Will my friends join me for a year of drawing? 

Resolutions! I make them every year and they're always along the same lines - run more, be more organised with work/deadlines, drink less wine, treat my body well, all that stuff... and it's starting to feel a bit joyless and monotonous. I mean, take my iron pills. Is that the best I can do? 

So I've been thinking about what I'd really like to achieve in 2017 - and most of it is the usual obvious stuff: work productively without tumbling into blind panic. I have two books to write: the 2nd in my Ellen Berry series as soon as humanly possible (it IS started!) and my next standalone novel by the summer. I'll still run and do yoga, as without those things I get a bit ratty and cabin feverish. So all that's fine. But it doesn't feel terrible new and different. So I thought.. what would I really like to do? And the one thing is DRAW EVERY DAY. 

Why? Because...  

I just love it 

It makes me notice ordinary things around me

It forces me to sit down and be still for a bit 

I write all the time and drawing ISN'T writing (although it helps with writing!) 

The only way to get better at something is to do it every day, right? 

And I'd like to get MUCH better 

I pondered and pondered (I'm a terrible ponderer) about what a 'draw every day' project might entail, and how best to go about it.  

What should I draw? 

Should I use a big posh sketchbook or a smaller one for carrying around?  

Should I share my stuff on Instagram and FB and, if so, how often to avoid friends getting sick of it? 

What is the POINT of it? 

What about all the other things I should be doing? 

Should I have rules - ie, draw only from 'real' (ie, not imaginary and not from photos) or just do whatever? 

What if I can't keep it up?
What if it's all crap? 

I decided to just get on with it - no one's going to complain or criticise and the only thing that matters really is doing it. Even if I don't manage every single day, there'll still be tons of drawings I wouldn't have done otherwise.

Anyway, I will NOT FAIL! 

Children are great at this sort of thing. Give them pens and paper and they'll just make a picture and not care. They know there is no such thing as a bad drawing. I was like that as a kid, prolific and unselfconscious - all I really did was ride my bike, collect nerdy things like stamps, coins, fossils, gemstones and old bottles I'd dug up from the tip - and draw.  At Christmas, nothing was more exciting than receiving a massive tin of coloured pencils, all razor-sharp and arranged in perfect rainbow order. And then I grew up and lost all confidence in drawing, painting, making things. Or maybe motivation. So many other things clamoured for attention - like the thrill of moving away from home and living in Dundee, then London, and working on magazines and having a family of my own. I got stuck into raising three children and writing novels, and forgot about how lovely it feels to just sit down and draw something. 

Then a couple of years ago I was inspired by friends' drawings on Facebook and tentatively shared a few things from a long-ago holiday sketchbook. Friends were amazingly kind about them which spurred me on. I started drawing again and it felt great.  

So that's that - my resolution for 2017: DRAW EVERY DAY. These are a few things I've drawn this week in the big run-up to 2017:

Leftover Christmas condiments
Bananas
Ben

Let's do this thing! 

No rules. No worrying about the fanciness of the sketchbook or what the heck to draw - if there's nothing but a banana sitting in front of us then let's draw that. If there isn't even a banana, then nip out and get some.

And let's share and not be shy! 

Fiona x  #everydaydrawing2017. 

Never 'the twins' to me

University looms. Our twin sons are counting the days until they can flee the nest. One has chosen Glasgow, while his brother is heading for Edinburgh: they are going their separate ways. I’m not surprised. While Jimmy and I have rarely thought of them as 'the twins’, they have put up with being a pair for 18 years. 

Naturally, it hasn’t been all bad. They were playmates as children, taking delight in the pranks which caused my hair to turn grey and their dad’s to fall out. Loneliness has never been a factor for them. Yet spending so much time together can’t have been easy either. Imagine being married to someone, with whom you are also expected to work and socialise. Imagine people constantly exclaiming, ‘Wow - you’re really quite different people!’ 

Our boys have always sat side by side at the dinner table and in the car. They've been taken out to buy school uniforms together and been in many of the same classes at school. Occasionally, friends have sent them shared birthday cards - a massive faux pas in their book - and, of course, larger presents (eg, the wooden fort) were bought for them to play with together. Until secondary school they shared a bedroom and on holidays they’d be squished up together in a tiny tent. Who wouldn't be a little sick of seeing that other person's face?

As an only child myself, I can’t quite imagine how it feels to have a sibling - let alone a twin. But I’m sure it’s pretty annoying to have a relative refer to you as ‘that one’ or ‘the other one’, or to attract your attention by calling out, ‘Boys!’ when only one of you is present. 

I can understand their fierce desire for independence - not just from us, tedious Mum and Dad who nag about untidy bedrooms and staying out too late - but from each other too. To be able to reinvent yourself as an individual is a wonderful thing. I vividly remember the day I left home, in 1982, when my parents dropped me off at a bedsit in Dundee where I was starting a new job. The fact that I would be living on the east coast of Scotland - while my parents were on the west - felt about right. Suddenly finding myself alone felt thrilling and slightly scary. It also occurred to me, as Mum and Dad drove away, that now - within reason - I could do, and be, anything I wanted. 

Before our boys picked their courses, certain friends suggested that we should encourage them to choose the same uni and buy a flat for them to share. Never mind that we don’t have the cash for investing in property. Imagine being forced to be flatmates with your twin! They have bickered over who finished the last of the milkshake for long enough. They deserve a break from all that - and from each other. 

Although Jimmy and I have tried to make each of our sons feel like their own person, there’s a limit to how much a time-pressed parent can do. Friends with triplets used to make a point of taking each daughter out individually for some one-to-one time. I was in awe at how they managed it. Jimmy and I tried this too - but, realistically, it was so much easier to go out en mass. Perhaps a better mother than me would have read each child their own bedtime story - but, realistically, who has the time or the energy for that? They were lucky if I managed to get through The Elves and the Shoemaker without conking out and dribbling on their pillow. 

While I’m sad at the thought of our boys leaving us, I can understand their keenness to be viewed as individuals and not just one of a pair. So I’ll put on a big, brave smile as we set out to buy two duvets/pillows/starter packs of crockery. I’ll comfort myself with the thought that, while we haven’t been perfect parents, we’ve just done our best. And now they no longer need us. 

It's fine, of course it is. What am I, one of those mothers who hates the idea of her kids growing up? No... I just seem to have something in my eye. 

It's Publication Day!

