, where they will stay, (and here comes Antonio's ine) "forever". I'm sure it's a direct lift from some Norse poem, but who cares...

However, LLS was spared that and politely declined to join us for the end of Plunkett and Maclaine (another fairly obscure but wittily brilliant historical Restoration drama). I love it not only for how fabulous Robert Carlyle is (and let's face it when isn't he?) but also for the fact it contains the Earl of Rochester who is one of my literary heroes. He's more effete here then in Johnny Depp's brilliant portrayal in The Libertine (another obscure and underrated film), but he's joyously wickedly corrupt nonethelesss. Having watched Robert Carlyle rescue Johnny Lee Miller from the gallows (if you haven't seen it, it has to be one of the best gallows rescues you're ever likely to witness), Spouse and I eventually staggered to bed at 2am. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Saturday of course is our day of purgatory, when we are punished for all our sins by dragging the children out to their various classes. So much as I longed to lie in bed, I did get my weary hungover self out of the sack, and feeding children at a reasonably civilised time, and then set off for the ballet run. LLS very kindly came with me to keep my company and I managed neither to keel over of be sick while we watched no 3 (who was having a severe attack of nerves about the show and didn't want to come) skipping about.

Once back from ballet, I cooked pizza for the children while starting to prepare a cheesecake. This as it turned out was a very good move, as my reactions were dulled to the point of ineptitude and I had to reread the instructions several times over. I should of course have been following the recipe my mother had given me over the phone in Sainsburys when I rang up to enquire what ingredients I was likely to need, but sadly I was lacking a pen at the time, and my memory isn't what it was, plus I'd knocked out several more thousand brain cells from my non abstinence the previous night, so I doubt I'd have remembered anyway.

The cheesecake recipe was luckily fairly easy to follow, but I made the mistake of using a rather shallow dish, so when I poured the filling in, most of it ended up on the kitchen table. Still, at least that bit was done.

I thought about cooking the duck I had bought the previous day, but decided it was too soon. So I left it till later. A nearly fatal mistake....

At 3.15 it was time to toddle off to take no 3 to her next show rehearsal (cue more wailing and tears), say goodbye to LLS and head into town to buy Spouse a birthday present. It is an interesting fact about the way relationships change that, in times of yore, before we were sprogged up, I would have spent many hours thinking what to get him, and devoted even more to buying him the precise thing he needed. I was never late with presents, and always had a card. Spouse on the other hand took years to remember that my birthday was in July not June, frequently got to the day empty handed with a promise of good things to come, and on one occasion even made me a birthday card out of wood, with hinges which bore the merry legend, Happy Birthday you old Bat.

As time has gone on, however, the roles have reversed somewhat. Now it is more likely then not Spouse who has gone out scouring the clothes shops (usually with no 1 &2 in tow to veto his choices) and lavishing me with the sort of gifts I had hitherto imagined were bestowed on more worthy huswifs then me. And as for my efforts - particuarly since no 4 has been on the scene, they grow yearly more pathetic. I did get a card with the sprogs, and they all bought him presents at the British Museum, but other then that I was completely empty handed come 4pm on Saturday. I was also right out of ideas, which didn't help much either.

I had agreed with bil and sil that we would get both series of The Green Wing between us - but I kept forgetting which ones we'd agreed to buy. Cue my third phone call to them while in HMV to try and remember. And as soon as I put the phone down I forgot again (it's those bloody brain cells I lost on Friday night, I knew I'd be needing them).

In desperation I also got him Life on Mars (probably more for me then him to be frank, I could watch John Sims for hours...) plus a couple of CDs and some books, although the book I was after Mark Gatiss's follow up to his brilliant (but probably obscure if you don't like the League of Gentlemen) Vesuvius Club, seemed to elude me rather. I did track down one copy in Waterstones but they said it was in the stockroom and then let slip the paperback was coming out in June, so I think he'll have to have it for Father's Day instead...

My shopping done, it was back home to start preparations for our guests. Given that the children had spent all of Friday night/Saturday morning playing with their cousin, which entailed taking out not only all the clothes in the dressing up box, but also all my posh dresses which were worn, swapped and then discarded all over the house, I was fairly disheartened to see the amount of work required to make the place vaguely acceptable for dinner party guests. Fortunately they happened to be bil and sil and our best friends, and they all know that a domestic goddess I am not. However, I do like to at least pretend.

So at 5.30 while Spouse had gone out to pick no 3 up I was desperately trying to make some order out of chaos, and throwing things at the children to take upstairs. Most of it has ended up in our bedroom - the repository of all things that belong nowhere else when you have guests arriving imminently - where it all still remains until I finish this blog and get on with sorting it all out.

By 6.30 things were looking somewhat better, but the table wasn't set in the dining room and I suddenly realised I didn't have an ironed tablecloth. Trying to work out if I a) had time to iron one and b) could still dress the cheesecake with blackcurrants (from the garden natch, and frozen months ago), and deciding I didn't, I cheated and grabbed a cloth which has definitely seen better days and covered up its deficiencies with a non iron one, which wasn't quite big enough for the table but served brilliantly as a cover up.

As Spouse set the table I got on with the important business of decorating the cheesecake, before he pointed out that I had forgotten to top and tail the blackcurrants before I froze them. So they all had to come off and Spouse did it while I got on with preparing the duck. First bit was easy - simply shove the pieces of duck into a roasting tin and leave it to cook. However, the orange sauce I was after took some doing, and as usual I didn't have all the right ingredients.

My first error was to peel the oranges and chuck most of the peel out before reading that I needed to use it in the sauce. Damn.

I then realised that having used duck pieces rather then a whole duck I didn't have giblets to make stock - an apparently vital ingredient in the sauce. I improvised and poured off the juices that had come from the duck. Of course they were enormously fatty, so when I put them together with arrowroot for thickening I had a terrible moment when I thought I was just going to be serving everyone lumps of fat. Fortunately I was able to pour off the worst excesses, but then was left with minimal amounts of sauce, so I had to fall back on that old favourite, aah, Bisto (which I should have used to begin with) to bulk it up. The final touch was supposed to be curacoa, but we didn't have any, so I shoved in some brandy instead. I have no idea what it was supposed to taste like, but it seemed to go down ok, so I think I got away with it...

Despite our efforts to turn the evening into a disaster, remarkably everything after that worked very well and I was even able to overcome my principles (and hangover) one more time to join with the bachanalian fest that ensued.

We had invited mil for lunch on Sunday, so asked bil and sil if they wanted to come too. At 12.30 as we waved them off in a taxi, full of bonhomie and good cheer, this seemed like an excellent idea.

At 7.30am when Spouse woke me, bright breezy and still drunk on birthday cheer, l lay in my pit groaning and wishing for the second day running I had practised abstinence.

As the kids had gone to bed far too late, no one was up in time to do the usual birthday breakfast in bed routine, so Spouse was reduced to making his own breakfast, and me a cup of tea while I festered in the bath till I guiltily remembered I had forgotten to wrap his presents. AND all I had to do it with was Christmas wrapping paper.

After we'd opened presents, drunk tea etc, I went back upstairs to find Spouse's moment of bright breeziness was but that, a moment, and he had retired to bed again. The children were all safely doing.... something.... so I thought it seemed like a good idea to join him, as the room was still spinning somewhat uncomfortably.

I lay there for half an hour before I suddenly remembered I hadn't put the joint in. Or peeled the potatoes. So reluctantly I stirred myself once more and did both before crawling back upstairs again.

I managed to doze off, but then woke up in a fit of guilt coupled with the sudden realisation that no 3 had a party to get to by 3pm and I had better get my skates on if she was going to get fed by then. Mil was due round at 12.30 and I was still peeling the rest of the veg when she arrived.

As I had left over egg whites and lemon from the previous evening I decided that lemon meringue pie was the thing. It is years since I've made it so I was squinting through my hangover at the cookery book for inspiration. It all seemed way too complicated to follow after a heavy night, especially as I suddenly realised I was supposed to cook the pastry base first - the pastry base, you understand that I hadn't even prepared yet.

