REVELATIONS AND REVELRY

It has suddenly come to my attention that I haven’t written anything for two weeks! Well on here at any rate, I’ve been writing like mad behind the scenes, which is probably part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that I’ve been spending far too much time worshipping the God of Calpol. Winter bugs have hit anew and hard in our house and my youngest daughter has spent much of the last week lying prone on the sofa, interested only in yoghurts and cBeebies. Which is very peaceful – but for the incessant coughing. However Calpol is a miracle fluid and both she and I feel a lot better for it. There are two things to be thankful for however (life’s eternal optimist and see-er of silver linings in clouds that I am – ha bloody ha) and these are that it’s better that everyone is ill this week than next, and also I’d rather they coughed non-stop than vomited once. And so does my husband I imagine because otherwise he would be manning the fort of illness all by himself. As it is he’s just doing the nightshifts because he has to work during the day.

Also, the ill daughter did manage to participate in the Nursery Nativity play this week as an innkeeper (but of course, she is my daughter) which was very sweet – and hysterically funny. Obviously they didn’t really have ‘lines’ as such, which was good because my innkeeper didn’t much like the idea of Mary and Joseph staying in her stable. They asked to stay in the inn and they were refused (correctly), then they asked to stay in the stable – and they were refused (incorrectly). Repeated and heavy hints were dropped by the nursery teacher (playing God one presumes?):

“Oh please could they stay just one night?” Greeted by a firm shake of the head from the innkeeper.

“Just one night? Please?”

“No way,” was the response (incorrectly).

“Just for a little bit?”

“NO.”

I blame the fact that individual bedrooms are guarded like sacred territories in this house, a practice introduced by my eldest daughter and unfortunately picked up the youngest who has clearly hung grimly onto the tenets of this doctrine in every area of her life. The DVD of the play is likely to be the best comedy I will see this Christmas. Apart from the Benidorm special episode on Boxing Day which may well be a highlight of the whole week.

The new manuscript is progressing apace;  I have completed the purge of the bad writing, I deleted approximately five thousand words in one go which made me take a sharp breath, but if it’s rubbish then it’s rubbish and it has to go. Ruthless I must be. And besides, now the path is clear for me to replace it with far better. I have someone waiting to read it in the New Year so I must crack on over Christmas and try and get some of it done. That will be fun…..for anyone who doesn’t know me, our typical family Christmas is totally hectic involving three different families and four different locations to be visited in the space of a week, accompanied by several vats of wine. My laptop and I will enjoy that. Well, we might if we ever get organised. I have a confession to make – until yesterday I had not written one single Christmas card. Not ONE. This despite the cards that were coming through my front door every day, almost cheerful in their guilt-inducing arrival. I felt so guilty upon opening them that I haven’t even put them up yet. I cringed as I read the kind wishes for a happy Christmas and New Year, and my panic shot up a level or two. However  I have come up with a new policy which makes things slightly easier, and that is that close friends and family apart, I will only give Christmas cards to those that I receive them from – which is polite and time-efficient. Although it does leave me open to that hideous scenario of someone fumbling in their bag for something for you and then that split-second realisation of ‘Oh God, it’s a card and I haven’t written one for them,’ which has, unfortunately, happened twice this year already. And despite the usual availability of my plethora of words they deserted me on both occasions, leaving me vulnerable to the “Er – oh right – thanks – um – I haven’t….” situation. I typed that verbatim by the way.

And in other terrifically exciting news I have finally accepted that my long, sparkly nails and my old touchscreen phone do not mix happily and I have replaced the said old touchscreen phone with a BlackBerry. Not only that, it is a PINK BlackBerry. I have no idea of its capabilities, battery life, camera, whether it works, etc., etc. but that is not the important bit. It is PINK. I did actually go into the shop and choose the model of BlackBerry based on the colour, which I realise makes me look like I have only two brain cells, one of which isn’t currently functioning, but I don’t care. On this occasion it was even worse because I happened (‘happened’! Ha!) to be wearing a pink jumper, pink socks and I have a pink handbag and very pink nails. Even to me I looked ridiculous. But I cared not one whit, they may think what they like – though I did make the effort to drop in the fact that I have a Law degree to try and re-balance the pink scales. I love it anyway, it’s fantastic and doesn’t leave my side. I can’t believe I didn’t get one earlier. My husband hates it of course, “I knew I would,” he grumbled. “You spend far too much time on it already.” I think he’s jealous.

Now I must get on and write some Christmas cards. And post some Christmas cards. And wrap some presents. And come to that, buy some presents. And start packing. And administer Calpol..….where in all this will I find the time to admire my new PINK BlackBerry??

Sarah Haynes LLB Hons (don’t know why I thought it necessary to repeat that….)

