New Book

I have finished a draft of my new book, and have given it to a few people to read, and only one has got back to me so far! I look at the pages and scroll through them and can't seem to find the energy to do anything with it, so I write this instead, or clean up, or ring the vet. And then I check my emails, including the junk box, and then sign into facebook and then check my bank account.

And then every time I do look at the "book" (Its not sold yet) there is something that could be improved on. Always. I don't even know if it's any good any more, because I can no longer be objective about the plot or the characters. A brilliant girl called Deborah Susman from my writing group went through it for me and made some brilliant observations, but she didn't reference her comments with any page numbers so I am desperately looking at her remarks, like "Jen tells Jack to ask Ellie directly about the boyfriend but I thought he already had" And a) I can't remember writing that and b) I don't know where I wrote it. There are 80,000 words.

Its 1031am and I have done nothing but sit here and read other people's blogs and think about ringing up the cat insurance people to give them the vets fax number.

And I'm not sure about the title of the new book, it could be The Holiday, or The Summer Holiday. Some days I think its a brilliant title perfect for reading on a summer holiday and other days I think it's boring? Is it? The story, by the way, is about a group of people on holiday and how all their lives change over the week they are together.

I suppose I'd better get back to it now. If anyone feels like reading it and making comments good and bad, please let me know.

My new healthy lifestyle

I am sitting here, drinking fresh pear and apple juice made from my new juicer. Its delicious. I gave my husband and children a glass each at breakfast because I am worried about the onslaught of winter, and swine flu and trying to keep them healthy. Yesterday we drank carrot, apple and nectarine, although the nectarines only provided about a miniscule drop, the size of a pea, and my daughter refuses to drink carrot. She is a girl who likes “cookies” and honey and sweets.

Once years ago, when I was trying to conceive, a very nice homeopath advised me to drink truckloads of beetroot, carrot and apple juice. I seem to remember I was meant to drink it twice a day. And so I bought a small juicer and diligently set about making and drinking the juice. And God it made a mess. And it took half an hour just to chop up all the fruit and process it and then clean it. I had to scrape out great big chunks of pulp and clean everything by hand, which took ages. After a couple of months my skin was glowing, but I gave up juicing. The process of cleaning and chopping just took too long. (I finally conceived through a Polish acupuncturist who dug in the needles and twisted and some harsh Chinese herbs, and visiting a kind of celebrity nutritionist who made both of us give up alcohol, caffeine and almost all forms of enjoyment except sex!)

Anyway for the last six months, I have been buying a large glass of freshly squeezed orange and apple juice from my lovely local café, Cupboard, in a quest to give up Diet Coke, but it has cost me a fortune. So I decided to invest in a professional juicer. And wow it is good. It is designed by Antony Worrall Thompson, for Breville and it has a big chute so you can put in the fruit whole and two speeds and a separate jug that collects all the pulp, and most of the parts can be put straight into the machine. Genius. £109 from Argos and other retailers.

The Trials and Pleasures of Camping

I am a woman who likes a hot bath, a comfortable bed, and a flushing loo. I am also someone who is prone to feeling cold in June and I am not the best sleeper, even in the comfort of my own six foot wide bed. Not the ideal candidate for camping then.

“You’ll hate it,” my husband repeated over and over again, as I suggested a camping trip a few times last year. Secretly I thought he was right, although I protested thinking that the children would have deprived childhoods if we didn’t let them sleep under the stars. But last November my friend Sophie announced that she was having a camping party for the August Bank Holiday Weekend, and because she always does things brilliantly, I said we would go. And then I promptly tried not to think about it or do anything about buying a tent, or a blow up mattress or a pump or a torch or all the other things I later discovered are needed for a camping holiday.

Then two parents from my sons class asked us to join them for a June camping weekend and because we were new parents at the school, and keen for Jude to bond with his friends, I rashly accepted. The time drew nearer and suddenly we realized we had nothing to camp with. We borrowed two small tents and a gas cooker and taking the advice of friends, we packed our car with duvets, pillows, blankets and sausages. I also telephoned my doctor and asked for sleeping pills. Packing for two nights took five hours!


Things I liked about my first camping trip: Eating a ton of bread and sausages and not caring.
Drinking quite a few glasses of wine.
Getting to know my camping friends: The lovely Jane and the gorgeous Emily.
Waking to the sound of bird song.
Children out all day from 7am
Grownups out all day from 8am
Swimming in the river
The cream tea café on the camp site.
The camping glow
Watching the Stars.

Things I don’t like:
Blow up mattresses
Taking sleeping pills
Queuing up for a shower
Washing up without gloves or a dishwasher.
Putting down and putting up the tent.
Not being able to find anything when it gets dark
Piling up the car with almost all the contents of a house.
Feeling exhausted for two days after getting home.
Having to walk across a field to pee at night.

But it can’t be that bad. We have since been camping to Glastonbury, Dorset and just back from Yorkshire for the bank holiday camping party which was the best four days ever.

My tip: Rose hip moisturizing oil is perfect for rough skin that’s been out in all weathers and the oil is extracted from rose that grows in the Andes Mountains. It’s in a roll on bottle so won’t spill if you are travelling. I used it on my cracked heels and on my dry legs, although you can use it on your hair and face. I wish Aubrey Organics would make it in a bigger bottle!

