Holidays

If you’re emailing, don’t expect a reply for a few weeks because I’m going on a long holiday to France. I’m taking the laptop and plan to get loads of writing done in the peaceful and (hopefully) very sunny countryside.

But before we get there, there is the holiday countdown to endure. The last two weeks of term are tricky enough with all number of things for parents to remember: Sports Day, Speech Day (times two, as one child at primary, one at secondary), school closing early day, school starting late day. Aaaargh. Meltdown.

Now I am in to phase two: locate passports, EU health cards, organise fish babysitters, plant waterers, buy son new swimming trunks, shorts and sandals, buy daughter everything she demands in shop… and so on!! Laundry, laundry, laundry, holiday, laundry, laundry. No?

I think this is why I only go on holiday once a year. (Thinks enviously of childless couples and their constant swanning off to exotic islands and glitzy capital cities for glamorous mini-breaks.) Not Going To Happen for at least another Ten YEARS!

Tense and nervous?

Don’t you find the first few weeks of the summer holidays always feel slightly delicate for a family? Everyone is getting in everyone’s way a bit. Children and parents are getting used to spending all this time with each other again! Both my husband and I work from home and suddenly we are getting up at 5am or staying up will 2am just to try and find some quiet time. Chores! If you want to make your parent happy just keep on doing those chores!

I got a lovely email from a St Jude’s reader who’d written to me about all the problems and tensions in her family. I told her I wasn’t really the best person to ask, but I gave her my best thoughts anyway and she was nice enough to say they helped.

(This is an extract so as not to give anything about the writer away.)

My experience of being a wife and a Mum is that you do have to keep talking about problems. The more you talk about them and get all those difficult angry feelings out in the open, the worse it gets at first (yikes!) but then you can start working together to try and solve things. And then it does get much, much better!

It definitely sounds like you need to spend some time with your family at the weekend doing those fun things you remember. Even silly things like a game of Monopoly or watching a funny film together will make you feel happy in each other’s company.

I know that when I was upset about things when I was your age, I used to write a diary. Just writing everything down helped me to make more sense of it and find some good solutions.

Think of some fun things you can do with your sisters. Even for 15 minutes every day, so you can all start to feel more connected again. Sometimes, I feel a bit out of touch with my son and we solve that by sitting on the sofa and reading out a book together. Taking turns to do pages with lots of different voices for the characters.

My children love to go on the trampoline in the garden together. They make up lots of silly games out there.

Maybe a little walk now that it’s not so dark at night? Sometimes talking is easier when you’re walking. Sometimes, it’s even easier to talk when you’re doing the washing-up together than when you’re facing each other on the sofa!

Start the tricky conversations when you’re all in as good a mood as possible. Also try to say things like ‘I feel’ or ‘I would like’ rather than ‘you never’, ‘you always…’

Dads can be hard to talk to! Just try moving the conversation on a little at a time. Don’t expect to have one big chat which solves everything (like on the TV!) Just try to improve things a little at a time.

Feeling angry is probably very normal. Thumping pillows, going for a quick walk or run, taking up a really violent sport (karate maybe!) might all help a little bit.

Try to keep cheerful, sometimes things aren’t nearly as bad as they might seem.

Let me know how you get on, loads of love Carmen xx

Congratulations

Many, many congratulations to my Spanish fan Laura Bertolin. She’s translated part of The Personal Shopper into Spanish for her degree project! How fantastic is that? We have had some interesting correspondence about what exactly did I mean when I wrote… ‘gold standard shop assistant’ and so on.  Very tricky.

Pic of Laura coming soon!

Names

My Ilford friend Zarah Ahmed, devoted St Jude’s fan, still cannot believe that her name was used for a character in Rebel Girl. But I am always on the lookout for good names! If you’d like me to consider your name or maybe a friend’s, please just post below or drop me a line at carmen@carmenreid.com

I have a new book out this month – the fourth Secrets At St Jude’s which is called Rebel Girl. I am loving the sparkly kiss kiss lips on the cover. Gorgeous! 

I can tell you that the Gina and Dermot romance comes under severe strain when deliciously handsome Callum appears on the scene. Callum is in hot pursuit of our fav Californian girl. Meanwhile, Amy is trying to cope with the fact that her Dad may no longer be rich. She may actually have to shop on the High Street (eeek!). Niffy is about to take drastic transformation action to make herself glamorous – think bad haircut. We’ve all been there. Min needs to be dragged out of the study to have some fun, she is swotting far too hard.

Rush to the bookshop and get a copy, I hope you’ll love it.