While I was getting that underway and making yorkshires, bil and sil arrived - having decided that faced with the prospect of marking or having lunch with us, there really was no contest. Sil very nobly offered to help clear up - such was my bewildered state I was rendered completely incapable of clearing up the chaos I was leaving in my wake. Unfortunately in her enthusiasm she chucked out the lemon juice I was saving for my filling. Never mind, the boys cried, we'll go hunter gathering and get some more. Not to worry, I responded I think Spouse chucked out my saved egg whites as it happens. No I didn't he said. Ah, no he hadn't - I discovered them hiding at the back of the fridge. So he was allowed to go hunter gathering after all. The downside was that as our fridge has gone a bit mental of late and is behaving like a freezer, said egg whites were frozen, but I did manage to overcome this difficulty and make the meringue.

Eventually, and somewhat miraculously, given my hazy grasp on reality, lunch was ready, and for once even my yorkshires worked. We also got to the table just before two, so no 3 could go to the ball too. I shoved the lemon meringue pie in the oven just before we sat down, forgetting to check the temperature required. Bearing in mind our oven gets very hot, and I recently had to chuck some flapjacks as they were on too high, you'd think I would have learnt by now wouldn't you?

Wrong.

It will come as no surprise to hear that as sil helped carry plates back into the kitchen, she said Is something burning?

Oh shit. It was the lemon meringue pie.

Fortunately, we rescued it just in time - the meringue was fairly brown, but not too cinder like.

Someone somewhere seems to like me.

Even if I can't keep my promises...

Birthday greetings

It was no 4's fifth birthday on Sunday. Blimey. When she was born, I dreamed of her being five, and there being no more nappies in the house. And suddenly, here I am. I feel that I've blinked and all that time spent with babies and toddlers which seemed so endless at the time has simply vanished. Now I have a child nearly at secondary school and my youngest is well settled into infant school. An era is well and truly over. Not that I'm complaining mind, but it does feel slightly odd.

This feeling was borne out all the more as one of her birthday presents was a new dressing gown. Which means it is time to pass on the spotty dressing gown she has been wearing for the last two years - a truly momentous moment as it was the first one no 1 ever wore, so it's been knocking around the house for seven years or so. Why is it, when I quite happily parted with heaps of baby clothes without a tear, I feel so ridiculously sentimental about a dalmatian dressing gown? Maybe it is that realisation, that my time as a mother of very small children has finally come to an end, and with it my youth seems to have vanished too. This year I will be 42, Spouse has had the snip, there will be no more babies in our house till the children have babies of their own. Not that I want anymore, but still... There is a pang in realising a door has closed behind you.

We celebrated no 4's birthday with a party at a local venue mysteriously called a Lifestyle Centre. I have no idea what one is either, but it consists of the local library, our GP, two gyms, a cafe and several rooms you can hire.

Normally I like to have parties at home as I detest this modern habit of providing kids with more and more extreme activities - she's five? Give her a karoake party. Eight? Take her to a restaurant? Ten? Give him a lazer quest party. Eleven? Take them to London in a big limo... Whatever happened to a few party games and some cake to go home with? When did it all get mental? I'm sure the MadMuthas have a few ideas, don't you girls????

However, no 4's best friend had a party at this venue, where you could hire a bouncy castle, toys and dressing up clothes, and she had a ball. More importantly, her mother reported it was dead easy. As my home run affairs generally involve me coming up with a theme and a treasure hunt (with clues that I usually insanely end up writing in rhyme five minutes before the guests arrive), I have to say easy appealed. So I took the lazy option. And boy was it worth it, as we really did very little apart from feed them, mop brows, and rub banged heads. There was one bad moment after tea when I suddenly debated the wisdom of letting nine five year olds full of e numbers run riot on a bouncy castle, but apart from a few bumps we got away with it (and it was somewhat less stressful then watching nos 2&3 climb over the lions in Trafalgar Square the previous day).

The only drawback to the day was that no 3 had a rehearsal for a dance show she is going to be in. I may have mentioned the Fame School where my children go dancing before. It is a quite insane place and I only keep them there because, bugger it, they all enjoy their lessons, it is five minutes from home and I can't honestly be arsed to go looking for new classes. But they are so up their own backsides it is unbelievable.

The rehearsal time clashed with the party - a fact I had been unaware of as I thought no 3 could be spirited away at around the time the party started. She was not unnaturally disappointed because she wanted to attend the party. But knowing the Fame School of old, I know they are just mean minded enough to say she couldn't be in the show at all if she missed this sodding rehearsal (adding insult to injury she is likely to be on stage for ooh, all of two minutes!). I did ask her teacher the previous week and was told to ask the head of ballet in the week. Last week being half term, I didn't get round to ringing up to enquire (and to be honest even if I had, I know from bitter experience that the Obergruppenfuhrer who runs the office would have been less then helpful), so I asked her on Saturday morning as she teaches no 4 ballet.

Well it is a very important rehearsal, was the response, but you'd better check with her teacher. I checked with her teacher, and got sent back to the head of ballet. No 3 then came out of her lesson and burst into tears at the thought that she was going to miss her sister's party. I saw the head of ballet again and begged with her for some sensible response, but no, I had to take her, or check again with the teacher who I knew was going to say no. Furious doesn't enter into it. I wish to god I hadn't bothered asking, but having asked I knew they would throw the, she can't be in the show crap at me.

Net result was I bribed no 3 to go her rehearsal with party bags for her and her mates, and loads of snacks, drinks and sweets. She also got to play with her best friend beforehand, so in the end all was well. But boy was I cross about it...

Was also slightly disconcerted as nos 1&2 had invited their best friends to the party in a time honoured tradition which started when no 4 was a baby and she had no friends. I mistakenly thought that they might all help me. But, no. They were the biggest kids of the lot, playing on the bouncy castle, chasing each other on toddler toys which it was a miracle they didn't break and even dressing up in the dressing up clothes. No 1 put a wedding dress on over old clothes and for all the world looked like an 80s popstar.

However, good fun was had by all, no 3 got over missing the party and was pacified by the promise of a birthday lunch the following day - which I only just about survived having been out till far too late playing bridge and drinking too much wine with our neighbours.

No 4's birthday is a slightly odd event in our house, as though of course we celebrate it every year, it is also the same day fil died, when she was just a year old. The kids have no problem with this now - in fact they are ghoulishly fascinated, and neither do we especially, but we do always think about him.

Now I am not given to fanciful notions particularly. Or think terribly that it is possible to communicate with the dead - with my own father I have had no sense of where he is ever since he left us - but with fil it has been slightly different. Being a keen gardener, he bought us lots of spring bulbs for the garden and (failing to understand at the time that having small children wasn't terribly conducive to keeping up with the gardening) berated us for not planting them. We did eventually get round to it, and have had lovely daffs every year as a result.

The year he died it was a coldish spring and we had a fair amount of snow. The daffodils dallied and took their time to come out. Yet the day after his funeral, blow me down the first daffodil flowered. Somehow it seemed to me he was saying hello. The feeling stayed with me the following year, when the first daffodil flowered on no 4's birthday, his first anniversary.

For the past two years the daffs have been a bit more patchy - and last year thanks to the late spring they came at the end of March. So I've stopped thinking I'm getting messages from the dead.

But this year, when I've been thinking the odd weather was mucking their little systems up and we wouldn't get flowers for ages, what did I see when I looked out of the window yesterday morning, but a daffodil in full flower, nodding and smiling at me in the breeze.

It was a day late, but fanciful as it might seem, I do like to think it's his way of keeping in touch.

And maybe he too was marking the passing of the years, and acknowledging that his baby granddaughter, isn't such a baby anymore...

Maybe, maybe not.

But it's a nice thought...

Some nutritional advice

Waking to the news that the majority of women aged 17-34 are unhappy with their bodies and want plastic surgery (another sure sign we're all going to hell on a handcart), I thought it appropriate to post these very wise words that someone sent to an egroup I belong to... Read on and learn!

In the beginning God covered the earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, with green, yellow and red vegetables of all kinds so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.

Then using God's bountiful gifts, Satan created Dairy Ice Cream and Magnums. And Satan said,
"You want hot fudge with that?
And Man said, "Yes!"
And Woman said, "I'll have one too with chocolate chips".
And lo, they gained 10 pounds.

And God created the healthy yoghurt that Woman might keep the figure that Man found so fair.

And Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat and sugar from the cane and combined them.

And Woman went from size 12 to size 14.

So God said, "Try my fresh green salad".

And Satan presented Blue Cheese dressing and garlic croutons on the side.

And Man and Woman unfastened their belts following the repast.

God then said, "I have sent you healthy vegetables and olive oil in which to cook them".

And Satan brought forth deep fried coconut king prawns, butter-dipped lobster chunks and chicken fried steak, so big it needed its own platter.

And Man's cholesterol went through the roof.

Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat and brimming with potassium and good nutrition.

Then Satan peeled off the healthy skin and sliced the starchy centre into chips and deep fried them in animal fats adding copious quantities of salt.

And Man put on more pounds.

God then brought forth running shoes so that his Children might lose those extra pounds.

And Satan came forth with a cable T.V. with remote control so Man would not have to toil changing the channels.

And Man and Woman laughed and cried before the flickering light and started wearing stretch jogging suits.

Then God gave lean beef so that Man might consume fewer calories and still satisfy his appetite.

And Satan created McDonalds and the 99p double cheeseburger.

Then Satan said, "You want fries with that?" and Man replied, "Yes, And super size 'em".

And Satan said, "It is good."

And Man and Woman went into cardiacarrest.

God sighed ......... and created quadruple by-pass surgery.

And then Satan chuckled, and created the National Health Service.

THE FINAL WORD ON NUTRITION

After an exhaustive review of the research literature, here's the final word on nutrition and health:

1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

3. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

4. Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

5. Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Happiness, happiness...

Ah me, the little things that make my heart sing. Particularly at this dull time of year, when I have been feeling like going into enforced hibernation.

A little while back, no 3 took part in a school assembly on the subject of Happiness. She was very keen for me to come, and being the dutiful mother I am I duly obliged, although I have to confess after six years of attending Infant School Assemblies I have more then had my fill. What was all very cute when no 1 did it, and I was happy enough to sit with a babe (no3) on my lap and a toddler (no2) at my side, in order to put off the evil hour when I had to go back home and tackle the housework, now seems like an unwelcome distraction designed to stop me working/running/playing and generally interfering with Project: Get My Life Back.

To add insult to injury, every single time I tip up the assembly seems to go on, and on, and on....

And, so it was on this occasion.

First off it's the birthdays. All the kids who have birthdays that week get up and have the birthday song sung to them. For a school that is notoriously pathetic about Elf and Safety, they bizarrely allow the children to light the candles on the birthday cake. I've never worked that one out...

The birthday song goes:

A Happy Birthday To You
A Happy Birthday To You
Every day of the year may you feel Jesus near (it is a CofE school after all)

A Happy Birthday To You
A Happy Birthday To You
And the best one you've ever had.

It's quite sweet the first time you hear it - but I must be on my millionth odd listening, and I can tell you - IT PALLS....

After that, all the children who've done Good Work get up to proudly show off their pieces. This can take some time, and my heart always sinks when I see the number of books in the pile.

On this occasion one of the year two classes who had been studying poetry, also had to show off their alternative versions of the Ning Nang Nong. Inevitably the word "poo" crept up quite a lot. And in the interests of equality every kid in the class had to be represented - luckily they were working in groups - so this too, took some time.

By the time it was no 3's turn I was itching to get off. She had been most insistent that I came, so I had fondly imagined she might have a starring role. Uh, uh. Her sole contribution was to hold up a picture representing what made her happy.

And, knock me down with a feather. She'd drawn all of us.

Aah, how sweet.

Of course, this made me very happy indeed - her best friend drew her ballet lessons - but I was less then sanguine when I realised she was looking weepy and was feeling so ill I ended up taking her home. Another day of : running/working/Project Get A Life lost to the endless duties of motherhood.

I was pleasantly surprised again when I took them to church on Sunday (I'm an infrequent and semi-lapsed Catholic, but figure they can't reject something they don't understand, so occasionally in a fit of enthusiasm I drag them all out with me on Sunday morning when Spouse is at the gym) - and the subject of their childrens' liturgy was also happiness. Again, no 3 drew all of us and no 4 drew her sisters. A more notable sign that I am doing something right in the parenting stakes I have yet to see...

Nos 1&2 are now too big for such things, so I have no idea about what makes them happy. (Though I would hazard a guess that it's being nowhere near her parents for no 1 and having everyone tell her how wonderful she is for no 2).

However, I was pretty pleased to discover at their parents' evening last week that not only do they seem to be doing pretty well at school (actually no 2 like her dad is incredibly lazy and needs a good kick up the backside - if she gets to it, she could actually do really well), but better than that, their teachers seem to find them funny. They both post little cartoons into their work and create characters with speech bubbles commenting on what they are learning about. No2 did a hilarious one about Jesus' birth and No1 apparently introduced a space man into her talk on the planets.

I don't know why discovering that other people find my children as funny as I do makes me feel like I am floating in a great big bubble of happiness, but for some reason it does.

I can't think where they get it from, I remarked to Spouse when I got back. Easy, he said witheringly, they live with us.

My sister was of the same opinion. Of course they're funny, she said, both their parents are barking. Spouse with his constant DIY (current project: clearing out the garage, building shelves to put all the junk away so he can make the kitcar he's been wanting to build ever since I've known him), and me with my running/writing/blogging/trying to pretend I'm a proper huswif, when quite frankly I'd rather be doing anything else.

So there you have it.

Happiness is having two children who think their happiness is dependent on you. Two who think it isn't.

When the reality is, your happiness is dependent on and entirely due to them. Even if it means you're completely barking....

Oh, and as of yesterday, happiness also included clearing the border outside the front door which has been home to a hideous sprouting triffid like grass, which I have finally dispatched and sent to the great green grass in the sky.

Easily pleased, me...

Everyone Needs a Harry

I had the most wonderful compliment paid to me the other day. I'd given a copy of Pastures New to my neighbour (who's a nurse) as I wanted to check that I'd got medical details right. She very kindly liked the book, but best of all she said, of my character Harry, "Everyone needs a Harry in their lives."

Harry is a pivotal character in the book, and based as he is on my two dads, (he's not the same, but I've drawn on aspects of both their characters) I was dead chuffed. The other nice thing she said was she thought the character had been drawn with love. I hope so. As I genuinely love him too.

I didn't tell mil that Harry was based partly on fil when she read the book, but afterwards, when I mentioned it, she did say she found him familiar. I had actually thought he was more like fil then my own dad, as I've made him a keen gardener and, like fil, he goes to lots of army reunions (my own father was in the navy). However, when Mad Twin read it, she immediately spotted likenesses to my father, which I hadn't even noticed were there, but once she'd said them I realised immediately she was right.

I have just been writing an acknowledgements page - I hope I'm not going to sound like a gushing actress at the Oscars, but I have heaps of people to thank and I'm fretting I'm going to have forgotten someone.

And I also had to provide a dedication.

I've thought long and hard about this. Really, in truth, my first novel ought to be dedicated to my husband, for his stonking support over the years I've been an aspiring writer.

But...

I did dedicate the marathon book to him, and my next novel concerns a dentist, so that has to be his too.

And this one is really so much about love and loss, and moving on.

My neighbour is right. Everyone does need a Harry.

I was lucky enough to have two, though sadly they didn't get too see my name in print.

So the book has to be theirs really.

I agonised about what to say, as I wanted to say something meaningful but not corny.

In the end, I decided simplicity was the key.

So this is what's going in the front of the book.

For Joseph Henry Moffatt and John Douglas (Roger) Williams, for sharing their wisdom

I hope they can read that in heaven...

The Big Snow

So it's finally happened ... The predictions of the weather forecasters were right and we do actually have big snow. And there was me hoping for them to be wrong.

Particularly as the schools in their wisdom decided yesterday that they were ... probably, but not certainly ... going to close in case the staff couldn't get in. Two weeks ago when it snowed, no one knew what to expect, plus there was a major incident on the M25 so all the roads round here were choc a bloc, so when we arrived at school only four teachers were there. On that occasion enough of them eventually pitched up to stop school closures.

