It’s blowing a gale outside – a tree was uprooted right outside our house this lunchtime so Georgia and I went to ogle the twelve lovely firemen from three fire engines which hared down our street in two seconds flat. The tree had fallen right across the road, smashing a couple of cars in its wake. No one hurt. There’s something so sad about a fallen tree – all those decades, perhaps centuries, of standing so lofty and proud, ending with such an undignified disposal via chainsaw and council wood-chipper. Freya says: Go hug a tree!

Well, it’s nine months since I last updated the website (sincerest apologies – though I reckon you’re used to my tardiness by now, aren’t you!). I think back to how horribly full of sadness 2005 was for me and those I love most. In comparison 2006 was comfortingly mundane. I wrote a book, published another and planned a new one too – so actually, it’s been a pretty busy and fulfilling 12 months. As you can read in the ‘Latest News’ section, Home Truths has been a wonderful success and it still gives me a good old grin seeing it everywhere from Tescos to my local independent bookshop here in Muswell Hill. You know, it may be my 8 th book but it still tickles me that people with whom I have no connection whatsoever buy my books. I used to assume that only family and friends, and family friends, and friends of friends of friends would buy them! Well, I’ve long looked upon you lovely loyal readers as firm friends of my characters, so in some ways, I suppose it is true!

I spent most of 2006 researching and writing Pillow Talk. Don’t you love the title – considering that the story revolves around a sleepwalker and an insomniac who, through falling in love, put their pasts to bed and finally get a good nights sleep in each others arms. I loved researching jewellery – specifically tanzanite (the heroine, Petra Flint, is a jeweller). And as part of the book is set in the North York Moors (the hero teaches music at a fictitious boys school), it was wonderful to take research trips up there. It is due to be published early August.

I find titles the hardest thing in a books production – I’d rather write 120,000 words than think of a title. For a while, the book was called Rock Solid, then it was called Sweet Dreams. But now it’s Pillow Talk – which is spot on. When I was first to be published, the two books I’d already written were untitled. When my agent suggested Sally and Chloe I was bowled over by how astute and imaginative he was (good job my characters were called Sally and Chloe…!) Love Rules as a title was the brainwave of Maxine at Harper Collins. I love the ambiguity of whether one hears it as ‘love rules ok…’ or ‘the rules of love…’. Interestingly, most women go for the former and most men the latter. What does that tell you?! Poor old Home Truths was going to be lumbered with the title Sisters which I hated to the point of actually weeping down the phone to my agent! The working title for that novel was Family Matters. Again, Home Truths is, I think, just right. Now we just have to think up a title for my tenth novel…

My tenth novel is going to feature a house and the lives and loves which have gone on, over the years, within its walls. Do email me any thoughts on a title…a two-worder, please! A whopping great prize if I use your suggestion.

When I’m not writing I’m busy being Mummy. Felix is now in Year 1 and enjoying being such a grown-up school boy. He loves writing and spells words in his own phonetic way. He can’t pronounce ‘th’ so often writes an ‘f’ instead. I made him a puppet theatre over half term and he spent ages writing a lovely sign:

Felix and Georgia’s Pupit Feutr. Tikits for Sayl.

(a very good show they put on too).

Georgia, who is a whirlwind of energy and contrary feistiness at home, is the model pupil at her nursery school – quiet and attentive and always looking after “the younger children”. She’d rather we’d called her Aurora at birth, she reliably informs us.

Now, I know how you expect me to witter on about haircuts – so here’s the news. Georgia had all hers chopped off into a page-boy bob and looks like a child of the 1920s – gorgeous. And I’ve ditched the ‘conker’ hues and am now mousy and proud. And I’ve ditched the length in favour of a very short crop. In fact, as you’ll see from the photos, I look like the love child of a pixie and a school-boy. Oh well, I’m going to be 40 this year so I may as well throw caution to the wind and have some fun before I go for the blue-rinse bouffant… I distinctly remember my Mum changing her haircut when she turned 30. She went from long, straight hippy locks to an enormous afro. Actually, she looked more Leo Sayer than Marsha Hunt and I do remember wondering if it really was my Mum or just some wacko woman with wild hair claiming to be her (I was 9 at the time).

While we’re still on the subject, I’ll let you into a little obsession of mine – horses’ tails. Even in this dire, inclement, mudfest weather, my horse’s tail is joy to behold. And here’s the secret: nimble fingers and Cowboy Magic. It’s the most divine smelling gel. And it also costs an arm and a leg. So while Nathan’s four-legged mates careen around the fields with tails sodden with earth and God knows what, my boy ponces around with his knot-free tail floating like wafts of silk. Nathan and I have had a great year – I just love doing my Parelli natural horsemanship and I train with the magnificent Alison Jones. Felix and Georgia have also started riding. I have sworn never to become a ghastly pony-club-mum so up until now I’ve been more than happy for the kids just to come up to the yard with me every now and then. They are fascinated by the fact that horses eat apples WITH THE PIPS and carrots with the ukky tops. They are also enthralled by the fact that this is the one place in the whole wide world where they are allowed to tread in poo. Anyway, recently they started riding little Shetlands called Dancer and Ruby and I’ve attached a couple of pix for you to ooh and ahh at.

We had some great times in Spain in 2006 – most special of all taking Gary, Eve and Nell (my late friend Liz’s husband and daughters) with us on one trip. Andy tried to teach Gary and Yours Truly to dive but we were beyond useless! We’d teeter at the edge of the pool, our faces wracked with concentration, asking Andy “yeah but do we go for a 45 ° or 37 ° angle?” and he’d laugh and say “just fall in on your heads”. We thought Andy quite mad – and we’d go for the belly flop in preference to falling in head first. Felix, though, would stand alongside Gary and I and do these perfect dives straight down into the pool, cutting straight into the water like a flying fish. Fancy being shown up by a 5 year old! I’ll try and master diving this summer. Or there again, may be I’ll just buy a fancy lilo with a drink holder and a little outboard motor… Summer seems so far off, writing this as I am in blustery January. But once I knuckle down to my tenth novel, I know time will fly.

Tags | Chloe, Home Truths, Love Rules, Pillow Talk, Sally, Tanzanite