Anne Brooke's Blog (90)

A nearly lazy Sunday

Half thought about going to the Quakers again today, but didn't get round to it. Which in itself made me feel good - as hey I can go with the flow too. On occasion. Which, in my carefully planned, ultra-controlled life, is a bloody miracle in itself really. Hurrah!



Instead I cleaned the car, did more to The Gifting (I am a scene-and-a-half-ish from the end!) and wrote out my birthday list. Which has pleased Lord H no end, as strangely he does like to buy stuff for me.… Continue

Added by Anne Brooke on May 7, 2007 at 3:57am — No Comments

Working museums, rabbit women and husband hints

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on May 6, 2007 at 3:34am — No Comments

Pink Champagne and Apple Juice

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 …

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Added by Anne Brooke on May 5, 2007 at 2:00am — No Comments

DVDs and detectives

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on May 4, 2007 at 4:43am — No Comments

Pink Champagne, counselling and catching up

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on May 3, 2007 at 3:27am — No Comments

Pessimism and the search for happiness

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on May 2, 2007 at 4:56am — No Comments

Steering Group and book circle

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 (…

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Added by Anne Brooke on May 1, 2007 at 6:51am — No Comments

More spring cleaning, event nerves and a good book

No church today. In any form. But, on the grounds that cleanliness is next to godliness, I have done my bit for the Great Hereafter and vacuumed the car. Yes, astonishing, isn't it? In the middle of yesterday's clear-out, Lord H found the car vacuum, recharged it (my, how thoughtful ...) and so today I have used it. But, ye gods, it doesn't last long, does it? Or maybe it's the amount of mess in my car that did for it. Hard to say, really. Anyway, we are recharging it again, in case I get the… Continue

Added by Anne Brooke on April 30, 2007 at 3:28am — No Comments

Baby animals, church encounters and a brief spring clean

Lord H feeling a bit low today, as am I a little, so the two of us are depressed together. Marital harmony. It's a wonderful thing. So we've been quiet, but not completely silent, which is nice. A slow start to our morning too.
We decided not to go shopping for a new casual jacket for Lord H, as he wasn't really feeling up to it, and visited Burpham Court Farm to look at the baby animals instead. There weren't many people around, which was a complete surprise, but very pleasant.…
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Added by Anne Brooke on April 29, 2007 at 4:08am — No Comments

The editing queen

I have worked like a trooper today and deserve countless gold stars, I'm sure. Well, maybe one anyway. For starters. First off, I must say how much I enjoyed the Goldenford (http://www.goldenford.co.uk) meeting last night - it was really good in terms of (a) taking me out of my slough of despond, and (b) planning ahead for our two books of this year. It was also nice as Jennifer has read A Dangerous Man (…
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Added by Anne Brooke on April 28, 2007 at 3:21am — No Comments

A day of two halves ...

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.…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 27, 2007 at 3:52am — No Comments

Manor Park and mining the ideas factory

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 26, 2007 at 6:22am — No Comments

Small flashes and larger words

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 25, 2007 at 4:30am — No Comments

V-Cs, wasps and saints' days

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,…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 24, 2007 at 6:00am — No Comments

Neighbours, Quakers and Olympic slumping

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 23, 2007 at 4:47am — No Comments

Frocks, friends and Philippes

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 (…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 22, 2007 at 2:16am — No Comments

Haircut, dinner and a peculiar number of words

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 21, 2007 at 2:44am — No Comments

Counselling, competitions and the curse of the TV

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 20, 2007 at 3:09am — No Comments

On the downhill slope ...?

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…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 19, 2007 at 6:15am — No Comments

Reflexology, more reviews and the curse of the Japanese toilet

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:…

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Added by Anne Brooke on April 18, 2007 at 6:17am — No Comments

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