Sssshhhhh....

That's not sssshhhhh as in library-speak (sorry Karen - I know that's a cliche) or sssshhhhh as in a truncated expletive - nooo, it's sssshhhhh as in shingles - because I've got 'em.

Ooooh... Now I feel really, really old - even though everyone assures me that you can get shingles at any age, it still sounds like An Old Person's Thing to me...

And I didn't even know. I assumed the flu-ish feelings and the pain I've had for the last couple of weeks in my neck, shoulder and back was a combination of a bit of a cold and a pulled muscle. Okay, I was feeling a bit woozy and the pain was a funny tingly burning sensation - but even so... Then my shoulder and neck and back started hurting a lot. And I itched - and I scratched - and that hurt even more.

Now I don't know about you, but I never really look at my back - it's a sort of no go area. I can't see it much to be truthful, even if I wanted to, even in the mirror, so I couldn't see what was going on - just feel it. Anyway, as the pain hadn't gone away I thought maybe it was Something Awful the way you do (or is that just me?). So, I made the hideous mistake of typing my symptoms into NHS Direct....

Dear God - no matter which computation of yes/no answers I put in it came up with the big screamy page telling me to dial 999 for an emergency ambulance.

As a semi-reformed hypochondriac I was in a state of terror but managed to keep a grip long enough to ring NHS Direct and speak to a real person - just to make sure -before filling the house with paramedics. After answering loads of questions I'm sorry to say that I collapsed in giggles over "are your lips blue?" - well, only when I've been eating licorice - and "can you swallow your own spit?" - yes, they said spit not saliva - and do you know, it's something I've never thought about, but once I'd started thinking about it I found I couldn't and got quite agitated... Not quite as agitated as the poor NHS Direct person who frostily suggested I should see my GP.

Actually, that's not the greatest thing to suggest to me as my last visit to the doctor's surgery (when I had Urticarial Angiodema with Vasculitus - I know! Fancy - huh?) resulted in the receptionist helpfully suggesting that I might be allergic to mangoes and the last person they'd had with a mango allergy had been dead within 20 minutes.

Anyway, I went - and yep, I've got shingles. Mild, apparently, but shingles never-the-less. And because my pustules haven't yet crusted over (sorry - possibly far too much gross information) I'm still infectious and therefore have to stay away from normal people.

This is a bit of a bugger as I'm supposed to be in London today having a lovely celebratory lunch with my editor and agent to talk about publicity for Moonshine and toast the signing of a new two book deal. (Yippeeee!) And I was SO looking forward to it. I'd bought new shoes. With sparkles on them. I am SO miffed now as I sit here, typing and wincing and scratching - and not being feted in a swish eatery.

Hopefully I'll be crusty enough to attend the launch party for the Romantic Novelists Association's Golden Anniversary short story anthology - Loves Me Loves Me Not (buy it! It's brill!)- next Wednesday. If not, then I'll really have to spit...

Remembrance Day

Really no need for words. Just the picture and thoughts. Remembrance Day seems even more poignant today somehow. War is no longer something sadly remembered by the older generation. It's now horribly real for everyone. We're on the flight path for both RAF Brize Norton (where the bodies of the servicemen lost in Iraq were repatriated) and RAF Lyneham (where the Afghan dead are now flown) and the sight and sound of those low-flying Hercules on their heart-breaking mission is truly harrowing.

I held my own two minute silence at 11 just now - in the garden - and it was made even more poignant by the nearby army base sounding the eerie WW11 air-raid siren, and the local infant school getting all the children into the playground, and their excited laughter dying away on the first stroke of eleven o'clock until all I could hear was - nothing. Absolute silence. Very, very moving.

Firework Wedding and Strange Shopping

Happy Anniversary to The Toyboy Trucker (and me)! Still think it was a lovely sparkly colourful noisy day to get married - and we're going for the annual full communal village green firework, fish and chips and champagne anniversary party tonight. Can't wait!

The Toyboy Trucker brought me a cup of tea in bed this morning, along with a card and a shopful of flowers. It was wonderful - even if it was 5a.m. Luckily I'd bought him a card this year too - and the words in both were identical - romantic not sloppy or funny - which we reckon shows we're still on the same wavelength even after all these years. And they said it wouldn't last! Honestly - most people gave us six months at the most. Hah and ya-boo-sucks to them! I bought him chocolates. Elle and The Doctor gave us a pantechnicon-load of fancy doughnuts for tonight's party. We had to test-drive them though - even at 5a.m.... Fantastic!

While I was buying the chocolates yesterday (in Thorntons - there's posh!) - the customer in front of me was having a message iced on to her chocolate thingy (not sure what it was meant to be). She wanted "Keep Smiling". The assistant carefully manoeuvred her icing bag with a steady hand and eventually held up the result. I shook my head. It said "Keep Smileing". I pointed out the mis-spelling - and after much argument with two other assistants and three customers, the offending icing was scraped off and a second attempt was made. This time it said "Keep Smilling". There was a further prolonged argument and a lot of huffing and puffing before the third attempt passed muster. After the customer had left happily clutching her correctly-spelt confectionery the assistant suggested, a touch tersely, that it would have been far more economical for the shop if I'd just kept my mouth shut...

And then, even worse, in the card shop, while browsing through umpteen anniversary cards and discarding the ones with pipes and slippers or cartoon pictures of pneumatic blondes, they started playing smooth, chill-out background music. Unfortunately, it was Cavatina - the theme from The Deer Hunter - which is a total no-no for me. It holds such heart-breaking memories that I'm always reduced to a soggy, sobbing, heaving wreck within seconds... This is Not A Good Thing in a small shop crowded with pensioners punching their way through the "350 Christmas Cards For £2.50" section. With tears pouring down my face, and hiccuping back howls, I dropped the card I'd chosen and forced my way through the throng into the street. Not-too-hushed hisses of "...she'm drunk!" and "...shoplifting, you mark my words..." and "...they're all doo-lally up on 'er estate..." followed me. Ooooh, the humiliation...

