THE D WORD

Am I the only one who saw the elephant in the room when Kate and Wills met the press?  Kate dressed in blue, looking aslant to the side, dark eyeliner, and the ring, that ring and William looking the spitting image clone of she who must not be named.  Kate froze when asked about Diana not because she didn't know how to answer the question,  Kate knows how to follow in her mother in law's footsteps - she simply makes her own footsteps. She froze because she knows how uncomfortable, how awkward, how vulnerable and how utterly pathetic she who must not be named makes the Windsors look and feel.    Charles looked grey pompous, every day increasingly looking like a spoilt little prince behaving like a chippy little rich man, when he was asked about the engagement.   And Camilla, step mother that she is, uttered the immortal words 'wicked'.   She who must not be named has a sense of humour.   'Wicked' step mother.   I don't think she has been accepted whatever the tabloids suggest.  She's just so innocuous she makes even Charles look substantial.   William chose the ring because he wanted to feel that his mother would not miss out on the fun.     Diana was screaming loud and proud in that room when the press appeared and the rest of the Windsors knew it.   Everyone will be thinking or her when they see William walking down the aisle.  And I love the fact Kate is allergic to horses.   William your mother would have approved. xx

WRINKLES..

I attended the launch of a new eye wrinkle cream last week.     I was a good twenty five years older than most of the women in the room, all of whom were wearing black, most of whom had blond hair and no visible signs of cellulite, curve, wrinkle or need of aforementioned eye wrinkle cream. A travel journalist should never attend anything to do with beauty or skin care,or rather this one shouldn't have, as I found myself being inspected/analysed quite closely by all those I met.    What I had always hoped was a natural outdoor glow, a light tan, had suddenly turned into the skin damage, oh dear, and the crepiness, and oh no, I didn't cleanse tone and moisturise regularly and that was the reason my skin had aged so badly. I felt 102.   I did a test. I have the skin of someone marginally younger, but only marginally.   I have spent too many years on planes, baking in the sun, being outdoor in too hot or too cold climates and not taking care of my skin.    Too much coffee, not enough sleep, too much time in front of the computer squinting not wearing glasses, etc. etc.    Too much travelling, too much laughing, too much living....

COULDN'T MAKE IT UP

I’ve been busy behind closed doors, stocked with black coffee and rice cakes, writing my next book, but I took a break to attend the World Travel Market yesterday, a place where tour operators, tourist boards and everyone and anyone to do with the travel industry sell and tell.   It’s more like a world cattle market on certain days and there’s a lot of non news, but it’s always fun to look at the diary on route to Excel and see that I am visiting India, California, New York and Canada all in the space of a morning.   I usually return with a few press releases but this year the ‘travel trends’ as originated by Euromonitor (I know it was Euromonitor as the presentation which lasted fifteen minutes mentioned them no less than fourteen times, sometimes three times in one sentence).  This year I sat in the audience with my friend and colleague Alistair Mckenizie who edits the very useful website www.travel-lists.co.uk and listened to where we should all be going and what we would do when we got there in 2011.    I write fictional novels and some of the stuff I heard would even stretch the imagination in even those books.     I realise that every continent needs something to say and sell but it got really stupid this year.

The most farcical trend came from North America, which it usually does.   Deprivation holidays are fashionable in North America. No I’m not talking stay-cations where we don’t have the money so we can’t go anywhere, we’re talking holidays for the very wealthy who have got tired of five star, being treated like the Gods they think they are, and want to cast themselves out into the wilderness and suffer like the rest of us, or even better suffer more than the rest of us.   Sort of an extreme no pain, no gain.   Low is the new high, and anyone wanting to feel the pain of being poor, has to pay a high price for going without.  I suppose if you‘ve got a Catholic guilt thing about making loads of money illegitimately (they never think they do) and realising you’re still not happy despite the luxury lifestyle and perhaps a little bit of induced fasting and spiritualism to ‘get God’ or at least loose pounds is the way forward then I hope those who are marketing this holiday form to their wealthy wimps will make a mint and induce some sort of karmic retribution on the bankers, I mean punters.   I’m not talking luxury boot camps (Euromonitor made this clear). I’m talking trekking across deserts and forests with little food and water, working in appalling conditions.  Why don’t they just take a plane to Afghanistan and help our boys there?   Why didn’t we just send them to Chile to help with the digging or Haiti or anywhere they can actually help with the suffering of others rather than getting a kick out of their own?  I can’t quite work out if this idea is karmic, ironic, moronic, masochistic or just plain insulting to those who genuinely are deprived but the idea of ‘playing at being deprived’ is just plain patronising. 

