And as for the X-Factor - I want Matt to win

My baby's baby

I have caved recently and bought my baby a baby of her own. No doubt there are "pink stinks" campaigners out there who would have me hung, drawn and quartered for caving in to gender stereotypes but I care not.
When I was wee I loved my baby dolls and after almost seven years of Bob the Builder, Ben 10 and Star Wars I was very much looking forward to reliving my own childhood years so when the baby yelped with delight at the sight of baby dolls in the local toy shop I didn't need to be persuaded too strongly.

The problem is, I think I may have developed a problem. Along with the doll I have bought several outfits, a baby blanket and those wee dolly nappies. I should stress that my daughter wouldn't care if she was just dragging around a naked dolly with its arms hanging off but me, well I'm a little more particular about my fake grandchildren.

I'm already delirious at the thought that, when she is big enough (my baby, not the fake baby - I know th fake baby won't grow) I can buy accessories for me her to play with - the likes of tiny playpens, car seats, slings, and those magical bottles which fake empty when you turn them upside down has me jumping with joy.

And no this doesn't mean I'm broody before any one gets smart. I'm just enjoying the wonderfulness of being the mammy of a little girl after years of boyness.

And another from the book launch...

Along with the news the book has entered the Irish charts at number 18 here is a picture of me and my two at the launch..

And the reviews are starting!

BookShelf bloggers have said: "The books is absolutely a laugh out loud story of disaster after disaster...I cant wait to get hold of another of Claire Allan's books and will be certainly watching for more titles "

So we had a launch...

And loads of people came.
And I read and it was very lovely indeed.

The first pic is of me reading from the book and the second is of my family at the launch, from sitting are mum and me, standing are my brother Peter, my dad, my sister Emma and my sister Lisa to whom the book is dedicated.

What a week

I ca never be trusted to drive anywhere outside of my comfort zone. I proved that last week when I set off for Eason HQ to film for TV3.
Google maps directed us to Ballymun. The people of Ballymun looked at us like we were thickos from the North. So we spent 45 minutes driving around Dublin airport, Swords, Claremont and other such places and eventually found our location (after I'd turned the air blue on more than one occasion in the car).
So we filmed in TV3 and then drove onto Poolbeg towers in Baldoyle (didn't get lost but only because I was following my editor as she drove) and we had lunch in a wee cafe just around the corner.
Big fat eejit that I am, I managed to get lost on the way back to Poolbeg and my editor was just setting out search party mode when I found my way back.
This was not the glam author life I had been promised!

I did not, however, get lost on the way to my first ever book launch which took place in the Central Library in Derry last Thursday. Loads of people showed up - including people I didn't actually know, which was brilliant. I made a speech, as did the boy, and the I drank about 76* cosmopolitans and sang some motown classics.

On Saturday I saw 'It's Got to be Perfect' in Eason, looking gorge on the shelves and now I'm getting the slow drip of friends' reviews coming in. So far it's been a thumbs up, but then they would say that, wouldn't they?

I'l keep you posted as to how it goes.

*not really

Fictional places I want to live Part Three

This is one is probably very obvious, but here we have it, Carrie Bradshaw's apartment (pre: Sex and the City movie makeover).
I'm sure the noise of the busy New York streets below would drive to me distraction but there is so much character in the old building that it seems like the perfect place to retreat. There are a number of fantastic writing spaces (at the window, on the bed, on any of the mismatched chairs..) and those tree lined streets, heaving with Aidans and Mr Bigs are never far away.
I'd move there in a New York minute.

Random conversations with the boy - some gems

So we are in the car listening to Amy Winehouse.
The boy turns to me, very seriously, and askes "Mammy, is rehab a real country?"


Another car journey, this time over a bridge. The topic of conversation turns to whales.
"Did you know, mammy, that whales can't kill you. They just blow you out of their holes."

I know it was very childish, but I laughed.

The universe makes some sense sometimes

Today's note


If suddenly and without warning, Claire, you had absolutely nothing to worry about, do you know what the world would begin to look like?
Un-huh, exactly the same as it does right now.
Alright, if suddenly you had absolutely nothing to be afraid of, do you know what you'd begin to look like right now?
Yeah, cool as ever.
OK, OK. If suddenly you had absolutely no expectations to live up to and no one to disappoint, do you know how free you'd suddenly be?
Yeah, same, same.
Get it? The only thing that would really change is your thoughts. And you don't need circumstances or other people to help you with that, do you?
I say it's time to blow the lid off this popsicle stand -

