Monthly Archives: July 2011

I don’t know what’s happening in the UK to make me slack off on the blogging. Possibly my re-acquaintance with wine.

And my new addiction to Goodreads.

Seriously I sit in front of the computer refreshing the page and watching the counter on my Hunting Lila page. As of now, 709 people have added it to their To Be Read shelf. Sorry 710.

I spent a heavenly week in London. It was heaven because I was BY MYSELF. All you earth mothers look away now…  I am not just a mother I tried to explain to Lula earlier today. I’m also ME. She ignored me.

So I took 7 days off and oh my god, hello happiness. Hello ME.

I spent five days at my friend’s house in a very lovely part of South London (yes those areas do exist). She skipped off to work every morning and I’d saunter down in my undies to the kitchen, make myself a cafetiere of fresh coffee, slope back upstairs, enfold myself between the crunchy crisp white duvet and piles of pillows and start surfing the web and er, ostensibly editing my book in between facebooking and tweeting. Oh the joy of not having to drag myself out of bed to make a small child breakfast, argue over wearing pants, brushing hair…

Mid-morning I’d stretch my limbs and get dressed then hop a train to London and meet a friend for pints of wine, gallons of pimms, fish and chips, giggle splurge trips to Vivienne Westwood, hot chocolate at the Curzon, dumb movies and lazing in London parks.

When I say this week was heaven I mean it. It probably ranked up there as the best week of my life. Possibly even trumping my honeymoon.

And then Lula came back.

Not that I don’t love my daughter / wouldn’t die for her / enjoy her company in the 53% of the time when she’s not tantruming, but seriously I do miss and I do crave solitude. And as a writer I need it more than ever. So I intend to spend a week like that every year from now on. (Claire are you listening?)

The last week we were up in Chester visiting my brother and his family. I went to Liverpool for the first time. Everyone was Orange, wearing sixteen inch heels, had blonde Cheryl hair extensions hanging to their waist and talons for nails. It was like a transvestite gathering.

Now we’re in Cumbria in the middle of nowhere. I try and tell Alula that this is where she comes from. Her roots. This is her family’s land and has been for generations. She ignores me, picks a red clover (apologizing to mother earth as she does) and starts singing ‘WE ARE HERE WE ARE HERE WE ARE HERE’ (you need to have watched Horton Hears a Who to get that one)… ‘it’s about no matter how small you are mummy you are still important’ she tells me. Her grandfather chases some dogwalkers off. I protest because what’s the harm in them walking across a field. There aren’t any sheep.

It’s my land, he says.

The French revolutionary inside me rears up and I walk away before I call for his head.

I’m sorry. I’ve been lame. I’ve been distracted by Vivienne Westwood, the deli counter at Sainsbury’s, trying to buy credit on a pay as you go phone and driving to Norfolk and back.

In the last week I have:

Bought a 300 pound dress I can no longer fit into

Eaten too much so now I weigh more pounds than the dress

Visited two National Trust houses and learnt that 18^th century beds are smaller than modern ones not because people were shorter but because in the olden days they used to sit upright to sleep as they thought if they lay down they’d die.

Explained to Alula who the Virgin Mary is

Also explained to Alula the concept of a soul and how being naughty will affect what she comes back as in her next life

Had lunch with a lesbian killer vampire and got the low down on all the cast of TWILIGHT….oh yes people I’m in possession of some awesome titbits about Robsten and the short underage one with the illegally hot six pack.

Written three chapters of my new book and toned down the kissing scene in the book that I’m editing (by order of my editor).

Got my hands on an actual copy of Hunting Lila

Figured out that neither my mum nor my husband can read a map without turning it upside down to figure out left and right and that altogether it’s best if I both map read and drive if we ever want to arrive anywhere

Cooked a leg of lamb people without destroying it or the pan or the oven or burning down the kitchen. Result.

Realised again that I hate cooking and vowed never to cook again.

Done the laundry for the first time in 18 months.

Dyed Alula’s clothes blue and shrunk John’s t-shirt.

Despaired of ever finding a bra in my size in M&S (because they don’t make them that small anymore apparently).

Drunk a lot of wine.