Misfit Essentials

I’ve been tagged by a Twitter buddy, Jamie Dougan (@JamieTDougan), to list the ten things I couldn’t live without.  You can read his here.You can also download his short erotic story here for only 77p - what have you got to lose?

So here are my ten essentials - and I also tag my friends Michelle Betham, Donna Trinder and Ness.

1. The obvious - my family and friends.  Not going into details, as bits of it are complicated at the moment, but I still consider myself very lucky.  My husband, son and mum are THE BEST and I have friends who have gone way beyond the call of duty.  They are priceless.

2.  My garden.  I couldn’t imagine not having an outside space to call my own.  As I type this blog, I’m sitting at my wooden table with the sun shining down and a soft breeze in the air.  It’s my little bit of paradise.

3.  My cats.  Call me soppy but I love them so much.  Whenever we consider moving I always judge the house by the road.  Too much traffic is a no-no.  The story of my cats is here.

4.  My laptop.  I write my books, sell them, meet people, tweet people and can find out anything I need to.  On the couple of times it’s had a virus or a wobble, I’ve gone into meltdown.  I NEED it!

5.  My bath.  No matter how tired or how many glasses of wine I may have had forced on me (!), I have to end my day with a soak.  Bubbles and a soft towel are the perfect end to any day.

6.  My bed.  People think I’m joking when I say that I could sleep for sixteen hours but I could!  I love going to bed and I never want to get up.  My favourite is a Friday night sleep when I like to ‘relish’ - rub the sheets with my feet, snuggle down and know that it’s not an early morning.  Bliss!  I blogged about bed here.

7.  Tea, coffee and wine.  Yep, love them all.  I start the day with tea, move on to coffee and water, then wine in the evening and a cup of tea in bed.  The tea has to be PG TIPS, the coffee is ideally a latte and the wine anything white, dry and cold.  I also dabble in the odd cheeky red, if pushed.

8.  OK, shoot me down and it is a bit odd to say that I can’t live without them because they are obviously killing me but … FAGS!  I can’t do without them.  Disgusting, I know, but I’m nothing if not honest.  Let’s leave it there shall we …?

9.  Music.  My lovely dad always said he couldn’t imagine a world without it and I feel the same.  It can lift your spirits, give you inspiration, make you cry and give you that lovely spine tingle.  I love everything from musicals to heavy metal - and, trust me, living with a 16 year old, I am subjected to enough of that!  I’m usually quite tolerant but at 8am on the journey to school with London cyclists cutting me up it can be a bit of a tester - his musical choices have been known to make me feel murderous.

10.  Books - and my Kindle.  When I was sitting in the school car park for three years (blog here) they were my lifeline.  At that time I just had paperbacks or library books but now I have my trusty Kindle (thanks to some lovely Aussie friends).  In a good book, I can lose myself and my troubles and be transported to another world.  Everyone should know the joy of totally throwing themselves into a novel - whether it be for a laugh, a thrill, a mystery or a love affair.  You just can’t beat it.

So there you go … ‘Mummy Misfit Essentials’.  I also quite like chocolate, cakes, biscuits, Marmite, avocados, toast, garlic, lentils, Nivea cleanser (as agreed with Jamie!), dogs, shopping, my hair straighteners, make-up, handbags, shoes, dinner parties, the theatre, Come Dine With Me and old British sitcoms.  But that would have been greedy!

Check out my books on Amazon and Lulu  (and there's 25% off all books at Lulu until Friday!) 

Also tune into my radio show every Tuesday at 8.30 - live from my kitchen table.