Still thinking of Camille

Some of you have asked me recently how Camille Shave is doing.
For those who have not read my previous posts on Camille, she is perhaps the bravest little girl in the world. Just three years old, she will be undergoing brain surgery in just over two weeks to try and resect as much of her tumour as possible and give her the best chance of survival. Her parents, Hayley and Martin, have some devastating and difficult decisions to make in the coming weeks - decisions no parent should be faced with.
I think of Camille most days. I think of Hayley and Martin and their other daughter Lucia too but at times, I'll selfishly admit, I have to try not to think about them because I find the situation so painful. I'm lucky though, I can distract myself with other things.
Through all this Camille remains a funny, happy and beautifully delightful child. Hayley and Martin remain positive and inspirational.
It's Got to Be Perfect raised money for 'Camille's Appeal'. Camille and Lucia even make a guest appearance in the book. It was the very least (believe me) that I could do.

If you have five minutes and need a reminder why this charity is so important then please read this extract from Martin's latest blog.

Future Footballer's Wife? I don't think so

I was walking through a very well known clothing shop the other day when I spotted a table loaded with slogan T-shirts for young girls.


Being the mother of a young girl with a compulsion for buying her pretty clothes I stopped to have a look - and I turned on my heels and walked on as soon as I saw one T-shirt emblazoned with ‘Future Footballer’s Wife’.

I have many hopes and dreams for my daughter - not least that she will be happy and healthy. I hope she is successful at whatever she chooses to do and that she feels she can shoot for the stars and achieve whatever her heart desires.

My greatest wish for her is not that her ultimate ambition in life is to be married to some loutish eejit who kicks a ball around for a living.

I find it sad that there is a culture out there where a woman’s greatest ambition is to live the life of a z-list celebrity. That her dreams and desires centre solely around wearing Prada and Jimmy Choos and getting photographed for Heat magazine. I find it sad that some women’s ideas of success are tied up in how full their hair extensions are or how manicured their nails are.

I find it particularly sad that the culture of the WAG means that many women will put up with being treated as little more than a trophy in return for a bulging bank balance and their fifteen minutes of fame.

I’ve tried to think this one through - to ask myself if my ambitions were anyway similar when I was a little girl? Of course I wanted to be like some of the big stars of the day. I would have given my eye teeth to be Princess Leia (yes, I used to pray that I would be her best friend, I was that sad). I suppose there was a time when I wanted to be Madonna. I liked her clothes and dreamed of dancing around on a stage singing my heart out. But both these were women were, arguably, strong and positive role models. They were successes in their own right.

WAGs? Well, they just hang onto the laces of their men’s football boots.

I despair of the world my daughter is growing up in. The pressure on women to be beautiful, to appear flawless, to bag a man is more intense than it ever was in my childhood, teenage years and early adulthood.

I wonder what message she is being given by the media around her (of course I know she is too young to understand just yet, but T-shirts with such slogans show just how pervasive this dumbing down of the younger generation is). Is it really a case that a woman’s worth these days can only be measured by the effectiveness of her boob job, the amount of botox running through her forehead or the strength of the smell of the San Tropez wafting from her?

You may think I’m bitter. After all, I’m hardly the WAG type myself. I don’t have a semi-skeletal frame and when I write books I actually do it myself and don’t get someone to ghost write for me - but there is more to my objection than this.

A WAG, I would argue, is different to just being just the partner of a footballer. Being a WAG is following a culture in itself. It is about selfishness and vanity at the highest level. It is not about being a strong woman. How many times have we seen high profile WAGs have their heart trampled on by their cheating partners only to take them back for fear of losing out on the celebrity lifestyle?

Setting our children up with the notion that being a WAG is a worthy ambition is shameful. Telling our young girls that their greatest desire should be to marry someone with bags of money and live quite happily out of their bank account with no ambition to actually make anything of themselves outside of maybe launching a clothing line for a catalogue company is shocking.

I don’t expect the shops to launch t-shirts with slogans such as “future brain surgeon” or “future barrister”, but do we really have to sink so low? Do we have to stick with WAG slogans or ‘Future Shopaholic’ slogans or things which, from the earliest of ages, seem to put women in their place as silly, flighty creatures?

I’ve criticized the Pink Stinks campaign before - which wants gender specific toys in hues of pinks banned - but on this one I’m with them. They have their own WAGS t-shirts - but clearly the letters stand for Women Against Gender Sterotyping and as for their children’s t-shirts, I’ll think I’ll go with the one emblazoned with ‘Future Role Model’ for my daughter.