The need to Diet and Rest after a Tuscan Holiday

I am just back from an Italian hamlet near Cortona where I spent 10 days in 40degrees heat. We stayed in a beautiful tumble down farmhouse, the garden was exquisite, but I have returned exhausted and with a desperate need to diet.

I couldn’t sleep; it was too hot. I also had constant headaches, and was on full alert as one of the other guests had told me my room was haunted.

The lunches were huge. We thought nothing of tucking into parma ham and melon, tomato and mozzarella, fine thin bread, bread in the shape of a disc, figs, cheese, and variations on that theme. Dinner could be pasta or pizza at the local tavern or grilled pork in Cortona. I started off with a keen need to swim 100 lengths a day, like Maggie Fergusson another guest, and author of the brilliant biography, The Life of George Mackay Brown. But by day 10 my girth had ballooned but my will power had slipped and I was only swimming about 4 lengths a day and at best 10.

Sure I read a few great books and saw some heart-stoppingly beautiful Piero della Francesca murals in the Basilica di San Francesco, Arezzo, and more stunning frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in Florence on the way home. I also managed two half a mile walks up a hill but other than that spent most of the time supine.

I have just finished a first draft of my new novel, The Summer Holiday, set in a house party in Italy, so no doubt some of the details, like the different kinds of bees that buzzed across the lavender and the church bells striking the hour of day, will find their way into the new book. Please if you haven’t already, buy my current novel, a great summer read, The Seven Year Itch.

Beauty Tip: I was sent a travel pack by Incognito, who specialise in deet free mosquito products, which also smell really good. Their moisturizer doubles as an anti mosquito cream is great because it cuts down on the exhausting effort of piling on moisturizer and then anti mosquito - http://www.lessmosquito.com One less thing to do in the heat.

Giving Birth

I wrote an article for the Daily Express about the horrors of giving birth to my two children and it came out yesterday: My birth stories
Actually they have cut some of what I wrote and it doesn't quite cover the absolute horror and fear of that time.


I know of a woman who just had time to take a painkiller before she gave birth and the baby popped out really easily.

What are you experiences like? I went to a yoga prenatal class where those who had given birth would come back with their newborn babies and regale us with the experience of giving birth. I don't remember anyone returning who had had a lovely easy time. There is always the woman with the painkiller, but she is the only one I know of.

If you happen to read Vogue, there is an article (August Issue) on climate activists. There is a huge photograph of our group Wecan and we are really pleased with the story.

Reasons to be Cheerful

Am ridiculously thrilled. The Seven Year Itch has been chosen under the romance category of recommended summer reading in Prima Magazine. I have never bought Prima Magazine, but Luke's aunt cut it out and saved it for me. Yeh!

My five year old daughter Belle was ridiculously thrilled to receive some pink Bratz accessories for her hand me down bicycle. I won them in competition run by fellow mummy blogger, Denyse (I have spent at least fifteen minutes trying to tag her blog, but it just keeps not working) I will come back to this. Anyway there was a seat, a hooter with a very annoying blast, a helmet and a bell. Brilliant. Christmas an birthday all over again.

I cried when I read the children's reports. They were so good. Luke spoilt it by saying he was sure everyone got really good reports. The formidable Miss Shaw, reception teacher, said the Belles behaviour was excellent both in the class room and around the school and she was a model for other children. Wish she was the same at home when we are trying to get her dressed in the morning.

On Saturday I was photographed by the Daily Mail along with the family for a piece about why women marry and then I stood dashed to the school fair in full make up to stand by the apple bobbing stall.

Then back home to prepare dinner as the vicar, Bob and his wife were coming along with some parents from belles class and Sam the piano player at church who also happens to be groovy and in a band called the Hoosiers. I'm not sure if Ive spelt that right. I had invited a date for him and then he turned up with his own, which was a bit odd. But anway!!

On Sunday Luke took the children to visit his aunt for the day and I slept, dozed, read, and watched Roddick and Federer. Roddick deserved to win. But then Federer makes it all look effortless.

Are you Expecting?

The three words you really don't want to be asked if you are not and I'm not. Admittedly I was thinking this morning my stomach looks a bit bloated and hardly surprising, I've been stuffing myself with sausage sandwiches and baked beans on toast around the camping fire. This always happens when I eat too much wheat and that is why I usually avoid it. We went to camp in the garden of my friends inlaws. They live on Glastonbury and we were there for the festival. But really!! The poor woman who serves at the chemist was more embarrassed than I was. She turned a very bright shade of red and then mumbled something about how she was looking.....but didn't really have the heart to finish. I mean what could she say? Where can you go from there? This has happened twice before, once at a party when Belle was four weeks old, and once around the same kind of time, when I was sitting slouched in a bank. And I made the mistake of once asking a friend, who'd recently had a baby, what was her due date. I wrote and apologized and she took it really well. My rule now is never to ask a woman, unless she offers the information, even is she is about to burst!

I walked home in the searing heat and told my neighbour about what had happened in the chemist. He is a man in his fifties who is a cox in a rowing team and weighs just 8 stone 8. About two stone less than me, though I am taller. He says he hardly eats for the rowing season as he has to be a certain weight to compete. He has mango for breakfast and melon for lunch. He told me where to go and buy the Pakistani mangoes in season for just four weeks. That is where I'm heading as soon as Ive picked up the children. Oh God!!!