Hoes and Weed and S***

As a white, middle aged, middle class woman living in a new build in suburbia, I sometimes long to escape and live another life, somewhere else...and if I could try out anyone's life for a day, I’d be Rihanna. We have nothing in common, I don't really know much about her or her life save her great music fabulous figure, desire to legalise cannabis and an apparent predilection for bad boys. But that's the point - our lives are so different - so what else do I need to know?

As I write this blog my daughter is asking where her clean jeans are, and my husband is yelling at the Aussies while wrestling bravely to bring home the Ashes singlehandedly from the sofa. The cats want feeding, there’s washing in the basket, my eczema’s started up, my blood pressure’s high and the bloody dishwasher has packed in again. So apart from the bad boys and the weed (tried it once, threw up everywhere), who can blame me for wanting the life and thighs of a beautiful, rich, young woman with the world at her feet and a future stretching before her like an infinity pool?

Last week I went to see Rihanna on her Diamonds world tour in Manchester with Lesley my BFF. And when she got on that stage and shouted 'Hello Manchester' we yelled as loudly as those twentysomethings. She is so enigmatic, so confident and so damn good! I agree we may not be her target audience and according to my teenage daughter our attendance at the Rihanna concert was; ‘weird, bordering on creepy.’ My husband added his concerns that Rihanna’s ‘moves’ were and I quote,  ‘vaginally based’ and therefore improper for fortysomething women to try and emulate.  Ignoring his advice to wear a cardi, embrace middle age and buy two tickets for Michael Bublé instead, I told him there was spag bol in the freezer, cricket on the telly and I was off to ‘see my bitches’. For one night only at The Manchester Evening News Arena - Les and I were gonna be ‘Rude Girls,’ and we didn’t care what anyone else thought.

Back up north at Mum’s for the night I wasn't spag-bol-freezing wife and jean-washing mother - I was a dangerous daughter again. And like old (ok very old) times, Mum made our tea and Lesley’s Dad drove us to the venue... yeah baby I'm a rock star!

Lesley and I warming up pre gig just drinking and getting our swag on ...

Once at the arena Lesley ‘FaceBooked’ us and I texted my daughter in my own version of Rihanna-speak saying; ‘check out FB we is all over dat shit!’ The textual silence was deafening, she later claimed post traumatic stress and told me never to speak like that again because it was wholly inappropriate for someone of my advancing years. She's 14....

Back at Rihannaworld, the set was amazing, all fire and smoke and glitz, Rhi Rhi was on fire and after several bottles of profanely priced rosé wine, so was I. The wine and the music enabled me to abandon that suburban wife back home with her dodgy dishwasher and I was there, dropping it like it was hot...one of Rihanna's bitches. 

I hesitate to mention it but - there was a moment ... a mere moment as we swayed to the music, singing along to Rude Boy like coked-up  backing singers, when the ‘mother’ part of me cringed slightly.  Rhi Rhi, so young (enough to be my daughter) and so pretty addressed the audience as ‘crazy shit.’ That cute little mouth then talked up a beautiful ballad as being about ‘fucked up love.’ Oh dear, I thought, in my mother’s voice, but sipped at my rosé and  brushed soap-in-that-mouth thoughts away to continue with the task in hand - accompanying Rihanna on the Manchester leg of her tour. 

So for the next hour and a half I sang along animatedly about shooting ‘niggas,’ while urging men to ‘give it to me,’ quite hard and inviting them to ‘ride my pony.’  God only knows what I was requesting and back in the cold light of day I can only assure you there is none of that going on in my Barratt Show Home thank you very much! Me and ma ho Rihanna is different bitches in different shit... and that's why it's so liberating to imagine being someone else in such a different life - as a writer I do it all the time.

 

Ma girrrrrl Rihanna bustin the moves... Les and I mirrored this move from our seats

So after Rihanna, Les and I had sung our last song, we wandered into the hot night, infused with wine and freedom, imagining our own thighs as twirly and firm as Rihanna's.  It was probably the heat, but the daughter part of me suddenly felt a frisson of rebellion. Waiting for our lift home in the steaming streets of Manchester I was sixteen again and asked Lesley what she thought her 85-year-old Dad's reaction would be if in the car I started talking about ‘hoes and weed and shit?’