Now, what else… I’ve got an article in She magazine about turning 40. If you’d like to know more, you’ll have to get your hands on the June 2010 issue with Dervla Kirwan on the cover. But I’ll also post up a link ASAP. The piece was inspired by one of my birthday cards. On the front it read: ‘You’re only young once…’ then inside, it said: ‘How was it?’ Ouch!!! But it’s true, 40 is not young and I’m still adjusting!

Anyway, it has been a frantically busy month as I finish off the NEW Annie Valentine. The planned new title is: New York Valentine. Genius, no? But I’m not saying any more! I’ve also been inundated with birthdays lately.

Cake creating is hitting new highs. For the girl party, there was a chocolate delight studded with pink Smarties, for the hungry big boy party – a giant Victoria sponge with cream, jam and Star Trek action figures. To boldly go where no cake has gone before.

Sun… there is finally sun! So happy!

I have some events coming up soon. Here’s hoping I will see you there!

There’s the main, big ticket event: Aye Write Festival in Glasgow. On March 6th 6.30pm at the Mitchell Library, you can meet me and the lovely Jill Mansell on our Girls Night Out.

Dress up (I know I’m going to… well I don’t get out much!), bring your friends (I will too) and we’ll all swap favourite books, worst ever changing room/ outfit disaster stories and have a laugh. Book the tickets and the babysitter now! Here’s the link www.ticketweb.co.uk/INFO/AYEWRITE/ or www.ayewrite.com for information (although they had the time wrong, last I looked. It’s definitely 6.30pm).

I’m also going to be in:

Hemel Hempsted at the Astley Cooper School on March 1st at 12.30pm. (With a book signing open to the public from 1.30pm.)

Burntwood School in London SW17 on March 2nd

Guildford, St Catherine’s School on March 3rd

Waterstone’s evening event, Guildford High Street, Guildford, also on March 3rd.

Come along if you can! It is always fantastic to meet readers.

Spring

The first hit of bright Spring sunshine has arrived and suddenly the windows look filthy, the house seems covered in clutter and dust, plus everything in my wardrobe is now hideously drab, black and grey.

I am craving fresh air and colour. I even tidied up a bit of the garden and I pretty much hate gardening and kill everything I plant, so clearly I must have Spring Fever. (Plant pretty flowery thing, watch it die, weed it out, plant new pretty flowery thing… that’s how it is in my garden. Yes, plus slash and burn undergrowth control). Ivy seems to grow brilliantly in my garden. Ivy and snails.

I’ve put out a pink bedspread in the room with yellow walls. I have a total thing for yellow and pink at the moment. I’m not convinced I’m going to wear it. In fact, much as I love pink, I’ve not yet discovered a shade that really suits me. But it must be out there somewhere.

Following a good old clear through the wardrobe, I can honestly say that there is very little Spring/ summer wear in there – an incredible amount of tights and hold-ups though. Unbelievable. I could open my own little concession. Winter clothes, I have piles of: jumpers, dark jeans, cardigans, a wide selection of Uniqlo thermal tops, woolly everything, scarves, tick. (Oh GOD! I lost my purple gloves. For Christmas I got these fabulous purple leather driving gloves with a knitted stripy lining; Noa Noa, I think, from my Mum. I was so in love with them, so ultra careful with them… I hardly even dared to wear them anywhere. Now they are gone. Disappeared. Completely lost. I am only just coming to terms with this. There is no way I can tell her. No way. She will never give me anything as nice again.)

Anyway, I’m definitely going Spring shopping. I am going to buy pale green and bright blue and heck, even white, maybe even a hit of yellow and orange. Then I will just have to trust that the weather improves and I get a chance to wear it all.

For my St Jude’s fans.

There is an eating problem in the new book and I wanted talk about that a little.

Just like lots of my school friends, I under-ate when I was a teenager. I remember lasting a whole day on a handful of strawberries. Yes, the result was I was thin, but I didn’t have much energy to do anything and I often fainted. I gave up doing any kind of sport at about 15. So then I was unfit as well as unenergetic.

It probably took a full 10 years before I saw the light and got really healthy. At 25-ish, I joined a gym, started eating really well and finally gave up the dreaded cigarettes. Eating well and exercising are the only way to go. Please put all the faddy diet books down right now.

Nowadays, I’m pretty Californian about my health! It’s 3 square meals with lots of fruit and vegetables, hardly any junk and some vigorous exercise every day: tennis, the gym, the treadmill, long dog walks, even running up and down the stairs. Usually I’m full of energy and although I’m not underweight like I was, I’m not overweight either.

It’s a good guideline to know your recommended BMI: body mass index (you can look up tables on-line) and try to keep well within in. Don’t get too underweight, don’t get too over weight.