Because I wear a lot of Jack Wills and queue superbly I’m going to start this blog in a very British way. By talking about the weather  – in particular the SNOW. I’m surrounded by the stuff. There’s a foot of it outside and then I’m having photos emailed to me, every status on facebook is either about how wonderful it is to make snowmen or photos of said snowmen and I know I must be the most miserable person on the planet but I don’t like it; it’s a nuisance and very cold. Plus I can’t see why the country has to grind to a halt the minute the flakes begin falling. You can count one finger the number of people who went to work this morning from our road; and this is despite the fact that I know the snowploughs and gritters were on the roads around us at 5am this morning. By all accounts the motorway is mostly clear and running well – probably due to the fact that not many people have bothered to venture onto it.  Already I have read one irate facebook status relating to snow and school closure and severe risk aversion and just having to get on with it. Or words to that effect. Clearly I understand that snow can make travel difficult, clearly I understand that roads and pavements are icy and care must be taken. But when it gets to the point that everyone shuts their doors and stays at home the minute the snow clouds begin to gather I think it’s time that we question what we are doing. A few adjustments – hats, scarves, winter tyres, that sort of thing – I think we’d find the country can probably operate pretty much as normal.

With that rant over, I’m pleased that the snow held off for long enough to allow me to do what I needed to this week or my blog would have been more of a diatribe. As you will all know I braved the tube strike ( successfully! Ha!) and went to London on Monday to Ali McNamara’s launch of her book, “From Notting Hill with Love…..Actually”. I confess that I haven’t read it yet because I’m still buried deep in Jojo Moyes’ “Night Music” which is brilliant, but I am so looking forward to it. I have a signed copy sitting right next to me on my desk, the reviews are fantastic and I’ve read so many positive comments. It was great to meet Ali, she’s absolutely lovely, as are her children and husband. The launch party was a lot of fun, it was held in the Travel Bookshop in Notting Hill which I understand features in the film of the same name? It’s a long time since I watched it. I didn’t know many people there but everyone I spoke to was very friendly and didn’t mind at all that I looked like a complete idiot for failing to guess at even one question in the movie quiz that Ali had organised. Clearly I am not up to speed with my films; it was quite embarrassing how obvious it was when you thought about it. But no matter, I had a lovely time and drank 1 ½ glasses of wine. Sedate, by my standards. Or even positively stationary now that I think about it. Ali gave a lovely, heartfelt speech, read an extract from her book and generally hosted the whole thing very well. In fact, the only bad thing I have to say about the party is that it was dangerously close to the Jack Wills shop on the Portobello Road. Which I stupidly ventured into. And then I even more stupidly tried a dress on. The Ellenthorpe dress. It is GORGEOUS. I love it. And from that you will guess that I stupidly bought it. I couldn’t not, I loved it so much. It’s a size 8 though and a pretty small 8 at that so if I put on even 1lb in weight I won’t be able to wear it, which is alarming. Now I just have to find all the right occasions to wear it to, as its exorbitant price demands that I should.

And last, but by absolutely no means least, the other very exciting thing to happen in my week was my husband being made a magistrate. And because he is only just twenty-seven, that makes him the youngest magistrate in Hampshire, which I have already mentioned several thousand times. It is very impressive though and means that he is already a bit of a star among the new magistrate intake, in fact he was interviewed by the producer for a Radio 4 programme, due to be broadcast in March. He sounded very knowledgeable and coherent – then she moved on to me and I was definitely less so. Sadly. My husband obviously heard this tremendously exciting news a while back, but his actual swearing-in ceremony was on Wednesday in Winchester and happily the 1cm of snow that had fallen then did not prevent us going.

And on the note of Winchester I shall be back there tomorrow signing copies of Things He Never Knew. The signing is being held in Waterstones in The Brooks from 11am-4pm and I am very much looking forward to it. Of course this is subject to me being able to get through the snow. But after all my complaints about lack of effort in the snow I suspect I shall have to walk there if necessary – but not in this dress……..

My dress 🙂

Well I don’t know that I would like to be in the jungle with the celebrities but I certainly would prefer the temperature over there – it is freeeeeezing in Hampshire! The central heating is on 24 hours a day here (don’t tell my husband) and I’m still having to wear at least two jumpers and my cashmere/angora wrap garment/thing – I don’t know that it has a name, it’s definitely not the most attractive piece of clothing that I own but it’s lovely and warm so fashion be damned. So British of me to talk about the weather but let’s face it – I’m good at queueing, prefer not to display emotion publicly and I wear a lot of Jack Wills – ergo I am British. That’s one of the most depressing things about getting older actually, every time I go into Jack Wills I feel a little further removed from their fashion. It’s very sad. Or it would be if I cared; I’m quite happy to embrace age and float towards the inevitable Windsmoor skirts of my seventies. Gone already are the days when I habitually wore the shortest skirts I could find; this happened because I discovered nice lingerie. Stockings and suspenders, etc. and you cannot wear those with short skirts. Or only in very particular circumstances anyway. Actually, I’m going to London next week and I’m going to visit one of my favourite shops in the world, the What Katie Did London boutique where I shall indulge my love of all things vintage. Well, not all things, bullet bras don’t really do it for me, but there’s an awful lot of lingerie and corsets that do. I doubt I’ll buy anything very much but I love the feel of the place; it’s like going back in time. It’s classy, the underwear is beautifully and artfully arranged and the staff are fantastic. They’re passionate about vintage lingerie, knowledgable and helpful. I really would recommend them if you’re after anything like that.