The new term was surprisingly emotional

I thought I was an old hand at these things.
I have packed the boy off to school for four years now (nursery, P1, P2 and now P3).
I didn't give it much thought to be honest apart from a passing nervousness about the amount of homework we are supposed to expect this year.
I took him to school, his enthusiasm infectious, and was delighted to see all his wee friends outside of the classroom as we waited for his teacher to open the classroom door.
Now I may be an overprotective mammy. I'm used to leaving him into the classroom, to his desk, and giving him a wee kiss before I go.
This morning was different. For those unfamiliar with the Northern Ireland school's system, our kids work under a new curriculum whereby Primary 1 and Primary 2 is supposed to be an extension of nursery - learning is focused through play and is less structured. (Although for my money the boys and girls in Joseph's class could give anyone a run for their money with their reading and writing).
Primary 3 is where the real works begins. As the school principal told Joseph before the summer "It's gonna be tough" (thankfully, he taught the children to say "It's gonna be tough, but I'm gonna do it!").
Leaving him today reinforced that. The teacher came to the classroom door and announced "Say bye to your mammies now, children!".
I, and several other of the self titled 'Over protective mammies brigade' almost had a stroke. What? Leave them? Here? At the door? Without knowing where they are sitting? Without knowing they are okay? Without having a wee chat with the teacher about how individually amazing our children are??????
Three of us stood, darting our head around the door trying to see that our (oblivious to our distress) children were getting on. We walked out, bereft. I have to say I fought back tears. It just seemed so grown up and it was hard for me to leave him with someone I know nothing about apart from her name.
I'm sure he is fine (she said, reassuring herself) and that he isn't given a second thought to his poor old mammy sitting fretting in her work.
But already I'm longing for hometime - just to see him and hear that it went okay.

I went back last night

... And the damage wasn't as bad as I feared. I have put on 6lbs which, okay, isn't brilliant but isn't awful either. With good planning and being strict I can hopefully have that off by the time It's Got to be Perfect hits the shelves at the end of the month.
It's a strange feeling. I am cross with myself for slipping but I know I am still a good bit off where I was when I started in February so hopefully a good effort now will see a good result and see me get that little bit closet to goal.
I got an email from a friend who yesterday which reminded me that weightloss is a journey and that sometimes we take detours but as long as we get back on track that is all that matters.

So for now, my inner Sat Nav is reset and I'm back on the right road.

Random conversations with the boy - Sexical Appeal

Joseph: "Mammy, what does Ooh la la mean?"
Me: "When someone thinks someone looks nice they might say it. It's French."
Joseph: "Is it a sexical word mammy. It sounds like sexical language to me."

Hauling my sorry ass back to WeightWatchers

Did you laugh at them? All the posts where I said I was going to try really hard to be good and then, after a good week or two, go back to WeightWatchers?  You should have.
I've not been following the plan all summer and all the bad habits have kicked back in - most notably the few glasses of wine and bag of kettle crisps habit which is absolutely bloody lethal.
My clothes are feeling snugger and yesterday I went shopping for a new coat and was HORRIFIED by the site which greeted me in the mirror. I have no shape. I felt ugly - like deep to the bone ugly - and I was so horrified I went home and gave out to all around me in a very diva-ish way.
I cna hand on heart say that I was not a nice person to be around last night.
In February, when I first started WeightWatchers I was inspired by my son asking was I sure I wasn't pregnant as my tummy was so fat. I said at the time I could have got annoyed and lay down under it or I could do something about it. Seeing myself in the mirror yesterday I had that same epiphany.

I am under no illusions that it won't be damn hard work. I know I have good 10lbs to go to be back to where I was before the summer but I'm going to start because I owe it to myself.

I lied about being the outdoor type

It was four in the morning. I had been lying in a half awake/ half asleep dose for about an hour and a half knowing that I faced the thing I feared most in the world.


The wind was battering the tent and it had been raining. I was curled up in my sleeping bag, on the edge of a half deflated air mattress trying to keep warm. But it was no good, there was no way I was going to get back to sleep without getting up and going to the loo. I cursed the glass of wine I’d had before bed and I cursed the people we had ordered the portaloo from for not delivering in time.

Rolling off the mattress and trying not to wake the baby who was sleeping beside me, I crawled commando style out of our tent, donned my UGG style boots and set off for the trek across the campsite to the toilet block before walking back and trying to zip myself into the sleeping pod of the tent with an ounce of grace.

This was not the romantic outdoorsy experience I had been hoping for!

Admittedly the day had started well. We had left Derry in the sunshine with a very excited six year old and a car full of camping equipment. We arrived at the campsite and set about pitching our tent while the baby slept in the car and the boy ran around making new friends and declaring it the best day of his life ever.