Yesterday the letter that came back said that because last time the path was a bit slippery (puh-lease!! I walked four children a mile to school in the snow and they all had a ball and not one of them fell over) and due to the difficulty of staff getting in school might be closed. They couldn't tell us this till 8.30 (inconveniently after Spouse has left with the kids).

I'm not unsympathetic to the difficulties of getting about in the snow. And I appreciate this is the worst we've had in ten years. But, really. Do these people have no backbone? They are after all meant to be providing a public service. Spouse does too, and he's made it in. As have most of his patients. Mil attended a chiropodist's appointment this morning. At NINE o'clock, and her chiropodist had managed to get in.

I do think the message it's sending the kids is wrong. As soon as we have a little difficulty, we just give up. No. No. We bloody well don't. We do our best to get to where we have to be and fulfil the expectations that other people have of us.

As it happens I don't go out to work, but if I did, and my livelihood relied on not letting people down I'd have been in a hell of a fix this morning.

Sooo. When we looked out this morning and saw the weather, I knew that school was going to be in all probability shut, but sent them anyway. I did ring at 8am but no one could give me a definitive answer. I could have not bothered and kept them away, but I wanted to teach my children, even if their bloody schools don't, that you always make an effort whatever the circumstances.

Lest you think I'm totally unsympathetic, I say this as one who has at time taken three hours to get to work as a result of snow/strikes/bomb scares. I think it is utterly pathetic that as soon as we have a bit of snow the country stops. They seem to manage across the continent ok. Why the hell can't we?

I admit I am mainly peeved as having lost three days in the last week to fluey children, I now have another lost day and it's half term next week.

But... on the upside, the kids wouldn't be allowed to enjoy the snow if they were at school (last time they were made to stay inside EVERY playtime), so at least at home they can indulge in dangerous things like snowball fights - and if I have my way and the weather permits, we might even go for a bit of sledging on the downs later - plus I get a legitimate reason to join in too. So it's not all bad news...

Love, Love, Love...

... As we all know makes the world go round. It is also the stuff, the very heart (scuse the pun) of which my writing is made. And as it is Valentine's Day next week, it seems appropriate to talk about the fluffy stuff.

For you see, dear reader, I am that pernicious thing, a romantic novelist. There. I've come out, admitted the shameful fact, that I write about love. And, oh look, the sky hasn't fallen in, you aren't all bombarding me with pearls, and I can assure you, I'm not wearing pink.

On Saturday night I watched a film which made me go, aaaaahhhh, in that lovely gooey way you do, when after much travail and tribulation the guy gets the gal and all ends up right with the world, and you know, you just KNOW that somehow because you've seen it in a film, it is more acceptable then seeing it in a book.

Because for reasons I can't quite fathom, the most shameful place to be a writer is the corner of the literary genre that encompasses romantic fiction. And yet a romantic comedy is big box office material and never seems to get the same stick. Why is that I wonder? Apart from the obvious fact that most of ours successful rom coms appear to be directed by Richard Curtis aka He Who Can Do No Wrong, I think perhaps it is the fact that in a film we don't have to work so hard as we do in a book to fall into the characters' lives, so we can get swept up in their story, in a way we can't in a book. Or not so easily.

Take, for instance, Four Weddings and A Funeral, a film I really love (apart from Andie Mc Dowell whose character I find intensely irritating). Something that has always puzzled me however, is how all the characters actually know one another. They all appear fully formed in the first wedding and apart from pitching up at the subsequent ones and the funeral, I never get any sense that these people actually have a proper connection with each other except on state occasions. You could never get away with that in a book where you need to give your characters depth and background. Admittedly the depth does come in Four Weddings at the funeral, but only because it's John Hannah reading that Auden poem. I don't think another actor would have carried it off.

So maybe that's it, perhaps it is the actors that make rom coms acceptable to a cinema audience in the way they aren't to a bookish audience. But I blame that Barbara Cartland meself. Her reach is so long that even Matt Lucas has to impersonate her (though I am not so churlish that I don't find that character very funny). But as anyone who knows anything about romantic fiction is aware, it is a very broad church.

I am hugely proud to be a member of the Romantic Novelist's Association, whose members include: Mills and Boon authors, like Julie Cohen, Penny Jordan and Sophie Weston, saga writers like Benita Brown and Anna Jacobs, chick lit authors like Kate Harrison , historical authors such as Elizabeth Chadwick, bestsellers like Katie Fforde and Jill Mansell. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

The point about romantic fiction surely is that we are writing about an aspect of human experience that surely everyone has some form of empathy with. If you've never been in love/found that perfect someone, for most people that really is the ideal, isn't it?

Which takes me neatly back to my film. I love watching rom coms, and I think I can always learn from them - Richard Curtis is just a genius at creating romantic tension. I laughed like a drain all the way through the last Vicar of Dibley, and loved the conceit that everyone kept saying that Richard Armitage was a boring accountant and why was she marrying him, which totally diverted from the fact that, let's face it, in real life he wouldn't have been marrying her.That's what the best romantic stories do - take us to a place we know isn't real, but gives us such a warm afterglow it makes our dull lives just that bit brighter. Margaret Atwood refers to it in Lady Oracle, where her heroine who writes Gothic Romances in secret, talks about building castles in the air for the girls she was at school with, now chained to the kitchen sink, their romantic ideals long since worn away.

The film I watched on Saturday pressed all those buttons to perfection. It's called Confetti, and I think it should be required watching for anyone who wants to write rom coms.

The basic premise is that Confetti, a wedding mag run by Jimmy Carr is running a competition to find the couple with the most unusal wedding.

The three couples who are chosen to compete with each other are:

Josef and Isobel - an insanely competitive tennis couple played by Stephen Mangan and Meredith McNeill

Michael and Joanna - a naturist couple who plan to get married naked, played by Robert Webb and Olivia Colman

Matt and Sam - who want to have a musical wedding, and are played by Martin Freeman and Jessica Stephenson.

The magazine hire a couple of wedding planners, called Archie and Gregory who inevitably are gay, but boy do they subvert expectations, which is another thing I think all good romantic stories should do.

To begin with you think they are taking control - one of them says at one point, it's our wedding. But gradually you realise, that actually they are giving control to each of the couples. So they subtly tease Matt and Sam away from the overbearing influence of Sam's mum and sister who want to organise the dancing to suit them (Sam's sister dances in cruise ships and is trying to overrule the choreographer hired by the wedding planners). At another point Michael and Joanna discover that the magazine doesn't want them to be nude, and Archie says, that despite what other people think it should be Archie and Gregory's job to give them what they want. In another glorious scene, in which Stephen Mangan (who has anger issues) is trying to beat up his fiance's tennis coach in a jealous rage, Gregory leaps on top of him, gets him in arm lock and says, you don't get to be the only gay at a public school without learning something.

From having thought they would be stereotypes at the beginning, Archie and Gregory actually steal the show, by producing three glorious weddings which are immensely touching. My favourites was the nudists, which I thought would be funny, but instead brought a tear to my eye, even though the poems they read to one another could have come across as naff and corny. The tennis wedding was brilliantly staged, and Stephen Mangan performed the same trick he did in Green Wing of making me hate him, and then end up feeling sorry for him, and even at that particular moment liking him. The musical wedding inevitably won (though wonderfully the DVD does offer alternative endings), just because it was so dazzlingly shot and cleverly executed. And I loved the ending of the song Jessica Stephenson and Martin Freeman sang one another, where he sings I do, and her response is Me, too.

The icing on the cake as it were, was in the outtakes when Gregory proposes to Archie in another immensely affecting moment.

If I could ever ever produce a book which engendered the emotions that that film has created in me, I would die a very happy woman...

In the meantime, the bar is set high, I have a lot to aim for, and a novel to get on with.

Best get to it then...

The First Step Along the Road

.... Well, I've finally done it. I've broken my duck and written 1122 words today. 1122 words that are crap no doubt. But it's a start.

The trouble with this writing malarkey now that I am committed as it were, is that all seems incredibly daunting this time round. And I am terribly conscious that I am very lazy and where in the past I have got away with fudging issues and not describing things in detail, I can't anymore.

So now I am angsting about my heroine, who I have just sent to a London night club, and thinking, should I go and visit a dive like I've described - being so old now I don't tend to hang out in these places. Her career choice as a lawyer I know is going to give me a headache, unless I do give her an office life that bears more resemblance to lawyers you see on TV. Best start watching that new programme with all those twenty somethings in then.

