I’m not posting anything about the house. I’m beginning to think it’s bad luck. As soon as I even suggest something is ‘finished’, something else goes wrong. So I’m not saying another thing for a while… not until I can convince myself that the big stuff really is finally over!

I was emailed a Q and A by a friend. I do like a Q and A. I like filling them in and I like reading all my friends’ answers too, very revealing.

So cut and paste away, or make up your own and email it to everyone you’d like to know a little better. Also, questions like this are great starting points for writing. Especially for all those people who wonder ‘where do you get the ideas from?’ Almost every one of these answers has a much longer story behind it.

Q: Are you diamonds or pearls?

A: You know not really either. I have a chip of diamond sunk into my engagement band which I love so much it also became my wedding ring and I have a long string of teeny pearls all the way from Hawaii but otherwise, I like really chunky, rustic jewellery. Turquoise lumps, beaten silver, hunks of blown glass, shells, amber beads that kind of thing. I don’t think I’m ever going to be wearing bling rings.

Q: What’s your best bargain?

A: Ah… now that I’m an eBay-er, so many! The almost brand new, still in their lilac box Jimmy Choo boots, bought for a fifth of what they’d have cost originally, maybe, but I still love a D&G black woollen long sleeved, scoop necked top I bought for buttons in Century 21 in New York about 18 years ago now. It’s really warm and foxy, what more could a Scottish girl ask for?!

Q: What’s the last book you read?

A: I’ve just finished Candace Bushnell’s Lipstick Jungle and oh my, it was good. As Bret Easton Ellis once said: ‘she writes the big, bad truth.’ I’ve just started a biography of Dorothy Parker: the Candace Bushnell of her day really.

Q: Where’s your favourite holiday destination?

A: I do like France and Italy. Heat and wonderful food are hard to beat.

Q: Where in the world would you still like to go to?

A: I have this idea in my head… I don’t know yet whether it’s feasible, but California for a whole month in July. I’ve never been there before and I think it would be incredible.

Q: What are the luxuries in your life?

Too many! Aveda conditioner. I have big, big, big hair and this does help. Eve Lom cleanser, yes I know it’s about as expensive as caviar but you only use it once a day and it lasts for ever and is practically a miracle in a jar. Palmer’s cocoa butter, this would probably be the one thing I’d have to take to a desert island.

Q: What is your favourite smell?

A: Always the warm, sweet smell of my children’s necks. Also cakes in the oven, dinner cooking and pretty much everything by Chanel and Diptyque. I also have a thing about the smell of barns: engine oil mixed with earth.

Q: What’s your favourite food?

Chocolate and anything made with it: chocolate cake, chocolate mousse… I do also find it hard to resist a caramel anything (blame Willy Wonka). Also, my husband’s shepherd’s pie and a great, rare steaming hunk of my Dad’s home grown rib roast. Quite strange to think I was once a vegetarian.

Q: Which film star do you find most sexy?

A: Oh boy… so many men, so little time to admire them all. The young Sean Connery and the middle-aged Russell Crowe obviously… I mean is anyone immune to those charms? I also have a strange attraction to Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall. Should I admit to that? I think Annie Valentine’s Ed is a little bit related to Hugh. He’s messy-haired and tweedy and a bit intellectual, but earthy. No, I’m not sure I should be admitting to this at all…

We were at the carpet laying stage…

The new bathroom is lovely. The new bedroom, same. I’d had my Carrie moment. My Mr Big had built my new wardrobe (shame there were only worn jeans and Converse sneakers to put in it…. And I don’t recall Carrie being involved with hauling the very heavy flat-pack boxes up the stairs… but no matter).

The house and I had almost put our bad relationship behind us. We were all set for that brand new start.

And then. Then. It goes and lets me down AGAIN!!

We were about to lay the sitting room to rest, finally. It was all plastered and painted, complete with the new boxed in cupboards and skirting boards. The paint, by the way, on one wall is an amazing blue. Almost exactly the colour of both my husband’s and daughter’s astonishingly blue eyes.

Anyway, the carpet, no to be precise, sisal man arrived. He looked at the wooden floorboards, which are messy and un-sandable, then, to my horror, he took out a chisel, bent down, gouged out a piece of floorboard here and there, shook his head and declared he couldn’t possibly put down anything here because this whole floor was rotten and infested with woodworm and would have to be sorted out first.

Then he left. Before my mouth could close again.

Never heard from him since. What he’s done with the 25 square metres of sisal is anyone’s guess.

Since then… we’ve had countless joiners etc in and out ummmming, ahing, scratching their heads.

The one we booked arrived today, removed about four square metres of floorboards from the sitting room and the hall and declared it was all hopeless, he really felt for us and he couldn’t do this, he would have to go now. Leaving the four metre square hole by the way!

I actually had to sit down and laugh at that point.

I mean that is a first. In all the work we’ve had done. No one yet has come in, started, then packed up in horror and run away. That is truly a first. Luckily, my mother had been to visit and there was a substantial amount of homemade chocolate cake in the fridge. Otherwise, I really might have cracked up.

