ooh

Oooh, how we love the holidays! No, really. Hubby has just brought me a cup of tea in bed, the kids are happily doing some drawing and colouring in their rooms, and I don’t have to think about making hot chocolate and toast for everyone, shouting at them to do their teeth, or running for the school bus. Bliss.

Went to Pokhara for the weekend. If my book every gets published this will be a partially tax-deductable trip as it did involve some essential research. Whilst everyone else was quaffing their (generally forbidden, but used as a bribe to get them up the steps) bottles of Sprite at the top of Sarankot, I was scribbling down notes about what it looked like. I have yet to bung these in chapter 6, where they belong, but at least it made me feel, briefly, like a ‘real’ writer – until I had to fish the portable potty out for Twin 2’s emergency wee (can’t imagine Ian McEwan ever having to do that, can you?).

The handbag with the special portable potty pouch has finally broken (perhaps it was that emergency wee at Sarankot that did it), so I had to go and buy myself a Jimmy Choo handbag in one of the shops on Lakeside. Well, I think it says Jimmy Choo. Maybe it actually says Jmi Chow – do you think it could possibly be a fake?

I suppose I should probably apologise for not being in touch for a whole week. It’s just that now I have someone to watch DVDs with in the evening, and make me put the light out at 10pm, I don’t somehow get round to my late-night rambles.

Twins are going round to their friend’s for a sleepover tonight. I pity the poor mother, the lovely M. I don’t think she quite knows what she’s got herself into. I have had her daughter round for sleepovers here before a couple of times, but that’s easy peasy. It’s just like having triplets for one night and there’s an extra bowl to wash up at breakfast…not sure M is prepared for the maelstrom that is my pesky daughters, so good luck to her.

Son has just come in to show me a picture of an underground alien city he’s created. There are special small tunnels for the alien pets. Remember when you were growing up and you had an imaginary friend (you didn’t? hmm, you must have been much more popular than me). My son has an imaginary galaxy containing an imaginary solar system, and an imaginary planet, with imaginary continents, cities, and even an imaginary language. He tests me on these things occasionally. When I went to the hairdresser the other day I had a message in ’cijerian’ that I was tasked to decode. Other people go to read out-of-date issues of Heat, whilst their highlights are taking. I get to translate an imaginary alien language…I failed, because I held the decoding strip upside down (and I never got to find out who Jennifer Anniston was dating in 2008 or what the must-have lip glosses were from autumn 2007, shame).

Not sure when you’ll get this as the internet is off. Which also means I’ll have a day without finding out what half-forgotten friends are doing via Facebook (why is it so fascinating to discover that someone you haven’t spoken to in twenty four years had too much to drink last night or is happy about the cricket? I don’t know, either, but I’m a bit addicted at the moment).

Maybe if I get some spare time, today, I’ll write some more of the book, instead of doing online procrastination, as usual. Feel a bit bad for my heroine, though, as it is all about to go horribly wrong for her (turns out that her dad doesn’t want to know, her boyfriend is married, etc. poor thing. We’ll sympathise, and she’ll emerge stronger and triumphant by the closing scene, don’t worry).

Oh, I should really get up now, shouldn’t I….