I should also go out and buy copies of Heat and OK so I can get the lowdown on how zedlebrities really operate (with thanks to Danuta Kean for that fabulous word) - as the bete noire of my hero is one.

Why oh why do we do it? I thought this book was going to be easier then the last one.

I fear it is going to be more difficult...

Still it was satisfying to meet my characters at last. And I did enjoy giving my zedlebrity a rather dubious claim to fame...

Maybe by next week I might have got up to a couple of thousand words....

Education, Education, Education...

I have blogged about my feelings on the subject of primary school kids doing homework before now(http://maniacmum.blogspot.com/2005/11/homework-heaven.html), namely I think it is a total waste of time, and worse still something else to bash us poor beleagured mothers over the heads with. (Sound familiar Mad Muthas???).

The way my childrens' schools operate, they start getting homework in Year One. When they're FIVE, for god's sake. This usually consists of one sheet for practising handwriting (which we never get through without a huge row ensuing, along the lines of my hand hurts - I'm not bleeding surprised, are you?), a piece of maths (or numeracy as we now have to call it) and a piece of English (or in brave new world eduspeak, literacy). This is actually more then the older kids get when they go into the juniors. So for the past two years, as no 3 struggles through her homework on a Friday, no 2 who is two years older sits and contemplates her navel (or more likely plays with her new dollshouse) as the only homework she gets is spellings, which are so laughably easy, she never even has to learn them.

Years 5 & 6 I have discovered to my chagrin are, to paraphrase Cap'n Jack in Torchwood, where it all changes. From no homework we suddenly leap to homework three times a week and punitive measures if it is not completed. The kids get three lifelines a year, and lose one each time they forget to do their homework. When they've lost them all they get a detention. Last year, no 1 lost one for not bringing in some silver foil for a science project. And get this. It WASN'T her fault. I was busy sorting out packed lunches, she asked me to get her some foil (which sits on top of a cupboard she can't reach), I said, yes, yes, in a minute, and promptly forgot, Spouse was taking them to school and rushed them out of the door, so she forgot her blasted tin foil, and lost a life in the process. As the Yanks say, go figure.

Year 5's literacy homework also nearly did my head in being as it mainly involved writing a novel. Ok, ok, I should be pleased about this, but... every week no 1 wrote a chapter in class, it was marked, and then, GET THIS, the literacy book came home for the whole thing to be typed up on the computer. Because of course, we have to make things look good even if they're crap (actually it was rather good, but it wasn't tidy), so everything gets printed off from the computer and put in a glossy file under the mistaken impression that this somehow makes the work better. It doesn't. No wonder so many young authors think that if they present their work in a spangly fashion, with a myriad of different typefaces that clash wildly, it will make them noticed. (It won't - plain and simple is still always the best approach, and if you can't write making it jazzy won't fool an editor, but that's another story.)

Our children are being encouraged from the moment they can tap a keyboard that all they need to do is key any old rubbish in, and so long as it looks good enough they will be rewarded for their efforts. And most importantly of course, if they are doing a project, they must go to that fount of all knowledge, the internet. Never mind that they might end up plagiarising stuff, or that alot of the information they find comes from very dubious sources (like one of no 1's friends telling me solemnly aged 7 that she'd learnt on the internet that Mary Queen of Scots was Henry VII's daughter), the point is the internet is being held up like the Holy Grail, and no other source of information is good enough. I feel immensely sorry for the poor sods whose parents can't afford a computer, and believe me, even in leafy Surrey they do exist. I'm not saying computers should be excluded by the way, just they don't have to be the first point of call, and kids should be encouraged to interpret the information they get from them, not regurgitate it pe se.

Given those are my views, you can see how delighted I was to read in yesterday's papers that some think tank has come up with the notion that primary school children don't benefit from homework. Yay, yay, and double yay! I knew I wasn't alone in this thought. In the tv bulletin I saw the other night, I even heard a teacher say it causes too much stress at home. Too bloody right it does. You should have seen the steam coming out of my ears the other night, when far from having no homework (as is normal) no 2 suddenly announced one Wednesday night after she'd been to brownies, when it was too late to do it, that she had an art project to be completed the next day (or risk losing a lifeline - apparently this pernicious system has worked it's way down to year 4). However, she did get up at 6 the next day to do it, so I suppose she learnt something about the importance of deadlines.

I do hope that this report gets taken seriously. Our kids are over tested, over stressed and pushed enough at school, and since the advent of SATs and the National Curriculum, a lot of what they learn is less about the knowledge they gain and more about their ability to press the right buttons. Like rats in a run, if they can make the light go red, then they tick the boxes prescribed by an unimaginative and anti-intellectual government. By the way Nic, if you're reading, I am definitely not blaming teachers for this - the system is at fault, not you guys, who in the main do an incredibly difficult job in ever more complex circumstances. (That doesn't apply to the teachers who are currently teaching nos 1 &3 for their SATs tests in May, who are so caught up in the whole thing they can no longer see how barking it is to say about a child, as one of them said to me in September, she's only a 2b, she'll have to work much harder to get a 3, like I really care...)

The sooner someone says no homework for the under 11s the better say I. I never had to do homework at primary school and I seem to have ended up reasonably educated. And at least it will give me one less thing to clash with the sprogs on...

On the subject of my own homework. You will notice the counter still hasn't moved. I know. I know. I have had other work to do this week, all right. I hope to have achieved something by Friday....

A Word on my Words...

I have spent the last nine years trying to write novels. In that time, I have completed three adult novels, and two children's novels, self published my account of the marathon, and had two picture books published. For most of it, I was simultaneously struggling with small children and holding onto the tattered remnants of my publishing career by existing as a freelance editor. My writing, therefore has always come at the bottom of my massive To Do List.

But, since the most majorly exciting (professsional) event of my adult life, namely that Cinderella is going to the ball and getting her book published, all that has changed.

I have spent the weeks pre and post Christmas working incredibly hard on the rewrites of Pastures New, which was a lot more difficult then I had ever envisaged. (To anyone whom I have ever edited, and sent away with pages of editorial notes, my deep and humble apologies. I had no idea what I was asking you to do).

I spent the days leading up to Christmas skulking around behind the scenes of my novel, performing invisible mending (if you like me, are a fan of Jasper Fforde's wonderful Tuesday Next series, you will get this analogy), and trying to tie up all the ends so they didn't show. I've never been much good at sewing, so I'm hoping the seams hold.

It was a very intense and quite draining experience, and all my mummy friends in the playground were witness to me being more then usually vague when it came to pick up time. But eventually, I did it, and sent it off to my editor, without a clue as to whether it was any good or not. I had lost total sight of and was heartily sick of all my characters by then, and wondered why on earth I thought this whole shebang was worth doing.

I was therefore hugely relieved, when my editor (to whom I owe huge thanks for turning something that was ok, into something, which I think is probably a lot better) rang after Christmas to say she liked it, but there was still more work to do. The first bit was a structural alteration, and the second lot of edits were the line edits - dotting the ts and crossing the is - less intense but more fiddly. I nearly went into meltdown when she sent it to me electronicallly with the comments incorporated in the text - though I do edit electronically, I've been out of the real world for so long I'm a tad behind, and anyway, I'm still old fashioned enough to like to read and correct hard copy - but once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad.

So last week I sent it winging back to her, and it is now being copyedited, which will no doubt throw up a few more queries, but the bulk of my work is done.

After nearly four years spending time with my characters, Amy, Ben, Saffron and Harry, it's time to say farewell (I have to confess, they've been part of my life so long, it is a wrench to let them go), and say hello to my new bunch.

Enter, stage left: Mark, Emily, Rob and Katie - all of whom have been champing at the bit for months to get me to take notice of them.

I've had a loose plot in my head for yonks, featuring these guys, and when out on the school run, or pounding the downs, I've mentally written and rewritten the first chapter dozens of times, and have been champing along with them to just Get On With It.

So why is it, dear reader, that now I am finally here, and have cleared all my other work, I find it nigh on impossible to get going?

