How to Survive the Sleepover

Do it at half term or in the holidays.

Don't invite child over before 5pm.

Hide all random sweets/chocolates/beauty products/dresses/shoes/cameras/computers

Rent a very long DVD

Skip bath-time

Put them to bed and give them half an hour of legal chat

Be ready for the inevitable, "I feel sick, I need a glass of water"

Give them a glass of water.

Make sure partner is in

Keep a night light on (One eight year old girl peed in my daughter's play box in the middle of the night because she said it was too dark to find the door)

Take it in turns to go upstairs and say shhssss/be quiet/this is the last sleepover before Christmas.

Very important: Wear ear plugs when you go to bed because they will get up and make noise at 5 or 6 a.m

Send a cheery text when mother of child texts to ask if everything OK

Be prepared for a very overtired, overwrought, child for the following  2 days.

My Next Big Thing

The utterly gorgeous Emma Lee Potter, who writes a blog called House with No Name, was my other half when we blogged for Easy Living Magazine. She blogged as Country Wife and I blogged as City Wife, and we finally met in the summer at the Brit Mums Conference. Read her post above to find out what she is working on at the moment. She tagged me in a post called The Next Big thing in which she has asked me several questions about my next book and then I will ask two writer friends to carry it on.

What is the working title of your book? 

I am terribly bad at titles, but a working title is Double Vision.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea was inspired by two things: The first was that I sat next to a man at dinner who was the father of 14 year old twin boys. I was both shocked and fascinated when he told me that his sons were living in different countries, because they had fallen out over a girl! One boy was living with his mother in New York and the other in Paris, with him – he was still married but commuted between the two cities. He didn't elaborate, but it set me off thinking about sibling rivalry, jealousy etc. The next thing that inspired me was meeting a friend from New York, who told me she was estranged from her sister, (my friend lived in New York and so did her sister, but her parents lived in London) but they were going to be forced together, for a week with their mother in London, as their father had died. I was interested in both those dynamics, ie: being estranged from a sibling, but forced together after many years and then examining the rivalry and betrayal in the relationship.

What genre does your book fall under? 

It's quite commercial but not pink and glittery so. My agent flattered me hugely, when she it was in the genre of Zoe Heller. I loved Notes on A Scandal. 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

Hard one: Someone like Bill Nighy  for the father, and Cousin Matthews mother in Downton Abbey (Penelope Wilton) as the mother. Perhaps Gynneth Paltrow for one sister and Reethe Witherspoon for the other. Um... I wish I could think of some English actresses.....Perhaps Emilia Fox as one sister and....um...

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

Estranged twin sisters forced together reenact betrayal and revenge, while paradoxically desperately hoping to connect.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

Too long. About two years.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

I just can't think.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? 

I think I've answered this question already in  what gave me the idea. Carrie Kania from Conville and Walsh has been a huge help, particularly at the beginning when I wasn’t sure where I was going or if I had a book at all.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 

I think this is the most interesting of the books that I have so far written, and that is possibly why it has taken me so long to write. I became really involved in these two women - their past boyfriends, partners and parents, and also delving back to their childhood and teenage years. I found it quite gripping, writing about Bella's experience at boarding school, which was lifted from my own, but more horrific. It took me back to a dark place. I also became fascinated  with the sister’s obsession with a teenage lover they shared. I loved writing about teenage love, sex, betrayal. 

Writers, authors, bloggers.

I would love to find two or three more writers who want to answer a few questions on their blogs, about their next book project. I've been tagged to do this on my own blog, and want to tag a few more. It's fun and inspiring and really makes you think about your work in progress. Either leave a comment or mail me kate@katemorris.co.uk

A night to Remember

It’s around six o clock on a dreary, cold, evening – rain threatens.  I’m filling up the car with petrol and sending a text to the babysitter. There are too many things on my mind:  I’m wondering whether my son will make the A team squad for football, whether the kitten still has diarrhea, whether my latest novel will sell to a publisher who is willing to pay good money. I’m about to pay when I realize, with sickening thud, that I’ve put petrol in the Audi diesel estate. It even says diesel, in big capitals on the petrol cap.

I am expecting the nice man behind the till to tell me something miraculous, like he can just syphon out the diesel with a bit of pipe for  £5. He says I mustn’t start the engine but paradoxically that I must get the car off the forecourt as soon as possible.  He adds that it will probably cost £200 to fix it. Nice. Great.  Thank God, we have breakdown cover. I wonder how much it would cost to fix without it?

When I telephone my husband, he replies with a gruff kind of preoccupied hello, and when he hears my appalling news he sighs and hangs up. I call him back because I don’t have any of the insurance details.  He says he’s on to it. It’s dark now, and cold. I sit in the car but am too afraid to turn on the engine in case the car blows up. I read the back of a packet of crisps. I call my husband again, and he tells me, in barely controlled rage, to be patient.

He calls some time later, and says help will arrive in a couple of hours. So I walk home. We wait and we wait but nothing happens. At 9 the nice man from the garage, calls to say he will fine us £500 if we don’t move the car. He’s worried that a tanker of petrol will arrive and won’t have access to the pump.

