Free books!

When I was young, I prayed to be sent away to boarding school. It wasn’t that I was particularly unhappy at home but simply that I had fallen head over heels in love with the idea thanks to Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and St Claire’s books.  I wanted to play pranks and have midnight feasts with a gang of friends.  Okay, so I also rather fancied the idea of swimming in a natural seawater pool and having my own pony in the school stables. At the bottom of it, I guess I just wanted to escape from the tedium of suburbia.  I was a lot younger than my siblings and I spent most of my time alone in my head. I wanted ‘chums’; I wanted merry japes; I wanted passionate friendships and drama and secrets.

The allure of the school saga has not diminished over the years. When my son first saw his school he muttered, with deep awe, ‘Hogwarts’.  And I smiled broadly when I saw that Lyn Gardner had written her own school series, starting with Olivia’s First Term (oh that title - so delightfully reminiscent of Blyton’s series).

I met Lyn when we both worked for the London listings magazine, City Limits.  Lyn was the theatre editor (I fixed the typewriters  – which says it all really).  Lyn went on to The Guardian (and remains there today) and continues to review theatre with her habitual insight, sensitivity and humour.  If anyone knows theatre inside out and back to front, it’s Lyn. Oh, and she has daughters so she’s the business twice over.

Now, you know me. I love dark and doomy and depressing. I inhale supernatural and overcast and heart-broken and wretched.  So how come I devoured a book about a bunch of kids at stage school, for pity’s sake?  Olivia’s First Term is about dancing and acting and singing; it doesn’t even have one vaguely creepy moment (though there is plenty of drama).  I hated High School Musical. I loathe Glee.  But, you know, this isn’t like that…not one bit.  It’s really got that old Malory Towers magic about it (though the writing is way better). I’ll let you into a secret – I even shed a few tears at the end.

Anyhow, if you have stage-struck daughters (roughly aged 8-12), they’ll devour it (and, fear not, it teaches valuable lessons about Not Being A Brat). I know a lot of you have young girls in the house and so I asked the publishers, Nosy Crow, if they could let me have some copies to share. They very kindly agreed and I have six copies to give away. So, if you’d like to win one, simply leave a comment and we’ll do the usual paw in the hat routine.

Oh, and talking about writing and young people, check out the Wicked Young Writers’ Award finalist entries, now published in an anthology by Headline.  www.wickedyoungwriters.com – some amazing stuff here.

Giving away the scent of Heaven

Scent is so very important.  It’s evocative, atavistic, often unfathomable.  Which scents do you love? Which do you hate? 
Does it matter how someone smells?  Oh god, yes! Some scientists even believe that attraction lies in our personal scents being compatible with one another.  No, sillies, not Lynx clashing with Prada.  J 
It’s the same with places – the smell of a space can colour how you feel about it. All that business about freshly-brewed coffee and baking bread when you’re trying to sell a house?  Okay, so it’s a bit hackneyed now but the principle is a smart move. 

Anyhow, I’m very picky about scent and I’m even more fussy about what I slather all over my body. I don’t hold truck with dousing myself in chemicals. If I can’t afford totally natural stuff, I’d rather not have anything at all – or pop a few drops of essential oil onto sea salt and bung that in the bath.  If you read this blog regularly you’ll already know that I have a fanatical crush on ila.  Ila is Sanskrit for earth and everything in these products comes from a plant or mineral – crammed full of loveliness so there simply isn’t any space for anything synthetic. 

Ila was founded by Denise Leicester, a qualified nurse who is also trained as an aromatherapist, yoga teacher and healer.  She believes in healing energy – in ‘a higher vibration capable of facilitating profound inner change.’  Well, don’t laugh, but so do I.  So much that I wrote an entire book yacking on about it. 

Denise spent a year researching, travelling and sourcing her key ingredients with huge care. ‘Each ingredient is chosen for its spiritual attributes as well as its physical and emotional benefit,’ she says. So that included Himalayan salt crystals, Rose damascena and argan oil (and you know how I love that). 
She wanted to find farmers and growers who shared her deep, sacred love of the earth and wanted to found a company on principles  of “spiritual light and multi-level reconnection”. She calls the range ‘beyond organic’ because she doesn’t think it’s enough for a product to be merely organic – she figures the purer the source and the process, the more suffused it will be with the earth’s healing energy. 