My new novel, As Good as It Gets?, is out in paperback today. Publication Day is a funny old thing: not quite what I’d anticipated when my first novel was published in 2003. I suppose I’d expected something rather like Christmas - ie, a whole load of fuss and excitement and booze. It was exciting - I remember an enormous bouquet arriving from my publisher, and waking up thinking, ‘My book is OUT!!’ - but not quite in the way I’d expected. 

I took a trip to Glasgow to prowl around the bookstores. There was my novel, sitting on a shelf in a shop in between books by proper writers. I loitered about, all hot-faced and anxious, wanting to murmur to shoppers, ‘Er, what about that one? I’ve heard it’s actually quite good?’ 

At least there was no more worrying about whether I could have done better, or mulling over the many mistakes I’d probably made. It was out in the world now, which meant it was too late to change anything. It was a little like packing up your kid’s possessions in a big cardboard box and seeing him off to university. Christ, you think, driving away from his student halls, I’m still not sure he can fry an egg without setting his hair on fire. And will he remember to apply his athlete's foot ointment? Well, that's his look-out. You’ve done your work. You’re out of the picture now. You can have another baby! JOKE... 

In fact, what I really love about Publication Day is the way it boosts me to get on with making the next one. It's due to my editor by June, and will be out early next year. It’s a rolling process, which I happen to love: it feels fast-moving and exciting and you can’t be too precious about anything. I used to sweat for three days over a single paragraph but these days, if it's not flowing reasonably easily, I move on to a part that I’m eager to write, and come back to the tricky bit later. 

I’ve also stopped thrusting great wads of manuscript into friends’ hands and pleading for feedback. It's my book; I don't have to drag my poor buddies through the process. My friend who's a database analyst doesn't make me sit in his office and watch him tapping his keyboard. Anyway, they're unlikely to say, 'Chapter 12 is appalling. Were you drunk when you wrote it?' And when they’re kind and encouraging, there’s a tendency to think, ‘Of course you’re going to say that. You’re my friend!’ 

I prefer to go it alone these days, battering on until it’s as good as it can possibly be at that point, and it’s time for my editor’s input. Sure, things can get stressy, but I like to bear in mind a quote I read by Guy Garvey from Elbow, in a Guardian feature about how to find inspiration. He’s talking about songwriting but it’s still stayed with me. He says: ‘If it’s all getting too intense, remember it’s only a song.’ 

I think that’s brilliant. It sort of shrinks the project down to size, making it seem instantly less scary and intimidating. Suddenly, it seems doable. It feels like the difference between being given a vast stately home garden to knock into shape, or a little window box of chives. 

He also says, ‘I learned that the hard way. When I was younger I played the part of the erratic, irascible drunk in order to have something to write about.' Talking of which, the writing group I belong to are coming over tonight. There are seven of us, all great friends, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather celebrate with. Better stick that wine in the fridge... 

Young hearts run free...

Small children may be a handful but at least you know where they are. Even when they’re toddling, you can move faster than they can. As they want to be with you pretty much all of the time, you're never hit with that wave of horror ('Oh my God, where is he?' Answer: on you). 

Then… everything changes and there comes a point at which they don’t want us around at all. They want to go out without us while we stay at home, doing our tedious grown-up stuff. My sons were nine when this happened: a bit young to be playing out alone, you might think, but we live in a sleepy country town with few obvious hazards. Apart from one falling-off-a-bike incident (broken arm) and being whacked in the face with a hockey stick (smashed tooth), all the numerous dashes to A&E have been caused by incidents at home. 

Yet we're still scared of the great outdoors when our kids are small. It doesn't make any sense. If you consider the hazards in your average home - oven, iron, fireplace, booze, all of which can be horribly dangerous if handled without due care - then playing in the park is as close to a haven of safety as you can possibly get.  

In my childhood West Yorkshire village I played out with no parent hovering nearby from the age of four. Friends and I would force entry into a derelict textile mill and charge about on the rotting wooden floors. There was a metal trough - it can't have been more than a foot wide - which spanned a gorge and was ideal for running across. We swam in a dam and cycled for miles and nothing terrible happened. Okay, a man flashed at me once (old-style, with raincoat, from a hillside). 'I saw the front of a man!' I yelled, pelting into my house. Mum just gave me a curious look and carried on stirring the pot on the stove.  I think she suspected I was making it up. 

When the teenage years hit, I wanted to be as far away from my parents as humanly possible. My own kids are the same. ‘They’re allergic to us,’ a friend complained, when we were discussing our kids’ unwillingness to come along on family days out - and of course it’s hurtful at first. Normal, though. And let's be realistic: yes, it would be quite sweet to go Edinburgh Zoo with my almost eighteen-year old twin sons. But I'd be unable to shake off the suspicion that they were regarding the trip as ironic, in a sort of, 'Can't wait to Tweet about this - my day at the zoo with Mum and Dad! Haha!' kind of way. And they'd force us to stand there smiling in front of some baboons and take our picture and all their friends would laugh at it. 

Even if that didn't happen, I'd suspect they'd only come along to humour us. I don't want to be patronised at the zoo, thank you very much. I get plenty of that at home: 'Mum's come to the point where she'd quite like an iPod. She's saying how handy it would be to have all her music on a little portable device. She's like someone in the first ever iPod focus group! HAHA.' 

Anyway the baboon scenario is hypothetical because the only way I'll persuade any children of mine to come to the zoo with me is if I adopt some younger ones. And since my offspring nearly peed themselves at my 'massive' forehead - they'd never seen my fringe pulled back before - I've decided I've had quite enough cheek off kids. So off they go, every weekend - to Glasgow and Edinburgh, our nearest cities, both an hour’s journey away. This started when they were 15. I fretted madly at first: was this too young to be in a big, scary city with a bunch of similarly giddy adolescents? Then I asked myself: what was I scared of exactly? What could possibly happen to them in Top Man? 

As the years crept on, my sons started going on ‘camp-outs’, a favoured teenage activity in these rural parts. The idea is, a bunch of friends head off into the wilds for the night with food, guitars, a tent and sleeping bags and return, looking like corpses that have been dragged through dung, at around 9.30 am next day. I’m not foolish enough to believe that they lounge around practising the knot-work skills they learnt at Scouts. And of course I was iffy about it at first. But at 16 they needed their space.

