Don't get the idea I'm obsessed with tea...

Sunshine, relaxation, laziness. Perfect happiness.

I've discovered somewhere I haven't been before - the Samovar Tea Room, in a beautiful rooftop garden in the heart of the city. It's the perfect place to recover from an 18 hour journey. And the waiters wear T shirts that say "Practice peace. Drink tea." My kind of place.

Welcome to America!

Oh, how I love San Francisco. The sun shines here.

I have three questions

1/ why do people on the plane keep their blinds drawn down for the whole of the journey - even when the sun is shining and there are clear views of the landscape below ?

2/ why do people not even raise their blinds when they are coming in to land at San Francisco airport - how can they bear to miss the views of the Bay? the Golden Gate Bridge? The wonderful everything that is here?

3/ the sweet American wing of the family have a box of genuine Twinings Earl Grey tea bags in their kitchen for my delectation, and this is wonderful. But will the six Yorkshire tea bags that I brought with me (for the first bracing mug of the day) last me until I fly home?

Country Mouse

Someone at the Sheffield Star interviewed me for a piece about country vs city living and if you're interested, you can read her piece here. I'd like to add a correction, though. I didn't say that I found inspiration in the surroundings (not for my writing.)This is a cliche people always lay on me and it isn't true. It's people I find inspiring.

Going away

Woo-hoo! I'm off to California to do a spot of tree hugging, and I have the latest Garrison Keillor book to read on the plane. The first line is "Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that."

See you in two weeks. Or maybe I'll post from there...

Who do I like?

I went to talk to a book group the other night about Zuzu's Petals, and someone asked me who were my favourite authors. The first ones to spring to mind were - Garrison Keillor, Carol Shields and Anne Tyler. But there are loads of others. I've just read Rose Tremain's The Road Home and really enjoyed it, and before that I gollopped up When We Were Bad, by Charlotte Mendelson - now there's a book I wish I'd written.

Foxed

I've been getting on well with writing the next novel, and enjoying it hugely, but I've temporarily stalled. One of my characters has started behaving oddly, and her husband doesn't know why. The trouble is that I don't know either.

Nit-picking

I can't remember which writer it was who said he'd spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out again, but I certainly know what he meant. Anywaaaay.... I just found a game on the internet which plays to my strengths.

I got a whacking score - 2.69. The reason I'm so boastful is because I beat Dave. (He wins at everything in this house.) See if you can beat me. Click here to have a go. It only takes five minutes.

The man in the bank

A friend of mine went to the bank to get out a large sum of money, and the bank clerk - who was filling in a form about the transaction - had the audacity to ask him what he was going to spend the money on.

My friend, outraged by the intrusion, said "Sex, drugs and rock and roll."

The man behind him in the queue - an acquaintance - said, "No change there, then."

The bank clerk's face remained expressionless. He bent over the paper and began to write. "I'll put down leisure activities."

Overheard conversation

"How old is David Miliband? He looks about 16."

"I have nothing to say about David Miliband except pass the sick bag. Have you noticed there is only 2 letters difference between voting and vomiting?"

Weekend away

I just got back from a weekend in Wensleydale - the setting of half of Zuzu's Petals. The river was running a full pot because of the heavy rain, and I wanted to capture the beautiful colour of the water when the river is full.

The Upper Falls at Aysgarth...(click to enlarge any of the pictures)

On the way home I had to call in at Meadowhell Shopping Centre (sorry - Freudian slip - Meadowhall) to take something back to M&S, so I popped into Waterstone's to ask them how many copies of Zuzu's Petals they'd sold since it was published in paperback in July.

The guy behind the desk humoured me and told me, and then said "We have one in stock at the moment."

But I already knew this, because I'd checked, and I'd also turned the book face outwards on the shelf. (Local authors are a nightmare.)

Noun-specific adjectives

Maybe it's not just that some adjectives are gender specific. Maybe some are noun-specific...

