Not Quite How I'd Planned It...

No, well, I'd intended to post this on New Year's Day (so that the date could be 1/1/11) and wish everyone in Blogland a Happy New Year and be full of festive cheer...

But, being me, things didn't go quite to plan, hence my new year greeting being almost a week late... New Year saw me and The Toyboy Trucker snuffling our way between various surgeries and pharmacies - him to get antibiotics for the chest infection left by The Christmas Cold; me to get antibiotics for the sinus infection left by The Christmas Cold; both of us to the vet's with Alexia who had chronic enteritis over Christmas and needed a daily antibiotic injection...

Oh, what a jolly little trio we were!

And, add to that, the fact that 1) I managed to break two teeth on a cashew nut and 2) I dislocated my knee by balancing on a stool on top of a cushion on top of the sofa (no, not a new party trick) to try to remove a loose garland dangling irritatingly from a corner of the ceiling and then tumbling off in a fat and flustered heap...

So, now we're coughing and sniffing and limping and lisping-and-dribbling and feeling damn miserable. Alexia, on the other hand, is fully recovered and can't understand what all the fuss was about.

Now I have a little over three weeks to finish Never Can Say Goodbye, so am disappearing into the deep, dark, hellish deadline cave for a while - but belatedly - Happy New Year!

Romantic Novel of The Year Award - ooh and Happy Christmas!

I've just had the best early Christmas present ever - the news that The Way To A Woman's Heart has been long-listed for the prestigious Romantic Novel of The Year Award. Stunned? I'm speechless. The short-list will be announced in February and I'm pretty certain TWTAWH won't be on it (believe me, there are some really big-hitters on that long-list) BUT just to be nominated is absolutely amazing. I've just skimmed back over the blog posts I wrote while - um - crafting TWTAWH and have decided that, with hindsight and a completed book, all that - um - crafting was well worth it in the long run...

We've had a weird few weeks - it's all been a bit Hotel Babylon here with our usual influx of pre-festive visitors - and some lovely but disruptive winter weather. One lot of visitors, due to arrive at Southampton airport at 9 a.m. eventually, after several re-routes, ended up at Gatwick at midnight. The Toyboy Trucker who was collecting them spent a hairy day and night battling through snow, ice and freezing fog as he hopefully toured the UK's airports. The restaurant get-together was eventually cancelled at about 11 p.m and we all had weary fish and chips in the early hours and minus 10 degree temperatures.

And sadly, my lovely brave one-eyed Maddy cat died suddenly. We were devastated. She'd done so well and had such a happy and lively few months since her operation and had loved being a Diva Cat and spoiled rotten. Her death was as peaceful and gentle as her life - she hadn't shown any signs of being ill at all, and had curled up after her supper on her blanket under her favourite radiator and simply went to sleep. We found her the next morning looking as though she was still sleeping. A fantastic end for her - sheer, total, heartbreaking hell for us. RIP my Mad-Mad Maddy - I'll always love and miss you.

So - two days before Christmas, we're still up to our fetlocks in snow here, it looks gorgeously Winter Wonderland outside, The Toyboy Trucker will be home on Christmas Eve, I've packed all the Christmas stockings, and have stopped writing Never Can Say Goodbye until after the festivities. With the other residents of the terrace and Elle and The Doctor we're looking forward to a very happy Christmas and an awful lot of peace on earth.

So, Happy Christmas to all Bucolic Frolickers - thank you so much for all your support and brilliant friendship - and I hope you all have the Christmas you've dreamed of.

See you next year!

Rambling

That's rambling as in dazed and confused mental meandering - not as in a hearty stride-out across the autumnal countryside - just in case you thought I'd suddenly turned into Ramblers' Champion, Janet "I'm a pensioner you know" Street-Porter.

Anyway I'm rambling for two reasons really: one, because I've had a touch of The Thing That's Going Around and still feel a bit muzzy and need to think about something other than my next dose of Lemsip, and two, because I've reached that stage in writing Never Can Say Goodbye where my finger keeps hovering over the "delete the whole damn lot and start again" button and need to be kept away from my 60,000 words plus until the moment has passed...

