Is it Aliens, part of the recession or just my imagination?

But I have a theory that time is speeding up.

A week used to be a solid, reliable space of time in which you could fit in a trip to the supermarket, at least one conversation with your spouse, five bedtime stories to daughter #3 AND ten thousand words on the w-i-p. Now, five thousand words and half a page of Harry Potter and it's time to iron the uniforms for Monday morning again. There must be some scientific explanation for this because how else can it be half term ALREADY?

Anyway, we're going back to the Middle of Nowhere for a few days, where I shall single-handedly attempt to slow it all down again. Whatever you're doing this week, enjoy every minute!

Because You're Worth It and all that

Here in the UK Tuesday evenings have become girls-on-the-sofa night, thanks to a new series of How to Look Good Naked. For the benefit of those of you elsewhere in the world, let me explain: it’s a programme where women with serious body-image issues are put through several entirely non-scientific forms of therapy to emerge at the end of an hour (TV time) with their heads held high and a smile on their faces as they parade down a catwalk without a stitch on in front of hundreds of people.

Admittedly I have to watch some of it from between my fingers—particularly the parts where they have the dismal contents of their wardrobes strung out in public, with all the sale bargain mistakes and remnants from former ages of fashion history prominently displayed for all to see. And I can’t begin to understand how someone who can’t face looking at themselves starkers in a mirror in the privacy of their own bedroom can agree to go on national television on a programme that is mostly about getting your kit off. But I’m glad they do, because it makes for the kind of viewing that gives you a good feeling about life and cellulite, and how often can you say that?

Key to its success of course, is its presenter. Gok Wan makes the whole thing about female empowerment in a way that superior, bullying alpha-girl gang Trinny and Susannah never did. I love Gok because Gok loves women (although not in a biblical sense, obviously) and he shouts out the message that Mills & Boon has been quietly imparting to readers for years: namely, who cares if you have a big bottom/no bottom at all, a rounded tummy/flat chest, magnificent, child-bearing hips/all the voluptuosness of an ironing board? You’re beautiful. In a house with 3 daughters this makes How to Look Good Naked qualify as Educational Viewing.

In the same vein of boosting self-esteem and all round sharing the love and positivity, I have a lovely review for Spanish Aristocrat Forced Bride from Julie at Cataromance, in which she says

If it’s a gripping romance rich in drama and passion that you’re after, then look no further than India Grey’s latest: Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride! Her writing is poised and assured and sparkling with deep emotional resonance which will move you to tears. Her love scenes are pure poetry – sensuous, well-written and affecting – and her ability to pen an unforgettable tale that readers will remember long after the last page is turned simply stunning.

Pure poetry. I LOVED that bit. Thanks Julie-- take a glass of champagne and go and join Gok Wan in my VIP Lounge for People Who Make Life Feel Better.

Christmas has already lost its charm(s)

My mother comes round, with the particular air of purpose that a lifetime of experience has taught me to fear, and announces she is going to make the Christmas Pudding this Sunday. For a moment I am so diverted by wistful thoughts of growing up into the kind of person who a) makes a Christmas pudding and b) does so in October that I fail to anticipate what is coming next. She asks me if I know where the Christmas Pudding Charms are as they’re not in the special Christmas Pudding Charms Place in her house.

I instantly have a feeling that I do know. It is not a good feeling.

Attempt to sound simultaneously vague yet reassuring and wait until she has departed before scrabbling amongst the debris of hardened paintbrushes, cat worming tablets and unidentifiable models made from clay and egg boxes on the kitchen windowsill. Heart sinks as I discover an eggcup containing a thick brownish gloop. Further investigation reveals this to consist of a rich mixture of Christmas Pudding dissolved in ancient washing up water, in which the silver Christmas Pudding Charms have been marinading since last Boxing Day.

Horror. Christmas Pudding Charms, once excavated, no longer remotely silver-looking. More a sort of blackened pewter. Help! Can I clean them? How?? Will putting them in some kind of silver-cleaning solution poison us all??? Or should I just keep it simple, leave the country and convert to Bhuddism?

