Scenes from domestic life

*Warning: I have run this post by the censor and been told that it makes me sound 'a bit sad'. 'You can add that too if you like,' he said.

Me, yesterday: That dog upstairs was barking its head off today, I honestly thought it was having a seizure. But it was just going out for a walk!
A: I think it mainly barks when it's being taken for walks.
Me: I thought it mainly barked when it was left on its own.
PAUSE
A (thoughtfully): Do you bark when you're left on your own?
Me: No, I send you text messages.

Belle époque

It's been a busy week - in the past 7 days I have attended:

-a Belle Epoque party

-an all-day bread-making course where we made these - YUM:

-the theatre, to see Misterman with Cillian Murphy, a one-man show about a guy going bonkers in rural Ireland - not a barrel of laughs or very original, though CM was great in it. The best part to be honest was when he takes his shirt off
-my first ever RNA (Romantic Novelists Association) party!

Below is a pic of A and me on our way to Belle Epoque. I am very, very lazy when it comes to fancy dress so I just took an existing dress and added a long skirt, black ribbon from John Lewis and black gloves (not shown).

You can't really see but I was sort of channelling John Singer Sargent's portrait of Madame X. I was in a minority as the most popular trend at the BE thing seemed to be channelling Anne Summers in bustiers and tiny frilly skirts. A friend kindly lent me her corset but it just wasn't me.

Christmas crackered

I am, like, sooo tired.

This seems to always happen to me at this time of year. I arrange a whole load of things, accept all the invitations that come my way, plan to see absolutely everyone, and then I’m surprised when I’m exhausted and burned out. And yes, I know this is a nice problem to have … but it doesn’t feel like that when you feel worn-out and irritable, look grey-faced and piggy-eyed, have spots that won’t go away, and the sink is full of dishes (argh).

It’s not as if my life is rock’n; roll (unlike A who spent the weekend at ATP festival). Instead, Friday kicked off with tea at Liberty’s with a friend visiting from Spain; then 7pm dinner party in Kingston, and home at 1 am after epic journey back. Then I had another friend arrive to stay on Sat, who stayed til Monday. Saturday and Sunday night, insomnia (about 4 hours sleep per night). Last night, out for dinner. Tonight is yoga. Tomorrow breakfast with my agent, extra afternoon in work, then theatre, Friday work Christmas lunch followed by dinner, Saturday ashtanga workshop in the morning (why?! But it will be good) and Saturday night party.

I know, I know, what am I complaining about? It’s not as if I run a merchant bank and have 7 kids. But if I did run a merchant bank and had 7 kids, I think I would a) have help in the house and b) make fewer social arrangements.

So what I’ve learned is: I need to make fewer commitments and also be smarter about spotting when I have too many in a row. Meanwhile, I’m having a shellac manicure this evening to give myself a boost (so, you know, life’s not too bad). And this time next week I will be on a boat to Ireland where I’ve already notified my loving family that I’m not going to do anything but read, sleep and watch TV by the fire.

How does everyone else cope with seasonal burnout? Go on, scare me with your tales of business so I can see what a lightweight I am …

I HAZ BOOK DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what I posted on my facebook page last week. And it is true. I am officially going to be a published author!!!
I have delayed telling you, my blog readers, partly because I thought you might have stopped reading ages ago since I stopped posting, and partly because I wanted to tell ‘real life’ people first. But it is true, and very exciting. I don’t have a title to share with you yet, but I can reveal that The Book will be published in March 2012 – and that Book 2 (not a sequel, just more in a similar vein) will be published in March 2013. Further details will come.

Meanwhile, I’m –obviously – super happy. I have not drunk so much champagne or so many cocktails in quite some time, especially in a February. Almost the nicest part is telling people: everyone has been really great and supportive. As I’ve already had such support in writing the thing in the first place, this seems unfair! I can’t post this good news without acknowledging my great friend Frieda (there seems no point in calling her F when her name is visible for all to see on her blog.) She was the first person, back in July 09, to read my first awful chapters, and to assure me they were readable and that I should keep going. In my low points (which were many) when I almost gave up, and had to bribe myself with promises of biscuits to write another 1,000 words, Frieda encouraged me to keep going. At one point, at my pathetic request, she emailed me a list of 5 specific things she liked about my book. AND if that wasn’t enough she gave me great feedback and advice throughout – eg to make the bitchy character bitchier (said character is now everybody’s favourite). Today is International Women’s Day so it seems a good day to celebrate sisterhood and inspiring our friends. Thanks F, hope you have a champagne on me!

You could put a bit of butter on the spuds there, Andre

It's Bonfire Night Weekend, and fireworks are exploding left right and centre outside as I type. J today posted on Facebook: '11 years in the UK and I've never been invited to a bonfire party. :( What am I doing wrong? Who does one have to sleep with for an invite? What happens at these secret, exclusive rituals?' I have never been invited to one either, and I've lived here 10 years. What is the story with these parties? J gets invited to things like the Oscars and celebrity weddings (really) but Bonfire Night remains beyond his social grasp.

In the absence of any Bonfire Night invitations I had people over for dinner. It ended up being 5 girls, none of whom knew each other particularly well, but who all got on like a house on fire. At the end of the evening people were swapping numbers and arranging to meet up and everything. It was lovely. I made sausages with honey and mustard (slightly overcharred), roast parsnips, carrots and potatoes, and I was shameless enough to serve Vienetta for dessert. F, who is Italian, said, 'You have this in England as well?'