So - a few things that have amused me recently (and all in the name of research - just in case Broo is reading this)...

Last week, while shuffling across the estate to our local version of Big Sava via one of the rather pretty little lanes overhung with gloriously tinted trees I watched a very tiny and very elderly man tiptoeing beneath said trees, sprinkling something from a small bag. I smiled to myself at this vision of age-old rural tradition. Bless him, dressed in baggy brown cords and an even baggier beige jumper, he was one of those gentle pink and white marshmallowy old chaps, with pale blue eyes and the sort of stand-up fly-away wispy hair that babies have. He beamed as I approached and offered me the bag with a cheery "Do you like licorice, my dear? Would you like some?" Now, I do like licorice - come on, it's sweet, I like it - but I also remembered my mum's warning of not taking sweets from strangers, so I declined. "That'll mean even more for the squirrels then, my dear," he said, pale blue eyes twinkling kindly. "Oh," I said, even more touched at this demonstration of caring-for-nature, "do squirrels like licorice, then?" The rheumy blue eyes hardened as he cackled, "nah. They hates it. And I hates them. Gives 'em the squits big time -nasty little bastards."

And I've been to aqua aerobics. Once. I shan't be going back. Not to mince words here, we - the participants - were lumpen girls, clad in our uniform sturdy M&S black all-in-one-with-tummy-control-panel swimsuits. We stood self-consciously, chest deep, in neat rows in the aquamarine water, trying not to pass out from the heat and chlorine fumes, waiting for Sasha-Marie, the instructor. Beyonce boomed from the sound-system. Several of us cautiously limbered up a bit under water in an attempt to burn more calories or not fall over or both. Then Sasha-Marie, in pink leggings and a vermilion T-shirt, trundled in and stood on the pool edge in front of us. Yes, trundled. Sasha-Marie was h-u-g-e. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of picky about my exercise regime (translate that as I don't have one but if I did I'd want some sort of proof that it worked), and I refuse to be pc here. Sasha-Marie wasn't pleasantly plump or cuddly - she was massive. We looked like collective Kate Mosses by comparison. With no apparent trace of irony, Sasha-Marie clapped her chubby hands and shouted "Right, girls, let's see if we can get rid of some of that porkiness in time for Christmas, shall we?". Five minutes into marching on the spot underwater and clapping our hands above our head at the same time (something I found a little bit tricky because I'm not particularly co-ordinated), we were getting into the swim (see what I did there?) quite nicely, but Sasha-Marie was still fully dressed and on dry land and puffing and panting and turning puce. Another ten minutes and were were slapping our hands together under our knees in time to Cheryl Cole. Sasha-Marie was sitting on a stool and gasping out her instructions in wheezy staccato bursts. By the time the half hour was up, we - looking like the hippo ballerinas in Fantasia - were twirling and kicking and splashing our hands happily on the surface of the pool along with Kylie. Sasha-Marie had been taken outside by the lifeguard. And when I got home I weighed 2lbs more than when I started. Aqua aerobics is not for me...

And note to self: when you're next having your hair coloured by someone who trained at A Big London Salon DO NOT say cheerfully "oh, just slap a few tabby stripes in as usual". Colourists from Big London Salons don't slap or do tabby or stripes. They do nuances and hints, and tones and tints, and shades and shimmers, and slivers and slices, and glints and glimmers, and hi-lights and lo-lights, and can have Very Bad Tempers.