Anyway, the primary reason that I shall be in London is to attend Ali McNamara’s launch of her book “From Notting Hill with Love…..actually” which I’ve seen described as the cheekiest book title of all time.  I haven’t read it yet, I’m hoping to get a signed copy at the launch party, and I am tremendously excited! It’s the first launch that I’ve been to, other than my own. I shall write a full report about it next week. Watch this space!

I’ve just finished reading an absolutely brilliant book called “The Last Letter From Your Lover” by Jojo Moyes. I’d seen it in a bookshop and loved the description, I nearly bought it but at the time I had a stack of books to read so I didn’t. Which actually worked out to my advantage because a few days later Jojo’s Babyliss Big Hair appliance died right before a big event that she was going to. Cue potential hair disaster, she had my sympathy. So  because I’d just bought one and hated it (I should have known that NOTHING can beat my ghds) I offered to send her mine and I received three signed books in return, which was very lovely of her. And I have adored Last Letter, it’s truly one of the best books that I have read for a very long time. The subject matter is slightly delicate, it covers extra-marital relationships in an almost defensive way, but it’s sad, emotive, funny in places (look out for the real love ‘letters’) and absolutely gripping. I thoroughly recommend it. I can’t wait to read the other two books that she sent me.

And speaking of books, I made a rather big decision over the last week. I’ve gone back to working on a manuscript which I had all but forgotten about. I started looking at it again for a variety of reasons and I found myself feeling very positive about it. It’s no good in its current state, I’ve already cut huge swathes of prose from it, in fact the current word count is 91,000 words and I don’t expect that to change much for a while, even though I am continually working on it. I’m easily erasing as much as I write. But I’m excited about it. My characters are very real and vivid, some of the events in the book make compelling reading and I’m loving the opportunity to re-work it and make into the best manuscript that I can. So we shall see. It’s very similar in tone and content to Things He Never Knew; I obviously have a subconciously preferred area of fiction and writing style. Which is a shame because my mother doesn’t like it. Pretty much only positive thing that she has actually said about Things He Never Knew was that she was impressed by my ability to knit the plot together so neatly. To me, that’s like complimenting someone on being able to eat with a knife and fork. At my daughter’s birthday party she told me that she’d like to see me write “…something more literary…”. And that is a verbatim quote. I replied that I wouldn’t necessarily confine myself to my genre, but that I was quite happy with the area that I have settled into. I suppose it’s a natural thing – she would like to see me write to the best of my ability, but as far as I’m concerned, ‘best’ doesn’t mean literary. But then we’re back to harbouring grudges against chick-lit and not buying books with pink covers. ……my mother is nothing if not entertaining. Actually, in our last conversation she mentioned that she was going to start writing a blog. My mind can’t even begin to imagine what that would be like, I shall simply have to wait for the reality, but I promise you it will be linked on my blog if she ever does actually do it. It will probably be tales of herds of cats and her Aga woes and how the skip from the building work hasn’t been removed from the driveway yet so they can’t fit all of their cars in. She leads a hard life, you see.

I’ve just remembered that a VERY exciting thing happened to me yesterday!! I can’t believe that I didn’t mention it before. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has started following me on Twitter! This sent me stratospheric with excitement, as my husband, children, friends, neighbours and people that I met in the street will testify. I don’t know why he is (I say ‘he’, I’m sure it’s probably not) all I did was tweet about a signed photograph that I was given and the fact that it’s on my desk, making me very, very happy. I was even open about the fact that I adore him because he is so gorgeous and his political views are a secondary thing. Though I am broadly speaking in support of those as well. Yesterday went down as one of the best days of my life.

But now I must go back to proper writing and trying to prevent my fingers from becoming frozen with cold. If it wasn’t such a cliché I might try typing in fingerless gloves, but I’m too afraid of looking like something from Withnail and I. If you see me with Deep Heat you’ll know it’s time to worry. But as it is I shall settle for turning the heating up (don’t tell my husband) and wearing my staggeringly unsexy cashmere/angora wrap/garment thing, and look forward to the hour tonight when I can let the alcohol warm me instead.