You talk about staunch Protestants, and devout Catholics, but have you ever heard it said the other way round?

Places near home

The Monsal Trail... The middle of the village... The kissing gate that leads to the path to the church... The path to the church (where I always expect to meet Mr Darcy)... Great Longstone church... Great Longstone dairy... The view over the garden wall...

Dashing and fetching

Are there any adjectives that are gender specific?

For example - you can say a man is dashing, and you can say a woman looks fetching; but could you say that a man looks fetching, and a woman dashing?

Gotcha!

I went to tea in Sheffield last night and my friend had got me two copies of the BIG ISSUE (in the North) so now I have it in my sticky mitts and can read what I said in the interview. The article is great. Thanks to Diane Shipley for being such a top-notch journo - nice writing, nice construction and what she says is true. One day she'll have her own column. Maybe she could then give a leg-up to Sally Howe.

The BIG ISSUE

Oooohh, it's so frustrating. There is a long interview with me in The BIG ISSUE in the NORTH this week and I haven't yet got a copy because the Big Issue seller in Bakewell has gone AWOL and I'm desperate to know what I said in the interview!

A simile to die for

I went to see my GP yesterday to have a mole on my back frozen off, just to be on the safe side.

I can't see this mole, so I asked Dave to have a look at it this morning and tell me what was happening.

"It looks like a very tiny and slightly overcooked Bakewell pudding," he said.

You wouldn't get a simile like that in First Aid in English. (click here.)

The very biggest spotty dog you ever did see

A shared cultural history is such a special aspect of a close relationship - for me. I love being able to mention obscure things from my past to friends and for them to know exactly what I'm talking about.

Examples?

Oh...Champion the Wonder Horse, The VOICE from Gary Halliday, Double or Drop from Crackerjack, the very biggest spotty dog you ever did see in the Woodentops.

And didn't you always feel sorry for Tonto when the Lone Ranger said "You go into town, Tonto, and pick up supplies, and I'll make camp here"?

"You go to Sainsbury's, Tonto, and I'll sit by the fire and have a cup of tea and watch Neighbours."

Too much loveliness

It was an achingly lovely, sunny, mellow, September day here yesterday, so why did I feel so melancholy? The garden is looking bedraggled and overrun with too much convolvulus (that I never manage to keep up with) but there are still sweeps of colour and pockets of beauty everywhere.

Butterflies on the Sedum... My Verbena Bonariensis... My Cosmos... And the very last - and minscule - bunch of sweet peas... Maybe a clue to my mood lay in that last title - the L word.

Can spend, won't spend

It's so rare to find myself in an empty house, and when I do I feel as if I'm queen of the world. I can write and think with a clear head. The luxury!

The trouble is that my head is so clear this morning that I can't think how to entertain you. That's why I'm falling back on a piece I had in The Times several years ago. I hope you enjoy it...

Can spend, won’t spend

I am considering offering up my husband as a guinea pig for trainee salespeople.

He wants a new bicycle, he needs a new bicycle, he can afford a new bicycle. He just cannot bring himself to buy one. The current one has already been rebuilt and resprayed once, but after 120,000 miles the formerly elegant frame is suffering from metal fatigue. If he doesn’t buy a replacement soon, the bottom bracket will snap on a ride and he and the bike will suffer the ignominy of a lift home in the car.

The problem is that whilst he is passionate about cycling, he hates spending money on himself. It’s a puzzle how he managed to buy the bike in the first place. He bought it on the day our second son was born, eighteen years ago. I don’t know whether this was by way of a celebration, or a don’t think I’m going to give up cycling and spend more time at home gesture, or a panicky I’d better buy it now while there’s still some money in the bank purchase.

Whichever it was, he needs a new bike now, yet he remains immobile. Thriftiness is a welcome virtue in a family man, but my man is so parsimonious that he would be the only guest ever on Alvin Hall’s Your Money or Your Life programme to be told to go out and spend more money.

