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Thursday, 29 July 2010
What to do with the garden?
I was looking at our "garden" yesterday (more of a patio) and was full of despair. Its more like a small jungle and a big mess. We have a wonderful Olive tree that we bought from our first house so it's now about eleven years old and we have some lovely bamboo growing along the back wall and sheltering us from the neighbours, but everything else is unruly. There are giant weeds, that look as though they should be growing in Costa Rica, and old pots, stones and a ladder gathering dust. I read about a garden designer who specializes in small spaces and fantasized about commissioning him, only to discover that most of his gardens cost between £10,000 and £20,000 pounds. So when I saw this widget it seemed very serendipitous.
Friday, 16 July 2010
Design a Fantasy Sofa
The other day, quite out of the blue, a man emailed to ask if I would like to judge a competition! I have never been asked to judge anything before so was curious. Why me? I wondered. The people at sofa.com were at the final judging stage for a competition they had launched for children in London, to design a fantasy sofa. They sent 4,000 A3 design template drawings to children at local schools and received an amazing 1,000 back. I agreed to go because I've never been a judge before and I actually need a new sofa as ours is eleven years old and so embarrassing that I even wrote about it in my Times column. I wanted to check out the sofa.com sofas as I've only seen them online before.
I went to the newly designed showroom in Lots Road Chelsea. They are situated in a huge kind of groovy loft covering an entire vast top floor. I was given two piles of drawings to go through and a few in 3d. Wow it was very hard to choose, particularly when you knew that the prizes were ipod nanos for the children and sofas and camcorders for the winning schools.
A couple of the designs were suspiciously too good. One five year old had done better than I could with glitter and glue, and had far too much help from Mummy or perhaps Daddy. Sadly we vetoed the design even though it was fabulous. We were all impressed by Zaid of Flora Gardens School in the 9 to 11 category. His sofa was covered in a batman design which I could see in my 9 year old son's room. He came second but it was very close because in the end, we decided the winners' sofa was more of a fantasy. But my favourite was the winner of the 5-8 category. The nature sofa with the last minute insertion of T was upbeat and kind of magical. Well done Anna! If you live in London, look out as they will be running the competition next year.
A couple of the designs were suspiciously too good. One five year old had done better than I could with glitter and glue, and had far too much help from Mummy or perhaps Daddy. Sadly we vetoed the design even though it was fabulous. We were all impressed by Zaid of Flora Gardens School in the 9 to 11 category. His sofa was covered in a batman design which I could see in my 9 year old son's room. He came second but it was very close because in the end, we decided the winners' sofa was more of a fantasy. But my favourite was the winner of the 5-8 category. The nature sofa with the last minute insertion of T was upbeat and kind of magical. Well done Anna! If you live in London, look out as they will be running the competition next year.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
So much has happened
I don't know where to start. I have to start with the best news which is that I sold my novel, Seven Days One Summer to the lovely people at Short Books and it will be coming out next Summer. Hurray!! This will be my third published book, so I can actually feel justified in calling myself a writer.
And don't be fooled by strange men coming round to the house and asking you to sponsor them. I turned into a super sleuth and caught one man who did just that. He was perfectly nice, came round with a sponsor form, and asked me to sponsor him to kick goals at Fulham for action aid. I said I would pay him after the event, but my neighbour paid straight away. My son asked if he could go and watch and was told the tickets were sold out which made me suspicious.
He came back two days later and when I asked to check the charity registration number he stormed off saying he wouldn't be back. I called the charity the next day and they said they had done no such fund raising.
Horrible.
And don't be fooled by strange men coming round to the house and asking you to sponsor them. I turned into a super sleuth and caught one man who did just that. He was perfectly nice, came round with a sponsor form, and asked me to sponsor him to kick goals at Fulham for action aid. I said I would pay him after the event, but my neighbour paid straight away. My son asked if he could go and watch and was told the tickets were sold out which made me suspicious.
He came back two days later and when I asked to check the charity registration number he stormed off saying he wouldn't be back. I called the charity the next day and they said they had done no such fund raising.
Horrible.
Friday, 11 June 2010
A poem
This is a poem wrote this morning, very quickly, looking out of the window at the street below. I haven't written a poem since I was 17!
Front Window
The hedge, the bike, the blue and silver cars,
The parking sign, the blind, the motorbike,
The black cat, the ginger one, the one-eyed tabby from next door.
A slight rustling, not of net curtains, but of the ivy that grows up number sixteen,
Me and my neighbour Juliet were sad when Mike tore it down last summer, leaving the nesting pigeon perched precariously on a branch, exposed to the harsh summer sun. He says he doesn’t like urban vermin.
The parking attendant, dressed in black and white,
Long ponytail, black cap, up and down the cul de sac
Making tracks under the light grey sky.
A white van, a delivery at number ten,
Mum of three tired, wired, takes it in.