If sport is uninspiring at school, I really urge you to join something with your friends: a gym, a dance class, a netball or athletics club. It’s always much more fun and motivating to go together with pals and the people running sports and athletics clubs are usually great. They always want to help more people into the sport. Yes, even if you are a beginner or rubbish!

My favourite eating tip: if you are craving something unhealthy, eat a good thing first. So before you tackle that packet of biscuits, have a big banana first. Or a crunchy apple before the crisps. It will concentrate your mind on what you are putting into your precious body.

Drink loads of water every day. Loads…. glasses and glasses of the stuff. Tea, coffee and fizzy drinks do nothing for you or your skin. Water is the thing. I drink it from the tap, I’m not fussy.

If you think you have an under- or over- weight problem, you need to speak to your doctor and get really good advice. The only diet book I’d ever recommend is French Women Don’t Get Fat which is packed with truly sensible advice from a woman you will think of as your surrogate French Maman. Plus Mirelle is so cool. She’s a champagne ambassador and splits her life between New York and Provence. Just how jealous-making is that?

The Good…

NEW BOOKS!!

The third Secrets at St Jude’s : Drama Girl hits the shelves this month! The official publication date is Feb 4, but you will be able to get your hands on a copy from the last weekend in January. You can order direct from the publishers here and if you’d like signed book-plates to stick in the front, then just drop me an email – carmen@carmenreid.com.

Just a little bit longer to wait for the new Annie – Celebrity Shopper is out on March 4th!

This is Jimmy’s new winter scarf, knitted specially for him by the totally lovely, top St Jude’s fan, Zarah Ahmed. Is it not soooooo cute?! Jimmy has been enjoying the snow. But when the temperature goes below minus 5, his feet freeze, he stars limping and has to be carried home – which he hates as he may be tiny, but he is definitely no lapdog.

There has been so much snow for weeks that we have almost got bored of sledging! In the Botanical Gardens there is this steep hill peppered with trees. Claudie has no control over her sledge and it is terrifying to watch, but how can I not let her go without being a huge spoilsport?

When I was about 10, my Dad built this mile long downhill ‘cresta run’ which he used his tractor armed with a leaking water butt to ice over. We used to hurtle down it on an antique sledge which had metal runners rubbed with candle wax! I remember shooting clean through the wires of a fence. Now I hear myself suggesting to my children that they wear bicycle helmets…

The Bad…

Bleeeeeuuuuurrrrrrghhhhh!

I always have a lovely time over Christmas and New Year and tell myself that this year, I’m going to be positive and surely January won’t be that bad? Then it comes round and slaps me in the face all over again.

Jan 2nd, it is freeeeeeezing despite all the heating roaring at full blast and wearing three layers at all times. Jan 3rd horrible icky sticky sinusitis sets in, despite the fact that I have been saintly over the holidays, eating well and hardly drinking at all. My New Year’s resolution btw is to change from being a ‘regular’ drinker into a ‘very occasional’ drinker. Jan 4th my pipes burst and suddenly we have an indoor water feature. More like waterfall.

For an hour, it is a hideous drama. Water gushing from kitchen ceiling, light sockets (yikes!) door arches, children holding buckets and crying, parents rushing about trying to find more buckets, the plumber’s number and shrieking about where is the stopcock? And how does it work? And why the bloody hell don’t we know this?

(Just take a moment now my darlings to locate the stopcock, that’s the large tap that turns off all the water in your house, and work out how to turn it off. If your pipes burst, you will thank me. One friend already has!)

However, once the water has been mopped up and everything moved about and dried off. Things don’t look quite so bad. In fact, apart from some repainting and a new kitchen ceiling, we may not have to get anything else replaced. Obviously a lot more insulation will have to go up into the draughty attic space, where the pipes froze in the first place. But we have had days and days at minus 5 and nights of minus 10.

I am a terrible person to have around in a crisis. I did a lot of running about, panic sweating and shouting. ‘Just be calm, stay calm’ I shouted a lot, in a voice which didn’t sound calm at all. Generally I ran about like a great flapping chicken. But I did hug the children a lot afterwards and tell them how well they’d done. They stood under a doorway with buckets, catching water. I remember Claudie rushing down from her bedroom with a tiny sand bucket and her towel.

We couldn’t cook in the soaking kitchen that night, so we went to Macdonalds. See how I am cleverly linking images of family disaster with fast food in their impressionable minds.

The Ugly…

I was back at my desk (box of tissues on one side, used crumpled pile of tissues on the other, red, flaky nose doused in Nivea, sheepskin slippers, thermal vest, two jumpers) feeling totally depressed about the ceiling leak and the frozen pipes. The pipes re-froze twice after the burst! Cue much panic, heaters in attic, hairdryers, kettles etc. Me convinced everyone was going to be electrocuted.