I can seriously recommend refrigerated chocolate cake as lunch on a bad day. There must be a lot of bankers chomping through it at the moment. I mean, what is going on there guys?! My mortgage company is just about to be ‘rescued’ by Lloyds. The bank I have my businesses account with is teetering… it really is very scary.

Yes, I know we’re all Sex And The Citied out. We’ve seen the girls on every cover of every magazine, we’ve read enough interviews with SJP to be able to write her biography off by heart (‘I keep fit by running up and down the stairs of my house… I can’t even blow dry my own hair,’ Oh please!)

But still the film was fabulous, was it not? I’ve seen it twice and I went to a SATC party, so I think that makes me a groupie.

I’ve loved SATC since series one when Miranda wore Gap, Carrie wore second hand and they did those random street polls about finding love in New York.

At the time (1998) I’d just had my first baby so I was shopping in Mothercare and SATC was pure escapism. Could it have been less like my life? No. I was in. I was married. I was stone cold sober, and not getting a lot of action in the small hours, apart from nappy changing.

But that was the fun of it. I still believe the most devoted SATC fans are happily married, tracksuit-wearing mums, who just want a weekly dose of how the other half lives. To remind us why we’re just fine where we are, thanks.

The best things about the series:

* The friendships. You believe that these women are there for the thick and thin, more like family than friends. Everyone needs friends like this.

* The clothes, of course. According to SATC, when you’re a grown up you deserve to spend a little bit more on yourself. Although the great big Prada hairy handbags may have been a shopping spree too far…

* The sex info, thank you very much. Everything I know about sex I’ve learned from Samantha.

* The girl power! Are the foursome not proof that women in their 40s and 50s are interesting, witty and sexy with a host of opportunities and choices open to them? And we can buy our own diamonds and apartments, thank you very much. I never liked that whole Mr Big: ‘I’ve got it covered, baby.’

* The fun! Let’s face it, for previous generations of women, life didn’t look so good after the wedding day. From then on, you were consigned to childcare, housework, elasticated waistbands and frumpy shoes. In SATC, there is no settling! These girls want the best shoes, the best clothes and the best men. And they’re not going to let their waistlines or bikini lines go either. It’s impossible not to want to cheer them on from the sidelines!

Obviously, like Carrie Bradshaw, I’m a ‘writerrrr’ but to my husband’s distress, I do not sit at my laptop in evening gowns or lingerie. I’ve promised him I will do that, just as soon as he drives around town in his own personal chauffeur driven limousine.

Some of my SATC inspired purchases over the years: the corset top, pointy red boots, fake flower and impressive sparkly ring.

Everyone I know left the film lusting after something, for me it was the teensy diamond studs in Carrie’s ears (thank you Claire’s Accessories).

I did love that Carrie looked truly rubbish after the break-up and did Bad Things to her Hair. (Been there, done that!) Plus she wore a few duff outfits as well, to prove that fashionistas take risks and can’t always get it right: I mean, grey thermals under a silk nightie… what was that about?!!

After enduring two weeks of that unique radio channel only painters know about, is it Radio Decorator? All the non-stop, back-to-back hits you prayed you’d forgotten about from the 70s and 80s… (‘Gloria! Gloria!’, ‘I want to break free…’) Well, after two whole weeks of that, we are definitely entering the DIY phase. Most of the rest of the wallpaper stripping and painting will be done by us. There goes my manicure. (No, I’m only saying that to make my friends fall about laughing…)

I did once have a manicure, only to wreck it when I took out my purse to pay. Manicure pros apparently pay first… so why didn’t the beautician warn me?!

Anyway, Annie Valentine’s next instalment of adventures (think Italy, think handbag and shoe capital of Europe) is now on the final copy-editing stage and is due out in a very sparkly cover in June.

Purely in the interests of research, I decided I’d better get onto ebay and find out what it is all about… just for Annie’s sake. Oh boy! Is it not completely addictive? Slightly like drugs, horses and cigarettes all bundled up together.

There’s the thrill of finding gorgeous, gorgeous things you would never have had the nerve to pay full price for, floating about at the kind of prices Primark charge. Then there’s the haggle to buy them.

Bizarrely, I’ve found myself drawn to the shoe listings. Bizarre, because in real life, I’m not much of a one for shoes. I have size 8 feet and this used to be such a trauma to shop for, I think I was scarred for life. However, on ebay, you can just type in size 8 and hundreds and hundreds of shoes, all in your size, pop up.

Which is how I ended up with the green… snakeskin… wait for it… Prada shoes.

Oh yes! Eat your heart out, Carrie Bradshaw.

I’ve had to watch some old SATC episodes lately just to prepare myself for the film coming out in May. (Can the SATC film possibly be as good as we really, really hope it will be? Will Carrie marry Big? And would that be a good thing? I don’t like the idea of a married Carrie with matching silverware, a summer house in the Hamptons, a philandering husband – because you know he will – and a weekly column about hostessing.)

Other things I’m doing this month:

Making a trip to the flicks for The Other Boleyn Girl with my pals.

Checking out my friend Ronda’s glitzy blog

Still dragging myself to the gym (much more fun if your ipod’s on random… stomach crunches to Shirley Bassey, anyone?!)