Have I lost you?  Are you scratching your heads and whistling quietly?  If so, don’t fret – just put to one side all this woo-hoo mystical stuff and simply luxuriate in some of the most divine high-class beauty products you will find. Forget that image that may be forming in your mind of the sticky gunk you find gathering dust in the far corner of ancient New Age shops.  Oh no, sirree.  These are absolutely top-notch, beautifully packaged and presented.  And, oh, oh, oh – the scents.  

If you’re wondering (and, let’s be honest, I would be too), no, this isn’t a sponsored blog.  I just adore this stuff and want to shout about it a bit.  I’ve bored you with my favourites before so I won’t go on about them again.  I want you to try them for yourselves. But I do realise they are pricey and times are tough.  So I asked ila if they could possibly give something or other for me to pass onto you.  And, bless them, they’ve come up trumps. 

I’m off to a spa in London today (shall report, never fear) but one of you, my lovely readers, can  have his or her (I would never discriminate – rose can smell very sweet on a man!) very own ‘ila-spa-at-home kit’...  This is pretty damn gorgeous and it comprises:

Inner Peace Bath Salts – apparently suited for anyone who needs ‘greater serenity’ and pampering – softens the skin and strengthens your aura. Not bad for a bath!

Body Scrub for a Blissful Experience (argan oil, Himalayan salt crystals, rosehip, jasmine, sandalwood and damascene rose et al) – I haven’t tried this but it sounds delicious –you massage it into damp skin and then bathe.
 
Face Oil for Glowing Radiance: this is a bit of a cult product and I know exactly why. I keep a bottle on my desk and anoint myself with it probably far too often throughout the day. It makes my skin smile and cheers the heart.
 

Body Cream for Glowing Radiance (argan oil, shea butter, damascene rose and tuberose) – this stuff is pure heaven (ask Lulu).

The prize is worth just shy of £200 and I think I can only offer it to readers in the UK...(I'm checking) - but the products are available in the US and parts of Europe. 
 

To stand a chance of winning, simply tell me which scent (it could be anything) you find the most evocative – and why.  I’ll find the most fragrant member of The Bonkers House (hmm, that might take some doing) to pick the winner when I come back next week.  Also, do make sure I have a way of getting in touch with you (if you don’t have a blog). 

Oh, and if you're reading this on Facebook, you will need to comment on the actual blog, not on FB....

And the DUPLO winner is......

Huge thanks to everyone who entered the LEGO DUPLO competition. I had cajoling and unseemly begging and some people (no names, you know who you are) even threatened to come down and wrestle the DUPLO off me.... Can I just say that this would never be a good idea as tough grown men have been known to weep and run when Asbo gets his teeth into the, er, tender zone.

Anyhow, after a few abortive attempts to get Asbo to pick the winners from a hat, we tried another tack. We coated the names in gravy (outside, I hasten to add) and watched which were eaten first (all names were coated in exactly the same amount of gravy before anyone shouts 'fix').

First into the JRT's gullet was:

Pipany (with unseemly haste)

He then licked a few but in the end went for Amy.

So huge congratulations to you both. I have sent your postal addresses to the nice people at Lego who will be sending out your DUPLO kits as soon as humanly possible. Commiserations to those who were unlucky this time - I am trying very hard to figure out how to track down your various requests for future giveaways - ie vodka, donkeys, spa trips, cars....

For more info on DUPLO..... http://legoduplo.dbmblogs.co.uk/

Normal service will be resumed soon on the blog.... Meanwhile, if anyone wants to offer my good readers more delightful giveaways, do get in touch!

You might also be interested in my new blog Never Knowingly Overwhelmed which will occasionally be reviewing carefully picked products, trips and treatments.