We have an Old People's Day Centre on the other side of the green. The Toyboy Trucker thinks this is very handy as he reckons I'll be needing it before too long and being so close it won't be too tricky to find me if I wander off. For years we've been used to seeing bus-loads of Seniors (as our council insists we call them) being shunted off to watch the traffic congestion on the A34 or the fights in the entrance to Poundland. However, because the council (like councils everywhere) are having to make swingeing budget cuts, the bus has had to go. Now the Seniors are shepherded together in little groups with a minder to participate in activities on the green. The Teddy Bears' Picnic was a great success. Not so the litter-picking. Well, you give a lot of disgruntled pensioners-with-attitude pointy sticks and a plastic bag and you're asking for trouble, in my opinion. By the end they had more paramedics in attendance than there were at our wedding reception (another story for another blog post - maybe). This week they've borrowed someone from our FE college to teach them Tai Chi. On the green. In the wind and rain. I'm sorry, but I laughed. Thirty or so cold and wet Seniors, in a collection of puffa jackets, anoraks, hats, scarves and zip-up bootees striking poses (and each other) was like one of the more surreal episodes of Monty Python. Oh, and another thing - when I walked past the day centre yesterday they were having a sing-song. Merry melodies from their youth. Tunes from the War Years. Roll Out the Barrel and It's a Long Way to Tipperary et al. But surely, most of today's Seniors were yesterday's hippies and rock-children? Shouldn't they be boogieing along to the Stones and Led Zep?

Oh, goody - now it's time for my next Lempsip. And when I've had that, I might just have a look at the "delete the whole damn lot and start again" button...

Rebecca In The Scout Hut

It was much as expected. A full house (we don't get much in the way of entertainment on the estate since Fiery Dave and his souped-up wheel-spinning Subaru moved, thanks to the petition and umpteen Asbos, to East Kilbride), uncomfortable chairs pinched from the Mixed Infants, intermittent lighting, and a biting wind through the window that never got mended after the Brownies had a bit of a fracas during last Easter's performance of Riverdance. Still, we were all there, in the scout hut, more in hope than expectation (as always) and we weren't disappointed.

The am-drammers had copped out (in my opinion) on the settings and used the backdrops from last year's panto (Jack and the Beanstalk). Therefore, Manderley (interior and exterior) was the giant's castle, the South of France was the market square minus The Village Children but sadly still plus the painted-on cow, and the Gothic atmosphere (such as it was) was provided by the lights being turned on and off very quickly backstage. Well, until the moment they all fused, then - until they were fixed - it was down to three people with torches aided by several rows of the audience who, remembering that ill-fated coach trip to see Barry Manilow at Blenheim Palace, held their lighters aloft.

Avis from the Co-op was The Second Mrs de Winter. As Avis is 53 and - given her build and incipient moustache - had been the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, she wasn't that convincing as a frail and nervous child-bride, but her twin-set and tweed skirt were lovely. It was slightly disturbing that Maxim was played by Larry the postman. Now, there's nothing wrong with Larry and he can act his socks off when he puts his mind to it, but Avis is his mum - so you see the problem. We all tried to suspend disbelief and any squeamishness, but it tested even the most ardent theatre-goer at times.

The am-drammers are a small group, therefore there was the usual doubling-up of roles. Mrs Danvers (played with terrifying authenticity by the vicar's wife, leading us to discuss in the intermission - egg sandwiches with concrete crusts and polystyrene beakers of tepid tea - just exactly what home-life was like in the vicarage) was also Bee and, after lots of muttering and rustling and quick-changes of jacket/hat/beard in the wings, Sid Newman from the garden centre became Jack Favell,Frank Crawley, Frith and Giles. Any scenes that involved more than one of these characters were relegated to off-stage conversations aided and abetted by Gorgeous George (a nickname given with full rustic irony) from the garage who was the narrator. A narrator, we all felt, was essential, given the gaping gaps in the script.

Jasper (Avis's elderly Jack Russell was substituted for the springer spaniel of the original) made several impromptu appearances. Usually when he wasn't required. And eventually he went to sleep in the middle of the stage, snoring loudly, and no-one could shift him so everyone just stepped round him. Except Avis during one of her most wither-wringing scenes when she tripped over him and uttered a line of such eye-watering profanity that Dame Daphne must have groaned in her grave.

We were all, it must be said, really waiting for the burning of Manderley. It was well worth the wait. As we held our collective breath in a frenzy of anticipation, noises-off provided, by way of Gorgeous George rustling aluminium foil and blowing-across-the-tops-of-bottles (we could see this operation taking place so it did somewhat dilute the artistic tension), a lot of crackling and roaring, followed by the smoke machine, which was fairly impressive. I say only fairly as unfortunately the copious billows of thick grey vapour were caught in the draught from the Brownies broken window and rolled, like a Victorian pea-souper, away from Manderley/Giant's Castle and the stage generally and wafted across the audience. As the first four rows disappeared in the murk, everyone nostalgically agreed that it was just like being in the snug of the Weasel and Bucket before the smoking ban. Happy days!