“He’ll think you’re talking about gardening and offer you some 'Weed and feed,'” she said without missing a beat.

So my forty-something teen rebellion may go unnoticed... for now.
But watch this space...

 

 

 

 

 

Pink Wellies, Flat Caps and Someone Else's Snickers Bar

I recently read a very funny book – Pink Wellies and Flat Caps and just knew that the author would be my kinda gal. So having enjoyed a lovely session of book chat, coffee, cake (and a 'mix-up' over Maltesers) at her place, I invited the fabulous Lynda Renham over to mine. My mission was to discover her writing secrets, over copious coffee and cake.

 

Lynda's latest book is the best-selling 'Pink Wellies and Flat Caps,' and tells the hilarious tale of Alice Lane, who has everything; a wonderful fiancé, a responsible job and a lovely flat in Chelsea, but after a bra fitting her life goes tits up. Homeless, and with just a sparkling engagement ring as a memory of her previous life Alice accepts a live-in farm manager's job and discovers that things actually can get worse. I was intrigued to know how Lynda saw Alice, so my first probing question was;

Lynda, I love Alice who is feisty, funny and bright. The character is so well written I felt like I was alongside her during her adventures in the country. So if Hollywood called tomorrow and optioned the book for a film, who would you like to play the part of Alice?

If Hollywood called tomorrow, the lost likely scenario is that I would drop dread from a heart attack and would never get to shout ‘Emily Blunt.’ In my mind I have no doubt that it should be her. I adored her performance in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and she is so versatile. She would be perfect and of course we would become best friends J Most importantly she is British and would understand the British humour.

 

Yes, I can definitely see Emily Blunt in the role, she would encapsulate the vulnerability, intelligence and fun of Alice.  It seems you have always been a writer, and were writing stories as a child. So when was the moment you decided to write your first novel?

When I was nineteen and I still have the original draft copy in a chest in our summer house. I have written many since then and have numerous unpublished novels knocking about the house. The moment I decided to go for it with comedy was after my humorous blog took off. I had just returned from Turin where I had gone to attend a wedding and where along with my mother in law we transported a wedding cake. From this whole experience a small germ of an idea was transplanted and later became ‘Wedding Cake to Turin’ My first comedy romance.

What a lovely story and around Italy too - such a romantic setting. So, your next book can you tell us what it’s about, what’s inspired you to write this, and when we can get our hands on a copy?

Ooh, always reluctant to talk about WIP. But I can say that there is a monkey involved, a few East End Gangsters, lots of misunderstandings and a touch of Downton Abbey and of course a gorgeous hero.

Sounds great! I know what you mean it’s always difficult to talk about a new book because you don’t want to give anything away – yet at the same time you can’t wait to share it with everyone. But with all that potential hilarity and a delicious hero, it sounds like a winner already.

The hero is definitely the most gorgeous yet I think…the book’s out in September and of course it also contains a huge amount of comedy.

I can’t wait! So while you’re slaving over a computer and spending afternoons busy with gorgeous heroes at your writing desk, what do you nibble on?

Whatever I can get my hands on… I even stole the builder’s Snickers bar from the fridge when they were building our extension.  I would also buy them doughnuts and then steal one or two for myself. Shameful but necessary for the creative juices to flow…

Absolutely! And as I always say, if it’s someone else’s chocolate it’s someone else’s calories.

Stolen Snickers Bar

So apart from other people’s food calling from your fridge what keeps you awake at night?

Guilt at the number of doughnuts I’ve eaten that day and whether a spider may run over my face, as happened once, and oh yes the plot of my novel, of course…

Ah yes, doughnuts... but let's not be side-tracked by soft dough yielding to wickedly sharp yet sugary sweet raspberry jam - as can so easily happen. No we'll stay with writing...we will... for now. Back to books; a plot can cause many sleepless nights until it’s firmly nailed down and what with a fear of spiders and Snickers calling from the fridge I can see you may have your work cut out. So who is your favourite writer? Have any writers inspired your own pen?

I have many. Iris Murdoch I particularly admire as was lucky to meet her husband John Bayley and see her study. A new favourite writer is Kimberley Chambers, a good friend. I am a huge fan of Salman Rushdie, Jo Carnegie, and Ronni Cooper. My writing has been more inspired by films than by books and Richard Curtis I admire greatly.