Years ago, the first time he asked if I wanted to go shopping I naively imagined that this would mean entering shops and handing over money for purchases. What it actually meant was walking disconsolately up and down the high street, looking in shop windows. We never stepped over a threshold because, either the desired item wasn’t in the window so they obviously didn’t have it, or, if it was in a display visible from the street it was always too expensive. “They don’t know what to charge” should be embossed on his wallet.

Consequently, for the last thirty years I have done all the shopping. This has definite advantages. It’s easy to smuggle an unjustifiable purchase into the house, hide it in the back of the wardrobe, and get it out to wear a month later. Then when he says “Is that new ?” I can honestly say “No, I’ve had it for ages,” which happily forestalls any questions about price.

I have to buy all his clothes as well as anything he actually wants – from guitar strings to books to spare parts for his bike. It only takes two months to rev himself up to shell out £5.99 for a set of new guitar strings, and it’s easy to take written instructions on brand and type. But only he could choose and buy the bike, and it takes more like five years to change into a high enough gear to hand over the money for that.

We have passed the first stage: three months of complaints about the fact that each and every component needs replacing, and three months on how it’s not worth doing because the frame is rusting and the transmission is as slack as his eighteen year old sweatband. We are now into the 2 years of weekend forays to local bike shops. He has weathered the shock at the increase in prices since 1984, but has so far not spotted his platonic ideal of a bike.

When he does, we will enter the period where I try to persuade him to do the deed, and he says no, he wouldn’t get the value out of the purchase because he only has a few years left to live. He is 51 and in good health; his only ailment is pessimism.

I’m starting to get desperate about this bike business, though. I’ve just remembered that he bought his guitar when our daughter was born. I hope he doesn’t have some strange yet-to-be-labelled syndrome which means he can only buy things when in a new surge of fatherhood. I love him dearly, but if he won’t buy a bike till we have a new baby, he can take up running instead.

© Sue Hepworth 2008

Appears here with kind permission of The Times

Spending time with the children

So Ruth Kelly has resigned her post as Transport Secretary to spend more time with her four young children.

Has she only just noticed she has four young children?

No, No, No. I don't have anything aganst women who work at things other than looking after their children - I've been one myself - but the report about RK reminded me about a newspaper piece I once read about the then editor of The Evening Standard who was reported as being in the office by 8.30 a.m. and rarely home before 9 p.m. She had earned a superwoman image through “her ability to juggle that demanding office life with a full family life.”

And when I read that article, I wondered how anyone could lead a "full family life" when they didn’t get home until 9.

Memories

Me: "Do you remember when a loaf of bread was 10 pence, old pence?"

Him: "Yes, and when we got the Land Rover, petrol was 27p a gallon."

Me: "No!"

Him: "Yes. 27p."

Me: "We're really old."

Him: "Happily, nature has its own way of sorting that problem out."

A rival

Chione obviously has plans she's not told me about.

Cat-lit?

Topics of conversation

Me: "I was just about to tell you something last night and you fell asleep."

Him: "What was it?"

Me: "I can't remember!"

Him: "Well, it can't have been anything very important."

Me: "It was something really interesting. It was something about words or something about a person - those are the two most interesting topics, aren't they?"

Hooray!

Hooray! Someone - who obviously wishes to remain anonymous - has emailed me a reply to my question. Good job, as I wasn't going to post anything else until I got one. Thank you, that lovely person...

"The answer is probably a result of the Hays Code of Censorship in 1934, following which there were strict regulations about showing sex on screen. The woman always had to keep one foot on the floor if she was shown on a bed, so presumably this was the closest they could show someone being swept off their feet???"

Cheek

Come on you guys, you come on this site, you read my posts, and I ask you one question and not one of you has anything to offer. It's very discouraging. it makes me want to give up.

You did understand the question, didn't you? If not, please ask for elucidation.