Last year, at 17, my boys announced that they were going on a week’s holiday to Paris together. I felt no more than a small tingle of nerves as they set off for their flight. Next it was our turn. My husband Jimmy and I went to the South of France for a week, leaving our boys home alone (our youngest child had been taken on holiday by a friend’s family). We were aware that two teenagers together are possibly capable of getting up to more hi-jinx than a singleton left alone. But then, a singleton wouldn’t be alone for long: word would get out and friends would converge and it wouldn't be your house any more, it would be the Chelsea Hotel. 

On our return, our sons vowed that they hadn’t had a party. But there was a ragged crack in the bathroom door and I kept finding the odd New Look stiletto lying about. It was only a ‘gathering’, I was told. Worrying. But not half as scary as that first time they went to the park. 

Frugal beauty

Long, long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was a beauty editor on a teen magazine, I used to write stuff like this: 'Winter is a cruel season. Icy weather makes our skin dry and flaky and....' Well, yes, you get the picture. But it happens to be true. We're all prone to chapped lips and cracked hands, after all. It also happens to be the time of year when the ravaged bank account means we're hardly in the market for a luxury moisturiser at £45 a pop. But that doesn't matter because, having spent every winter since my early thirties literally slathering myself in every cream/oil imaginable, I've realised that the very cheapest products do a remarkably decent job.

Personally I despise that lizardy feeling, when skin goes all reptilian from around October onwards. And I'll fight it to the death no matter how broke I am.

First up, I love a good body scrub in the shower. In The Thrift Book (Penguin), author India Knight recommends making a paste with olive oil and sugar (presumably granulated - I can't imagine icing sugar having much effect) and rubbing yourself all over with that. I've tried this and it absolutely works. It also leaves the shower perilously slippy, so do sluice it out or at least warn the person getting in after you - unless they've recently annoyed you and you want to get them back.

Back in my teen magazine days I'd often recommend rubbing vigorously at your elbows with the inside of a scooped-out avocado skin. What was I on about? 16 year-old girls' elbows aren't scaly. They are peachy soft. Anyway, I should confess that I have never tried this in my life. Nor did I whip up face packs from mashed banana, fresh cream or oatmeal. I didn't even see an avocado - apart from in pictures - until about 1986. But I'm a great believer in using an exfoliating product with some kind of skin-softening properties built in - especially on craggy areas like elbows, knees and feet. I always feel better after a good sanding down. The Espa range is fantastic, but possibly not for the broke days of January. Instead, my winter scrubs of choice come from Soap & Glory's extensive range: Sugar Crush and Pulp Friction are favourites. The range is often on offer at 3 for 2 in Boots.

Incidentally, while some friends find S&G's packaging too tacky and teenage for their liking, everything I've tried works brilliantly and I find their whole quirky thing immensely cheering on dark days. I like the fruity and burnt-sugary scents of their products, and I'd rather have a heap of their jaunty pink pots than one eye-wateringly expensive item from Space NK. Maybe I'm just the cheap and cheerful type.

Equally pleasurable is the slathering on of some kind of lotion, post your scrubbing endeavours. Heck, it's winter, we're indoors a lot - so we might as well feel silky soft. I'm currently alternating between Dr Hauschka Bodyoilie Citroen Lemongrass (not super-cheap: was a Christmas present) and the super-rich Righteous Butter (another Soap & Glory treat).

As for skincare, I've worked my way through enough ranges to come to the conclusion that it's not about price, it's about finding something that's pleasant to use, leaves skin pleasingly soft and doesn't cause a reaction. When my children were younger, and I could get away with presenting charity shop toys as new, I'd occasionally treat myself to something from Clarins or Clinique. Now, with school skiing trips and university looming, I've downscaled to Olay and Revlon moisturisers which do the job every bit as well.

As for hand cream: hugely important if you're out in all weathers, maybe walking the dog. Again I've tried dozens. King of them all is the mighty Hemp Hand Protector (Body Shop) which thrilled my kids a few years back due to its drug reference. Note: while hand cream is pretty essential, I don't go with the thinking that you need specialist creams for your neck, feet or whatever other areas might be resembling crepe paper. A decent rich body lotion isn't fussy about the parts it treats.

So basically, while I'm not too pernickety these days - or especially brand loyal - I feel it's important to treat ourselves during these wintry months when we don't have a tan to help us along. I mean, no one might even see your feet for another 12 weeks, but it's still a little depressing if they're gnarly. At least, that's what I tell myself when I head with my battered old credit card into Boots.

PS. Talking of dinosaurs, I just asked one of my sons why children love them so much. 'They're basically big lizards,' he replied. 'What's not to like?'

A note to my 32 year-old self

I was raking through some old photos for a magazine feature and came across this pic of me, very pregnant with Sam and Dex, in front of our last London home in Cyprus Street, Bethnal Green. I was so excited to be having twins. It'll be a doddle, I thought: two babies, one pregnancy. Bargain! I also thought I'd be back in my beloved office within a matter of days, having hired a nice nanny to take care of the practical aspects. Me, I'd enjoy the fun stuff - tickling, cuddling, baking cookies and reading beautiful picture books. 

Here's what I wish I'd known then. 

All the stuff you used to enjoy - films, books, drawing, playing an instrument - go out of the window for a while. I mean a long while - years, in fact. When they finally start creeping back into your life, you worry that you've forgotten what to do with them. For ages, I couldn't concentrate on any film more challenging than The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink or St Elmo's Fire. It was like being a teenager again - but with stretch marks and a fridge crammed with formula milk. But gradually things returned to normal - ie, occasionally I'd watch a film that didn't star Molly Ringwald, sometimes even with subtitles. 

You will wear those dungarees to death. I scoffed when my husband Jimmy insisted on buying them for me in an army and navy store in Paris. But they are the very best thing for a pregnant lady and became virtually welded to my rapidly expanding body. 

You think you'll work right up until the day before they are born, but you won't. My consultant wouldn't let me. So from six months onwards I lay around the house, spooning Ambrosia Creamed Rice straight to my mouth from the tin. I wish I'd known then to enjoy feeling faintly bored, as that was the last chance I had to be idle until eight years later, when our third child started school. Oh, and I never returned to my old job. I haven't had a regular salary since 1997 and hear that the workplace has changed a lot since then - for instance, you're not allowed booze in the office! How on earth do people get through the working day? 

Child-free friends will tell you about their glamorous nights out, or that they've just been to a spa and had their breasts exfoliated. You are allow to feel bitter - and even cry - over this. It does not make you a bad person. 

Your nanny plans will be swiftly forgotten. You'll become a control freak who'd rather do it - even the messy, mundane stuff - yourself. 

