This Sunday...

Lay in supplies of red wine, firewood and Kit Kats. Put the kids to bed early and take the phone off the hook. Downton's Back!

I'm desperately excited about the new series, but also a teeny bit apprehensive too. It's set in the same period as the book I'm writing now, and have had in my head for the last 6 years or so - what if it turns out to be freakily similar to the central story in my book? (and annoyingly better?) So much has been written about this time period already and there's no limit to the number of stories still to be told and unique ways to tell them, so I suppose it's unlikely that I'm going to see my particular take on it spookily played out before a TV audience of millions. But let's just say if any of the men have enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps I'll be watching from behind the sofa...

Better stock up on extra wine and Kit Kats, just incase.

A week of contrasts

It was probably a bit daft to squeeze in one last camping trip before school started again: certainly the wise people at the Met Office suggested as much, as did the (very tiny) Voice Of Reason inside my own head, whispering stuff about the need to organise school shoes and PE shorts and track down a whole raft of 6th form text books. But one of my greatest skills is ignoring the voice of reason, so the last Friday of the holidays saw us heading off in the direction of the Peak District, in a car stuffed with waterproofs, hot water bottles, thick socks and wellies - because (*nervous laugh*) we're not completely without sense.

When we got there, the campsite looked like this. At a weekend. In the summer holidays. (*more nervous laughing.*)

Of course, it rained. Quite a lot, as it happened - mostly on the morning we were trying to pack the tent up; a task which took on an interesting 'It's a Knockout' aspect with the addition of gallons of water pouring over the whole proceedings. But in between downpours it was almost freakishly hot and sunny. Well, for Derbyshire anyway, which, happily, is a county generously endowed with pubs in which to dry off. We shopped for new term supplies in beautiful Buxton, and sampled water from the famous spring. It was warm...

Let's just say I was a bit more enthusiastic about the Bakewell puddings in Bakewell. Unsurprisingly, perhaps.

In line with this summer's 'misery tourism' theme we had to make a trip to the Plague Village of Eyam, where we spent an afternoon utterly engrossed in the tragic events of 1665-66 and looking at yet more graves. Honestly, what kind of childhood am I giving my poor daughters?

Before we headed home again on Tuesday, Chatsworth was on the itinerary. Of course, we couldn't have foreseen the torrentialness (if that's not a word, it should be) of the deluge in which we took down the tent, nor the extent of our bedragglement as we trudged - in wellies, gently steaming as we dried out - around the most magnificent house in England. Given time, Daughter #1 might possibly forgive me for making her spend her summer holidays visiting the dead, but showing up at Mr Darcy's house looking like refugees from Glastonbury may take therapy. The house guides were very kind, possibly because we looked like people who weren't really used to being Indoors, and the wallpaper was lovely, but a bottle of water cost £1.50, which made me think rather more kindly about the warm, free water in Buxton. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a large fortune probably got it by fleecing tourists.

Back at home it was all hands to the laundry pile as the countdown to school ticked into the final hours. (Actually, that's just wishful thinking. I tackled the laundry pile heroically and alone.) Once all three daughters had been pushed out of the door, more or less clean and ironed on Wednesday morning, I had just one day to transform myself from weather-beaten tent-dweller to the kind of person who wouldn't be thrown out of a smart restaurant in Charlotte Street.

With the dirt mostly removed from beneath my fingernails, headed excitedly down to London to meet up with a group of fellow Presents authors. Lunch was in honour of visiting Australian writers Annie West and Trish Morey and was champagne-fuelled, delicious and an absolute riot of non-stop conversation. It was heaven to be in heels rather than wellies, eating perfect food cooked by someone else, in the company of wonderful, inspiring women. More efficient people than I took photos (or charmed passing businessmen into taking them, Presents-heroine style.) As the day gave way to evening and the time of my train home approached, neither the flow of conversation nor champagne showed any sign of abating and I dearly wished I could have stayed. Luckily it's a mere seven weeks to the annual Mills and Boon Author lunch... Better get some writing done before then.

What's everyone else been doing over the summer, and how are we all feeling about the onset of Autumn? And is anyone all fired up to get their entry off to New Voices? Let me know if you are so I can cheer you on!

Fly-by post

Because I'm crazily trying to catch up on washing from last weekend's camping trip* and simultaneously packing for another one tomorrow, I haven't really got time to muse on the bizarre fact that it's suddenly September. So, here's David Sylvian to ease you gently into autumn. He sounds slightly puzzled about it all too, but I love this song and always dig it out for a nostalgia-wallow at this time of year.

Back next week, when the house is empty, I'm looking for excuses to avoid opening my neglected book file, and can start getting excited about New Voices and my upcoming Modern release Craving the Forbidden. I have books to give away...

* the family reunion one, which also involves the team games, all-day drinking and fancy dress - in my case this year no corset, but a rather dashing highwayman's cloak and hat as Adam Ant. Surprisingly warm and practical. Am thinking of packing them for weekend in Peak District too.

