Like landmarks to a treasure

Right, that's at least 38 words today. 

Six more and I can lie down with a box of violet creams, a pint of amaretto and an oiled Liam Neeson. 

Result.

Like most literate sentient beings, I fell madly into The Secret History.  I adored its quirky characters, deft and mysterious happenings, intelligent, crisp prose and the elliptical, swooping tale which made me long to know Latin and wear dead men's coats in a freezing New England winter.

Also by the stunningly talented Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch has made my year for two reasons.

I have devoured it both on kindle and on audiobook as I have driven our ancient creaking Jeep for many hours this winter.  Through rain so hard that the wipers were a frenzied blur, and wind that walloped the old beast with a sideways, spiteful kick.

The talented David Pittu imbues the wonderful voice of James Hobart with a patina he himself would have stroked. Boris and Theo have stayed in my ear and heart for weeks afterwards.  If you haven't yet immersed yourself in this fabulous wringing mangle of a book, make it your solemn duty to do so soon.

If you regret it, I will come round and clean out the cupboard under your sink and leave flapjacks.

The second reason?  She took 10 years to write it.

Not that I will ever produce anything like that, but I take great heart from her glacial speed. And since Mary Wesley didn't crank anything out until she was 70, I reckon that's plenty of time to keep polishing and honing, singing on mountains and falling into sudden, deep ravines of self-doubt and despair.

Those kind souls still here, I am so grateful.  The short stories are undergoing a final revision and the novel is about a third completed. I went on a course run by a Very Successful Editor and had a comprehensive kick up the arse.

In the meantime, the cars swish by my writing lair, where I need a lamp on all day, spend silly numbers of hours brewing the perfect coffee and contemplating the astonishing number of shoes generated by only eight feet. And eating flapjacks.

Prophesy, prediction and puke

My lovely friend Markus rang me at the end of August. "We are all very bored of your attention-seeking. I'm having an actual proper crisis and I need you to drop everything and come to London for the weekend. I will feed you and water you and take you to an antiques fair. I've painted the sitting room and it's got a pinky undertone not grey. Doing the woodwork and trim in Pointing simply will not work." Now that's a real emergency, so I dropped the bots and dog with Edward and jumped on the next train. Markus made chocolate martinis and we ate plates of delicate Asian fish stew poring over paint chips and fabric samples and moving furniture about till the small hours. Bliss.

The next day was gorgeous so after the antiques fair, we went for lunch in Chiswick. Next to the restaurant was a chalked sign 'Psychic Readings this afternoon only'. Markus' eyes lit up. "Bloody no." I said. "Bloody yes" said he. "Nooooo," I wailed. "It'll be crap and what if she says I'm going to die?" "They can't say that and anyway, she might forsee some good stuff. Come on."

After losing the sort of unseemly scrap we used to indulge in as students, I presented myself to the psychic, a nicely dressed lady called Clarissa. I felt like the bots at the dentist - resentful, afraid and praying it wouldn't hurt too much.

I think when a fortune-teller is faced with a middle-aged woman wearing no rings other than black ones under her eyes, it is fair to make some pretty obvious assumptions. I sat opposite her in an empty room while she shut her eyes and held my hand. She smelled of wine. She urged me to relax. What she said absolutely blew me away.

"You are thinking about your dog and how much you miss her. She is teaching you the real meaning of love and you must let her have as much of your heart as she needs because the more love you give her, the more will come back to you. She's on her favourite hill right at this moment and she is running and happy." I was stunned and tears ran down my face. It's true, her unconditional waggy glee at everything and her head pushing tenderly into my hand night after night have brought me untold comfort.

I was thinking about this today as I nagged the dog to hurry at the end of a walk. I was in heels and velvet coat and late for a meeting at Rose's school. She ran into the woods. I stood on the path and bellowed. When she finally appeared, there was a plastic bag on her back. She ran up to me and rubbed her head delightedly on my coat and into my hand. I pulled off the bag. It had contained, it would appear, a regurgitated Indian. The dog and I were smeared with magenta-coloured, vomit-smelling rice. I put us both in the shower and missed the meeting.

