It's beginning to look a lot like...

...(dare I say it?) Christmas.

Oh yes. Not only is it snowing, in a charming, fluffy, Pinewood studios way but, dear blog readers, I can smugly reveal that I have survived my first assault on the shops, and even have a stash of carrier bags under the bed to show for it. Yesterday* saw the annual concert of the Young Voices Choir (not to be confused with New Voices, which I have constantly done over the past couple of months, much to the irritation of my daughters and no doubt editors and other writers to whom I've conversed on the subject of the recent M&B contest) at the MEN arena in Manchester in which the daughters’ primary school always take part. Over the years this event has become a sort of seasonal starter’s whistle in my mind; the children are whisked away to warm up their vocal chords and us mums are deposited in the centre of Manchester with an entire day and a whole lot of extremely yummy shops at our disposal. As a campaign veteran (the t-shirt worn by daughter #3 yesterday says Young Voices 2003 on it and has been worn by both sisters) I now know that it’s a mistake to slip into Harvey Nichols champagne bar too early, so held off until we had more bags than we could comfortably carry and had spent more money than we could comfortably afford (and had tried on more perfume in Selfridges than was perhaps quite sociable. But at least it meant we could spread all our shopping out nicely.)

After the shopping and champagne comes the squeezing carrier bags into the narrow tiered seats of the arena and watching 6000 children sing their socks off. I have actually used the little circling device on my computer to show you where daughter #3 was, but you can't even see the circle. She's in the last section lit by white light, next to the blue-lit one. See her? Yes, there! Isn't she gorgeous?

There's always a moment when the children start to sing and the hairs on the back of your neck rise. This year it was their version of Cyndi Lauper's True Colours that set me off. Sniff. I knew that second glass of wine was a mistake.

(I was too busy reaching for the tissues to record that bit, but did remember to whip my phone out and find the camcorder function a little later. Here's one minute of World in Union. In the corner of the screen you can see the fabulous light up balloons we took so the children could spot us!)

Anyway, after getting back at midnight last night and waking up to thick snow this morning, today has had a funny kind of suspended-reality feeling that has been most un-conducive to getting stuck into the next book, and most conducive to getting stuck into the stash of posh Harvey Nicks mince pies I bought as presents. Oh dear. (Am clearly very closely in touch with my inner cavewoman and compelled by a primitive instinct to lay down winter fat to keep out savage cold. However, since cavewomen were not burdened with the task of buying three thousand Christmas presents or fitting into jeans, I probably should pay more attention to my outer 21st century writer-with-a-deadline-and-half-a-stone-to-lose and step away from the HN foodhall bags.)

On a positive note, I have managed to do a bit of light packaging up, so books will be on their way to Kristy, Ruth, Joanne, Denise, Janette, Kelly, Joanna, Mary, Amanda and Amanda. I don’t have as many copies of Her Last Night of Innocence as I’d thought, since on closer examination the box that I thought was filled with them contained a number of translation copies too Japanese Spanish Aristocrat anyone? Or Greek Powerful Italian? If you'd like a book in any other language let me know and I'd be delighted to send you one if I have it.

Right, had better pile on a few more layers and brave Siberian conditions to go to the post office. Am already looking like a cross between a teletubby and an extra in Dr Zhivago, however. Hope I don't meet anyone I know. How's the weather with you?

*was, in fact, Monday, but since I have the kind of goldfish brain that can't retain information like how to upload stuff from phone to blog this didn't get posted yesterday. Sorry!