Yes I am also inspired by films and as a writer of romantic comedy I can see how Richard Curtis films (Bridget Jones, Love Actually, Notting Hill etc) would be the perfect inspiration for you. Me too!

Do you have a favourite book or books?

Several. ‘The Heart Listens’ by Helen Van Slyke. I never forgot the main protagonist Elizabeth Quigley. ‘End of the Affair’ Graham Green. ‘Calico Palace’ by Gwen Bristow and ‘Blood Secrets’ by Craig Jones. I also loved ‘The Feud’ by Kimberley Chambers and ‘The Sea The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch.

Talking of favourite books, one of mine is Stephen King’s psychological thriller, ‘Misery.’ Paul Sheldon the novelist in the book has various rituals while writing and on completion of each novel indulges in a cigarette to celebrate. Do you have a special treat you enjoy when you finish that final sentence?

Not really because it is quite a worry knowing if it will be received well…But if it does go well, however, we would celebrate with some bubbly.

That sounds perfect! So until the new book is completed and you open that bubbly, more coffee? It’s been so delicious sharing cake and some of your writing secrets Lynda so while I put the kettle on, here’s a final, silly but extremely vital question; if you were a cake, what would you be?

A fruitcake, in fact sometimes my husband thinks I am one!

Ha ha... that reminds me, do help yourself to another fairy cake... and thanks so much for joining me.

 

To read more about Lynda go to her blog here.

http://lrcook.wordpress.com/tag/lynda-renham/

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/lynda.cook

Follow her onTwitter https://twitter.com/Lyndarenham

And if you want to know more about Pink Wellies and Flat Caps (how could you not?)  Then pop over to Amazon

 

Procrastination 2

I'm spending the next few days improving my blog... so please bear with me. My Blog Manager (who also happens to be my 14-year-old daughter) has abandoned her post to go shopping with friends so I have been left with this highly technical task.

Ok yes... you guessed it, I have discovered playing around with the technical 'bits' of my blog is yet another way of avoiding doing any real work! Hopefully next time you call I'll be decent!
Thanks for dropping by!

Blue Cheese, Self-Loathing and Festive Creams

It’s that time of year again when I sit among the detritus of Christmas, stuffed with blue cheese and self-loathing.

I have gorged Henry VIII style and almost resemble the portly, tights-wearing monarch (I'm just three chocolate brazils away from 'off with her head.') I hate myself but this is the time of year when I can't help but listen to the voice of the ‘fat girl’ who makes me eat bad things. ‘Go on..." she says, "after all it’s Christmas.’

But it’s now January and I can’t kid myself much longer, I have to face up to the fact I'm now nearing the end of my official festive, guilt-free, binge period. This is traditionally followed by post-festive self-flagellation in the form of a fast, now looming large on my horizon... I've bought the Slim Fast, but that fat girl keeps on talking.

I know the season is about good will to all men etc but I allow myself total food consumption and culinary promiscuity. Some may see it as an opportunity to celebrate the birth of Christ, I see Christmas as a reason to eat until I feel physically sick. I also add alcohol (usually fizzy) to the nausea-inducing ritual and refuse to eat anything green unless it's covered in butter or wrapped in pastry and served with cocktails. But just when I thought I couldn't get more greedy, vile or inventive with my festive food consumption... I discovered a new, culinary low. It's the fault of Capitalism, it's relentless cry for us to consume... and the myriad Christmas creams it has made available in chiller cabinets near me.

My downfall began in the second week of December while pondering low fat spreads. Unaware of what lay in wait I happened upon the explosion of exotic, liquer-infused creams languishing in the dairy section. Oh it's not new, we’ve all been there...a creamy accompaniment with alcoholic frisson over our Xmas Pud a lavish swathe on a warm mince pie. But these are a brave new breed of creams. They are frambois drenched, rum soaked, champagne-fuelled confections positively erotic in their promise of fresh cream fulfilment. They are the lapdancers of the chilled aisle and with one lustful glance our eyes met and I was lost. Reaching my warm hands round their cool, rotund pots I chose carefully, treating them gently when placing side by side in my basket, pretending even to myself that I would resist their charms until the big day (and they weren't all for me.) But the longing on the drive home, the caress of the lid opening and the trembling spoon to my salivating mouth was too much. One lick and I was helpless to stop myself - I pulled over, tried them all, again and again thrashing and moaning with pleasure at the dense creamy heaven followed by the cheeky alcohol kick.