So, where was I?

'France' is the short answer to that, although I have to confess that was only for the last ten days or so and doesn't quite justify my absence from the blog for almost a month. I always struggle to keep up during the school holidays (with the blog as well as much else, like ironing and getting dressed before 3pm) but this year I've been slacker than ever. (Hmm. Am tempted to pretend I've been languishing in a wi-fi-less house on the other side of the Channel all summer, rather than merely for the last week.)

Cleverly I put myself ICO venue-finding this year, hoping that no-one would detect my cunningly hidden agenda of combining family holiday with sneaky research trip for the book I'm trying to write, which is partly set in WW1. The house I found (or rather, two houses as we forced the same friends as last year to come with us again) was a couple of miles outside Montreuil, which is where Field Marshal Haig was based during the war but (rather tellingly) a pretty long way from the front line, which ensured my obsession wasn't allowed to dominate too much. It was also gorgeous. Last year we holidayed boy-scout style, in tents which, despite my best efforts with bunting and solar-powered fairy lights remained more Slumdog Millionaire than Out of Africa. This year I was determined to aim higher in the Gracious Living stakes - to the extent of a proper bed at least - and achieve a week of proper relaxation.

The research part of the week involved a day around Arras, the scene of much action in April 1917, and a trip to Vimy Ridge. There you can walk along reconstructed Canadian and German trenches only 25 metres apart and see the grassed-over scars of old trenches and craters and shell holes, as well as the magnificent monument to the 11000 Canadian missing...

We were pretty close to Étaples, site of the enormous British transit camp and field hospital during the war, but there's little there to see now. Bearing in mind the 'summer holiday' aspect of the trip I'd made a resolution not to drag everyone round endless cemeteries and cast a pall of solemnity over the whole week, but we could hardly drive past the Military Cemetery, with its crazy-beautiful Lutyens arches and steps, now could we? It was just after lunchtime when we stopped, but the sun was casting long shadows behind each headstone by the time we reluctantly left.

The rest of the week was spent lazing about in or beside the bathwater-warm swimming pool, eating bread, playing the odd, incompetent game of tennis (me, not the athletic-ace kids), drinking insanely cheap Muscadet and eating more bread. We did manage trips to Agincourt and the beach, but the wind was fierce at the coast and the sea considerably colder than the pool back at base-camp, where swimming could go on late into the night...

All in all a fabulous week, right up until the moment when Daughter #3 woke me up with the words 'I feel sick' and reality came crashing back in. On the upside, it was very clever of her to leave it until the last day of the holiday, and there's no doubt that a poorly child is a whole lot easier to look after in a house stuffed with comfortable beds, sofas and en suite bathrooms than a tent, but there was no putting off the journey home the following day. We stopped for one last time in Montreuil to buy a bucket and raced up to Calais. Probably best to draw a veil over the rest of the trip home. We were, however, so relieved to get back that it distracted us from the contrast with the immaculate and stylish house we'd left in France and the one we returned to, with the overgrown, jungly garden strewn with windfall apples and the rancid yogurt in the fridge.

Later, with Poorly Daughter safe and sleeping in her own bed and the washing machine on, we collapsed on the sofa and turned on the TV. Pictures of riots and looting - news that had escaped us in our technology-free French idyll - filled the screen. Switched it off quickly, dug bottle of Muscadet out of its swaddling in a bag of washing and retreated gratefully into twilit apple-scented jungle garden to talk wistfully about ditching TV and internet permanently, and moving to France.

A Wonderful Weekend

I don't get out much. Most weekends see me catching up on laundry, cleaning bathrooms and assisting with homework rather than slinging a smart little suitcase in the back of the car and whizzing off for a couple of days of fun/heavy drinking/inspiration - however, that's exactly what I did this weekend when I went to the RNA conference at Caerleon. (Except for the 'smart little suitcase' bit, but more of that later.)

For reasons mostly to do with deadlines and looming summer holidays this was my first conference, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect beyond beautiful shoes and lots of wine consumption. Having been the kind of person who always had ten good reasons to go to the union bar instead of a lecture when I was at university I certainly wasn't anticipating wanting to go to every single session, but that's pretty much what happened. From Lizzie Kremer's opening talk on contracts to lovely Sara Craven's summing-up speech I only missed one, when tiredness and the need for tea got the better of us and Natalie Rivers and I sloped back to our flat. (Very good thing indeed that the conference goody bags had been visted by the Green & Blacks fairy - my bar of fruit and nut was practically medicinal by that stage.)

Aside from being monumentally motivating, it was just fabulous to get together with people I don't see nearly often enough and meet lots of new friends, including new medical author Scarlet Wilson. Am sure her books will be as funny and smart and fantastic as she is, so we're all in for a treat. She's also incredibly glamorous, but you'll just have to take my word for that as this is the moment when I have to admit that I have returned home without a single photo. (Again. *sheepish look*) I'm going to say this was due to chucking all my stuff into a bigger suitcase five minutes before I had to leave for the station on Friday, having broken the zip on the small one trying to close it, and forgetting to retrieve my camera from the little pocket, but in all honesty I didn't even notice I hadn't taken it until I got home. Too busy talking to do photos, obviously.