Part of the problem is actually the publishing deal itself. Up until now, I was playing at writing, but with a contract suddenly I have people having expectations of me. Not that that's not nice, it's great . But it is a tad scary. Suddenly from being the strange little hobby my husband lets me indulge in, this has actually become a job. Probably the best job you can have in the world, if like me, you live a lot in your head, but still... it's all a tad daunting.

So to help me out, I have entered Kate Harrison's Great Novel Race. Kate like me is a member of the Romantic Novelist's Association - the most wonderful organisation I know in publishing - and is the author of Old School Ties, The Starter Marriage and Brown Owl's Guide to Life. She's organised the race to spur herself and other writers on to help us meet our deadlines.

My deadline is not till the end of the year, and I have a target word count of 100 000 - you'll notice the word counter I've added to the side of the blog still says 0 - so not far to go then...

But given, that a) I'm really really good at procrastinating and b) I am going to lose at least ten weeks of my deadline to school holidays (let alone when they're sick) and c) I can only work between the hours of 9.30 and 3 anyway, I think I need all the help I can get.

So if you'll excuse me, I am halfway through doing a more focussed plan of my new story which has been a tad vague up until now, (I have written over 1000 words of THAT) and I hope that I will soon be able to start the race proper. I am way behind my fellow runners - but like the tortoise I plan to get there in the end - so a booby prize is all I can expect, but at least I have some other comrades to cheer me on my way.

Who knows, by the end of the day, you may see the 0 creep up to a few hundred.

But don't hold your breath....

Snow

So this is what it looked like in my back garden today...





The kids obviously were thrilled. Last time it snowed here to any great significance nos 3& 4 were still in the double buggy. I can still remember the fun of slaloming to school (not...)

Funnily enough the fact that all this white stuff had fallen out of the sky in the night was enough to have everyone up and out of the door before you could sneeze.

I made them all wrap up warm and put on their fleece lined boots which have languished in a cupboard for a year since Spouse had the bright idea of buying them from Millets, and off we trotted through the allotments.

We were the first to make our mark on the snow, so the children had great fun spotting animal tracks - mainly cats it has to be said, but we did see a couple of foxes. Normally, I am pretty anti foxes (bring back hunting I say) as they poo all over my garden, but I have to fess up and say the sight of one striding through the snow is something to behold.

By the time we arrived at school, kids were all covered in snow from chucking snowballs at one another. (The only ones they are likely to get to throw, Elf and Safety no doubt ensuring that they won't get another chance at school).

Elf and Safety had gone walkabout when we arrived though, as only four teachers had made it into the junior school. So merry mayhem ensued as I walked the little ones across the playground to their school. No 4 couldn't have been wetter if she tried.

I had intended to go swimming, but discovering there was a possibility the kids could get sent home if enough staff didn't turn up, I decamped back to my friend's house for a civilised cup of tea instead.

By the time we knew the kids were staying it was too late for a swim, so I wandered back through a rather watery wintry wonderland instead. No doubt it will have all melted when I go to pick the kids up, but while I feel for anyone who has to commute in this weather, it is nice to have some proper snow for once. Finally, the seasons are doing what they are supposed to. Not good news for my poor daffs who had brazenly been pushing their way up assuming that winter wasn't happening this year, or for the onion sets we recently planted, which looked distinctly chilly under a blanket of snow. But... it doesn't happen often.

And for the first time since I've been visiting my Ozzie friends' blogs and fantasising about sunshine, I'm enjoying some PROPER January weather. (Sorry, Bec, but the beach and January don't go together ever, when you've been brought up here!)

The skies are still grey, so there's an outside chance of more to come.

I do hope so.

As a) I'm dying to make a snowman and b)if it lasts till the weekend, we can go sledging.

Who says snow doesn't speak to the kid in us all?

CBB Again....

Sorry about this, really I am, but...

Last night have to fess up that we did watch, because I wanted to see for myself what this alleged racist bullying was all about. And boy were we in for a show.

Actually, I'm not convinced that the bullying is racist particularly (apparently Jermaine called Jade white trailer trash and got away with that ), but it is deeply unpleasant. My feeling is that it is mainly motivated by jealousy, and it is actually a class thing. Shilpa is beautiful, well educated, and let's face it speaks English a hundred times better then Jade and co (a point which she wasn't slow to make last night). Jade is only famous for being on a reality tv show, otherwise she would still be in the gutter. Danielle is famous for shagging a footballer and winning/losing Miss Great Britain (and I do believe the shagging was first) and Jo was famous for being in a teen band and has clearly lost her way.

Last night we had the excruciating spectacle of Jade repeatedly asking Shilpa when she lost her virginity. Apart from the obvious do we care? answer to this, it was so bleedin' ignorant of her. Just because Jade is an old slapper, doesn't mean everyone is, and she appears incapable of opening her mind up enough to cope with the idea that other cultures don't embrace their sexuality in the way we do. The more I see of Shilpa the more I think modern day India is clearly superior to modern day England. Your average poor man on the street in Delhi is striving striving to do better, get his kids educated, find a way out of the poverty trap. While here? We seem to revel in ignorance and dumbing down. The only way anyone wants to improve themselves is without any effort, ie, going on a crap show like BB, getting their five minutes in the sun and making money out of nothing. And a whole generation is growing up thinking this is what they should aspire to. I'd say way to go Channel 4, but to fair to them, they're only tapping into the zeit geist.

But onto the big business of last night: namely the row between Shilpa and Jade over an oxo cube.

Granted Shilpa did make rather a big deal out of something not that important (but then if I'd spent over a week being got at by three snide little bitches, I guess I'd find it hard to descend to their petty level), but bloody hell.

Jade was absolutely foul. She let rip, screamed abuse, misunderstood Shilpa, who realised she had made a linguistic mistake and instead of saying oxo was the one thing she'd ordered, corrected herself and said it was the only thing she'd ordered. She apologised for her mistake as this misunderstanding had set the row off, and Jade continued to scream abuse and call her a liar. What was worse was that Jo and Danielle giggled throughout this shocking display as if Jade's behaviour was somehow hilarious. Danielle also added at one point I wish she'd go home.

Now what I found also shocking, was that apart from Jermaine (is he the mole? He seems to be winding Shilpa up something chronic) who intervened to separate the women, no one did anything. Cleo, who wrings her hands alot and clearly wants to mother the younger ones SHOULD in my view have had a go at them all, but instead we saw her comforting Jade later. And when she had a chat with Shilpa she told her Jade wasn't racist (yeah, right) and she didn't know what the problem was. Now granted, we may not have been shown parts where Cleo was wading into try and sort things out, but the Jade is not racist tag smacked of a set up.

This seemed clearer then ever when we witnessed Danielle in the diary room. At first she affected nonchalance and said nothing much had happened that day and it had been boring. Crikey, her life must be one long cat fight if she found that little exchange dull.

Clearly Big Brother filled her in on events, because you could see the penny drop suddenly when she was asked why she thought Shilpa should go home. Oh my god I didn't mean to be racist, was what she wanted to say - but where would she have got that idea from, hm? By the end of the interview she was solemnly saying she realised she had followed the crowd and now she felt really bad. If anyone believes that display of contriteness they're easily fooled. She's desperately trying to claw her way out of a hole. Watch her drop Jade like a ton of bricks...

There were funny moments though - Shilpa telling Jade that she was only famous for a tv show (and didn't that touch a nerve!) and Jermaine in the diary room ruminating that Jade was trying to be in control of - what exactly? - in a few week's they're all out of there - certainly lightened the tone.

But overall, I think it was one of the most unpleasant things I've ever witnessed. I thought Channel Four had scraped the bottom of the barrel with last year's freak show, but apparently not. In order to boost ratings we'll stir up a racist controversy. It is deeply deeply irresponsible and could do a great deal of harm for race relations in this country. I said yesterday I thought Jade and her cronies would be crucified when they came out, and rather uncharitably that they deserved to be. I meant by the tabloid press, who are surely going to have a field day. But really it could be much worse. Channel Four apparently have received death threats. There are some crazy people out there, and surely Jade and her chums are going to be targets of hate mail and possibly worse now. I wonder how those Channel Four execs will feel if one of them gets badly hurt?