Once home I did the Framboise with tinned fruit, laid the Winter Spice cream on warm mince pies and quickly took the naughty French Grand Marnier dressed only in a spoon. And afterwards, I lay back on unyielding kitchen worktops, exhausted but complete.

But festive cream is a monkey on my back and since that first time, I've experimented every which way with my creams and just can't let them go. Those little tubs of cute, creamy, Christmasness might smile seductively from their shelves giving the come on and demanding you take them home, but they have a dark side. Once those bad boys kiss your tongue they become illicit cream combos and hold you in a vice-like grip from which you can't break free. And fresh double cream (even of the Jersey variety) just isn't enough anymore. Trust me, don't go there, you will never come back.

I admit I have a problem, and I've made the difficult and painful decision to go cold turkey... but not just yet. I owe it to myself and my family to take the bullet and consume the shameful dairy deliciousness that's still inhabiting my fridge. But how to go about this selfless act? In the same way I wouldn’t make cheese on toast from Stilton (no THAT would be disgusting even for me) I can’t just slap ‘Mulled Pear and Ginger Cream’ on a few sliced bananas and hope for the best. These elaborate creams belong in the same category as fine festive cheeses and are only available for a limited time. Consequently, they have to be treated with respect.

Festive Cream requires... no demands, a special ‘vehicle’ on which to be delivered to ones mouth, so I contemplate the blank page of my third novel, while chewing half-heartedly on something left over from Christmas, with nuts in. But I can think only of my next cream. I’ve done it with Christmas cake, laid it on mince pies and bedded it with Xmas pudding. So where do you go when there's nowhere left to go?

Then I see it. Across the room. An enormous, sky scraper of a Christmas-sized Toblerone that only a fat person would consider putting in their mouth (a slim person would probably climb it). I forget about writing and sit back to contemplate the spectacle of huge slabs of triangular chocolate covered in creamy, snowy, alcohol-infused peaks. And there's that voice again...the fat girl in my head; ‘go on... after all it’s New Year.’

I blame Capitalism.

Fifty Shades of Fat

Call me a glutton for punishment – well, just call me a glutton really – but I have gone and done it again. Oh yes, having perched and protruded on a zillion rickety chairs in a million church halls being preached to about syns, calories and points along with all the usual fascist (fattist?) teachings of a perfectly proportioned leader - I have joined yet another slimming club. To say this is a road already well-travelled would be a slight understatement as my reputation goes before me in the world of pounds and puddings. As a serial slimmer I am notorious with every slimming club leader within a fifty mile radius of my home. We all know there is little hope - me and slimming clubs are to fat what Liz Taylor and Richard Burton were to true love. Like those star-crossed Hollywood lovers, I keep going back, seduced by promises that this time it will be different. But just like Richard and Liz, the passion soon dies, reality sets in and I'm faced with failure, disappointment and divorce.  

So as a shiny new member of a slimming club (again) I'm ignoring lessons from the past and devouring pictures of cake porn while imagining warm scones slathered with cold butter. All the time I'm filling my hungry head with obsessive internal maths: ‘If I lose 2 pounds a week then in six weeks time I’ll be blah...’ Unfortunately ‘blah’ is a good way of describing my waistline right now. It’s sort of fat and meaningless. But my life isn’t – it’s fun and full and busy and happy – so why do I feel the need to drag myself to a cold prefab on a warm day and pay to sit zombie-like in front of someone who's telling me stuff I already know? Why? Because I am in thrall to freshly baked, crusty bread, red wine and gooey Brownie heaven in a way I never could be with an apple – no matter how ‘crisp’ and ‘green’ and ‘fresh.’ Does chocolate taste as good as slim feels? No, it damn well doesn't, the chocolate tastes so much better. When I want stick-to-the-roof-of-my-mouth chocolate goo - I want it now! And I will never, in that single, lustful moment, equate what I’m putting in my mouth with the consequences to my hips. This is why, for most of my life I have worn varying shades of fat.