Amongst the many highlights of the weekend were the dinner on Saturday night, when we were lucky enough to share a table with all four gorgeous M&B editors (and were the last to leave the hall at sometime after 1 am...) Fiona Harper's utterly brilliant talk on Getting Emotion on the Page, finally coming up with a pretty satisfactory 'elevator pitch' sentence for the book I'm trying to write in Jane Wenham-Jones' excellent session (with help from Fiona) and - now I come to think of it - just thinking about books and writing for a whole weekend, without having to apply my mind to the contents of the fridge and what to do with them. (The mini-fridge in my room contained a pint of milk and the aforementioned bar of Green and Blacks. No probs thinking what to do with either of those. Maybe should recreate this at home.)

The strangest part was seeing so many faces that were half-familiar from twitter profile pics, and being too shy to approach most of them. It's a funny old thing - like falling into a book and where you know all the characters, but suspecting that you'll come across as a total scary weirdo-stalker if you behave as such. Wonder if this is an age thing? Suspect the yoof of today are much better at making the transition between cyber and real world. Will try to be braver next time.

The train home was ancient, filthy and vastly overcrowded but I had plenty to think about, and I'm not just talking about the salacious details of the conversation the women opposite me were having. Back at home He seemed to have managed fine without me, which was a little impolite, I felt. However, online shop arrived last night and it transpired he had forgotten to order biscuits. *smug face* I would never do that. Nice to know I am needed after all.

Now. Must write book.

Still no laptop...

...but after a happy afternoon at the Pick your Own farm (or the Pick and Mix farm, as Daughter #3 wistfully calls it) we have STRAWBERRY SOUP JAM.

OK, so you do have to be a tiny bit careful that it doesn't drip off your toast, but it tastes divine. However, the children, having seen it oozing and bubbling blackly for hours in the pan, refuse to believe this and will not be persuaded to try it. Result!

Last night was Daughter #1's High School Prom, which meant the day was given over to preparatory pampering and glamour. Felt like a very proud but utterly knackered Fairy Godmother by the time she and her friends pulled away in the hideously vulgar (but apparently de rigeur) limo. Next time will someone remind me not to have my photo taken with a radiant 16 year old who has spent 4 hours getting ready, when I haven't had time to wash my hair or put on mascara? Today am barricaded in my office and writing hard, as a distraction from the urge to loiter in front of the mirror counting wrinkles and wondering where the years went.

In Search of the Good Life

My laptop net-booky thing died. In laptop years it was probably about 247, and had admittedly had a pretty hard life, but its demise - from a hideous virus caught from some horrid instant-messenger thing downloaded by a daughter - was still a blow. I had such high hopes when I first got it... and although not all of them may have quite been realised, it's been a very faithful companion for the last 3 years.

And yet, a month on and I haven't really begun to look into replacing it. As someone who spends quite a large proportion of their energy ranting at the junior members of the household about the time they spend online and the fact that they 'chat' incessantly to cyberfriends but have a tendency to monosyllabic grunting over the dinner table, the removal of one instrument of addiction has made life a whole lot simpler. It's also forced me to confront the extent of my own internet habit. I wasn't quite at the 'grunting at the dinner table' stage, but I will own up to keeping my netbook open in a corner of the kitchen and checking emails/twitter 25 times every ten minutes, indulging in the odd happy half day hour of James D’Arcy cyberstalking hanging out in my favourite shopping haunts, only half-listening to the children and generally letting large slices of life pass me by. I do of course still have my work computer, but that's up two flights of stairs and is too serious and scary to be used for loafing.

Since the demise of the netbook I have - amongst other things - taught Daughter #3 to sew,watched an entire series of Improving Educational TV on DVD with daughters 2 and 3, not updated my blog, traipsed around the byways of Cheshire collecting elderflower heads and turned them into elderflower cordial, spent an inordinate amount of cash in real shops and had an inordinate amount of fun doing so with Daughter #1 (who is in a state of post-GCSE euphoria and pre-prom excitement), made progress on the new book, not updated my website, assisted in the completion of a 1000 piece jigsaw depicting 1970s toys, made bread, all but disappeared from twitter, cooked stuff from actual recipes involving more than five ingredients, gone to bed before 11pm, got past base camp on Laundry Mountain, been an even more erratic emailer than ever and missed my online friends.

So - to buy or not to buy? that is the question. Feel like I've inadvertently stumbled upon the sunshiny Good Life in the gap where my twilit cyber-existence used to be, but every now and again I think about the all the interesting, inspiring, stimulating stuff going on online and feel my fingers twitch in the direction of my credit card. I think I'll probably give in eventually, but I don't think I'm quite ready yet. Does anybody have a good recipe for strawberry jam?