Sadly, I think this whole sorry mess will actually boost the ratings further and make BB a cert to stay on our screens for some time to come.

But this time, I really won't be watching.

Celebrity Big Brother

Well in for a penny, in for a pound. Everyone seems to be talking about this today, so I may as well put my two penn'orth in.

I don't usually watch BB, because while I thought the first series was genuinely groundbreaking tv, over the last seven years it appears to me to have become either more and more debauched (I can remember turning on once to watching girls mudwrestling - even Ben Elton's very funny piss take of BB in Dead Famous never imagined anything quite so revolting), or nastier all in the name of "entertainment" and pulling in the ratings. Let's be clear here, we are not seeing what actually happens in the house, we see what the programme makers want us to see. Half the time when you watch it live you can't hear what people say, presumably for the editors to play around/make the contestants appear to be acting in a certain way. Personally, I think it's bread and circus tv, and I wouldn't normally bother with it.

However, I have been watching this series on and off because I am about to start my next novel which doesn't feature reality tv as such, but is going to (I hope) cock a snook at the mad celebrity obsessed world which we seem to inhabit. Ever felt you've walked through the Looking Glass? Me too.

Without giving too many details away I do have a zedlebrity character (that is such a great word!) whose name will begin with J (but she's not called Jade) who is going to drag my hero into an insane world he never wanted to enter.

To start with CBB seemed ok really. I was astonished to see Ken Russell there, and it was very funny seeing how none of the younger ones knew who he was. Mind you, I don't know who half the other contestants are either, but then I don't read Heat mag (except for research purposes). I thought the guy who did a bunk when he found out Jade Goody was coming was hilarious (but was that not completely set up? He just happened to find a foothold, and when he was up over the wall there seemed to be a convenient gantry to walk down. How handy).

In the main to begin with I thought people seemed actually quite nice to each other. I was surprised and found it quite refreshing when the contestants seemed genuinely upset that they were split up into the servants' quarters and the posh bit. Though it was very post modern to have Jade Goody's family with servants.

Jade at the point also surprised me. She too seemed upset about the way the house had been divided, and she also came down hard (quite rightly in my view) on her appalling mother who refused to pronounce Shilpa's name properly.

I then lost sight of the programme for a bit, relying mainly on the internet to find the amusing news that first Ken and then Leo had pulled out. It seemed to me that CBB was heading for flop status of the highest order.

But then. Tantara, suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of a racist controversy.

Don't get me wrong, I missed the relevant episodes but the reported comments made by Jade and co are deeply offensive and unnecessary. More importantly they are plain stupid, and show Jade, Jo and Danielle up for the bigoted morons they undoubtedly are. Shilpa has come out of the whole thing in an incredibly dignified fashion, and good on her I say. I did see last night when she calmly sat in the diary room and said she wasn't bothered one bit by Jade and what hurts you makes you stronger. It was a consummate performance and good luck to her. I hope she wins now.

It does strike me though, that if Channel Four were panicking about ratings, and the success of the show, then this was a brilliant way of getting everyone talking about it. Which apparently we all are. And lest you think I'm a cynic, apparently yesterday pulled the third largest number of viewers for the series. Surprise, surprise.

I feel deeply heartened that over fourteen thousand people in this country care enough about people behaving like racist bullies that they bother to write to a tv programme to say they don't think it acceptable behaviour on our tv screens. It gives me hope that we aren't as I often think, witnessing the fall of Rome.

But...

There are questions being asked in Parliament.

There are apparently effigies of Channel Four execs being burned in India.

Is it me, or is this just a little excessive?

I think Shilpa's family have taken exactly the right tack - they've issued a brilliantly calm and dignified email in which they express thanks that so many people in the UK have supported their daughter and that she is strong enough to withstand the bullying. I think she is too.

But it really shouldn't be happening, and Channel Four should be ashamed of themselves that they have sunk so low in their search for controversy to let it happen. Deeply ironic from a company which has always had projecting a positive image of minorities as part of its remit.

I do think it is educative though, to us as a nation. For those bigoted tiny souls out there who think Jade and co are right (and sadly I think they exist) perhaps they might compare Jade, Danielle and Jo's small minded bitchiness with the calm and dignified response from Shilpa and her family. I know who I think is more civilised.

And to leave on a positive, which I shamelessly have pinched from the Jeremy Vine show it was so good. Wouldn't it be hilarious if Jade Goody was the person who caused the demise of Big Brother.

Now that's what I would call a result....

Cooking up a Storm

Me. I like cooking. It's just making meals every single day that bores me.

So I was thoroughly delighted when no 1 received a copy of Sam Stern's Cooking up a Storm for Christmas. To those not in the know, this is a fantastic cookery book for teens written by an improbable cooking prodigy. However, I'm not complaining, I tried his scones recipe and it was fantastic. Plus, if my children learn to cook from him, in a few years time I can put my feet up, while they LOOK after me (ah bliss). I am trying to get them trained to see that cleaning bathrooms isn't something their mother should always do, but funnily enough that doesn't seem to have quite the same appeal.

However, the cooking thing seems to be really tickling their fancy. So the other week, no 1 announced she wanted to cook us a meal. She and no 2 poured over recipes in the book before plumping for pizza and chocolate roulade. Actually, this wasn't quite as straightforward as it sounds as they made the mistake of consulting their little sisters about the menu and no 3 refused point blank to eat chocolate roulade (not that she knew what it was, but still...) and then going off to have a huge strop. As this is par for course at the moment with no 3 (she seems to have taken over from no 2 as my drama queen. It is REALLY trying to have not just one, but TWO middle children), everyone of course ignored her.

We then realised that the roulade recipe called for five eggs, and of course we didn't have any (mainly because Spouse does the shopping and he doesn't like eggs, so ergo he doesn't buy any. It never occurs to him that you can use eggs elsewhere in cooking, and just because HE doesn't like fried eggs, other people might). Neither did we have any chocolate. So the chefs had to go to the local corner shop before they left - though not before they had made the dough for the pizza. I think they both need a few lessons in forward planning before they really get the hang of this cookery thing, but at least their dough was rising while they were shopping. (Miraculously, I did have yeast in the house.)

They came trotting back from the shops and then, with a bit of supervision they made a really yummy roulade mixture. Separating the yolks from the whites was a little interesting and no 2 spent rather a long time fishing egg shell out of the bowl, but we got their in the end. The only trouble was I had a very thin baking tray, so while the roulade cooked beautifully and tasted scrumptious, roulade like it was not, as the whole thing crumbled up when we got it off the tray. Never mind... it was rather an ambitious thing to cook on your first attempt.

This weekend we held a dinner party and no 1 rather startled me by offering to make the starter. Call me a control freak, but I like to plan my menus myself, even if I leave it to the last minute (a trait that never fails to infuriate Spouse, who can't understand why, on Wednesday I cannot think far enough ahead to Saturday and work out what we're having.) He and no 1 plumped on making vegetable kebabs using tomato/feta/olives, which didn't really go with my plan of chicken in wine and onion sauce, but hey ho, I cannot complain about no 1's culinary enthusiasm.

She also decided to cook burgers and potato wedges for our friends' children who were coming round too, but having still not worked out that cooking takes time, she left it till the last minute. So while I was in the bath, Spouse took over and defrosted some burgers for her, though she did do the wedges.

I am now looking forward to her suggestion for next weekend. Is she going to try rack of lamb or herby chicken? Anything but pizza again (they made so much first time, we froze two and had them for Saturday lunch)...

If she'll let me, I'll teach her how to do a roast, and then I won't have anything to do on Sundays.

In the meantime, I can thoroughly recommend Sam Stern's book to anyone with children old enough to cook. It is quite possibly the best investment you're ever likely to make...

Is It Me?

As my favourite Radio 2 DJ would say.

I have been pondering the fact that though I am probably completely out of tune with the rest of the world and am about to commit a sacreligious act, by even thinking it, let alone saying it, I just don't get the Beatles.

There. Now I feel much better.

Don't get me wrong.

I was born half way through the sixties so the Beatles formed the soundtrack to my early life. When I was a teenager everything was retro sixties, and to those of us who boogied our way through the eighties there was always some slight feeling of having been cheated that being in nappies at the time, we somehow missed out on the biggest decade of the twentieth century. (Mind you, maybe that's just youth - my niece felt the same about the eighties...)

