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???).

Birthday, Debs and Other Stuff

Last week I was taken away for a Long Birthday Weekend. To Jersey. In a beach hotel. With sea-view and balcony. And The Toyboy Trucker arranged for me to have my birthday breakfast on the beach terrace in the (really hot) sun with the sea - brilliantly blue and sparkling - only feet away, and he gave me a fabulous new engagement ring to replace the old one which had worn thin and fallen apart and has been glued together and is on a chain round my neck. It was SO romantic. And I cried. A lot.

We spent the Day Before My Birthday at El Tico's (pictured above) with the beautiful Debs and her lovely R and the gorgeous world-famous Grumpy. It was fantastic. We had a really, really l-o-n-g lazy laughing lunch in the sun and it was wonderful to chat for ages face-to-face instead of simply through the ether. The weather was amazing (like Karen I've got a burnt chest and am proud of it!) and I could have stayed there forever with D, R and G, gazing out across stunning St Ouens Bay and being lazy... It was so nice to be at El Tico's again and I love the way it's been lovingly restored without losing any of its original 1930s feel - oh, and the food was wonderful - as was the champagne! Thanks Debs - I'll remember it forever!

I do love St Ouens. When I lived in Jersey I worked (among other things) as a waitress at Le Braye (pictured below) just along the road from El Tico's and was sacked for releasing the freshly-caught lobsters each morning. They lived in a tin bath at the back of the cafe and were served fresh (i.e. alive - well, at least, not alive on the plate of course, but boiled to order) and I became a one-girlie-lobster-liberation-squad. It took the then-owners weeks to discover who was pinching the makings of their lobster salads... We sometimes go back now (I think it's safe to do so after many, many years) and have lunch at Le Braye and joyously there's not a lobster on the menu these days!


Now I'm back home and it's cold and grey and raining a bit. And I'm trying to write Midnight Feast but keep drifting off to Jersey in my head...

Fortunately I'm falling in love with the dining room now. Having taken all your advice, I've incorporated some old bits, added some new ones, and there's lots of colour splashed about. It still looks a bit clean and neat for me, but it's beginning to feel like home. And the table (the only old thing I couldn't fit into the shed) has a lovely new home at our local British Legion - so I think my Gran wouldn't have minded that at all...

Elle and The Doctor, having JUST got their wedding photos back (oooh, there may yet be a pic of the elusive m-o-t-b frock!), are on holiday in Vegas at the moment. The Toyboy Trucker and I are baby-sitting their newest acquisitions - four goldfish called Lambert&Butler and Benson&Hedges... (this we feel is Not A Good Thing for health professionals). The cats are very excited...

And we have new neighbours. At last. Will give their arrival a blog post of its own. I hope they'll cope with life in the terrace. They seem very nice and scarily normal.

I met Wilf-next-door this morning, he looked very smart and a bit glum, and said he'd just come back from a funeral. I made all the appropriate noises and he said "ah, but she asked for it. Smoking related, it was. She was a heavy smoker. Silly girl." I winced (yes, I smoke) in terror and vowed to give up (again) and murmured about that being very sad and asked how old she was (praying that she wasn't anywhere near my age or - God forbid - younger)and Wilf shook his head and said "bless 'er, she were only ninety seven...". I skipped all the way home and lit a fag by way of celebration.

Oh, and my Writers Bureau ad has been seen on the telly by lots of people - but not by me. However, it is on YouTube now - and (if you want to see the result of my fab time in Manchester) I think this link below works if you cut and paste it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK_CQvwGHwI
well, it did for me. Elle thought it was weird to see me with dead straight hair and a lot of slap and looking a bit "stiff", but she also thought I looked "quite thin if a bit wrinkly". There's a compliment in there somewhere - I think...