I thought they were called Snickers now anyway?

My brother—my older brother-- ran the Loch Ness marathon yesterday. In 3 hours 48 minutes, after many months of rigorous and disciplined training.

From this I think we can deduce that chronic laziness is not genetic.

(Either that or I was swapped at birth.)

Hell-o! I'm Back!

In every sense of the word. It’s amazing what a couple of days in London can do: like add two inches to your hips, kill off a few liver cells, melt your Visa card, remind you EXACTLY why writing for Mills & Boon is the coolest and best job on the planet and make your head virtually explode with new ideas. (Or was that just the hangover? Oh no… there really are pages of excited scribble, involving the words 'rampaging', 'taut', 'catastrophic' and 'walk of shame' in my notebook.)

The summer break is over, ladies. I’m back in business.

(Ahem... This dramatic, cinema-trailer-style revelation is intended to distract you all from the fact that once again I have failed to take a single photograph of my three days in London. Mostly because I failed to remember to take a camera with me. However, as compensation here is a picture of my new hero. Now, isn't he nice?)

And the Winner is...

I’ve been so busy trying to get myself organized for my annual trip to London for the Mills & Boon Authors’ Lunch (and the associated glamorous revelry that goes on with it) that there hasn’t been a moment to announce that the winner of the Spanish Aristocrat Forced Bride competition is Lesley, with Johanna as a runner-up. Congratulations ladies, and I’ll get prizes in the post early next week on my return from the Big Smoke.

Once again this year Abby Green and I shall be setting up our Campaign Headquarters in a shared hotel room with a well-stocked mini bar. Over the next few days I am looking forward to…

• Applying my butterfly mind (too easily distracted here by the internet, the laundry pile, the telephone, the writing on the back of the cereal packets) to my New Book for the entire length of the train journey and then boring Abby Green with the plot dilemmas.
  
• Seeing Abby and Natalie Rivers and Christina Hollis and Michelle Styles and the Kates (Hardy and Walker) and Carole Mortimer and Sabrina Phillips and Sharon Kendrick and Penny Jordan and Chantelle Shaw and EVERYONE!
  
• Having hotel-room biscuits in bed for breakfast. With a hangover.
  
• Meeting my editor for afternoon tea tomorrow.
  
• Not having to decide what’s for dinner
  
• Wearing make-up and posh underwear (ie not faded, elastic-less or more than 5 years old)
  
• Not having to get up in time for the school run
  
• Coming home and hugging the daughters. And Him. Because no matter how much fun it is to go away, that’s always one of the best bits.

Back next week with a full report!

At last!

After a long journey halfway around the world Tristan has finally arrived on my doorstep. I’m very pleased to see him because it means that I can finally send copies out to people I promised them to as long ago as May. Here’s what he looks like in paperback format…

… hmmm, being brutally frank, not much better than he did in hardback. For a wicked moment I did consider making the contest to think up a caption/explaination of what’s going through Tristan’s head in this picture, but decided it would be cruel. And besides, the lovely Margaret James who interviewed me recently for Writing Magazine came up with the definitive answer to that question. She reckons that Lily "is standing on Tristan's foot and he is too much of a gentleman to say so - he is suffering in silence and being all Zen about it. Or he has got indigestion. Or he has just remembered he is wearing his Manchester United novelty thong because all his others are in the wash and he wasn't expecting to get lucky tonight."

Sorry Tristan, but that did make me laugh immoderately.

Thanks to everyone who’s entered the contest so far. For anyone who hasn’t got round to it yet and would like a chance to win a well-travelled copy of Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride and other assorted goodies (which might just be added to on my trip to London next week—I love an excuse to shop) you've got until Friday to mail the names of Tristan and Lily’s best friends to this address. (*whispers* You can find them in the blog post from 24th August.)

In other news, I am struggling to drag myself out of my blissful state of holiday ennui. Honestly, I am…