On 18th August, Husband started a new job. 

For the first time in… in… uh… seven years (?) he will have weekends and bank holidays off, and be able to take leave during school holidays.

We’re still adjusting.

Weekends, for me, were always two things:  writing time, and lonely.  Suddenly I’d have two whole days alone, and it always used to wind me up no end that all the message boards and e-mail loops I participated in were jumping during the week, and then quiet as the grave at the weekend, just when I had more time and inclination to get involved.  And needed to chat!

When your spouse is working most of the time you’re not, and vice versa, there are an awful lot of household-y tasks that you have to accept won’t get done easily, if at all.  The Christmas lights are a case in point.  We hang icicle lights from our gutters – it’s a two person job to put them up and take them down, because it requires ladder work, and some complicated fiddling.  It’s not safe for one person to do.

Now, in the UK, there is the twelfth night tradition of taking all your decorations down twelve days after Christmas day.  It’s supposed to be bad luck not to.  One year it was, I think, April, before we were both at home during daylight hours, and it wasn’t raining.

Ugh.  Frustrating.

Now?  Bliss.  We’re being very domesticated, tidying and organising and cleaning.  It feels like we don’t have to put up with things in the house that we’ve just had to deal with before.

Tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, we’re re-stacking the logpile, moving it to a drier location.  We’ve begun tentative negotiations to tile the kitchen…ourselves.*

All of that will have to wait, however, until Husband has nipped out for a paper, and we’ve done the crossword over boiled eggs for breakfast.  Together.

*  This may be a mistake.  We are not DIY minded.

Regular readers will know I’m something of an obsessive packer. 

Friends, who have experienced my beloved, shabby and cluttered home will know that I can be organised, but typically I’m only organised with stuff I have a passion for…

Like spices.

Husband and I have had an agreeable household organising day.  I’ve been swapping the contents of two larder cupboards, and chucking out-of-date foods, and he’s been washing down the window frames and polishing the inside of the windows.  That’s ninety-six seperate panes in eight windows, for the curious.

After doing my larder organising, I’d kind of developed a momentum, and segued right on into re-organising my spice drawer.  Now, to understand this, you have to understand that Dad was a curry guru, and I’ve been his kitchen assistant for the grand Christmas curry (which took three days to create the spice mixes, marinade and cook) since I was old enough to roast cumin, peel a cardamon, or say, “Dad, I think there’s too much clove in this garam masala….”

After Dad died, I inherited his magic box of herbs and spices, and I’ve been dipping into it ever since.  Until today, though, I’d never quite had the heart to combine his stocks with mine, and make something new of it.  Today, I did.

It was a nice, fragrant, nostalgic thing to do.  And now I want to cook a curry.

Again, for the curious, these are the spices in the drawer (there’s a few baking spices elsewhere, not pictured):

Caraway seed

Cinnamon sticks/Cassia bark

Black cumin seed

Mustard seed

Roast cumin

Hot madras curry powder

Star anise

Mace

Ginger

Mango powder

Fennel

Aniseed

Nutmeg

Mustard powder

Poppy seed

Fenugreek leaves

Vanilla pods

Dill

Paprika

Turmeric

Chilli powder

Fenugreek seed

Allspice

Mint

Green cardamon

Garam masala

Oregano

Cloves

Cumin

Corriander

Bay leaves

Black onion seed

Black cumin

… the current preoccupations.

I’m working on WIP, DANGER: DEEP WATER, which picks up a secondary character from DANGEROUS LIES two years after that book finishes.

Gareth Lacy (inspired by Gerard Butler) is an ex Navy diver, specialising in mine-clearance.  He knows all about going down into the depths of darkness in search of the evil that men leave behind.  Now that’s all behind him, and he lives out his days aboard his shabby yacht Orpheus in the Mediterranean, avoiding people, life, love, and trying to escape the nightmares of his past.

Lisa’s nightmares are right here, right now. 

(I think Lisa looks a bit like Roselyn Sanchez, pictured below – she gets her looks from her spanish mother.)

Her free-spirit, less-than-truthful ways got Lisa in deep with a man and his ‘business’.  When Lisa realised what she was in to, she bailed, jumping overboard miles from shore.  Trusting to her strength and wits, she invites herself aboard Gareth’s yacht, Orpheus, enlists his help, and promptly blows his life apart.

Question is, can she help him put it together again?  And can Gareth trust a woman who lies with every breath or, better yet, can he teach her to be truthful?

Lies will run them into danger.  But the truth will draw them in deep.

 Yes, I know… late, late, late!  Between travel, my brother’s wedding last weekend, my sickness, laptop sickness, work and home life, it’s been a long time since I promised to post pics of my Maine trip and the RWA Conference in San Francisco at the beginning of August.

What can I say?  It was marvellous, magical, a real couple of weeks of fun, friends, and perhaps most importantly, reflection.  Thinking back on how far I’d come (and how far I have to go!) and how much I have to be thankful for.  Missing absent friends and making new ones. 

Maine suited me down to the ground. 

Water, trees, swimming, walking, boating.  I’ll be forever thankful to Julie’s parents for taking me in, making me welcome, and answering all my research questions about sailing. 