Once the fog had cleared and someone had woken Jasper, and the vicar's wife (aka Mrs Danvers at that point) had stopped screaming, the am-drammers took their bows and got three curtain-calls (there weren't any curtains but you get the idea). Then we all tidied our chairs and beakers away, and as we filed outside into night the general consensus was that Rebecca in the Scout Hut had been a resounding success.

Their next production will be the Christmas panto of course (Goldilocks this year - we're all assuming Avis will be taking the title role and stretching the imagination even further and that possibly all three bears will be played by Larry) and then, frighteningly, they're going to be tackling Ben Hur.

I will be reviewing it here. Maybe...

Bugger - I Didn't Win The Booker...

Well, not that I expected to of course, not being short-listed or even long-listed or even in contention at any stage or anything because I'm not even a smidgen literary. However, I was very chuffed when one of those intense and scary-looking telly arts' commentators said that this year's winner - Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question - was a comic novel and indicated a move away from serious to humorous, from high-brow to middle-brow. Oooh, I thought - one more brow down and there's hope for me and the rest of the Rom-Commers yet. But, sadly, it seems not...

Now, I haven't read The Finkler Question (I've never read anything either long or short listed for the Booker because I'm a pleb), but the little bit I heard being read out last night didn't make me chortle. I actually didn't really understand it... which means, I suppose, that it must be really, really good. And Howard Jacobson showed a great sense of fun (I thought) when he said he'd spend the £50,000 (gulp) prize money on a handbag for his wife with a wry "have you seen the price of handbags?".

However, while I was having a little happy moment about The Man Booker sliding ever so slowly towards people of my limited brain-power, Andrew Motion (chair of judges) sodded it up by describing The Finkler Question as "laugh-out-loud funny but so nearly adjacent to tragedy" and "very sad, melancholic, laughter in the dark..." and then Mr Jacobson himself compounded my deepest fears by saying his novel wasn't "easy-peasy and middle-brow because it's comic. It's much cleverer and more complicated and about much more difficult things..."

Ah, well - many congrats to Howard Jacobson - but I have a feeling that Brian from the kebab van and Maisie the Useless Medium won't be troubling the Booker judges for a while yet...

And - while on the subject of literary fiction - I listened to the first ever Radio 2 Book Club reviews on Monday evening. This time the book chosen was Mr Chartwell - a first-time novel about depression and Winston Churchill and a widowed librarian set over 5 days in the summer of 1964. Mr Chartwell - who has a massive viewpoint role apparently (haven't read this one either because I'm a pleb) - is a giant black dog (black dog equalling depression which is the theme of the novel)... Ooooh, I thought, how many times have I been told that having an animal narrator is a huge no-no - things must be soooo different in Lit Fic Land. The author sounded very young and very happy and has been given a very pleasing advance - which is wonderful for her - but several reviewers said while they loved her descriptions they couldn't understand some of her complex sentences and had to re-read them several times to get the gist... Now, in Commercial Fiction Land that would earn you a sharp editorial rap on the knuckles and a severe editing session...

Oh, well - it's back to the keyboard and baby-easy sentences and Brian from the kebab van and words of one syllable for me...

Oh - and while out yesterday, I saw this notice in the window of The Eight 'til Late:
"Fitzharry's Am Dram Society proudly present Rebbecca by Daphne Du Maurier, unabridged, for three nights, in the Scout Hut".

The burning of Manderley???? The scenes in the south of France??? The costume ball??? Rebecca's boat on stormy seas???? In the Scout Hut?????

I've bought tickets.

