I did it! I managed to get to February 1st without collapsing into a heap of grey-gloom induced melancholy.

I’ve tried all kinds of things to stave off the annual bout of SAD. Whenever there was even a hint of a ray of sunshine outside, I ran to the back garden and basked for at least a few minutes.

I’ve eaten a lot of Cadbury’s caramel eggs – how good are they? I’ve eaten a lot of carrots, in the hope that they counteract the caramel eggs. I’ve popped fish oils and vitamins.

Chai tea and homemade frothy coffees have helped provide a cheerful little boost through the day. Well, you’ve got to be able to leave your desk for a mini treat.

When I was feeling really damp, cold and miserable, I went for a thoroughly Scandinavian sauna. Lying on a hot bench in bone dry heat I could almost pretend that I was lying on a beach.

The new Annie is keeping me very cheered, she’s probably the reason I’ve not been SAD. Her new adventures are set in London, a lavish Italian spa and even, for one evening, Vienna. Svetlana is in full diamond-encrusted flow, there’s a handsome surfer, an epic journey in a clapped out Bentley, a huge row with Lana and many other treats in store for you.

(So many congratulations to Annie’s hard-working editor Sarah who managed to get the first editing round done before leaving to have adorable baby Reggie)

Meanwhile February gets off to an utterly bizarre start for me this year. My Dad turns 70 and he’s decided to take us all to St Moritz (yes, the outrageously glamorous ski resort, where apparently you can’t buy a hot chocolate for less than £20) because he wants to go down the Cresta Run (again!)!

I have mixed feelings about having a super-hero for a Dad. I mean it is kind of fantastic to want to sledge at 60mph just days before you enter your 8th decade. But it is also seriously MAD. His wife and daughters are all going to be waiting at the bottom in a completely nervous twitter.

Hopefully, the next time I post, we will all have survived and recovered! And the collection of lovely people looking after my children and dog and doing all the school runs, feeding, packed lunching, taking to athletics etc. will have been rewarded with mountains of Swiss chocolate.

I love the statistic that Swiss people eat the most chocolate in the world: half a pound per person per week! That’s just the average, which means some people are eating a pound of Swiss chocolate every week… maybe even more. No wonder they make the Toblerones so big over there.

The Jewels of Manhattan is out today. I hope you’re as excited as I am!
New York City, sparkles, three sisters and snow…
Can you steal the perfect life? Would you ever turn to crime to make your dreams come true?
Find out what my three Texan sisters, Amber, Sapphire and Em decide, when life in Manhattan doesn’t go the way they planned and serious temptation comes their way.
I hope you’re going to love this story.
As a fabulous extra – every single reader can enter the competition to WIN A DIAMOND worth £1000!!
Put a little sparkle in your step and treat yourself to a lovely, glittery copy right now.

Check out the new cover for the sixth Secrets at St Jude’s book, Party Girl. It’s absolutely brilliant. I love it.  A party in a cover… a party in a shoe! Unfortunately you will have to wait until August 4^th to get your hands on it.

I have been chained to my desk, literally typing my fingers to the bone for you my lovely readers. I’ve just finished Party Girl and put the final touches to the brand new (v v exciting) story The Jewels of Manhattan which comes out in November. Much, much more about that all soon.

Meanwhile, I am really enjoying all my new multi-media ways of connecting with readers.

You can now read Annie’s very own blog at annievalentine.wordpress.com – learn more about summer tights, fake tan and Kate Middleton’s dress sense right here. Annie also twitters @AnnieVshopper plus you can find the real me and lots of other Carmen readers (geddit? Sorry!) on the Facebook author page.

I look forward to catching up with you!

Oooh and here’s a little pic of me talking to some lovely St Jude’s fans. I do love to do a school visit, it’s one way of having a captive audience. (If you’d like a visit to your school email me at carmen@carmenreid.com and I’ll see what I can do).  However, I may have to take some Annie advice re author visit outfits. I mean I never want to be over-glammed for school visits, but grey Mary-Janes… what was I thinking?!

This January, trust Annie V to bring a little sunshine to your lives! Here’s her latest post from Annie’s Fashion blog…

‘My darlings, January can be a shocker. 