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween. I always loved it when I was little, before it became commercial, and my mum would make cut-out witches and black cats to dangle round the house and we'd have tea by candlelight and my dad would tell really scary ghost stories. This was possibly because both my nans tended towards witchcraft anyway, so it seemed quite normal. It would probably be classed as child abuse today... I'm not sure that I love today's updated and far more sinister Trick or Treat - but we do have a bowl of cheap and nasty sweets ready for tonight's onslaught by the yoof of the estate. The Toyboy Trucker is hoping tonight's forecasted heavy rain will keep the yoof of the estate indoors so that he can chomp his way through the crud while watching Match of the Day.

It's also Dexter's birthday today. He's two. He was named after the psychopathic, amoral serial killer of the telly series because - well - he is a psychopathic, amoral serial killer... He's also cute. Very. And as he was dumped in mid-November at a few weeks old when we found him we guessed his birthday must have been around now and Halloween seems a very suitable birthdate for him. Happy birthday Dexter!

And the rest of the non-writing non-Halloween weekend will be spent clearing out the last remnants of the living room ready for the tarting up process to begin on Monday. Gulp....

Parish Notices

A very brief blog post to pass on info... (oh, and a trillion years ago I used to live in the village in the pic)

First, an impassioned plea from the lovely Lynne Hackles who is trying to sell her house and is cleverly using the web/blog network to spread the word. Anyone who might be interested in moving to/in Wales (or who knows anyone who might be interested) please take a look at Lynne's website (fabulously glam photo, Lynne!) www.lynnehackles.com where there are some gorgeous pictures (it's stunningly beautiful and original and extremely reasonably priced - am sorely tempted myself!) of the house and a detailed description of all the rooms and the glorious surrounding area.

Secondly, I've got two new online interviews up and running - both on sites which will be of interest to new writers and old hands alike. They're at www.newbiewriters.com and www.novelkicks.co.uk.

Thirdly, the renovating of the lean-to is finished. It is now officially A Sun Room. When we bought the house it was described (in estate agent speak) as a conservatory. It isn't and never was. Over the years it's become a general glory hole/cat sanctuary/garden store. It's now beautiful and painted and wood panelled and carpeted and has furniture in it!!! We shall be opening it to the public in the spring...

Fourthly - I've gone mad - madder? - (after hating the new dining room - mind you, I'm much happier now it's got *stuff* in it and looks like home) and am allowing the living room to be tarted up next week. I know I'll HATE it to start with - especially as we're going for a radical change from navy blue and gold to burgundy and cream... gulp...

Fifthly, I have a Christmas deadline for Midnight Feast (now called The Way To A Woman's Heart according to Amazon - I always find it really scary when a novel I'm still writing, and especially when I'm wallowing in the muddly middle, appears on Amazon as a Real Book That People Can Order!!! - so it clearly wasn't just Sunny Strange or my house that had to have a makeover) and now I've really, really got to get a move on and finish it - and it only seems five minutes ago that I was saying the very same thing about Moonshine...

Killing Two Birds...

The two birds of the subject line are Facebook and Names. Firstly, Facebook - well - I've gorn all technical (with a lot of help from the lovely alzamina - thank you so much!) in my newly-found self-promo-ing zeal and added a CJ Fan Page to my normal Facebook page - hence the rather odd link-widget-thingy (see how quickly I've picked up the appropriate jargon?) on the right. And I'd really, really appreciate it if someone would click the "become a fan" button otherwise it'll look really sad...

And the second bird - names... Well, it's just that my friend has named her new daughter Sukie Lulu after two of my heroines - which I think is lovely but I sincerely hope Sukie Lulu won't grow up to hate me, and also I've had an email from a lovely lady who tells me her three sons are all named after my heroes - Drew, Rory and Ellis - which is again very flattering and probably a lot more acceptable...

But it does mean in future I'm going to have to be very, very careful about "christening" my H&H just in case some poor newborn gets lumbered with something I think is sweet now but they'll hate like poison when they get to 25... Elle, bless her, was near as dammit called Poppy Star. She is SO glad I saw sense...

And funnily enough, while on the name thing, the heroine in Midnight Feast has also had to have a bit of a name make-over. I'd called her Sunny Strange because she is both of those things - but this was considered just a bit too - er - goofy - so she's now Ella Maloney. It took me ages to get used to it - plus I did "find and replace" and therefore now have loads of things like "it was a lovely Ella morning" and "there was a Maloney atmosphere" splattered right through my carefully crafted and beautifully honed 75,000 so far and counting words. Sigh...

Happy Diwali!

Today is Diwali - the Hindu Festival of Light - and I'm that excited! I'm just off - with the Toyboy Trucker, Elle, The Doctor and his family - to celebrate it in style for the first time. As it involves sweets, lights, candles, and fireworks - I'm in my element.

We're going to the Hindu Temple first, then off to Wembley for the lights procession followed by fireworks, rounding it all off with a celebratory Indian banquet. I've got an Indian silk tunic (multi-coloured) to wear plus some sparkly shoes (naff but lovely) and masses of bling. I think I probably look like a fat Christmas tree but I don't care.

Sooo - sweets, sparkly, twinkly lights, glittery candles, loads of fireworks, masses and masses of colour and FOOD - oooh - I can't wait...

Happy Diwali to everyone (oh, and next year Diwali is on November 5th which is our wedding anniversary - so how good will that one be???).