People will assume your twins were IVF (when they're not) and will challenge you on this delicate matter in the park. 'They must be!' one woman insisted, before adding, 'but I suppose you did have quite a high chance of having them... as an older mother.' People will say the most irksome things, and after a while they just wash over you (or make you laugh hysterically as you scamper home). You'll become remarkably tolerant because all that matters is getting your children out in the fresh air, then safely ferried home again whilst avoiding dog poo. 

Going to the hairdressers becomes such a hassle that you'll start having someone come round your house. She will chop at your hair in your bedroom while your babies crawl around, trying to eat it off the floor. It's not relaxing, and no one brings you a nice coffee or a glossy magazine - but at least your fringe is out of your eyes. 

People will tell you what you're doing wrong all the time. Ignore them. They know nothing. At least you know a bit. 

The toddler groups you thought would be hell are filled with like-minded women you'll rely on for your sanity. Sure, the coffee is bad, as are the pink wafer biscuits - but you now anticipate these get-togethers more eagerly than Christmas. 

You will glance wistfully at pretty lingerie in department stores, before moving swiftly on. You'll be in massive sensible knickers for quite a long time - possibly forever - and you will love them. 

That massive bump will go away, but not in a week. It doesn't matter. No one cared about celeb mothers shedding the baby weight within minutes, because the whole celebrity obsession hadn't really taken off back then. There was no sidebar of shame - there was the Internet, but no one knew what it was - and no one expected a raddled new mother to look radiant. You were allowed to be knackered with your hair sticking up. And you were allowed to wear your beloved dungarees well past childbirth, because they made look earthy as if you knew what motherhood was all about. 

And you soon become very adept at pretending you know what it's all about. 

The joy of Getting Ready

Last night my daughter Erin (centre) and her six friends descended on our house to get ready for the school Christmas dance. Remember the joy of getting ready? It was often the best part of the night. In fact sometimes I'd feel a slight twinge of disappointment when the time rolled around that we had to actually leave the house and go somewhere. Getting ready always happened with a friend, preferably at their place, as it was always more fun to be somewhere else. And it took so long! An hour at least, but more likely two or three - ie, approaching half of a normal working day. My life these days is generally about trying to achieve as much as possible in the shortest time. I can hardly remember how it felt to have virtually limitless time to spend on something so indulgent.

Of course, it wasn't really about applying make-up and tonging our hair. It was about being together, gossiping and sharing confidences and amidst clouds of loose powder and Elnett hairspray. There's something particularly intimate about the process of transformation; few people see us 'half done', after all. I always love those old black and white photos of Hollywood stars captured in deep concentration in their dressing rooms.

Our dressing rooms were our teenage bedrooms, plastered with Paul Weller posters and heady with Lulu perfume. My friend Karen's duvet cover was made from the same fabric as her curtains, which struck me as particularly chic. No boys were around as we caked on Rimmel foundation, although we'd discuss them in forensic detail, of course. When my children were younger I often found we'd have our most relaxed and revealing conversations when I was driving them somewhere. There's something about being engaged in another activity - crawling through traffic, applying mascara - that's conducive to easy and honest discussions.

Do I miss getting ready? Not especially, as it belongs to a time and a place that's long gone. It would seem as crazy as filling empty Soda Stream bottles with illicit booze to slug on the way to a party, and I hardly ever pull that stunt these days. It belongs to an era of getting dressed in something low-key, then throwing a carrier bag containing the 'real' outfit out of my bedroom window (to be retrieved and changed into in a phone box en route to the disco).

Getting ready these days takes about 15 minutes, even for a really posh do. I can hardly believe I'd once have spent ten times as long dolling myself up for a ropey old disco in a community hall. But they didn't seem ropey back then. I vividly remember the clothes we wore, the songs we danced to, and the elaborate plots we came up with in order to start conversations with boys. I remember Karen and I hitching a lift - I'd keel over from a heart attack if my daughter did that - to a disco in a neighbouring town.

So many things could go wrong with a night out. The boy you liked could get off with someone else, causing you to seek solace in too much Pernod and black. There were frequently fights in the loos and distraught friends to take care of. Worse still, that willing parent might have ignored instructions to wait around the corner, and parked right outside the venue for all to see. Putting your face on at a friend's house never involved such horrors. The getting ready part could never disappoint.

These days I'm the chauffeur and am used to tuning out as I transport a bunch of excitable teenagers home. I know better than to quiz them about how their evening was - because all they're going to say is, 'Fine.' But maybe it was merely fine, and getting ready was still the best part of the night.

Essential ingredients for getting ready: 

- Best friend(s)
- Music
- Parents/siblings well out of the way, out of earshot
- Cotton wool pads to mop off make-up mistakes
- Clear nail polish to glue snags in tights
- Cheap perfume
- Concealer
- Lipgloss
- A zillion accessories
- Hair tongs (I thought these had died out at around the time of fax machines but it would appear not!)
- Toe separators
- All the time in the world

It's nearly Christmas. Let's drink, be merry and eat cheese!

When you're a child, Christmas is a massive deal. You count the days, and lie in bed straining your ears for the sound of sleigh bells and the clattering of hooves on the roof. The big day passes in a whirl of Chocolate Oranges and those Matchmaker chocolate sticks (well, in my case it was the 70s...) and you fall into bed exhausted, hot-faced and happy.

Then you grow up, and Christmas might plummet into a cobbled-together affair in a grotty flatshare with nothing to eat but Shredded Wheat with a smearing of Rose's Lime Marmalade - because you've spent all the money on drink. Still fine, though. There's something terrible thrilling about shaking off family traditions and doing Christmas your way. Or maybe you still return to the parental home and relish everything being just as it was. My own family situation meant I didn't experience this much beyond my early twenties, so instead I enjoyed creating traditions of my own.

During my thirties, I lost it a bit. With three children it seemed hugely important to create this amazing, perfect festive extravaganza, with limited resources: dragging a real seven-foot tree down the high street as it was the cheapest way to get one (apart from creeping into a pine forest at night, with a saw, which a friend still does. Sometimes, she sneaks back in the following night because the first one wasn't quite right).

I know people in romcoms always look terribly jolly as they carry their Christmas trees through town, but they never show the real stuff - the anger and swearing, and a dog cocking its leg against the tree as the couple pause for breath. You never see Jennifer Aniston ripping the netting off the tree, throwing a bucket at her boyfriend and snapping, 'You bloody well make it stand up.'

