All I want for Christmas…

Here is my latest column for SW magazine. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight I would also like the end of the Euro crisis and shelter/fresh water for all, but at the time of writing what I mostly wanted was a bike…

“So, all I want for Christmas is a Pashley. Actually, I’ve wanted one forever, this being the quintessential bike and me liking quintessential things, but this year I’m not going to send letters to Santa or leave brochures in briefcases (do women do that anymore? Do men still have briefcases?). I am just going to go out and buy it.

‘How can you afford it?’ Andrew asks. ‘Pashleys are expensive and we’re still in a recession.’

‘I’ve had a tax rebate,’ I say. ‘I didn’t earn enough money this year.’

‘Hmm. Is that not a sign that you should be spending less money, not more?’

‘No, it’s a sign that buying anything but the best is a false economy.’

‘That old chestnut,’ Andrew sighs. ‘Well, at least try out some other sorts of bikes as well, eh?’

(The more longsuffering among you will remember this sort of nonsense from when I bought my car.)

And so I visit a friend in Surrey who owns three bikes, including a Pashley (outside London there are such things as ten-bike families). First she wheels out the other two, a road bike and a day bike, whatever that means. The road bike I don’t even mount since I’m not attempting the Tour de France and, frankly, the day bike feels ‘road’ enough, like my bottom is higher than my shoulders, even though it isn’t. I just know if I get a bike like that I’m going to ride into a canal or something.

Then the Pashley, a red Britannia, complete with lovely antique leather saddle and wicker basket. It just feels exactly as a bike should feel. More like sailing than cycling. Like you must gather children around you and glide through rural France singing your little heart out. Jules et Jim, The Sound of Music: all of it.

‘What’s the verdict,’ Andrew asks, when I get home. ‘Are we all getting Pashleys for Christmas then?’

‘God, no,’ I say. ‘They’re far too expensive. Only me.’”

First published in SW magazine, December 2011 issue

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The long walk…

Here is my latest column for SW magazine, a demonstration of my charitable side – or should that be uncharitable…? You decide.

‘You may remember I wrote about the training I and some friends have been doing for a charity walking marathon. Well, yesterday we walked it. (Did I mention that we downgraded from the full marathon to half? Best decision I’ve made all year.) No exaggeration, it was horrendous. Truly, my worst few hours of this century so far – and I include in this the bit during childbirth before the anaesthetist arrived.

Two things we had failed to consider:

1. The route. We had imagined the river, the royal parks, monumental London, like a montage in a Hollywood movie when they always play The Clash. In reality, it began and ended at the O2 and was the bus route through Deptford and Rotherhithe towards Bermondsey. It was the underbelly.

2. The start time. We set off at five minutes past midnight. For the first few miles we were sustained by adrenaline and Tangfastics, but soon our bodies began protesting that, without wine, they should be asleep by now. At nine miles, one of us fell over and had to limp the rest of the way (there was no choice; it was either that or bed down in a doorway); another fainted and had to recover in a kebab shop.

At the finish line we raised a scowl for the well wishers and chucked our medals in the bin, grumbling at the lack of bacon sandwiches. We had completely forgotten why we were there or what each other’s names were.

‘Let’s just go home and forget the whole thing,’ we agreed.

But, oh no. The tube was shut, the buses few and far between and the organisers had not thought to alert the taxi companies, who were taking no bookings. The wait for a black cab was two hours. We arrived home at 7.30am, broken and shrunken-hearted.

And so to the moral: if you’re considering one of these nocturnal charitable endeavours, calculate how much you think you can raise in donations and write a cheque to the charity for half that amount. Spend the other half on dinner with someone who really makes you laugh.
That’s the way to do things by halves.’

First published in SW Magazine, November 2011 issue

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Book news

My new novel (scarily, my eighth) is (pretty much) finished and I can now confirm that a) it won’t have as many parentheses in it per sentence as there are in this one, and b) it is published in the UK in June 2012. It’s called The Day You Saved My Life and here are some details:

On a perfect summer’s day in Paris, tourists on a river trip watch in horror as drama unfolds. A small boy has fallen overboard and disappeared below the surface of the water. As his mother stands frozen to the spot, another passenger jumps…

This is the story of how a single act of courage transforms the lives of those involved: the hero James and his wife Alexa; Holly, the young mother of the victim; and Holly’s mother Joanna, whose whole adult life has been lived in the hope that her daughter will not make the same mistakes she did.
More information to follow. Meanwhile I am about to go on holiday to the gorgeous windswept Ile de Re and I have three books in my hot little hand: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller, and The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld. Leave me a message here if you’ve read them! x

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