So G and I had to tell her about the Kerrygold ads - a seminal series of ads that somehow associated butter with a saga of Franco-Irish sexual tension set against the backdrop of an old-moneyed rural household. That's harder than it looks. It also gave rise to countless catchphrases from the risque 'Zere is somesing I can elp?' to the cliff-hanging 'Who's taking the horse to France?' There's a whole series to enjoy but you might as well start here:

Oiche Shamhna Shona Daoibh

How I love Hallowe'en. During my childhood, it was easily the highlight of the year, second only to Christmas and birthdays (yes, OK, that's third). Here in the UK, people are still getting the hang of it. There is much sniffiness over the fact that it's an American import, but no one seems to wonder where the Americans got it from. Well, wonder no more: it's originally a Celtic feast and very popular in Ireland (where understandably the whole Guy Fawkes thing hasn't caught on). My boss (who is Canadian) was complaining that the British still don't understand that you should only go trick-or-treating at the houses that have pumpkins, etc. In Queen's Park, most houses are now 'on message' and I saw lots of groups of children marauding around on Sunday evening. They were all accompanied by parents, which seems sad. We never went out with parents unless we were very tiny. Is the world really more dangerous today, or is it just perceived as such? We also made all our costumes: there was no such thing as a shop-bought costume, and I made countless pointy witch hats out of cereal boxes (what did anyone do before those?)

I spent most of the actual Hallowe'en (Sunday) recovering from my party the night before. I didn't ask people to dress up, but partly inspired by this fabulous blog I did spend about 3 hours making bats out of black card and suspending them from the ceiling. Our stepladder seems to have disappeared, so my friend L had to help me by sitting on the sofa (as ballast) while I hopped up precariously on the back of said sofa hanging the bats with thread and sellotape. I'd had a glass or two of wine at this stage so I feel quite lucky not to have fallen and broken my neck. I was also going to strew the floor with dead leaves which I've seen done before and which looked really cool, but I realised this was too much madness. Sometimes I wonder: am I really 33 or am I just pretending?

Death by champagne bottle

In my giddy twenties I spent a year in Paris. My friends and I had no money so tended to hang out at each others' apartments, aka chambres de bonne/firetraps located on the 5th or 6th floor of a grand building. My friend B had a particularly lovely circular room in a tower, ooverlooking the Seine and opposite the Eiffel tower. He took the room over from our friend S, who had left behind an empty champagne bottle on a windowsill (in fact it was the property of the previous incumbent, but that's another story).

One day, rejoicing in the warm weather, B opened that particular window for the first time. He had forgotten about the champagne bottle, and he watched in horror as it arced its way towards the ground, where a group of workmen were doing something. Seeing all their enquiring heads looking up, B ducked behind the curtain and hid. Soon the concierge came up and knocked on his door.

'I'm sure it wasn't you,' were his opening words, 'but do you know who might have dropped a champagne bottle on top of those ouvriers?' His next Gatsby-like words made B's blood run cold: 'Il a presque tue un homme.' - it almost killed a man. B courageously confessed, and was reassured when the concierge said that was fine and he wouldn't tell since the police were 'criminels' in any case.

B says he often imagines what might have happened if the worst had happened, and if the champagne bottle had killed someone.

'What kind of sentence do you think I would have got?' he asked his brother R.
'I think the worst thing about this story is the symbolism of almost killing a worker with a champagne bottle,' R replied.

What about you? Have you ever almost done anything fatal, with or without a champagne bottle?

Six Degrees of Separation

I have written here earlier about coincidences and how they seem to abound in London. Here's another one for you. Recently we went to see the play Six Degrees of Separation at the Old Vic. As I waited for the others I got chatting to an American woman who was there by herself. She had flown over from New York to see the play because Obi Abili, who plays one of the main characters, was a friend of her daughter's. While he was preparing for the part, the daughter had sent him along to their apartment on the Upper East Side and asked her parents to show him around.

Now, considering that the play is about a young man who inveigles his way into the apartment of wealthy New Yorkers on the Upper East Side by pretending to be a friend of their son's (among other things), I think that's a coincidence.

Not blown away? Here's another for you. Recently my friend the Lovely Writer put me in touch with his friend M so that I could ask her some questions about what she does. (It's a long story). Relevant to this is that M used to be a PA to A Famous Person. I was telling this to my friend K who lives in New York (I know this is tedious, sorry) and K said that he had heard of M, because M used to live in his apartment ie was there before he moved in. Bear in mind that K and the Lovely Writer don't know each other -they've met a couple of times though me - and you will understand the bogglingness of the coincidence.

Come to think of it maybe these are not London coincidences but New York coincidences. The play, by the way, was only ok. The best thing about it is the title. The playwright starts off with one of the oldest and potentially most gripping stories in the world - a stranger comes to town: is he who he says he is? - and fails to make it dramatic. Firstly he gives away right from the beginning that no, he's not who he says he is, and then instead of exploiting the emotional potential of the story he uses his characters as mouthpieces for a lot of theories and opinions. It's not a bad play - there is a lot of interesting stuff going on there - but it's not great. Top marks to the Old Vic, though, who not only provide £10 tickets on a Monday but also upgraded us to stalls.

Also it all went towards my resolution to see more theatre, which I'm amply doing. So far this year I've seen three plays - Three Sisters at the Hammersmith Theatre (excellent, and has Romola Garai in it who I think is fab), Greta Garbo Comes to Donegal and Six Degrees of Separation, with two more (Jerusalem and Enron) to come. Unfortunately because I've spent most of February being sick, I've become completely unfit, but hey, Rome (nor New York) wasn't built in a day.