Other people’s children trail by at four,
My own come knocking and shouting at the door.
Front Window
The hedge, the bike, the blue and silver cars,
The parking sign, the blind, the motorbike,
The black cat, the ginger one, the one-eyed tabby from next door.
A slight rustling, not of net curtains, but of the ivy that grows up number sixteen,
Me and my neighbour Juliet were sad when Mike tore it down last summer, leaving the nesting pigeon perched precariously on a branch, exposed to the harsh summer sun. He says he doesn’t like urban vermin.
The parking attendant, dressed in black and white,
Long ponytail, black cap, up and down the cul de sac
Making tracks under the light grey sky.
A white van, a delivery at number ten,
Mum of three tired, wired, takes it in.
Other people’s children trail by at four,
My own come knocking and shouting at the door.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
The Square, Bath
I want to warn people off a "designer clothes' shop in Bath called The Square, which sells absurdly expensive clothes. It's run by a really really difficult, and dishonest woman and her equally dysfunctional business partner. I did a reading there last December and sold 20 books through her till and for four months she used every excuse not to pay me for them, even though she knew I had to pay Penguin. I had paid £60 to get there and the books would have only covered my expenses. Finally after threatening legal action she sent a cheque, but only for 16 and backdated the cheque so as to make out she had never received the letter. This was after months of wrangling and her making up different stories and her business partner hanging up four times on my husband. She at one point sent a cheque written in the wrong name and for the wrong amount. At one point she said I had to pay her for using the till, even though she had never warned me.
Please if you read this, don't go there and warn everyone off it. A friend of mine who lives near Bath, said she once went in and this same woman was really rude to her.
I think in some karmic way, something, in some way, will get back to her. It has to.
I have never in my life had to deal with someone like this, and I have never written such a rude email as I just wrote now, after months and months of her screwing with my head.
Sorry to rant, but sometimes you just have to.
Please if you read this, don't go there and warn everyone off it. A friend of mine who lives near Bath, said she once went in and this same woman was really rude to her.
I think in some karmic way, something, in some way, will get back to her. It has to.
I have never in my life had to deal with someone like this, and I have never written such a rude email as I just wrote now, after months and months of her screwing with my head.
Sorry to rant, but sometimes you just have to.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Easter Hols
I’m going away to visit my mother for Easter, which sounds fabulous but I have a serious case of body crisis. It’s going to be hot which means taking my clothes off. I am dreading revealing my white mottled skin, the winter flab, the un-toned arms. It seems atrocious that I will have to walk around in the equivalent of a bra and pants for two weeks, after a winter cosseted in many many layers. I have booked a few last minute beauty appointments including an inch loss treatment that promises to work, a hair cut, pedicure and wax. I always think it’s so weird to hurtle many miles across the sky, and enter a different time zone and a totally different climate. During my years as a climate campaigner, I haven’t been much further than Morocco.
I returned from my universal body wrap. I was literally smothered in mud and wrapped in bandages, and looked like an Eypyian mummy. The woman measured me before the treatment and said that my waist measured 38 inches!! I protested as I know it’s 31 and she insisted and after the hour of being wrapped up, so tight my ribs hurt, she said I had lost 13 inches all over, which frankly I found hard to believe. I couldn’t take her seriously after what she said about my waist size.
It’s the last day of school for my children. I have just returned from the Easter Bonnet parade, (it only feels like a few days since book parade). I thought they had done well: Jude wore a red cowboy style hat covered in chicks and had plastic eggs on string hanging down from the rim like a joke Australian) but their hats were nothing compared to some of the others, which included giant size papier mache eggs and hats with huge flowery stalks. Note to self: Make even more effort next time: Hire a costume designer.
Lastly please check out a campaign that is petitioning to give this country more daylight and therefore stop wasting energy lighting our dark streets so early in the winter. I am right behind this as I think there is nothing more depressing than short winter days.
I returned from my universal body wrap. I was literally smothered in mud and wrapped in bandages, and looked like an Eypyian mummy. The woman measured me before the treatment and said that my waist measured 38 inches!! I protested as I know it’s 31 and she insisted and after the hour of being wrapped up, so tight my ribs hurt, she said I had lost 13 inches all over, which frankly I found hard to believe. I couldn’t take her seriously after what she said about my waist size.
It’s the last day of school for my children. I have just returned from the Easter Bonnet parade, (it only feels like a few days since book parade). I thought they had done well: Jude wore a red cowboy style hat covered in chicks and had plastic eggs on string hanging down from the rim like a joke Australian) but their hats were nothing compared to some of the others, which included giant size papier mache eggs and hats with huge flowery stalks. Note to self: Make even more effort next time: Hire a costume designer.
Lastly please check out a campaign that is petitioning to give this country more daylight and therefore stop wasting energy lighting our dark streets so early in the winter. I am right behind this as I think there is nothing more depressing than short winter days.
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