As threatened, I popped into Guildford today with Lord H to face the irritating Nationwide people - but even though I had to queue for twenty minutes to see a real person, I have to say that the real person I saw was utterly charming, efficient and sorted me out (or mostly) in no time. If only I'd done that rather than attempt to call yesterday, I could have saved myself all that angst. I shall remember for next time: never use the phone; just go see a person. Always the best…

Well, it's here! The frothiest and sassiest website of the year, and certainly the one with the hottest actor links, is now here and open for business: http://www.pinkchampagneandapplejuice.com



Come on in and have a look round! All are welcome, and the site is very good indeed (huge thanks to Sue & Frank at …

Still slogging away on the Health Centre website today – it’s getting rather more complicated, but I think I’ve managed to work out a new template for it – with the help of our long-suffering IT department. And it works too. Just need a shortcut name now and I can do exciting secretarial things with the leaflet links. Hurrah. Are you keeping up at the back?



The morning was galvanised into further excitement by our first meeting with the Guildford School of Acting who are going to be…

Have been doing some marketing for the up-and-coming Pink Champagne and Apple Juice (http://www.pinkchampagneandapplejuice.com or http://www.pinkchampagneandapplejuice.com/friends) website today - only one reaction so far but my responder liked the look of it - thank you, Robin! The launch date will be this…

Gosh, great title, eh? That'll have 'em lining the bookshops ... Anyway, after last night’s book club joy, I came down to earth very rapidly at getting yet another rejection for Maloney’s Law. Deep sigh. Admittedly, it was from a publisher I assumed had already rejected it, but there you go. So, it’s now only out with one US publisher – if they say no, I’m throwing in the towel on the commercial front, I think, as it’s coming up to two years in the market for that one now. Shame…

Was it just me or was last night's offering of "Kingdom" on TV slightly better than the week before? More jokes and sharpness, thank God. If they could only shake off the trappings of ruddy "Heartbeat", they'd be laughing. Oh and get rid of the irritating sister - a waste of space in my opinion. There, rant over. Phew



Have taken my calming pills to work today due to this evening’s University book circle discussion of A Dangerous Man (…

Very up and down today, I must say. In that order. Both me-wise and weather-wise. This morning was good. On all fronts (ho ho). Went into Guildford early and stocked up on underwear at Marks & Spencer. Where would I be without that shop? Today I've been bold and rebellious and actually bought bras that weren't white. Or black. Which are my usual bra colours. No, today I have bought, amongst other items, one pink and one light taupe bra. So I feel wild and free and liberated.…

Did some real secretarial stuff today and prepared papers for Monday’s Steering Group meeting – which feels like getting more back to normal after the hiatus of the Easter holidays, conference etc. And God knows how much I like normal. If only I saw it more often.



The rest of the morning was spent visiting the new Manor Park campus – where Carol works some of the time as part of her mentoring remit. We walked there and back which took about 20-25 minutes or so each way, but…

Goodness, what a literary day today. The boss is back too, so we have to look super-professional and cutting-edge. Not that we don’t always look like that, of course – it’s just that we have to expunge that tell-tale trace of panic from our eyes …



Anyway, did a fair amount of website stuff, which I always enjoy, mainly on the Mentoring site, and we have plans for the Health Centre site too. Hurrah. About time it got updated. I’m sure we still have stuff about the Bubonic plague up…

St George’s Day today – so happy St George’s Day to all. I gather that Guildford is making a big thing of this, but as I’m not able to go to town in the lunch-hour (in any sense), then I can’t confirm anything. Lord H and I were wondering if we should re-enact the traditional slaying of the dragon by the good saint himself, but were unable to agree on which of us should take which part. So this mini-drama has, I’m afraid, had to be shelved for now. However, at work I have taken out my red,…

Managed to catch up with the neighbours opposite this morning while I was sorting the cars out - they're very sweet but they're the kind who find my writing life distinctly weird (as indeed do Marian & Siegi, our golfing friends), so I've learnt - as with M. & S. - not to bring it into the conversation when asked what I've been up to. So I've caught up on holiday news (not sure when the next will be yet), the daughter's wedding (quiet but pleasant) and her ensuing pregnancy…

We had a great time at Robin & Gavin's last night - as I thought, Liz and John were there too, and the six of us had a really good time. I think it's the best time I've had out at someone's house socially since Christmas - so thanks for making that possible, Robin! Whilst there, we were chatting about Liz's son, Rob, who's an up-and-coming actor and also very hot-looking too (down, girl, down!) - and so I've asked Sue (…

For reasons I can't now explain, I booked a haircut today at 8.15am. Horror! Which, as Lynda is always always early (in fact she may well have been sitting outside the flat since last night ...), meant that Lord H and I had to be sure to be up, bathed and decent by 7am. Hell, we managed it too. Almost. But there wasn't much intelligent conversation going on, I can tell you. When it got to 8am, I decided to nip out and see if Lynda was there. She was. So I crept up to the car, leaned…

Bit slow this morning, so had to dash to get to my counselling session (http://www.castlestreetclinic.com/). Must say that Kunu had a lovely summer skirt on - I was really impressed, but didn't dare say anything in case she thought I was being more weird than normal. Or maybe she's just used to that by now? Anyway, we had a good session, better than last week, I think. We talked about my weekend of silence, and how…

This morning started out well enough. If very early, with some damn bird starting the dawn chorus when it couldn’t have been much beyond 4am. Sigh. Still, at work I managed to get my conference notes typed up in reasonable order and printed out for the boss to look at next week. And I’ve also done some rejigging to the Manor Park Mentoring handbook. We’re now three months behind our deadline, but heck things keep changing. That’s universities for you. I’ve now done so many corrections that…

Was thrilled last night when Roger Morris (http://rogersplog.blogspot.com/), author of the marvellous Taking Comfort and the mysterious and much-praised A Gentle Axe, emailed me with a few comments on A Dangerous Man (http://www.flamebooks.com) which can be found here:…