We made out own cards back then, creating a glitter tornado in the kitchen. Dinner for ten was crammed into a malfunctioning 1950s oven in our new (by which I mean old and crumbly) home, much to the consternation of our assembled relatives. And now? Well, I'm over all that. For everyone who groans about Christmas, claiming that they just want to run away to India or a little cave somewhere, maybe it's a case of making a big, stressy thing out of what should just be really... fun?

Here's what I won't be doing this year... 

- Gathering spiky foliage from the garden, like a country maiden, and draping it over the mantelpiece.
- Bringing a branch home from the park and spraying it silver. For years, I persevered with this bizarre tradition. It never looked festive. It just looked like a manky old branch.
- Wearing a onesie.
- Trying to 'force' hyacinths, whatever than means.
- Giving edible presents I've made. I'm always delighted to receive home-made things; I just have no wish to spoil anyone's Christmas with my disappointing truffles.
- Hand-printing wrapping paper with a little rubber stamper.
- Running around tidying up all day, like a paper-gobbling machine.
- Feeling bad about getting a bit giddy, or everything not being like it is at Nigella's house.
- Rationing myself of cheese, or in fact anything.

Really, it amounts to one day with lots of food and telly. That's the way I look at it now. It's a day. You're not at work. It's perfectly okay to have a glass of Prosecco for breakfast. And on Boxing Day a pile of friends come over, and we all tear into the leftover food, play drunken board games and appear in possibly the worst photos ever witnessed. I can't wait.

Lists, glorious lists...

I love a list. I couldn't survive without lists. Well, I could, but I'd be in a permanent flap and miss deadlines and there'd be nothing to eat for dinner. Since I was a little girl they've been a crucial part of my life - stuff to pack for a holiday, things I hoped to do when I was a grown up, plus lists of favourites - songs, TV shows, possessions. I diddled away with my lists, paying less attention to them during my chaotic twenties - and then kicking into serious list-making on an industrial scale in '97, when our twins were born.

Suddenly, living haphazardly with nothing in the fridge but a lump of cheese and some suspect milk didn't seem quite so much fun. One simple factor seemed to dictate whether the day was relatively disaster-free - and that was whether I was organised or not. Which meant writing down everything that seemed crucial to the survival of these two tiny people.

For one thing, I had to learn to cook. In my previous, pre-babies existence I used to buy ready-made bolognaise sauce (nasty) when friends were coming over and bury the boxes at the bottom of the bin. Now it was necessary to cook proper meals, which meant having the right stuff in, which in turn meant remembering to buy it all - thank God for lists! Armed with a notebook, a pen and a Jamie Oliver cookbook, I slowly managed to cobble together reasonably okay-ish things to eat.

There was work to keep track of, too - I carried on freelancing a little during my sons' nap times, if I could manage to synchronise them (brandy helped. JOKE!!). Notebooks were filled with magazine feature ideas, plot outlines and titles for books I hoped to write one day (I had yet to write anything longer than 3,000 words). Floundering in the fug of early motherhood, I listed ways to rejoin the human race: Drink water. Sort hair. Change out of dressing gown. There were lists, often scrawled in the night, about how to be a better person: Don't smoke. Donate blood. Read Crime And Punishment. Be nicer to J. Oh, and the usual daily stuff: Eggs. Sterilising Solution. WINE!!! 

During those frantic days, the very act of writing things down was somehow reassuring in itself. A list says, 'This can - and will - all be done.' It's excellent for calming the brain. The act of crossing things off, as any list maniac knows, is immensely satisfying. A friend of mine scores things off her list before she's done them - to make herself ruddy well get on with it.

What I love about lists is the fact that they're always lying around - forever handy - to be added to the instant you think of something. Dog licking foot obsessively? Call vet. Bad smell in shower? Get stinky egg drain stuff. I list everything: books to read, films to see, Ways To Improve Our House. As I'm in the process of selling Mum's house for her, that has a list of its own. My list making goes through different phases: in notebooks, on my phone or laptop, on an array of Post-It notes plastered all over my desk. If someone were to steal all my pens, phone and laptop, I'd probably write one in lipstick.

Well aware of my love of lists, Jimmy bought me a brilliant book called Lists of Note, compiled by Shaun Usher (Canongate). Among the 125 lists are the scribblings of Jack Kerouac (his list is entitled, 'Belief & Technique For Modern Prose') and F. Scott Fitzgerald ('Thing To Worry About').

Marilyn Monroe's list ('Must Make Effort To do') includes:

Go to my class on my own always - without fail 
Work whenever possible - on class assignments - and always keep working on the acting exercises 
If possible take at least one class at university - in literature 
Try to find someone to take dancing from - body work (creative) 
Try to enjoy myself as much as I can - I'll be miserable enough as it is

And Woody Guthrie felt these things were important:

Work more and better 
Clean teeth if any 
Drink scant if any 
Shine shoes 
Change socks 
Help win war - beat fascism 
Love everybody 
Wake up and fight 

That's Woody's list in full, above. Makes my own to-do list (mum/vet/blog/accounts/Gracie b'day/cheese/J's shoes/call Carrie) seem pretty mundane. But I guess that's the whole point. Whether you're writing down things to achieve by the end of the decade, or just the ingredients for dinner tonight, everything feels more achievable when set out in a neat little stack of words.

Dresses are the thing! (plus my love affair with tights)...

I was packing for a weekend jaunt to Liverpool last night when it hit me... just take dresses. I LOVE dresses. I especially love them in winter when you can wear them with chunky cardis and - best of all - thick black opaque tights.

Was there ever a cleverer fashion invention, apart from shoes and the bra? Imagine flicking through a fashion magazine and reading this startling announcement: 'Pretty soon, a new kind of hosiery will be invented which will have an intently cheering effect. If your legs are feeling a bit chunky, they'll seem perfectly un-chunky once you pull these babies on. They are instantly slimming and miraculously flattering. If you're as hairy limbed as Corsican boar, no matter - nothing manages to poke its way through 50 dernier nylon. And if your legs are merely pallid of hue (as mine are - ie, not merely white but verging on blue, like the lights they have in those mysterious Turkish social clubs named after football teams), it doesn't matter a jot because everything will be blacked out, black as can be. Veiny bits, weird bruises and knobbly knees: all blacked out.' 