The misery peaks on January 25^th, one month after Christmas. You’ve forgotten all about the lovely holiday you had, you’ve already broken all your resolutions, your credit card bills have come in and the weather is still grim.

Obviously, you will allow yourself the recessionista treat of a brand new copy of New York Valentine. Out on January 20^th and guaranteed to cheer you up. Find out everything that happened to me when I went to New York with Lana, aka ‘the stroppy teen’.

But I have other cheap and cheerful ideas for you too.

Open all those goodie bottles you got for Christmas and enjoy a long, hot, pampering bubble bath.

Give some of the zingier herb teas a whirl. Sadly you can’t drink lattes all day long without turning into a muffin, so swap a few cups a day and you will feel saintly and pure, like Dinah. I’m (almost) loving anything with Ginger on the box.

Go to bed really properly early, with a hottie or a hot water bottle.

Wear a lovely scarf in all your favourite colours. Drape it round you all day long to ward off evil germs and bad vibes.

Phone a friend. Everyone feels rubbish, broke and miserable in January, so ring someone up and have a little gossip.

Visit the oldsters. Especially the golden oldies. Take along a black and white DVD or a big bands CD. Don’t just stick to the chitchat. Ask them big questions, get them talking. Find out what it was like for them when they were your age. Bring out their photo albums…

Get out there and see or hear something completely different. Yes, I know there’s lots of good stuff at the cinema but what about a live music gig? A concert? The cheapest ticket to the ballet? Ed forces me to go and I always love it. Do something different. Shake yourself up a little.

Paint one of your walls an eye-popping colour. One wall is a nice small project and I’m currently loving bright magenta. 

Make easy peesy resolutions you can stick to.  Mine are: always drink a glass of water with a glass of wine, always throw a quarter of the chocolate bar away before eating the rest (no, no returning to the bin later!!) and make one small corner of the house as completely shiny, neat, tidy as a pin.

Just say no to feeling sad! Don’t watch the news before bed, that is madness! First thing in the morning is fine. When those depressing, dark thoughts descend, think of some happy ones to shoo them away. Count your many, many blessings. It really could be worse!’

Read more from Annie on her Fashion blog…

Please come and join me and author Jo Carnegie for our Girls Night Out events at:

Hillhead Library, Glasgow, June 15^th (from 6pm) and Waterstone’s Bookshop, Sutton, June 17^th (from 7.30pm, I think!)

We are planning to be an antidote to all this World Cup boysie-dramarama. Though personally, I don’t mind watching a bit of international footie especially if teams from Italy or Sweden are involved (they have all the best men, trust me here).

This is Jo’s latest book by the way. Does it not look delicious?

As a seasoned Sex And The City fan, I had to go to the latest film despite the ominous sand dunes in the poster. (I had to laugh hard at the reading glasses on a stick in said poster… soooo my demographic!)

Well, as a friend of mine who saw the film first put it: ‘You’ll enjoy it, but it’s terrible.’ There were a few redeeming moments: Miranda and Charlotte confessing Mummy truths in the private bar and some of the Carrie/Big angst about whither married life.

But the rest is just very disappointing. The hotel karaoke is a particular low and I’d never even heard the song before.  As for the nanny boobs and the Danish architect: ooooh, cringe-worthy.

There are so many interesting things to say about being in your 40s… and beyond. I wanted to know how ‘the girls’ were coping with husband-sex, career plateaus, older children, menopause, fighting the sag, all sorts of interesting things. The TV series gave us much fluff and froth but also so many thought-provoking truths. SATC2  was pretty much all fluff. And no plot! Who decided it was a good idea to make a 2 hours and 20 minutes long movie without a plot!

Still, went with my girlfriends and we had a hilarious dinner afterwards repeating all the cheesiest lines.

Summer means sandals. Well, sometimes… on the days when the sun finally breaks through the cloud and raises the temperature from 12 degrees (as on June 1!) to 17-ish.

But I do not know if my feet are sandal worthy. There’s all that buffing and filing and trimming and painting. How am I supposed to fit this into the schedule?!