Didn't foresee that though, did you Clarissa?

“And remember, expect nothing and life will be velvet”

Can we keep them? Pleeease? I promise to look after them and feed them. And look at all the stuff they come with - guns, cuffs, truncheons. Pleeeease? Can I keep ONE then?

Several years ago, the Colonel invited me on my first trip to New York. He had been there countless times shoring up world peace; I was seduced by the dollar-pound ratio. He would fly in from Holland and join our connecting flight from Heathrow to save me arriving alone at 1:00 am in what I envisaged as ghetto badlands, iron-grated graffitied hell. There was a local storm and he missed the connection. Rather a metaphor for the relationship at that time.

So I went alone. The Colonel had arranged limo to take me to my hotel. I locked the doors and sent furious texts. Eventually, the window slid back and the driver suggested I open my eyes. We were emerging from the tunnel into Manhattan. Never in my life have I fallen so immediately and completely in love with a city. The entire hotel window was full of the Chrysler Building, and I spent the night wrapped in the duvet looking out at a view I pretty much memorised.

The Colonel got there in the end. Another metaphor. It was every film, book and song I have ever seen come to life - the pavement where Sally hopes she'll never meet Harry again and drives off with grape seed on her car window; every schmaltzy black and white evening-gowned drive through the park in a horse drawn carriage; nose to Tiffany's glittering windows; Holden's angsty flight through Grand Central Station; Saks, snowfall and drinks in Bemelman's Bar. The NYPD Choir didn't quite get around to singing me Galway Bay but two of their hunky sons peeled off layers of gloves and mended my mobile so I could call home. The Colonel even morphed into Michael Caine and read me ee cummings between dusty shelves in a bookshop.

He bought me a fabulous sea-coloured velvet dressing gown in La Perla. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw - foam-and-forest-green-depths; luscious velvet lined with silk. The sort of robe you'd wear to feed your Irish Wolfhounds, standing wistfully on your huge lawn watching the Spitfires roar away and knowing it was all that would keep you warm for three years.

It's done some time now; swanking round the table at smart Christmas breakfasts; comforting poorly bots and snuggling puppies; coveted by my girlfriends; warm in winter, elegant and cool in summer. A tiny bit frayed with a few stains it didn't have last year. But still beautiful, unique and makes me happy and grateful every time I wrap it round me.

Like rather a lot of things this January.

A very happy hour

With Pavlovian accuracy and lolling tongues, the English chaps here present themselves at the bar-in-the-pool at exactly 3.29pm just before the bells rings for happy hour. We're not a race noted for style, whatever my anglophile blogmates may fondly imagine. And especially not in hot weather. Other races cover up chicly in linen and chiffon; the Brits like to parade their ancient shorts and palid guts as the mercury rises.

Anyway, yesterday three were perched politely awaiting the bell (Style, no. Manners? Always). Opposite them, an American Marine (yes, he told the entire poolside) strutted out of his apartment. He looked like he was wearing the stick-on wrestling chest that Freddie has, so defined were his comic-book muscles. He dropped to the ground and began counting out beautifully-executed push-ups. (You see the lengths I go to, to bring you tales. Watching that was no picnic, I can tell you.) The Brits discreetly slithered their eyes at each other and got stuck into their first drink.

The Marine went back inside, and we all settled back down to the exhausting, relentless round of decisions - beach or pool? Front or back? Italian or Bajan? Sebastian Faulks or Vanity Fair?

After an hour, the bell rang again and the Brits slithered off their aquatic perches a shade less steadily that they had leapt up. The Marine came back out, dropped again. Only this time he had a small boy on his back. He got to seven before all three Brits offered noisily and seriously to sit on his back too.

I haven't seen him today. Not that I was looking, you understand.