If I'd read that back in the late 70s I'd have been very pleased indeed.  In fact, as far as I can recall, we had to wait until the mid-'80s for proper sturdy opaques to appear. I certainly remember the fashion department becoming quite dizzy with excitement over Wolfords - Fashion Ed Karen's preferred brand - when I worked at Just Seventeen. Soon, the entire staff's legs were encased in thick, matt black nylon (apart from Andrew's, Andre's and Scoffer's - ie the lads. But I saw them them glancing over, jealously). I do always go for black, although more adventurous friends sometimes step out in teal, plum - even red. They look very bold and dashing. They're just not quite my style.

Anyway, I started off intending to write about dresses, and how great they are because they remove a tiresome step in the decision-making process: ie, what goes with what. I've never been terribly good at putting things together, and a dress means you don't have to bother with any of that. The dress above is my current favourite: Hobbs, but from a charity shop. Can I just add how delightful it is when you see something you love in Oxfam, and it fits perfectly? I mean the odds are pretty low really. So it's far more satisfying than just wandering into a high street store and selecting your size off the rail.

In fact, it's as pleasing as the first day of Tights Season. I have never understood the appeal of blamming wildlife with a big gun - but I'd imagine that those who enjoy it experience a similar thrill when the grouse season starts. But never mind that. We are now in the thick of opaques season which, in our chilly northern climate, can easily stretch to about nine tenths of the year. Hurrah for tights!

Older, happier... and waking up with a dress on

I couldn't wait to get my hands on India Knight's new book, In Your Prime: Older, Wiser, Happier (published by Penguin). I love her non-fiction writing. It rattles along, and you feel like you're in a cosy corner of a bar with her, getting stuck into a bottle of wine. There's advice on pretty much everything about being an older (ie, post 40-ish) woman here, although often it reads more like India's breezy thoughts on a topic, rather than anything deeply researched - which is fine. It's all I really need right now on the subject of menopause, ageing parents and stomach holder-inner pants.

India touches on crepey cleavages (bugger all you can do about it) and how to avoid looking muttony.  She advises on whether to try Internet dating (yes), have an inappropriate crush (no) and how to enjoy pottering about, doing nothing much, and not stressing about it either. So it's all good, illuminating stuff.

As an aside, having turned 50 last week, I'd like to add my own checklist of stuff to bear in mind, now I've hit that half-century. That's my cake above, created by my talented friend Elaine. For the moment I am choosing to ignore India's suggestion that my old-lady knees are no longer up to the job of running.

My own rules for ageing... 

- A hairdresser told me she always uses a magnifying mirror. I could't believe anyone would willingly inflict such trauma upon themselves. But then, she is 27 and very beautiful. At my age, I wouldn't dream of magnifying anything. In fact I prefer to undertake any mirror-related duties without my glasses on.

- Saying, 'Where are my glasses?' is a phrase uttered far more often than, 'Where are we going tonight?' We're staying in, that's where we're going. To hunt for our glasses.

- We all know it's more flattering to have your photo taken from slightly above. I now ask anyone wielding a camera to do so while teetering at the top of a wobbly stepladder, thus creating 'blur'.

- It's completely acceptable to resign from your position of Chief Sock Sorter...

- ...And to buy a bagged salad and fry and bit of fish and say, 'Dinner's ready.' I no longer feel required to create a sumptuous meal in an attempt to please everyone - because it never did. By this stage, everyone is perfectly capable of foraging about at the back of the fridge anyway. My friend Tania reckons that, due to rapidly-dwindling oestrogen levels, I am losing my nurturing tendencies.

- Certain types of music are becoming unpalatable to me and that's fine, I don't have to pretend to like it. As I type, the lyric, "F*** ma ho'" has just boomed through the house. Another apparently favoured track involves a man screaming - not in a belting out lyrics way. I mean really screaming, as if being burned.

- No need for waves of crushing self loathing the morning after a boozy night. I am over that now. The morning after my 50th birthday - possibly the best night of my life - I woke up fully attired in a black dress and tights and thought, This is all right. This, I can handle. I'd tumbled into bed at 5 am after a night with my very favourite people in the world.

That, I decided, is all that really matters: not wrinkles or saggy bits or spotting the odd scary hair poking out from the chin. Just being with people I love, and laughing. A lot. And I'll be too busy doing that to sort socks.

A lifetime of things

Mum moved into a care home a month ago, and I've spent the past few weeks clearing out her house. It's the kind of job I'd have imagined to be pretty harrowing - but in fact, the enormity of the task has been helpful. There's been no time to dither over every item. Instead, I've clicked into practical mode. The whole process has also made me realise that, in most cases, things are just things: the stuff we collect over decades without stopping to consider whether we still need or want them.

When it comes down to it, all that really matter are photographs - like the one I found of Mum and her fellow newly-qualified nurses in Liverpool in the early 50s. There are very few photos of Mum as a young woman so I was delighted to find one where she looks so happy and proud. Mum, who's fifth from the right, loved being a nurse. She left the profession before I was born in '64 - she and my dad ran a youth hostel, then Mum helped with his photography business - but returned to it in the 80s, driving all over South Ayrshire as a Macmillan nurse.

I've kept a few mementoes from Mum's house, but her vast collection of fabrics (she was an avid crafter and quilter) has been passed onto neighbours and friends. Mum would want her belongings to be used and enjoyed. Daughter and I spent a lovely couple of hours sifting through an entire attic's worth of material, selecting the special vintage pieces to pass onto our creative pal Cathy.

Amazingly, some of the sorting has been enjoyable - even fun. I found Mum's ice skates, which I wore in the 70s to skate around the Silver Blades ice rink in Bradford. No one else had their own skates! I loved them. I've also unearthed fantastic vintage knitting patterns and dressmaking books. I probably took Mum's creativity for granted until I was faced with her entire collection of fabric, wool, threads, three sewing machines (!) and a host of half-finished projects. Mum also dabbled in embroidery, woodwork, calligraphy, stone polishing (she requested a stone polisher for her 70th birthday) and even had a go at making marbled paper. There was nothing arty or crafty that she would't try.

In case you're wondering, I can't sew for toffee, or even crochet or knit. I'm a complete klutz with a needle and it took me an entire school term to make an apron edged with ric-rac braid. Mum tried to teach me once, and when I my attention wandered she laughed and said, 'That's not the attitude!'

As a little girl I loved that she could make me dresses to match my own whims and preferences - until I started to covet the styles depicted on Jackie's fashion pages and yearned for C&A jeans and Miss Selfridge gypsy skirts. Mum kept on sewing clothes for herself, and when my twin boys were born in '97 she presented them with beautiful hand-made quilts, blankets, soft toys and pyjamas made from Butterick patterns.

