Last year I kept a mundane diary and I’m glad it’s done; it was pretty boring, except for a few exciting bits, like my granddaughter rushed to hospital with Meningitis and a grandson kidnapped by his useless father and taken to live in Birmingham.

So, when my daughter gave me another diary for Christmas I nearly had a fit. It’s okay, it’s not full page days. I’ve taken on the task of filling this book with a poem for each day (or just a scribble in poetic form)…and without further ado, I present to you, the first few days of 2010:

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'Aarghh! Not Agatha Christie!' was R's reaction, when I told him I'd been offered tickets for a new play at the Trafalgar Studios, 'A Daughter's a Daughter'. It seemed to me a perfect Christmas Eve treat, especially since it had such good reviews.


I know what he objected to about Christie's work, because he's told me before - the upper-class milieu, cardboard characters and stilted dialogue. I couldn't drag him to 'The Mousetrap' when my sister visited from Australia.


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I went to see this exhibition yesterday, slightly apprehensively. The exhibition presented various artists of the last twenty years or so who have created themselves as ‘brands’, something I am slightly dubious about anyway (I guess I think more like Richard Wright, winner of 2009’s Turner Prize, who liked the idea that his work would not survive his death, the ultimate anti-brand if you like). The exhibition started with some celebrity screenprints of Andy Warhol, along with television clips, magazine covers and newspapers of Brand Warhol. Other artists who featured were Damien Hurst, Tracey Emin Gavin Turk, Keith Haring, Murakami and Jeff Koons.

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Happy New Year, one and all! Hope Christmas was everything you wished it to be. Was mine? Let's see:
1) Ate too much - tick.
2) Drank too much - tick.
3) Built snowmen - tick.
Yep, not bad, I have to say - apart from the usual seasonal traumas. Firstly, our boiler broke down, during the freeze. Several guests decamped to the nearest hotel whilst I braved it out, regaling my kids with stories of how people never used to have central heating, anyway. Secondly, I almost slipped a disc boxing my husband and son via the new Wii. Thirdly, my daughter and I nearly came to blows when she refused (the cheek of it) to let me hang her New Moon calendar (me? Robsessed? Never!) in my kitchen. Oh, and yes, there was another minor trauma. Anyone remember Wendy Craig in the series Butterflies, and her dreadful cooking?

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Happy New Year!

If I'd been asked, ten years ago, what was going to happen over the coming decade I doubt much of what actually did happen would have been on the list.

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Decade revisited



In the spirit of it all, having only just realised that this is a new decade as well as a new year (bit slow, me), I thought about 1999. That was the year I wrote the first short story that was ever published, during my first visit to the sublime Anam Cara writing retreat which I have since revisited several times and where magic always always happens. Anyhow, I may really regret this, but that first story, Doing it in Eden, is still available online, in The Beat's second issue. Ok, yes, you can read it. Hmmm. Perhaps you shouldn't comment. No. Don't!

So, a momentous ten years, one that saw me starting to take writing seriously, attending two Arvon Courses, at the first of which I met J, my partner, and at the second was instructed by my writing idol Ali Smith to drop everything and write full time. An MA in creative writing, several workshops in the US, various publications and some lovely prizes, and then... my first book was born. What a decade!


After all that, it is fairly embarassing to admit this. But in the spirit of honesty I shall do it: only this week have I felt that I am really living The Writing Life....

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Oh my God. I’ve just begun the first day of the new decade with an iron in my hand! I haven’t touched an iron in years. What does this mean?

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There was something strange in the sky tonight. A little while ago I went into the kitchen to see if I could see the Blue moon and instead noticed a star really sparkling. The longer I looked at it the longer it became, until it resembled a string of stars, like maybe three or five, going down in a line. Very weird. I opened the window to see properly in case it was the double glazing affecting my eyesight but it was really real. Actually, I’ll just go and see if it’s still there –

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