Loads of things going on this month as the third Annie Valentine is released: How Not To Shop comes with the chance to win an Egyptian holiday (and if like me you’ve spent much of the summer in Glasgow – you might be needing something like that).

Rush to your nearest branch of Faith and they will give you a special edition of The Personal Shopper for free if you spend over £30 (easily done, I have been on their website and checked those shoes out… and they do big sizes. Gone are the days when you went to any shoe shop, asked for a size 8 and the shop assistant’s eyes popped from her head in astonishment – I’m still slightly scarred though.)

The lovely people at ultra-stylish Scottish Woman magazine have put me on their shortlist for witty Scottish Woman of the Year. I still can’t believe that… anyway, you can find out more if you follow this link. Hey, you can even vote and yes I will understand if you think Ronni Ancona is much more worthy!

Also, give this link a whirl if you’d like to read an interview with me from the Sunday Herald magazine. It’s incredibly nice, Susan Swarbrick was totally charming and no, I don’t have anything on her, she wrote this all of her own accord, honest! ‘Poster girl for yummy mummy chic’ oooh how my husband fell about laughing at that. He knows the grim reading glasses and ratty jeans reality!

Now, which photos can I use to enliven the August blog… I’m still missing New York, so here are another two from the holiday. The big plastic roach key-ring which was the gag of the fortnight: it ended up in everyone’s shoes, everyone’s bed, even Sam’s salad and my birthday presents. Eeek!

Then there are the family birthday cards… obviously cute dogs feature highly as we were all totally missing Jimmy by then!

Secrets at St Jude’s: Jealous Girl went on sale this month. I hope all the New Girl fans rushed to get a copy! Marie Goodwin from E. Sussex gets a signed copy as she was the very first person to send me an email about Jealous Girl. Surprise, Marie!

For the first two weeks in July, I was on holiday. As a big birthday treat, I went to New York with my family and had a truly brilliant time. It was hot, it was hectic, it was very exciting.

We did lots of touristy things, of course: Statue of Liberty check, Empire State Building, check, Natural history Museum, the Met, MoMA, the Bronx Zoo, the Central Library… all fantastic. All totally worth visiting.

Our apartment was weirdly Glasgow-ish: a Victorian sitting room, a little bit brown and shabby-chic, turned into a one-bedroom plus kitchenette kind of thing. It was on 16^th street between 5^th and 6^th and I can’t recommend that slice of town enough. We were right beside 5th Avenue… within spitting distance of Anthropologie, Coach, Banana Republic, J Crew (eek, all shopping accidents waiting to happen) Also the unbelievable farmer’s market in Union square.

When we weren’t eating out, we cooked in  – which Manhattanites don’t –  maybe because cooking attracted the biggest, brownest insect I’ve ever seen. Too big to be a roach, apparently he was a water beetle.

Yes, there were some shopping adventures: I bought my son button-down shirts and his first tie in the slightly fusty, wood-panelled Brooks Brothers (thus fulfilling a Woody Allen inspired fantasy… )

I took Claudie to American Girl Place where our jaws dropped. Not only could you buy a dolly to look like you, clothes and every dolly accessory ever invented (dolly kayak for instance), there was even a dolly hair salon where real, live stylists plaited your dolly’s hair.

I mainly bought shoes, none expensive and all quite devastatingly practical… OK apart from the Park Avenue Princess pumps in furry leopard skin with patent leather trim!

We spent lots of time hanging with the nannies and ‘Hudson Juniors’ in the Central Park playgrounds. Boating on the pond was the best and there were turtles. I found that surprising… what do they do with them in the winter? Fly them to Florida?

I turned 40 (!) and I got a truly spectacular cake. We went out and ate pizzas, played in the Washington Square fountain, walked home up Fifth Avenue admiring the lights on the Empire State building. I counted my many blessings, especially the three I was with, and thought 40 felt pretty good actually.