Tent pitched, sun blazing, we went for a walk and stopped to chat to the animals on a nearby farm before stopping off at the onsite playpark for a wee go on the swings.

There was I, all Mother Earth, delighted with myself and thinking “this is the life”. As I chased the baby around the campsite, her all delighted with herself having a big old field to run across - I felt the cares of the world lift off my shoulders.

Already my brain was running miles ahead of me. We could do this all the time - every second weekend if necessary - and we would take on the look of very healthy and sunkissed people. I almost longed for the sun to start going down so we could light our wee fire and sit in front of it blissed out.

All we had to do first, of course, was get the increasingly cranky little girl in our care to sleep. The fresh air had left her exhausted so we went through the bedtime routine motions. What we didn’t account for is that campsites can be really very noisy. I don’t mean in an antisocial behaviour kind of a way, more a children running around, having fun and chattering way. Mix that with one very nosy little girl and you have a lethal combination.

For three hours, I hushed, soothed, sang to (in a tent that I had learned was not sound-proofed) and pleaded with our daughter to go to sleep. I was longing for my glass of wine. I was longing for a wee seat out in the great outdoors with hubby and the boy over a barbecue. Sadly the baby who never sleeps had other ideas.

Once I was finally able to escape (crawling commando style again so as to not wake her) the sun had gone down, the wind had picked up and we sat, huddled together over the fire trying to get warm.

“You’ll be grand once you get inside your sleeping bag,” hubby assured me. I wasn’t so sure. All I could think about was the very warm, centrally heated, bedroom at home complete with kingsize bed and a 13 tog duvet. Reluctantly I changed into my pyjamas, slipped on my bedsocks (tres romantic) and fleece jacket and tried to get comfortable on the inflatable (thus also deflatable) air mattress. Zipping myself in beside the baby, while hubby and the boy snuggled in the other sleeping pod, I figured that at least the huge amounts of fresh air and wee drop of wine would send me over to sleep in record time.

I didn’t count on the wind - at one stage all I could think was that we would be lucky if we didn’t wake up surrounded by munchkins 25 miles south of the Emerald City. As the tent rattled and battered around me, I just longed to drift off to sleep. Anyone who knows me will know that with a good sleep I’m up for anything - deprive me of sleep and I become a terrifying harridan who you would be best to steer clear of.

I woke in the morning (I say woke, I mean gave up on the notion of sleep) to find that, thankfully, we were still in Fermanagh. The baby was exhausted and cranky. I had a pain in my neck from the air mattress. The rain was threatening to come down in sheets. The boys wanted to spend the day fishing (which is so not my thing).So I did what all good women would do, packed up my car, drove me and my girl home and had a lovely day with her before settling down in front of the X-Factor with a glass of wine.

I may have wimped out, but I felt better for it especially as I listened to the wind howl around the windows and watched the rain come down in buckets.

I have promised to try it again, maybe when the baby is older, or preferably in the care of a loving relative. But for now me and the great outdoors will just have to agree to disagree.

Something a little different

A colleague of mine - the girl (I say girl because she is under 30 and therefore a wain in my opinion) has MS. She writes about it here
http://alifecopingwithms.blogspot.com/

And it is well worth a read, if you have the chance.
The same girl would often say to me "if you put all your troubles down on one table along with everyone else's, I bet you would pick your own back up". That's quite admirable given what she has to go through every day.

A long, slow labour

The characters in my new book (book five, working title of ‘The 30 Something Crisis Club’) have not been behaving recently.


Or should I say, two of them (and on particular) have not been behaving. The bubbly character of Hope has been doing exactly what I want her to do and has become her own woman - the kind of writing experience a writer loves. Her voice is strong, funny and individual.

The two others? Meh. Not so much.

It is a painful experience for a writer to reach a stage in the book where you have written yourself into a corner and you no longer know what is going on in your characters’ mind. (Yes, I know, I make them up. I control their minds... but not really. The characters become real as each book progresses.)

So I’m chopping - cutting swathes of text, reducing my wordcount instead of increasing it and trying to get into the mind of my two other leads.

With a month to go until deadline, this is not a pleasant task.

It also highlights to me just how isolating writing really is. Yes, I have a very supportive network or writerly friends who understand what such an experience is like but the simple fact is, no one else can write this book except from me.

It’s a bit like being pregnant and feeling your waters pop and knowing that the next bit is all down to you. Other people can cheer from the sidelines. They can even offer choice words of support. They may supply mind altering substances every now and again to numb the pain. They can tell you that you can do it, even when you think you are totally spent. They can advise you what to do next but the dilating, the pushing and the puffing is all down to you.

