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.

Every day I bundle myself up into thermal long johns, jeans, sheepskin boots, thermal top, woollen jumper, fleece hoodie (oh the glamour… you can see why I write about department stores and fashion, can’t you?) I practically sit on top of the heater at my computer and mainline tea, but I’m still cold, deeply, bone-chillingly cold, most of the time. I may even get those fingerless mitts to use at the keyboard… actually no, that would be sad.

Apparently, according to my exercise-ist husband, this is because I need to get fitter and get the blood circulating round my chilly, long limbs. I say: ‘yes I will go to the gym, I will go out for a run, just as soon as it’s bit warmer out there!’ Until then, I am sitting on top of my radiator with a cup of tea and not moving.

My dog, Jimmy, feels the same. He is so cold some days that he wraps himself up in his fleece blankies and will only come out for food.

He’s right, February should be declared National Duvet Month and we should all just be allowed to stay at home and do a Jimmy until it is over.

My new year’s resolution (apart from to write more web posts, my apologies, it drives me nuts too when I go on favourite websites/ blogs and find there’s nothing new!) was to do something about my neglected hair…

It was so long and so dry and so bleach- and weather-beaten. Plus, the amount of time involved in washing, conditioning and blow drying the mane. No, I decided it really had to go.

I went to my charming hairdresser (if I went there more often, I daresay the hair would not have got so out-of-hand in the first place) with lots of pictures of short, short haircuts. He made me tea, he looked at the photos, he listened intently, then he cut me a cute little bob. If I was sure I wanted short hair, I could have it next time, he told me! Whereas if I deeply regretted the bob, it would only take a few months to grow back down to my shoulders. He is a hair genius, obviously.

The bob is nice, much, much nicer than the bouffant mane. But now I can’t decide… go shorter or stick with the bob? Sometimes, accessorised with coats and leather gloves, I think the bob is a bit terrifyingly grown up. Long hair is hippie-chic, short hair is cool, bobs are… hmmm… just a little bit sensible. No?

Here is the before and after… the after reminding me that I need new make up. My last bottle fell out of the stupid little plastic bag they make you put liquids in at the airport. It smashed on the floor, splattering glass and beige goo everywhere and sending the security guards, not to mention everyone in the queue behind me, into panic-mode. Clinique attack! Everybody down!

My desk always has three mugs of tea on it. The one I’m currently drinking, the one I finished some time ago and the one left here from yesterday. At least once every few hours I take a sip from the wrong one which is just not good.

Winter doesn’t end up here until April. No one ever believes me, but it’s true! Just this week we have had snow and vicious winds which blew the trampoline right over the fence and into the neighbour’s garden, so I’m not quite planning my summer wardrobe or Spring cleaning schedule just yet.

Not that there will be much Spring cleaning going on here as we are still somewhere in the middle of renovation… I’d like to say ‘hell’ but I shouldn’t. I definitely should not moan about the trial of redecorating because one day the house will be really beautiful and although living through the process is annoying, very grubby and let’s not even talk about expensive, it is still a nice problem to have.

The plaster may be falling off the walls, the joists dodgy, the guttering leaking, the windowsills rotten, but it is just such an amazing view! (Yes, that is the sound of my husband weeping in the background.)

What I’m doing this month:

Re-reading The Price of Water in Finistere by Bodil Malmsten, which I love.

Getting a sneak preview read of My Vintage Summer by Jane Elmor (it’s out in June)

Definitely making time to read The House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse (promise, Lucie!)

Eating too many Easter eggs. Yes, I know it’s not even Easter yet!

And because of the eggs… forcing myself to go back to the gym. It’s been so long, I didn’t recognise my trainers. Thought they were someone else’s.