On Books and Writing, Films and Filming

A big thank you to Rachel for coming in and livening the blog up this week, and to everyone who dropped by to visit, especially if it was for the first time. It’s been really nice to have so many people here making me feel more popular congratulating Rachel on the release of a really fabulous debut, available here now and coming soon in paperback, just incase you'd forgotten!

Here, while I've been shut away in my office, half-term has passed a little in the style of the First World War, with long periods of boredom followed by short, intense bursts of activity. Thankfully the fighting has been confined mainly to verbal skirmishes over Nutella allowance (a holiday treat) and who has 'borrowed' ipod headphones from whom, but even so by yesterday we were all ready to get out of the house for a little while. Prompted by a phonecall from my brother who is also juggling bored children with being self-employed from the other side of the Pennines, and the fact that daughter #3 is doing Jane Eyre for GCSE, we headed up to Haworth for the day.

I suffered pangs of angst at leaving my book, and daughter #1 felt the same about being prised away from revision (she’s come to the idea pretty late in the day, but like many converts is pretty evangelical about it now) but turned out to be a Very Good Idea. Apart from the pleasure of an impromptu meet up with the Yorkshire cousins, it was an absolute gem of a day – blue-skied and gentle, with enough sun to warm even Haworth’s old grey stones. The cousins brought their puppy, and after we’d loitered in the pub (in homage to Branwell Bronte) we headed out to walk across the moors in the manner of Charlotte, Ann and Emily. Or, more pertinently to daughter #3 who, at the age of 4 sobbed for hours after watching The Railway Children, in the manner of Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis. We walked past the house that was their home in the film, and through the field seen here.

(Are you sobbing yet? I've watched this 3 times in the course of loading this post and welled up every one of them!)

It was while we were there that I got a phonecall from the TV company about a piece I did with them on Lady Chatterley’s Lover a month or so ago. It was part of a series the very charming Gyles Brandreth has been doing on BBC’s The One Show this week on the subject of taste and decency, and I went down to Bristol to meet him in an old courtroom where the temperature was probably several degrees below freezing, to talk about the book and the trial. It had originally been scheduled to go out tonight (Friday) but they’d brought it forward to Thursday, meaning I was spared the dread of waiting for it to come on at 7pm as we were stuck in a traffic jam on the M60 then. There’s something far less intimidating about watching after the event, although I still couldn’t think about attempting it until after the second glass of wine. (You can see it here for the next few days. The piece is about 14 minutes in.) My poor children. On the one hand there’s the excitement of having your mum on TV. On the other, there’s the fact that the first sentence she says involves the words ‘visceral’ and ‘sex.’

Anyway, today I'm back at they keyboard and trying to remember all the huge insights I had into my ms when we were striding across the moors yesterday, and recapture the enthusiasm I felt for it. I'm sure another cup of tea will help. And toast. (Wonder if there's any Nutella left?)