Gareth and his treasured yacht Orpheus will be the better for it.  Lovely to spend time with Julie and her gorgeous boy (who learned a new word from me – ‘Brilliant!’)

Julie had arranged a joint reading/signing at Rumford Library with mutual friend Kathy Love and me, with the help of the wonderfully enthusiastic and dedicated Claudia.  We had a blast, as you can see:

And I think we had some happy readers!

(Martha Hill clutching her bounty of books and looking very happy about it!)

And then on to San Francisco.

This RWA National Conference was a biggy for me – my ‘first sale’ Pink Ribbon, the first at which I could participate in the mass Literacy Autographing, where over 520 authors signed their books, donated by the publishers for charity.  It was fabulous – I have to admit I was choked up a bit by it at times.  My fondest memory is selling a book because I found out the reader and I both adored BBC car programme Top Gear!  Result!  I was there very early, and there was a lot of time (before the Sherrilyn Kenyon inspired reader stampede) to reflect on the time that had passed since I started to write, and started to seek publication. 

It was an awe inspiring thing to sit there behind a pile of my books and sell them and sign them.  Just wonderful.

Even better to share it with some special people.  Kate Walker came over to congratulate me, and remind me Dad would have just about expired (if he wasn’t already!) with pride if he’d seen it.  Since Kate’s mentorship helped get me where I am, that was a very wonderful moment for me.

And I was very proud to participate, in however a small fashion, in raising over $58,000 for Adult Literacy.

I enjoyed the workshops – highlights were the His Brain/ Her Brain sessions, Advanced Writing Tools, Linda Howard’s brilliant Q&A (is it sad and shallow of me to note how much we have in common???) and Holly Jacobs and Nancy Warren’s session on being professional and business like.  Through all the workshops, it was wierd for me to realise (and I don’t mean this in a boastful sense) that I knew a lot of the answers already.  The theme of the Conference was, for me, you’ve come a long way, baby.  Now get writing.

I hope I took the message to heart.  This week I wrote over 10,000 words.  Woo Hoo!

I have to say Kudos, to the organisers, staff and volunteers.  GREAT job, folks.

My social secretary    Brigid Coady (who was also basically the Best Ever Room Mate – click the link and scroll down for her take on the conference), was clever enough to arrange for me to get in to the Harlequin party as Heidi Rice’s guest (a thousand thanks, Heidi and Biddy!)  

We met up with Sharon Kendrick and Abby Green at the Top of the Mark.  How’s this for a view?

Another fine view is this bevvy of beauties – from left, Heidi, Sharon and Biddy.

The Harlequin party was quite simply the best party I’ve ever been to.  Why?  Because when I go to a party, I want to dance.  And I get frustrated with people standing around through the first dozen songs or so, looking down their noses at the handful of nervous dancers on the floor.  I get to dance maybe twice a year!  I want to dance!

At the Harlequin party, when the music starts, the dance floor fills.  Immediately.  And it stays full ALL NIGHT.  After thirty or so, breathless, sweaty moments, I was in sheer heaven.  And stayed that way until my leg muscles seized up, about the same time my feet bruised.  Ah, fabulous.  It’s possible I burned up all the alcohol calories for the entire week in that one dancing session.  Bliss.

(Heidi in blue, Abby in green, Sharon in pink, unknown in kilt, but good man… and the guy in the grey suit is, Randal Toye, a Harlequin VP.  Who I once shared a table with at an awards ceremony, and inexplicably talked about my house’s higgledy stairs….)

And finally, for the Harlequin Party, the World Most Unflattering Photo of me, purely for the purposes of recording a seminal moment in time. 

Because that arm on the right in the background, boogying away, belongs to none other than Nora Roberts.  Yes, Nora Roberts.  Greater happiness knows no romance writer than dancing next to Nora Roberts at the Harlequin Party.

We rocked.

All in all, I have very fond memories of San Francisco.  I won’t even mention the shopping.

Finally for this post, all best wishes, good luck, blessings and congratulations to Ali and my brother P-J, who are currently honeymooning in Marrakesh.  You did good, folks.  You did great.

… but I’m having so much fun writing, I want to keep up the momentum.

When I do post (soon, soon) you’re likely to get a two-fer – holiday/RWA snaps, and an introduction to the latest hero and heroine.

Back to the WIP.  The idestructible, reprehensible heroine is gleefully discovering all the gentle, damaged hero’s hot buttons.

Wheeee!!!

… shortly, as soon as I kick this cold.  Bleurgh.

In the mean time I’m sharing the bed with drifts of tissues and cats, and reading loads of books – Victoria Alexander, TJ Bennett, Nicola Cornick, Julia Justiss – and reviewing my 2008 goals.

Guess what?  I’ve achieved three out of four of them!

Granted, they were designed to be achievable, not punishing, and there’s still room to do more, and I will.  But this, as much as the constant thread of an underlying message at RWA Nationals, confirms the motto for 2008:

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.

And I intend to go much, much further.

Hey everyone 

Yes, I’m back from the States.  I had a BRILLIANT time, but feel absolutely knackered* now!

 Will post more later in the week.  Or maybe later still, since I’m off over the weekend to my brother’s wedding!

* See Holly Jacobs’ post….   http://community.eharlequin.com/content/great-knackered-debate-or-im-home-san-francisco