Champagne at 38,000 Feet

Last Sunday it was my birthday (I'm now VERY old) - and thank you so much to everyone who sent greetings and then obviously thought I was a mardy mare for not replying - but I was celebrating it with champagne and The Toyboy Trucker and 300+ other people somewhere dizzily high in the sky above the Alps en route to Cyprus. How decadent was that??? Actually, it was just wonderful. Perfect. I cried with happiness (I cry VERY easily) when I found out about it. Cyprus was my surprise birthday present from TTT, Elle and The Doctor and I LOVED it. Had never been before and will go back as soon as poss. We left the UK early on my birthday morning with temperatures in single figures and a cutting northerly wind howling across a bleak sky - and landed 4 hours later in 35+ degrees of non-stop sunshine. It was one of the most blissful weeks of my life...

But now I'm back, feet firmly on the ground, shivering and WORKING. Well, I'm trying. The new book (Never Can Say Goodbye) is still going okay. It seems to be like Going the Distance and Hubble Bubble in the way it's kind of unfolding itself easily as I go along. Strangely (because I still have absolutely no idea how my books ever come into being, or how I write them, or why it seems natural to me to have this entire cast of REAL people living inside my head) my books don't follow the same pattern. Some like this one (so far) sort of write themselves, others need a lot more concentration and - er - work.

My early Orion books seemed to gush out with no problems (but then I was still all starry-eyed about being published and everything was all lovely and shiny and new), then the HarperCollins ones were much bigger and more complex and layered and therefore took longer and I had to make sure that all the ends tied up and all the sub-plots reached a conclusion as well as the main story thread. And since then, the Piatkus/Little,Brown ones have been a mix of the two. Love Potions gave me all sorts of headaches (mainly because when the title was changed from Flower Power {considered too hippie} I realised I hadn't actually got any love potions in it and had to go back and slot them in); Heaven Sent was far too short but I'd told the story and anything else would have been padding; Happy Birthday was too long (in my opinion) and probably should have been two books...

And The Way To A Woman's Heart....??? Well, once I'd stopped being a diva-bitch-from-hell author and got over it no longer being called Midnight Feast, and accepted that Sunny (heroine) was now called Ella, and that it had to be a longer, meatier story (sorry, bit of a pun as it's about cookery) with a bigger cast of characters, less obvious practical magic and more grounded reality but still series-linked to the previous books - oh, and amusing, I finally knuckled down and just did it.

I suppose, as a writer, that's what it's all about really - just doing it. No-one else is going to. Sadly, it's taken me years to realise that! Much as there were many, many mornings when I'd switch on the computer and hope that the Tailor of Gloucester's mice had written several thousand words of The Way To A Woman's Heart overnight, eventually I accepted that if I didn't do it then it would never be finished. Weird though how the changing of the title and the heroine's name made it the most difficult book I've ever written. Still, it's done, I'm happy with it - and hopefully the slog/sweat/angst/difficult-author-tantrums won't show...

Never Can Say Goodbye (and that is going to be the title - they've had the discussion about maybe changing it to something else and happily decided to stick with my "let's get away from the cutesy magicky titles" title - so that's one hurdle - um - hurdled) is developing into a completely different book. The magic is slightly more - um - spooky. The characters are more eccentric (as in Brian from the kebab van and Maisie the Useless Medium). The situations more down-to-earth - well, in a sort of off-the-wall way. And much as I thought that after actually having to "work" on The Way To A Woman's Heart (I really hate work!) I'd never find my mo-jo or my writing joi-de-vivre again, so far I'm having fun with it. Which is just as well as it has to be finished by Christmas. Erk!

Blimey! This post is almost writerly. Still, the next one won't be as I've got to blog about total rubbish. Even more total rubbish than usual because our local council has just ventured into the multi-wheely-bin-refuse-disposal-system and you wouldn't believe the uproar this has caused in the terrace... FIVE wheely bins, all different colours, all for different things, all collected on different days... It's causing anarchy here, I can tell you. Anarchy.

Oh, and tonight I'm going to the theatre again with The Toyboy Trucker - but this time to see Frankie Boyle - so probably this is not going to be a repeat of the erudite cerebral Stephen Fry experience... Can't wait!

Why Can't I Be Stephen Fry???????