Another trend is Iraq.  Forget France and Spain.  Everyone should go to Iraq. Perhaps those who want to experience a deprivation holiday in North America should go to Iraq although I doubt Iraq wants to see any more Americans in their country even if they are willingly paying a lot of money to be beaten up and treated badly.   (Wonder if Tony Blair will go on one of these deprivation holidays?)

In Africa there’s ‘space tourism’, as in looking up at it (astronomy) as opposed to going up in it, which at some stage ‘Africa’ wants to promote as well.     Africa allegedly boasts some of the clearest skies in the world, so hotels are installing telescopes in their rooms.   As I know many hotels have issues with towels, dressing gowns and toiletries being nicked, I don’t hold out much hope for the telescopes lasting long.   

In Latin America, they’re trying to improve the roads (all infrastructure actually) and in Asia the only thing they’ve got to sell is what they call ‘the fragrance factor’, as everything is being scent branded. For example when you think of Holiday Inn you think citrus, green, floral, woods, bouquet.  Personally I think Lenny Henry or is that another hotel chain?

And according to the survey on travel trends Europe is closed for business. We’re all skint, unless of course we’re very wealthy in which case we will be paying an awful lot of money to feel the pain somewhere very dangerous.  

As for which nationalities are coming to the UK. Move over the wealthy Russians, we now have the wealthy Chinese, followed closely by the wealthy Indians. Although what they will find in Blightly will be largely owned by the wealthy Arabs who have bought up our real estate by then. I couldn’t make this up. 

HAVE CHILDREN WON'T TRAVEL...TO THE ORANGE TREE THEATRE IN RICHMOND AT 11.30...

I am talking at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond at 11.30 on 13th November about travelling with children, or rather how to not travel with children.    I've just returned from the most wonderful experience in India with my eleven year old, and it's given me new ideas about how to travel and encourage others to travel.     We saw tigers, ate curry for breakfast (I don't eat breakfast at home so eating curry for breakfast was a step I hadn't anticipated) but as the chef taught Jamie Oliver everything he knows about Indian cooking, it was the best meal I've ever tasted (care of Oberoi Rathambore). Tom learnt to cook Indian, planted a lemon tree and several herbs (long story) and learnt how to manipulate Indian puppets which were magical in every sense.   Saw the Amber Fort, the Observatory, 19 hours of road travel all of it like watching an India I've seen so much on TV - colourful and hypnotic.   Took a wonderful yoga class which taught me why I was in the position I have been in for the past ten years (they never explain in UK classes - not the ones I go to anyway) and went to a spirit ceremony giving offerings to various Gods.    Tom painted on silk and I went to the Gem Palace in Jaipur and had a fascinating talk on politics and philosophy by the owner Sanjay.   A wonderful adventure.  

FLYING VISIT

Well, I arrived care of Easyjet, not after missing the flight, by missing my turning on the M25 and then being held up by a car crash, albeit on the other side of the road, but everyone has to stare don't they, just in case there's any blood.    Got to the airport, booked car hire at extortionate rate, got on plane, full of exchange students preparing to practice their French on the locals.  No chance.  Drove to the house to see what the damage was.     Thank fully a good friend had tidied it but the gaps where the TV was, the hifi, the wii and all the things that I was told were missing, were gone.   And also a block of kitchen knives which was worrying but as soon as I told everyone that, they immediately said 'kids'.     Some ornaments have been broken, some sign of break in and now it's in the hands of the local gendarmes.  But as I stood in the courtyard and stared out the windows of the main house overlooking the valley I still felt how much I love this place.   For those of you who don't have the burden/blessing of something like this, it's like having a wonderful lover who when you are with them, you love every moment of their company, and when you are not, you wonder what the hell you are doing with them.    I slept in Tom's room amongst his toys.    