Diary of a Desperate DUPLO donating woman (OK, this is weird)

I thought Disney was surreal enough (what with pin-swapping and grown people wandering round in mouse ears) but life back home is turning a little odd too.
I returned to find I was double-booked for two funerals yesterday. Given one was in London and one was twenty minutes away, there wasn’t too much decision-making involved. Clifford was our old neighbour back when we lived up on the weird windswept moor (for any readers who go back a long way with me you might remember him as the flirtatious old dog who used to growl, ‘they don’t call it SExmoor for nothing’ accompanied by a lascivious leer and a finger tickling down your backbone and coming to rest, cupping your arse. For all that I was very fond of Cliff and even fonder of his long-suffering (if redoubtable) wife. So we headed across the moor back into our old life.
‘We don’t want to be too early,’ worried Adrian. Mainly worried, I hasten to add, because he didn’t want to bump into a certain ex-friend. It all went wrong when the chap had an affair, news got out – to his wife eventually – and the ex-friend blamed Adrian (very unfairly as it happens). But anyhow… So we dawdled, and went past our old place and eventually……
‘Oh shit. Think it might be busy.’

The entire hill was jam-packed with 4x4s and quad bikes and tractors. Sure enough, it was standing room only in the church. The average age was about 70 and, as we waited for the cortege, there was a small concerto for hearing aid (high-pitched squeaks and squeals) followed by a couple of deep sigh farts. It was a great funeral (if you can say that). Cliff was a hunting man (fox, stag, otter, mink, women) and we were only surprised that the church wasn’t packed with hounds. As it was the service ended with a rousing rendition of a local hunting song.

We slid out before the hunting horns got going and hurtled back home. I flung Adrian out of the car and carried on to town to get a chest x-ray (nothing horrid – at least I hope not – doctor just scared of litigation so covering all eventualities. Seriously hope those aren’t famous last words). Stalk into X-ray clad head to toe in black and the chap behind reception seems a bit bemused.
‘Are you clergy?’
Do I look like a vicar in high heels, slim black trousers and a coat with three-quarter sleeves? Is the make-up and earrings a bit of a giveaway?
‘No. I’ve been to a funeral.’
‘Ah. I wondered. Concentrates the mind, doesn’t it?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘He he, don’t worry. I’ll give you a good x-ray and if you’ve got lung cancer I won’t tell you. No point making a bad day worse.’
‘Er, thank you.’ I think.

So I sit in M&S drinking decaf and gazing gloomily at my trolley waiting until it’s time to pick up James from school. He’s fed up as they got thrashed playing cricket.
‘I got one run.’
‘Oh dear. That’s rubbish, isn’t it?’
Frown and hurt look. ‘I was the third highest scoring batsman.’
‘That’s great!’
‘Oh don’t patronise me.’
Really, you can’t win.
Anyhow, home James and a flurry of the usual when an email pings in.

Would I like a set of LEGO DUPLO?
Hmm, not really. My son is ten and, last time I looked, DUPLO was for toddlers. Now had it been the Battlestar….
‘Well, you could give them away to your readers.’

What is going ON with this blogging lark? First I get flown to Florida, now I’m being offered free LEGO. I said no, the chap from LEGO said, aw, go on….your readers will love it. So, in the spirit of wild generosity, I present Diary of a Desperate DUPLO Donating Woman. It’s got a ring, don’t you think?

Here’s the juice. LEGO are offering two sets of DUPLO. Each set comprises two boxes: one’s a funky Zoo type playset and the other one is a groovy police set (so the nice policemen can arrest the penguins or vice versa). If you’d like one bung a comment below and, come the end of the weekend, I’ll get Asbo to put out the magic paw and pick two wildly random winners. Sadly, you have to be in the UK for this and LEGO do ask that you visit their blog and report on how the sets went down with your children…..but hey, no hardship really?
Click here to see the sets…. http://legoduplo.dbmblogs.co.uk/

And watch this space. Today DUPLO, who knows what might happen tomorrow….Spa week at Champneys? Laptops? Plasma TVs? Surreal. Just surreal.