Ninety-Eight? Really?

I’ve put off writing my August blog until after my mum’s birthday as we have another BIG birthday to celebrate later this month when my husband turns SEVENTY! My mum turned ninety-eight on Tuesday. Yes, it’s an incredible age to reach but even more amazing is that she looks like someone twenty years younger AND she’s still as sharp as a pin! More on our visit with her later in the blog.

But first back to early July and the Bookouture Author’s Party. This is my fifth one and I have to say my favourite so far. It was in a slightly different location at the British Film Institute as the room with the balcony overlooking the Thames where we have been for the last three parties is apparently undergoing refurbishment. The space just felt much more sociable and the normally ‘shy’ me (fact, when I’m not on TV) mingled more than I ever have which meant I also met loads more of the wonderful Bookouture Team. 

This photo is of me with Kim Nash, Digital Publicity Director at Bookouture. She was the reason that I signed with my publisher in the first place. I first became acquainted with Kim when she organised the blog tour for the second book in my Liberty Sands trilogy, If He Really Loved Me.

To digress for a moment, I have some very exciting news about the Liberty Sands trilogy. They are being recorded as I write this blog and will be available to purchase as audiobooks later in the year! I’ll keep you posted on here when I have exact publication dates. I’m so excited to hear my first ‘cast of characters’ brought to life by the fabulous Melanie Crawley who was the narrator on my most recent book, My Daughter’s Lies.

Back at the Bookouture party, as usual I hardly took any photographs, but I did manage this one with myself, Kim and authors Ali Mercer, Emma Robinson and Catherine Miller who signed with Bookouture around the same time I did in 2018. It’s only a ‘guesstimate” but I’d say around fifty books have been written between the five of us as Kim is also now an author!

Kim, like me is a massive football fan. Although we support different domestic teams we did exchange a few words about England’s progress in the Euros. What a shame that once again we fell at the final hurdle especially as it was Gareth’s final tournament as manager. 

Weirdly, these lilies bloomed just before we took on Spain in the final. For those that don’t know, red and yellow are their national colours so maybe the lilies were trying to tell me something. I think it’s fair to say that Spain were the best team in the tournament and England rode their luck on more than one occasion but I’m immensely proud of the four Crystal Palace players who were selected for the squad and especially of the two who had game time, Ebere Eze and Marc Guehi (my England player of the tournament!)

Hopefully they will both be sporting the red and blue of Crystal Palace when the new Premiership season kicks off this weekend. There was no accident with the colours of the begonias and the lobelia pictured – in fact, that variety of lobelia is called Crystal Palace which is why I grow it every year.

Someone who won’t be starting the season for my club is the very talented Michael Olise who wasn’t selected for the French Euros squad. He was however chosen along with another Palace player, JP Mateta by Thierry Henri to represent France in the Olympics. They made it to the final losing to, you guessed it, Spain!!! Olise is an incredibly gifted player and while I’m devastated that he has now signed for Bayern Munich, I’ve adapted this well known saying to voice my feelings:-

‘It’s better to have loved him and lost him, than never to have had him at Crystal Palace at all.’

Along with all the flowers I grow in my garden, I also dabble with growing vegetables and fruit – some more successfully than others. Above is a pic of my first mature runner bean taken on July 12^th and we’ve been cropping a similar amount to the photo below every few days since. 

We’ve also had some homegrown potatoes, and there are masses of tomatoes on the vines but no red ones yet! Not so good with the fruit this year though. 

My apple tree had loads of blossom but only one apple, and just three plums which are looking about ripe, but no strawberries at all. Maybe they just didn’t get enough sun at the right time.

After helping our daughter with her garden and also some decorating, we finally got around to some DIY in our own home. We’d painted some daubs of shades of blue in various places in our hallway, stairs and landing back in April around the time that we painted the red wall in my writing room. To be honest, I didn’t really like any of them and maybe that’s also part of the reason it hadn’t got done. Then I discovered Denim Drift. I kid you not, it is the perfect colour for the space and shows off the stripped pine doors and white paintwork beautifully… at least, I think it does! 

Once we’d finished painting (the walls at least as some of the skirting boards are yet to be finished) I bought a couple of those multi aperture photo frames as I’d decided that I wanted to look at memories of my family growing up rather than having them locked away in a box. It took me ages to choose the twenty photos I wanted displayed in the hall and I’m not sure that Daniel and Sophie will approve of them all but for once, I don’t care. It makes me happy to be reminded of them as young children and it comes full circle as the most recent ones feature our granddaughter.

I also moved this mirror from our bedroom as I decided it was far too beautiful to be hidden away and it looks as though Wilfie the cat agrees.

We’ve now made a start on our smallest bedroom which I’ve wanted to paint in a calming shade of blue for ages. We have a new bed coming to replace the one Dan took with him when he moved into his new home back in November, so we’ve been managing with an air bed for guests since then. I’m really looking forward to everything being back in its rightful place.

So, it’s been a very busy few weeks and looks to continue in a similar vein with Chris and my fifth wedding anniversary and his seventieth birthday just days apart at the end of the month. I’ve booked to take him away for four days but it’s a surprise so I can’t tell you anymore about it just now.

I can tell you about our trip up to Nottingham on Tuesday though to have a birthday lunch with my mum. Daniel and his dog, Quin came with us last year and Sophie said she would like to go this time. I only told Mum the day before and at the time we weren’t sure if Sophie’s partner, Reece would be able to get the day off work. I’m so glad that he did as my 98-year-old Mum loves to ‘flirt’. She’s had a few health niggles this year, but she was looking so much better on Tuesday than when we visited a couple of weeks ago… maybe it was the company OR maybe it was the cheese spelt scones and chocolate birthday cake!?! Either way, she enjoyed her birthday, with lots of cards and gifts, phone calls, a video message and visitors. Her video message was from Dan and his family, including his stepdaughter, Georgie who also had a birthday earlier this month.

If I make it to anything close to Mum’s age, I just hope I’ll have the good fortune to be as ‘well’ as she is both mentally and physically.

I thought the competition prize and question this month should be related in some way to my mum and mothers generally, so the prize is a signed copy of My Mother’s Secret (I wonder if she has one?) and this Matthew Williamson journal. 

As mentioned, Mum has just turned ninety-eight. What momentous event happened in Britain in May of the year she was born?

a)      England won the World Cup

b)      The General Strike

c)       Britain hosted the Olympic Games

Leave your answer in a comment before midnight on 31^st August and the random selected winner will be notified on September 1^st.

We had an amazing response to the last competition to win the ruby coloured sea glass pendant but, despite notifying the winner Julie Stronza he has not yet responded. Please only enter if you genuinely would like to win the prize. We will do a redraw for the necklace if Julie doesn’t respond to our emails by the end of this month.

Well, I’d better close there with painting to get on with and words to get written (more about that next month).

Much love

Julia