RUBBISH DAY

Grey Monday morning, it's raining and there is a tube strike.    I get a call.   My home in France has been burgled.   They've taken all the electrical stuff and wrecked some of the other stuff.  It's a mess.  The local gendarmes think it's an inside job so I am going down to see what has been taken and hopefully nothing sentimental, irreplaceable I will cry if I've found it's gone stuff. Having a lovely home in another country is wonderful and despite the expense of this place it's been somewhere to escape to each year from the traffic wardens and same old same old of my home here.    OK, every time I've gone down there, there's been another bill to pay, someone else wanting money and another thing I've absolutely must, got to have, immediately get fixed that costs ten times more than it should.   So the burglary is hassle.  And the fact it's an inside job is a hassle - the person had a key?  Someone I trusted.    So who did it?   

EAT PRAY AND WRITE...

Is it a good idea to write about your divorce after your divorce? In a book, in for a newspaper, for your diary? Opening up, emotional honesty for every tear and tantrum? Well I did all three, and having been on radio, presented talks around the country about ‘how to fictionalize your life in print..and get away with it,’ I’ve come to the conclusion the answer is ‘yes’, but with reservations. 
 
Writing a diary of what is happening as it happens is a good idea.   The lawyers are always interested in the facts and detail and what you may think is irrelevant they will find important. But when the dust has settled and you’re in your twilight years, and you may have forgotten what all the fuss is about, it’s important to remember what you have forgiven. Always forgive and let go of what is gone, but never forget because by doing so you will remember your own strength and the journey you've taken to get where you are today. 
 
Opening up your heart in print in a magazine or newspaper is another matter and I’d advise against it. Unless you have strict control of what goes in and what’s left out it might come out as an emotional outpouring of cruelty and retribution when a far more balanced, both sides are culpable attitude would have greater impact and be far more help to couples going through or contemplating divorce or marriage for that matter. No one wins. 

As for a book, I didn’t mean to write a book about what I got up to during and after the divorce, in fact the first one I wrote was about what I got up to before I got married. I had written a book on traveling with toddlers, dedicated to my son and the his father ‘all my love always’ (always comes back to haunt those dedications..) Completely by accident I met a woman at a party who happened to be the commissioning editor of Mills and Boon. When she gave me her card, I gave it back to her, ‘I don’t write about princes at the moment, I just know a toad.’ ‘We want toads, she replied, they’re more interesting copy.’ So I wrote my book THE LAST YEAR OF BEING SINGLE (Mira) which although not in the same league as EAT, PRAY, LOVE, worked as a catharsis and gave me something to do during the nights when I couldn’t sleep. It was a fictional account of what happened my own last year of being single, and it gave me my first two book deal when I least expected it and most needed it.  There's a lot of sex in it. 
 
The second The Last Year of Being Married (Mira), was like The Empire Strikes Back to Single’s Star Wars. The reviews on amazon are hilarious, so nasty, with detail that's not mentioned in the book, I can only guess they are from the ex, friends of the ex or someone who has been an ex, is a city trader and thanks his bank balance that their ex isn’t a writer or a novelist and has no aspirations to be one.   I had written Single to show women that just because their partner may appear right on paper, doesn’t mean he’s right for you. I knew and know many women and men for that matter who go up the aisle very unsure they’re doing the right thing only everything has been paid for already. With Married, a book every couple wanting to be married should read (if you still want to after reading it, you do love each other), I wanted to show women there is light at the end of the tunnel. Book writing is a wonderful way to step out of yourself and view the drama, not be the drama.   

 
Since then I’ve written five more books, all fictionalized accounts of various times in my life – The Younger Man, The Playground Mafia, The Battle for Big School, Schools Out and the most recent The Control Freak Chronicles. They are all about 'single mother with son' against the world sort of thing, with a few heroines who are happily married although realistically I never really identified with those ones.  At the moment, I’m writing a children’s book which has absolutely nothing to do with control freak ex’s or divorce or bullying in or out of the playground of life or the local school.  Done that, been there....