I make a blooming good cupcake

I’ve always loved to bake but in the days before my daughter was born, my repertoire was a tad more adventurous. I had a mean lemon drizzle at the tips of my fingers, I could do a lovely shortbread, and my flourless chocolate cake was to die for. These days, my equally baking-mad daughter gets the final say-so. Which means it’s cupcakes. It’s always cupcakes. We ring the changes sometimes. But all this means is that we bake chocolate cupcakes instead of vanilla cupcakes. Or we top them with mini Smarties instead of sprinkles. One veeeeeerrry long and rainy weekend we even made Trolls-themed cupcakes with piled-high icing in all different colours of the rainbow. But… yeah. Cupcakes. They’re the reason I’m never half a stone lighter than I’d like to be.

A Night In With Grace Kelly

A Night In With Grace Kelly

Most of my time is spent being Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty

Or the wicked queen from Snow White. Or the horrible stepmother from Cinderella. My 4-year-old daughter is even more obsessed with Disney Princesses (and, in fact, fairy tales in general) than she is with cupcakes. So we spend a LOT of our time playing princess. But for some reason, I never get to be the princess. Cue hours on end of me over-acting (complete with wicked cackle a-plenty) as I perform yet another in my repertoire of Disney villains. I have honestly considered hiring myself out for children’s parties, if anyone’s interested…?

I wanted to be a writer when I was four

My first effort, a searing work of genius entitled The Postman Is Very Good, set me on the road. I just always, always wanted to write. I quite often used to write a story instead of doing my maths homework (there are no words for how much I hated maths homework) so that my teacher couldn’t actually get cross and accuse me of having done nothing because, well, I’d written a mammoth-length story, right? This may well be the reason I still have to use my fingers to add up. But it’s also the reason I thank my lucky stars every time I think about the sheer good fortune that I now get to do what I always wanted to do, y’know, for my actual job. It’s pretty fantastic.

Writing doesn’t come easily to me

I struggle hugely with the beginnings of books. Chapters one to three usually go through about twenty re-writes (and that’s not an exaggeration) and take mooooooonnnnnnths of agonising, and whining at my husband, and drinking copious amounts of consoling red wine… But once I’ve got past all that… and then got bogged down in the middle… and panicked that I’ll never meet the deadline… and got in a pickle about the denouement… and sat at my desk sobbing because none of the jokes are funny and all the characters are wrong and none of it even makes sense any more… there are a few moments, maybe once or twice a week, and just for a few minutes at a time, where it all just clicks and it feels like flying. It’s the best feeling in the world. Even better than eating a Trolls-themed cupcake.

I’ve been with my husband for half my life

We got together when we were both 20. We are now both (don’t tell anyone) 40. It’s a shocker, when I actually think about it. It means we did a lot of our growing up together, which is actually a pretty phenomenal privilege. He’s very laid-back, which helps. Poor guy, trapped in a house with two drama queens in full-on Disney Princess/Villain mode half the time, he has to be.

I love Disney movies more than life itself

There are many wonderful things about having children. The cuddles. The unbounded love. The incredible softness and translucence of baby and toddler skin. But sometimes I think the best thing of all is that you get to watch Disney movies – a lot, in our household; see my point about Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty above – and you don’t have to explain why to anybody. These past couple of years I’ve enjoyed endless re-runs of some of the classics I watched in my own childhood – Robin Hood, Cinderella, Mary Poppins – while adding on a shedload I’d never seen before: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Bolt. My best day ever was this past week when I took my daughter to the cinema to see Moana… for the third time... Just me, her, a bucket of popcorn and the best cinematic experience anyone could hope for. Altogether now, You’re Welcome…

I think I suffer from telephone phobia

I put off making phone calls for as long as I possibly can. Then I put them off a bit longer. Then – and this will come as no surprise – I put them off a bit longer still. And it’s not even big, scary phone calls I avoid. I would rather chew off the ends of my own hair than call the (perfectly nice) hairdresser’s to book an appointment. I would rather stay home and eat cold baked beans on my birthday than call up a (perfectly friendly) nice restaurant to book a group table. Yes, internet booking has made it a lot better; Whatsapp ensures that I don’t get blacklisted by ALL my friends. But still, the phobia lingers. These days, fortunately, I can use my daughter as an excuse, because she hates me making phone calls even more than I do. Happy days. (And another excellent reason to have a child, imvho.) 

Of the three Hollywood heroines I’ve written about, my secret favourite is…

(whisper it) Marilyn Monroe. She even managed, while I was researching her, to sneak past the divine Audrey Hepburn in my estimation. She didn’t have Audrey’s style or grace. She didn’t have Grace Kelly’s perfect beauty or impressive ambition. But she was an incurable romantic who wore her heart on her sleeve, and she made a hell of a mess of things while always having the best of intentions, and – to me – that makes her the most lovable of them all. And, I think, the most similar to Libby Lomax, the heroine of the series, who can hardly step out of the front door without causing an international incident, and for whom finding a great love is the most important thing.

My idea of hell is a spa day

No, I don’t want to pay through the nose to be slathered in stuff. I tense up the moment I hear plinky-plonky spa music. Facials break me out in spots, and my muscles are so tightly knotted that the only massage that could do me any good at all would be one performed by half a dozen sumo wrestlers prepared to come at me with their elbows. Nor do I wish to detox, thank you very much: the only thing that keeps me going at all is a carefully-calibrated blend of caffeine, sugar and alcohol. Take that lot out of my system and who knows what might happen?

My idea of heaven is a cup of coffee, a decent supply of cake and a good book

Preferably on a chilly-but-sunny day, sitting beside a large window with a view onto a deserted beach and a crashing ocean. So far (and I was 40 last birthday, as I may already have mentioned) this elusive combination has only happened once in my life. The beach was in Cornwall, the book was by Marian Keyes and the cake was almond polenta. Like I said, my idea of heaven.