But as my dear friend Annie Valentine would tell me: no good comes of huddling about in 15 layers of wool and nose cream. The January spiral will set in. Before I know it I’ll be too cold to leave the house. Too cold to leave the bedroom. Too cold to move from the electric blanket! Then that big grey, snotty blanket of bleakness will move in on me.

I know Annie’s advice would be to dress up a bit and face the world. So… I washed my face, applied lipgloss, put on my leopard skin hat instead of my woolly one and dug my black fake fur coat out of the back of the wardrobe. Yes, definitely more glamorous than the duvet coat.

Then I walked the school run, even though it’s nearly a five mile round trip. When I got to the playground, it’s funny, but other Mums I know approached to stroke the coat!! Then we were all swapping winter tales of woe. Someone’s child’s front teeth got knocked out sledging. People are buying bottled water at the supermarket because even their cold water has frozen solid. Someone else went up into the attic to inspect their insulation and found dust!

It was good to get out there, get some perspective and realise I’m not the only one with some minor problems!

The children and I walked home from school in minus 8. It was freezing yes, but magically cold. We saw someone skating on a pond. This winter will be a very special childhood memory for them.

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.

On the book front: the next instalment of Secrets at St Jude’s: Jealous Girl is out on 2nd July for everyone who loved New Girl and can’t wait to find out what happens next…

Make a little room in your summer holiday suitcase for the new Annie Valentine, as How Not To Shop comes out on 13th August.

At the AK Bell Theatre in Perth, I served my first ever time on a discussion panel this month.  Is The Love Story Dead? Discuss. It was a really interesting and enjoyable evening. Great to meet writers Ewan Morrison and Sharon Blackie as well as the incredibly well-read Dorothy Macmillan, Stuart Kelly and Ajay Close. Just as soon as I’d sipped down my second Buck’s Fizz to quell those public speaking nerves, I had a great time!

I’m going on a library tour in September… more details to follow next month. Hope I can catch up with lots of readers.

The rest of June has been all about two of the Very Important Males in my life: my son and my Dad.

On the same day that my son went off on his first week-long school trip to an outward bound adventure centre thingy, my Dad went into hospital to have his hip replaced.

Oh what a lovely amount of fretting and stressing I did! Will Sam have enough socks? Eat enough fibre? Survive the abseiling lesson? Will Dad have enough books to read? Eat any hospital food? Survive the operation?!!

Good grief it was stressful. My Mum and I got through much more wine and cake than usual, I can tell you.

However, the week ended. Sam came off the bus looking tall, brown, grubby and ridiculously chirpy. He was absolutely fine – apart from a neck rash brought on by a combination of ‘slurping on midge repellent like gravy’ (his words) and not washing properly (well, he is newly 11!) And apparently abseiling – which he’d been slightly worried about – was the best fun ever.

Dad came out of hospital the following day and went home to the farm along with crutches, a raised loo-seat and various other gadgets.

He has always been the fittest, healthiest person I know. Up until two years ago he was still running (he doesn’t jog, he RUNS!) and he looks after a herd of 80 cattle, so the ever-increasing hip problem has taken some time for him to adjust to.

I have no idea how Mum is going to keep him resting for six weeks. There is already talk of how soon can he get back on his bike (his new hobby now that he can’t run!) and my Dad’s usual competitive streak  means he will want to make the fastest recovery from the operation ever!

More news next month when I get back from New York! Yes, I’ll just say that once again… when I get back from New York!!

I’ve had loads of messages about Secrets at St Jude’s: New Girl from my new teenage fans, which is very exciting. I’m really, really thrilled that you’re loving it, girls. And yes, there is another book to come next summer. I’m just putting the finishing touches to Jealous Girl right now.

Does it reveal how incredibly old and pernickety I’m getting if I add that most of those fan messages are spelled so badly it takes quite some time to work them out?!!!

On the building front, we are now into week three without a bathroom… hmmmmm… that is a bit of a challenge, to say the least. OK, we have a toilet (without a seat) and we have a teeny weeny cloakroom sink which is just about big enough to brush your teeth in, but altogether the experience is not very happy.

Every member of the family has been affected by this disruption in different ways. I’m in the worst mood all the time. Like PMT all month long. My husband has grown wild: bearded, wearing his anorak indoors, acting like a UN peace envoy between angry wife and builders. My daughter is upset about her dusty hair, dusty clothes and dusty shoes (which we have to polish every morning). My son has developed an acute anxiety about Jimmy, our dog, running away because the builders keep leaving the door open.

Time for me to take calming breaths and repeat once again, it will be over, very, very soon.