We went to see Stephen Fry on Saturday. That is we went to see him at the theatre - we didn't pop round to his for tea or anything. I like Stephen Fry: I love him on QI, he's a great actor, a clever mimic, and I am in awe of his brain, his wealth of knowledge and his wonderful use of words. This theatre performance was to promo part two of his autobiography - so it was Stephen talking about the early and middle chunk of his life. Did I enjoy it? Yes, most of it - although being honest, some of it was way too elitist for me - but then I'm definitely a pleb. Stephen was warm and garrulous and rambling and told several lengthy and intricate tales about how he was a lost cause in his youth and sort of stumbled into stardom. Sadly, because I'm the aforementioned pleb, some of it was just a touch too luvvie for me. However, the man is without doubt a genius.

But the whole thing was ruined because I got the nutter sitting next to me...

You know how you always get them on a bus or a train? It isn't just me, is it? Oh, right... Well, anyway, on Saturday night I got the theatre equivalent. There was one empty seat next to me in a sell-out full house. And, just before curtain up, in he came. Bustling along the row, treading on toes, all multi-patterned jumper, cagoule, and haversack. As the lights dimmed, he dumped the haversack and rushed down to the front of the stalls, stood on tiptoe and peered on to the stage. Then he cantered back, threw himself down beside me and said excitedly "I can see him in the wings! He's ready to come on!"

I smiled weakly and edged further away - difficult in theatre seats. He leaned towards me. "I saw him in Cambridge last night and Norwich the night before and tomorrow I'll see him in London!"

Oh, great. I'd got a Stephen Fry groupie...

Fortunately, Stephen made his entrance then, and Mr Groupie was on his feet whooping and hollering. I shrank down in my seat as everyone turned to stare at us. The Toyboy Trucker, safely out of the spotlight on the other side of me, laughed. A lot. Anyway, once Stephen got going, Mr Groupie, who clearly hadn't wasted his time on the tour, loudly spoke every line along with him, albeit slightly out of sync. It was like having a slightly bizarre echo. Mercifully this came to an end when Mr Groupie burrowed into his haversack and brought out his sandwiches and flask of coffee. Generously he offered me a sardine and tomato. I declined. And by this time The Toyboy Trucker was, naturally, doubled up...

Maybe it was the stench of the sardine sandwiches, but I was getting pretty tetchy. So, when Stephen said that as a writer he was arrogant because all writers are arrogant I wanted to yell WRONG! I was absolutely itching to leap up and say WRONG, WRONG, WRONG - but, given that thanks to Mr Groupie our row was already the centre of attention and The Toyboy Trucker was giving me One Of Those Looks, I didn't. I just sat and simmered and tried to ignore the pungency of the sardines.

Then, just to add to my irritation, Stephen announced that the entire tour had been organised by his publishers (Penguin) to promote his latest book - and that after his hour and a half on stage he'd be doing a book selling-and-signing session in the theatre.

Well! Fancy that! Stephen Fry gets a publisher-paid tour of theatres - a sell-out nationwide tour of theatres seating thousands - and I get the local book shop if I'm lucky. Stephen Fry has queues and queues of hundreds of people winding for miles round our major cities, I get a few friends and people sheltering from the rain or waiting for the next bus to Kingston Dapple. Now I wonder why that is? And why, oh why, can't I be Stephen Fry?

Sadly, my book-signings always remind me of the days when I travelled with my Dad, the fairground organ and traction engine to do shows in remote rural locations. I've lost count of the times that Dad used to peer out on a bleak field with the rain falling horizontally in a force ten gale and say (in pre-PC days) - "good crowd tonight - three paraplegics and a daft bloke with a dog"... because it seemed that at every country fayre we attended, all the minders used to dump their charges in front of the organ with a cheerful "Never mind a bit of rain...let's park you here! Oooh, look at the pretty lights! Listen to the pretty music!" before sodding off to the beer tent...

And then I'd trundle on and dance the can-can in a monsoon to a less-than-impressed audience. Actually, it's funny with hindsight, just how much of my early life could have been lifted straight out of Cher's Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves...

Anyway, those less-than-packed performance days are EXACTLY like my book signings - except of course that I don't dance the can-can any more - maybe I should....

So - the picture at the top of the post is Stephen's very crowded book-signing and this one is mine.... Spot the difference???????????????