Nearly every party I went to in my teens featured I Want to Hold Your Hand/Hard Day's Night/All You Need is Love etc, so maybe my feeling of bafflement about the Fab Four as I approach middle age is simple ennui. I was overexposed to them at such a tender age, it is no wonder that now I can't bear to listen.

But actually, the simple truth for me was, that once I got to hear the Kinks, the Stones, the Zombies, I just felt the Beatles were overrated. Sure they wrote some catchy numbers, but maybe they only hit the big time because they were there first... I wasn't even born when they had their first no 1 so how should I know. And anything John Lennon wrote on his own was just a pile of crap as far as I'm concerned. I always fantasised about having some rock god writing me a fabulous song when I was young. But Woman would have had me pouring water on his head (Had it been Layla, then you'd be talking...) And as for Imagine. Well. What a load of idealistic nonsense that was. Possibly the most pretentious piece of musical writing in the history of pop music.

Still.

The Beatles.

They are iconic.

And we have just been given the new George Martin remix album for Christmas.

Spouse put it on in the car while we were driving back from Shropshire, and I have to say I listened with great anticipation. Maybe George would reach the aural parts that normal Beatle tracks couldn't...

I have to confess it was a little tricky listening, as the kids were watching a DVD at the time, but I got the general gist, and the answer is ...

Nope.

Sorry George it didn't work.

At least not for me.

All you need is love irritates the hell out of me more then ever.

I am the Walrus is plain stupid.

And Hey Jude sounds even wetter twenty years on. (We always used to hate that one as kids).

Having said that the ones that always worked for me: Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna and While My Guitar Gently Weeps still blow my mind.

But - is it me? This album has been hyped to death. Does it really sound so different?

I didn't think so.

But then.

I'm not a big Beatles fan. And I don't really get it.

But then I don't get: Big Brother, Russell Brand or Pop Idol either.

There's obviously no hope for me...

There are mushrooms growing in my bathroom...

I kid you not.

Spouse got up this morning to have a bath and came back with the astounding news that we appear to have some fungal growth underneath the sink.

This news in fact is less astounding when I tell you the story of our bathroom...

Be warned it's not pretty.

We moved into our current abode nearly eleven years ago. We were fortunate to purchase at the moment before house prices rocketed (a year later and we couldn't have afforded it), but the downside was we bought a house from an old lady which was in dire need of an overhaul. The place had to be rewired immediately, and before our first winter set in we had to get some heating in place.

Apart from that and decorating no 1's bedroom we did little else in that first year (oh, we did cover the vile bright orange kitchen walls in magnolia just to make it look vaguely respectable).

In our second year of habitation, though, we really got going with a vengeance. The lounge and dining room were redecorated, the front drive was ripped out and a concrete base put in ready for our pyrotechnical builder's mate to lay a driveway at the point in time when all concreting at the back of the house had been finished (several years later as it turned out, but we weren't to know that then).

In the meantime we turned our attention to the room that has become our bathroom. We were sold the house as a five bedroomed abode, on the basis of this room. Given that is off our bedroom, the only convenient way of using at as another bedroom would have been to put a corridor in our own room and making that much smaller. So we decided to make an ensuite bathroom instead. As this would have been rather large, we also decided to divide it in half and rather pretentiously to make the room between the bathroom and our bedroom a dresssing room. We realised quite quickly this was a silly idea, so now it's actually my office. A bit odd I know, but it does mean I can check my emails while the bath is running.

Anyway, back to our bathroom.

The course of construction didn't run smooth. Mainly because initially we used a mate from our local (generally known as Trigger, so I think you can probably guess where this is heading) to help out. Spouse felt sorry for him at the time because he was out of work. I did too, to begin with. However after watching him scratch his head and ponder problems for hours, that even I could see solutions to (but I am A GIRL, THEREFORE I KNOW NOTHING), I got rather fed up with having Trigger on the premises. The crunch came when he came downstairs and told me he'd spent over an hour trying to work out which way the architrave slotted together. Now call me stupid, but actually although it is the kind of thing you say, oh yes it could be that way, really looking at it logically there is only one way architrave goes. And if you can't work it out, GO AND LOOK AT ANOTHER DOORWAY! My response was to say just go that way, I don't really care, it's for a bathroom door, no one but me and Spouse are going to look at it, but Trigger wasn't going to let me make such an important decision. Heaven forfend. He might have had to do some work. Instead he downed tools for the day and met Spouse in the pub later to discuss this important issue over a pint.

Scroll on a few months and we were ready to get the bathroom fitted. By now Trigger was working with another decorator mate of ours, and together they were going to tile and decorate the bathroom. We got a plumber of our accquaintance in to do the plumbing, and a Sparky we had known a long time to wire up the shower.

First off, we discovered somewhat belatedly that our Sparky who's always been a heavy drinker (ok we did meet him in the pub) has gone severely off the rails since his wife left him, and now shakes rather alarmingly when he's at work. (The DTs are not something you really want your Sparky to suffer from, but we didn't know anyone else at the time). He was also somewhat less then reliable. Spouse was having enormous trouble getting him to the new surgery he had just opened up at the time, and when he did get Sparky there, the light fittings he put in were questionably dangerous. It's a miracle our shower hasn't caused a housefire yet...

Thanks to several non appearances from Sparky, we ended up in a situation where no one could proceed to the next part of the job, because he hadn't fitted the wiring for the shower. The plumber couldn't fit the shower till he'd done his bit, and without the shower being in place the tiles couldn't be done. Everyone fell out and they were all blaming each other. There is no honour among builders...

At one point I was threatening to lock them all in the room and not let them out till they'd finished, but somehow eventually the job got done.

At the same time our bedroom was being decorated, so we were in the spare room next door. By now I was heavily pregnant with no 2, and the chaos caused by her arrival meant it was some months before we got back into our own room and started to use our lovely shiny new bathroom.

The first problem we discovered was that the shower didn't work. It was still within guarantee so I called the man out to find that far from it not working, the bloody thing had been fitted so close to the tiles that the switch didn't work properly. The buggers charged me a call out fee as it wasn't covered under guarantee. Of course by now it was too late to get Trigger and friends to pay for that, besides which none of them would admit responsibility.

Problem two was that the taps on the sink are at such an angle that when you turn them off, the last drip runs back down the tap and pools on the top of the sink. If you don't turn the taps off incredibly tightly the sink ends up overflowing onto the carpet (now are you surprised we have mushrooms in our bathroom?)

We checked with the plumber who said it was the fault of the manufacturers. They claimed it was the way it had been fitted. The decorators claimed it wasn't their fault. So we were stuck with it.

To add insult to injury within weeks I dropped something heavy onto the side of the sink and smashed a bit off, ensuring when the leaks occurred they quickly became a flood. The cold tap developed a permanent leak which couldn't be resolved except by shutting it off. We live in a hard water area and Spouse is constantly changing the washers on the bath and the sink.

We also made the mistake of buying a spa bath - Spouse got excited by using one in a hotel we had been in. It was fiercely expensive and is actually a damned nuisance. The pipes get clogged up and we hardly ever use it as we're both a bit paranoid about it harbouring legionnaire's disease (I swill it out from time to time with bleach, but still...)

A further problem ensued when we realised how cold and damp the room is. None of our helpful builders had the wit to notice there are no party walls on the outside, so within weeks our lovely shiny paintwork was peeling off, we have damp in the ceiling which we have dealt with about three times now, and I have come to hate the room with a vengeance.

Rip it out and start again, I hear you cry. Well, yes, I agree, that's what it needs. But to do it properly we have to smash up the tiles and properly insulate the walls and start again. Ok, the sink is a nightmare and needs replacing, but the bath is perfectly ok (legionnaire's disease not withstanding). I appreciate I am probably out of step with today's throwaway culture, but I balk at replacing a bathroom which is less then ten years old and still works.

However.

Mushrooms.

In my bathroom.

I think it's time to throw principles to the wind.

Bathroom shops, here I come...

In the meantime I have a mushroom outbreak to deal with.

Suggestions anyone?


Oh ... and a happy New Year to one and all. Do hope yours has started somewhat better then mine!!