I love to think of my crafting friends' sewing machines whirring away as new things are made from the fabric of a lifetime.

My next book is finished! Hello flowers!

It's a lovely feeling. I've actually emerged from my workroom and been out on big walks with the dog and drives in the country like old people do! Hence the pics of flowers. Jimmy unearthed a book called 'The Wild Flowers of Britain and Europe' which we've been taking on our jaunts. One of our sons asked, 'Is it issued automatically when you turn 50?' But I don't care because I HAVE BEEN OUT OF THE HOUSE! 

After months of grafting away, I can't tell you what a relief this is. I used to find this part - sending a book to my editor, and waiting for her feedback - completely terrifying. I don't anymore. Not because I think it's perfect - every book comes bouncing back to me, requiring loads of fixes - but because it's basically written which means the hard graft is done.

It's also the first book I've managed to finish at home, with normal life going on around me, rather than hiding away in a hotel for a few days. There are several reasons for this. First, my kids have reached that age (boys 17, daughter 14) when they no longer want to converse with me. In fact, days - WEEKS - can go by and no one bothers me at all.  The older they get, the higher my daily word count. I'm hoping that, by the time my boys are 19, I'll be dashing off 10,000 words a day.

Also, I realised how much I hate leaving my family to go away and work alone. It's utterly miserable. Going away should involve much laughter and fun and chat and alcohol, but holing up in a hotel room to finish a book means no such pleasures are allowed. So you sit there, typing, feeling deprived of fun - and also horribly ungrateful because you're in a hotel and should be enjoying yourself. Basically, much of it involves gazing mournfully out of a window which won't open properly and wondering what everyone else is doing. 

This time last year, I was in self-imposed exile in a Premier Inn in central Glasgow. Yes, I battered through the final chapters and got lots done. I wasn't having to break off to throw a chicken in the oven or wash anyone's pants. But I have never been so bloody lonely in all my born days. Only a friend dropping by to take me out for sushi - and sneaking out to Frasers to buy a ruinously expensive BB cream - saved me from tipping over into insanity.

I vowed to never put myself through that again. In fact I work better these days amidst the muddle of music and TV and people shouting and life going on about me - in other words, all the usual hubbub of home.  I also enjoy writing on trains and in coffee shops. But more than anything, after months and months of battering away at the keyboard there's nothing nicer than not writing at all. To be idle of finger, and devoid of plot-related thoughts - to stop working and admire the flowers. By the way, 'The Wild Flowers of Britain and Europe' is an excellent reference guide, if you ever find yourself with time on your hands. 

The almighty trauma of the school photo

Facebook's been full of school photos this week. Parents whose children have just left primary school have been posting pics of their children - sweet pictures showing big smiles. It struck me that, during the primary years, those regulation school photos (mottled grey/blue background, hair neatly combed) are fine, usually. It's in secondary school that the whole business becomes something else entirely. 

Take this: Exhibit A. It's my husband Jimmy, aged about five, with neat side parting and finger waves (his dad was a barber). It's a lovely picture, I think. I like it so much, I persuaded him to use it on our wedding invitation.

Then there's this: Exhibit B. That's me at about seven, girlie swot in the school library in a polo neck sweater. I wasn't embarrassed that Mum had sewn braid around the neck. In fact, I'd probably asked her to do it.

Then we come to Exhibit C when I'm about 13. I'm no longer happily parked behind a table of books. I am a seething mass of hormones and mortification. There's so much wrong with this picture I don't know where to start. 

By that point I had decided that my nose was so large, I had better do something to detract attention from it - hence the two low pigtails, which I hoped would make it look smaller. I'm not quite sure how that was supposed to work, but it was a trick I believe I'd read in Jackie magazine (big pigtails = smaller nose, in comparison!). I'm also caught in a half-blink, and my fringe was obviously cut by my mum, possibly during a power cut using those round-ended scissors that small children use to cut paper.

As a final touch, in the actual photo, inky blots are visible on the hand I've raised, as if waving feebly at the photographer. 

We keep reading how under stress teenagers are these days, with social media and the relentless pressure to be as skinny as Cara Delevigne. Okay, I didn't have that to contend with. This picture was taken around 1978. Cara had yet to be born. And I never aspired to look like one of the models in my favourite magazine. But at least today's teens are allowed to go to proper hairdressers and would surely remember to wash their hands before having a photo taken. 

Come to think of it, it's been years since I have been offered a school photo 'for approval' from my kids' school. Either the school has stopped doing them or my offspring have decided to not bring them home. Perhaps I'm a bad parent because I never think to ask. Back in the day, though, my own mum would ask, 'Have your school photos arrived yet?' and she'd snatch them from me, all excited. 

I remember her looking at this one in particular. 'Oh,' was all she said.  

We left the kids home alone... for a week!

My kids' school just had a talk about university applications. It was all about this course and that course and all I could think was, How can this be? That my boys will soon be applying for college or uni and washing their own pants? 

It only seems like last week that I was shepherding them home from the park, dripping and filthy and attracting those 'Look at those poor, sodden children!' type looks. I walked through the park yesterday for the first time in about eight years. It's been completely gentrified with a renovated paddling pool and loads of shiny new play equipment. In our day there'd been a burnt-out climbing frame and a stinky little hut full of fag butts.

But actually, I'm enjoying the fact that they're older. The whole uni/college thing is thrilling to me because I didn't go.  I left school at seventeen - the age my boys are now - and, thanks to my dad spotting a tiny recruitment ad in our local paper, applied for a job as a trainee journalist at DC Thomson in Dundee, publishers of Jackie magazine.  

Is anything more thrilling than leaving home? I was desperate to get the hell out. Having applied for art school, and failed to gain a place due to being pretty crappy at drawing, I realised how lucky I was to get a job of any description, let alone one on the magazine I'd loved since I was thirteen. The next three years were spent writing about blusher and how to make 'Dave' notice you. I lived in a bedsit, then flatshares, surviving on toast and beer, mostly. It was like being a student, without the lectures - the average age in the Jackie office was about nineteen.

Jimmy and I gave our boys a taste of independent living recently, and left them home alone for a week. We'd asked them if they wanted to come on holiday with us (our daughter had been whisked off to Spain by her friend's family) and they replied with a resounding 'NO THANKS.' Then they proceeded to organise a 'gathering'. Yes, I was worried about returning home to be greeted by inebriated teenagers and scowling police. But, desperate for a break, we set off.