My husband offers to go to the garage and wait with the car. A couple of hours pass. I ring him on his mobile, but there’s no reply. I feel appalling guilt that I’ve put him in this situation.  I text.  Then I ring again. By now it’s 11.00pm. I worry that perhaps he’s been mugged or run over, or killed. I imagine at any moment, a policeman will turn up to inform me of his death.  I wonder whether to ring my friend and ask her to come over so I can go and search the streets.  He can’t be still waiting. It’s about 1130 when I notice that there is a text form my husband. Its cryptic, it doesn’t make sense. I am thinking now, that the text is a desperate plea for help. He’s just managed to press one button on his phone before he was hit on the head. I am about to cry, when he comes through the door. I rush towards him. I have never been more pleased to see anyone in my whole life.

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Kitten-heaven

This is our 9 or 10 week old kitten, that we fetched from Battersea Dogs Home. My daughter has named her Boe, the other choice being Sunshine! Boe is energetic, curious, a little reckless, and feisty.  When our three year old tabby met Boe, she spat and hissed. The kitten stood her ground, until big Kitty ran away. Boe was born to a stray cat, who gave birth in someone's garden and perhaps that has given her an edge. It was slightly harrowing to see her mother in the enclosure next to her, miaowing as we took her away - her litter of four all gone now, and she's still there, waiting to be neutered.

Battersea Dogs and Cats Home was founded as "The Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs" in 1860 by Mrs Mary Tealby. Mary Tealby had separated from her husband and moved to London in 1860 and decided to open a "canine asylum" after the death of a starving dog she had tried to nurse back to health.  She established the Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs in a stable in an Islington mews. The Times ridiculed the home on the 18 October 1860. "From the sublime to the ridiculous – from the reasonable inspirations of humanity to the fantastic exhibitions of ridiculous sentimentalism – there is but a single step... When we hear of a 'Home for Dogs', we venture to doubt if the originators and supporters of such an institution have not taken leave of their sober senses."

However, Charles Dickens gave support and  published a piece in the magazine All the Year Round in 1862 about the home, calling it an "extraordinary monument of the remarkable affection with which the English people regard the race of dog. It is the kind of institution which a very sensitive person who has suffered acutely from witnessing the misery of a starving animal would wish for, without imagining for a moment that it would ever seriously exist. It does seriously exist, though."

The home moved to Battersea in 1871 and they care for over 9,000 dogs and cats every year. It costs £14 million (Yes 14 million!) a year to run Battersea and their funds come entirely from the public. 

If you want to help them or adopt a dog or cat ring 0207 622 3626

East London Art Tours

If you have a spare morning in London, I would recommend taking your mother/sister/partner/friend for a walk in the East End with East London Art Tours. I went one day last  summer, and it was really uplifting and exciting to visit a part of London, I would never normally find myself in, and also to discover was happening in the artworld, that was a little out of my usual comfort zone. Hymie our tour guide has an arts background, having worked in galleries and art consultancy and also a long stint at the British Council. Me and about fifteen other women were taken in a private mini-bus to the industrial backwater around the Olympic Park. She was a great guide, both knowledgeable and unflappable and immensely organized. We had a packed intinerary including  a visit to the Victoria Miro gallery where we saw 6 new tapestries by Grayson Perry, also a group show in Stepney Green, coffee at the most incredible building space, the White Building in Stepney Wick and much much more.

The next tour is on  October 4th. Hymie says,  Starting at Old Street tube, we'll walk through Hoxton, Shoreditch and down through Spitalfields, visiting a mix of back street exhibitions embracing film, mixed media, installation and painting in venues ranging from artist-led spaces to some very beautiful and elegant galleries.  September has a great line up of new shows in the east end, several of which are already in the art world hit list of 'must-sees'.  These include Runa Islam's short films at White Cube and a survey exhibition of the Artists Placement Group, conceptual art from the 1960 and 70s supported by Tony Benn MP at that time.

I will give a talk about the history of these three distinct and now very fashionable areas and background into the history and gossip of the art scene.  The area is great fun with lots of tucked away trendy little boutiques and cafes.  If you'd like to get to know it and feel like a stroll through the city's alternative art scene, please do join me.  

Date:  Thursday 4 October

Start: Old Street tube station, ends Liverpool Street station.

Time: 10.30 - 1.00ish

Cost: £35 includes walking guide, talks, private visits and coffee & pastries in a lovely little coffee house.

Hymie Dunn
East London Art Tours 

E: info@eastlondonarttours.co.uk
Tel: 07789 035181

Colour Me In

I am  a fanatic witch when it comes to children's cereals: All that sugar and salt! There is nothing fun and smothered in chocolate for breakfast at our house although when my daughter came back from a weekend away recently she asked for chocolate spread for a few days. During the long cold winter we quite often have porridge, with a concession to it being smothered in honey, and we have the fun sort of cereals for the weekend. The children call the sugar cereals, Weekend Breakfast. Most days my daughter will have Rice Krispies with various yoghurts dunked on top. This is a photograph of her holding her Rice Krispie packet that came through the post in a huge box with a gigantic packet of colours. She's coloured it for a Rice Krispie colouring in competition sponsored by Kelloggs and Britmums. I absolutely love they way she has coloured her bowl, and have already told her she can have a huge sum of money if she wins the competition. My son, who considers himself too old (at 11) to colour in a cereal box, couldn't resist doing one figure -he says he'll do more, but refused to be photographed, so here he is behind a box! Check out the patterned trousers! They're great.