 But I will go on, swimming against the tide, joining slimming classes year on year like some crack head looking for a cure. And over the next few weeks I’ll count syns, points, calories pounds and proteins in an OCD checking fashion while wondering why I’m so obsessed with food (!!).  But what else can I do? I know slimming clubs aren’t the real answer, but failing an intervention from Jillian Michaels, the alternative is too horrific to bear. Left to my own devices and desires I would embrace the heavily buttered warm scones and engulf deep chocolate cake harbouring whipped, fresh cream without guilt or self flagellation. Oh but I already did that  ...and trust me the results ain't pretty.

So it’s rickety chairs in church halls and confessional classes filled with guilt and envy and maths and Summer’s coming and I can’t do another sweaty holiday of black jersey and bulging bingo wings.
And if I eat 1,000 calories a day I could lose two pounds a week and then in six weeks I could be ...blah?

I’ll keep you posted....

Fat Girls and The Fairy Godmother

So I may just have mentioned in passing that 'Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes,' is out in September and as fans (ok a fan) will be begging for my book signings and demanding a tour I need to be uber fabulous.
I can't possibly allow my public to see me because the doughnut and dipped flake diet has taken its toll. So I've worked out that if I live on leaves and water and sweat several vigorous workouts a day, I could lose at least 2 stone by September. However, there is a major flaw in my body masterplan - I'm too lazy to exercise and too greedy to cut down on wine or chocolate. Oh yes  - and I hate leaves!
So imagine my deep joy when my Fairy Godmother appeared and promised to wave her wand and transform me into a slim, stunner by twighlight.
Once upon a time, my best friend Lesley had been the delighted recipient of  a lovely gift from her sister in law and fairy godmother (Barbara) in the divine form of a photographic makeover. Barbara had intended to join Lesley on this shoot but as she was residing somewhere hot and glamorous
she suggested Lesley invite a friend instead.
Cue moi and Les in full Joan and Jackie Collins mode, sweeping into the hair, make-up and photographic studio on a hot June afternoon in downtown Manchester.
And it was an education -

Fat Girls and Creme Eggs

You don’t have to be fat, write or like cakes to read this – but it helps!

So this is the first day of the rest of my blog, but where to begin? The diet, the writing or the cakes?

But how can I even begin to ponder these things when there’s a Malteser Bunny in the fridge and a Creme Egg on the table? I really planned to write today, I have made a start on my second book, honestly - but it’s an uphill climb and the constant presence of shaped seasonal chocolate is giving me writer’s block. I sit in front of my flamingo pink laptop longing to fly but can think of little else but biting off the chunky malted chocolate ears and thrusting my tongue into thick, sweet eggy fondant.

The problem with pre-Easterness is that you HAVE to eat Malteser Bunnies and Creme Eggs because they’re not available after Easter. How twisted is that? When the clock strikes midnight on Easter Sunday, Creme Eggs and Malteser Bunnies everywhere are ripped from their shelves leaving girls like me bereft, Cinderella-like on the steps of the chocolate palace of Easter. And the pain from this abrupt termination of malted bunnies and cream eggs is anaesthetised only by the fact that Easter Sunday brings bigger egg-shaped chocolate gorgeousness to obliterate the bunny and his kin. However, this is short lived and waking with a chocolate hangover the day after that special Sunday cold turkey will surely set in. Oh yes, on Monday 25th April we’ll wake to remember with a pain in our hearts that the pre-Easter hiatus of malted chocolate bunny ears and rich cream fondant encased in a small chocolate egg will be lost for another year.

Take my advice, forget about the diet and the writing (and even the cake for a while) and trolley dash as many cream eggs and Malteser bunnies as you can, while you can. It’s later than you think!

If you want to know about more cake keep reading my blog - oh and my book Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes published by Rickshaw Publishing is out on July 8th.

On a serious note, I’m sure we are all deeply concerned for those people in Japan whose lives have been ruined by recent events. If you would like to donate or bid for a signed copy of Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes and the chance to be a named character in my second novel please go to Authors for japan.

So today is the first day of the rest of my blog – I have been thinking about blogging for some time and though I cannot even begin to compare myself with the hilarious Barrow Boy in London and don’t have the gravitas of Morton Gray – well one has to start somewhere, and every journey starts with the first step.