Friends moan about not being 'needed' any more, and feeling redundant, but these days I think, what are you on about? Who wants to be needed every minute of the day? I've had seventeen years of being on hand, attending to my offspring's every needs, and my reserves of patience and dutifulness have all run out - peeling the top off a pot of Petit Filous would break me now. Anyway, Jimmy and I had a marvellous time, doing the stuff we love to do - chatting, eating, looking at art, quaffing a bottle of rose over a salad nicoise at lunchtime. And we came home to a tidy house and no evidence of excessive partying.

My chilli plants had been watered. There was milk in the fridge. One of my boys reported that he'd made a Caesar salad - yes, an actual salad, with leaves. 'Next time,' he said, 'you might as well go away for two weeks.'

My husband, the Kitchen Lurker

I love being cooked for. Nothing makes me happier than watching someone beavering away in their kitchen making something lovely for me. I decided that Jimmy could possibly be the father of my future children when I was perched on a stool in his tiny kitchen in Leyton back in '94. 

It was around our third date. I was sipping white wine. He was rustling up a Thai chicken curry from scratch (in those distant days, Thai curry was exotic in the extreme). He worked within striding distance of Chinatown, and at lunchtime he'd nipped out and bought all these fancy ingredients. Lemongrass! Some kind of stinking fishy block! And coconut milk! (I'd only ever encountered coconut in macaroon form before). 

The curry was delicious. I planned to marry him as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Bear in mind that my own fridge housed a lump of Cheddar freckled with mould and a bottle of vodka.

While I am a slave to recipe books (things tend to go awry if I venture off piste), Jimmy is an instinctive cook. He chucks stuff in, utterly confident amidst all the hissing and sizzling. I do enjoy cooking, but only in my own, cautious, instruction-bound way. And this is where we come unstuck.

You see, he can't just let me get on with it. He hovers, with a worried expression, making 'helpful' suggestions. Sometimes he prods things and he's always standing precisely where I need to be. The more keenly he observes, the more my confidence plummets. He is a Kitchen Lurker, prone to the following:

- Asking, 'Does that need a bit of salt?'

- Casually giving a pot a stir, even though there's no heat on under it.

- Shaking in random dried herbs which are not part of the recipe.

 - Dredging up the memory of my Terrible Mango Chicken Debacle and honking with laughter (note that this happened 20 years ago and only because I was bloody trying to impress him). 

- Saying, 'You could add a bit of Tabasco to that. Just, you know, an idea...' 

- Asking, 'Are you sure it doesn't need salt?'

- Having a sniff of whatever I'm cooking and looking slightly concerned.

- Adjusting the gas flame under a pan.

- Actually throwing salt in, without permission!!

- Remarking, 'It's okay, I'll do this bit' and muscling in - usually to fry steaks which, admittedly, I am always grateful for as mine tend to turn out 'lightly poached.'

So yes, he is useful. And he's a far better cook than I am. But, unless steak is involved, I do wish he'd take a leaf out of my book and sit back and watch and quietly drink his wine. 

And no, IT DOESN'T NEED MORE SALT!

Edging towards veggie

I wasn't overjoyed when my 14 year-old daughter said she wanted to stop eating meat - and only have fish - soon followed by not wanting much fish at all. But then I thought, this is okay, I've wanted to do this for ages. Our two sons (aged 17) are confirmed carnivores and it's been meat, meat, meat all the way for as long as I can remember. Whopping amounts of beef and chicken and lamb - it's vastly expensive, and also feels a bit... unnecessary. Too heavy and fleshy and animally. So instead of moaning about all the extra work daughter's meals would entail, I decided to go with it and join her and it's been fine. Things may be more challenging if, or rather, when - she is a teenage girl after all - she goes fully veggie. But maybe I'll join her in that too.

We've been scoffing loads of curries. My favourite Indian cookbook is by Rick Stein, accompanying his brilliant series - here's Jimmy making daughter something spicy with peppers and haloumi (instead of paneer) which was SCRUMPTIOUS. If I'm cooking, I'll generally knock up a chicken/lamb curry for the boys and a veggie one for daughter. It's a tiny bit of extra work, but when you think about it, making any curry tends to involve raking around for about half a day to find all the blasted spices and then grating and chopping and destroying the whole kitchen and using every implement you have. So you might as well make two - or even three - curries rather than just the one. And of course, most freeze brilliantly so you can eat another day without grating more bleedin' ginger. 

Also - the wonderful Jack Monroe's carrot and cumin burgers (from her cookbook, A Girl Called Jack, but the recipe is everywhere), which daughter makes for herself. They're easy, delicious and - according to Jack - work out at 9p per burger. Although ours are frisbee-sized, compared to her dainty ones. Anyway, they beat their meaty counterparts hands down, I reckon. 

We've also plundered Leon: Fast Vegetarian - it's modern and fresh and doesn't make you feel as you've been propelled back to Crank's, circa 1983, in the days when veggie food was terribly farty and made you want to sleep, fartily, for a week. Daughter has made a yum butternut squash stew, and a sort of posh beans on toast thing, with an egg draped on top. The book recommends a kind of bean we didn't have, so daughter used Heinz baked beans with the overly sugary sauce washed off (a Jack Monroe tip). 

Fish-wise - as we still have fish about three times a week - a sort of spaghetti puttanesca-with-tuna is easy as pie (why do people say this? Pie recipes ramble on for page after page!) for teens to make. Another fave is a big slab of salmon dribbled with fish sauce, honey, a few flecks of chili and lime or lemon juice, all wrapped in a greaseproof paper parcel and baked. 

This, too, is gleaned from a Leon book. I'm a little obsessed with Leon cookbooks. Everyone's so jolly and you get the impression that no one looks at the clock and thinks, 'Christ, teatime already, I really can't be fagged cooking tonight.' And there are always faded old photos of the contributors having big family holidays in the Dordogne in the 70s and we only went to Scotland or Wales. I used to dream about being propelled into a Famous Five story and now - Christ, I must be old - I want to live in a Leon cookbook. 

Anyway, back to our food thing here in our un-Leon world. It's early days, I know, and true dyed-in-the-wool vegetarians might mock my excitement over our tentative steps towards a new way of eating. But daughter's happy, as am I. I'm more energetic, my skin's looking better and I haven't felt remotely deprived. 

Also, after 17 years of trying to control what my kids eat, it's immensely refreshing to throw in the towel and say, 'Okay then - you decide.' We've been poring over websites and cookbooks and it's been a lovely thing. Any edging-towards-veggie tips gratefully received.