Now if only I could get some gas and air piped into my living room...

Random conversations with the boy

J: "Mammy, when you call someone an Einstein, what does it mean?
Me: "Well Einstein was somebody's name, and he was very smart. So it means people think you know a lot.
J: Well, I'm an Einstein then.
Me: You sure are.
J: And Grandad is an Einstein. He has a lot of knowledge. Abby (his cousin) is half an Einstein.
Me: And what about me Joseph? Am I an Einstein.
J: (with a dramatic roll of the eyes) Mammmeeeeee, it means you have to know stuff!


That's me put in my place!

Cassidy Sez

My fellow Northern Girl., Fiona Cassidy has just set up a blog, which is well worth a read.
Have a wee duke at Cassidy Sez for a laugh and an insight into writing.

Pack up your troubles

May God save and preserve me, this weekend I am doing something which up until now has been absolutely unthinkable to a person such as me who adores her creature comforts.


I am roughing it, without running water, an electricity supply or indeed a bathroom with a locking door to go camping with my family.

Our kitchen has taken on the look of the ‘House of Value’ as our camping supplies have accumulated - a tent (family sized), a gas stove (one ring - possible disaster in the making) and assorted lights, sleeping bags and air mattresses and plastic eating utensils. The portaloo, as I write, is in the post.

The boy has almost taken off into orbit with excitement and if the truth be told his daddy is not far behind me. Me and the baby? We’re a bit more reserved into our enthusiasm. In fairness she hasn’t a notion anything is going on and me? I think I’m in denial.

Booking the trip really was one of those ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ type of things. The husband and the boy had gone away for a boys’ own adventure kind of a trip to Donegal for a night and had come back with great stories of a night under canvas and the joys of the entire experience. (in fairness though, they are boys - they can pee standing up in a discreet fashion and have no need for hair dryers or similar equipment).

I think I was feeling a little fragile because, in the absence of a proper summer holiday and on the only good day of the last two months, I agreed to look at a family campsite. Booking it, and looking out at the clear blue skies over Derry, I suddenly had a rose tinted view of the entire experience.

We would run about doing outdoorsy type things all day, maybe a little cycling, maybe some frisbee throwing. We would eat a picnic of warm tomato sandwiches and soggy egg and onion baps and return back to our wee tent where, once the baby was asleep and out of the way of danger, we would like a fire and maybe sing a wee chorus of ‘Kumbaya’ (or similar campfire song). The hubby and I may share a wee aperitif and then exhausted from all the fresh country air and sunshine we would sleep blissfully under canvas until the following morning.

I fear it will be different - very different. I fear the rain. I fear that we will spend two days trying not to have our wee tent wash away down a hill in Fermanagh. I fear that the children will turn their noses up at my picnic efforts - in fairness because everyone wants something warm on a cold day, and I fear it will be very cold indeed. I fear that as it has been approximately 20 years since I have sat on bicyle the cycling may end in a trip to casualty. They say you never forget, but I’m willing to bet I’ll be the exception to the rule. I fear rain will stop play as far as the barbecue is concerned and that we will sit huddled over our one ring stove trying to make a pot of tea in what is seriously the smallest kettle in the entire known universe. As for singing ‘Kumbaya’ - well, it’s a well known fact that I can’t sing a note and believe me, the husband isn’t talented in that department either.

I fear the whole experience may drive me to drink... and not in a “wee aperitif on the terrace before dinner” kind of a way.

But I will give it a go. I’ll give it a go for the Brigini I used to be who used to get really excited at the thought of going camping and was gutted when we stayed in a school hall and not under canvas. I’m doing for the child I was who used to be obsessed with the Secret Seven and the Famous Five and long for all the mad adventures they have and I’m doing it for the six year old who is more excited about this than perhaps anything else in his entire life.

Maybe I’ll surprise myself. There is something appealing about leaving behind the trappings of modern life and spending time in the country - away from the Sky Plus and the Internet and all those other distractions. There is something very appealing about spending time somewhere the boy can’t get access to a Wii and we would be able to enjoy quality family time together in an age when getting time together is not so easy.

And who knows it might even be nice. The weather forecast for Fermanagh isn’t so shabby so we might just have a great time - who needs hotels and air conditioning? I’ll report back next week.

Feels Like Norway

Am delighted to announce that my second book 'Feels Like Maybe' - which seems to be a favourite among readers - should be hitting the Norwegian market some time in the not too distant future.
I've been made a lovely offer from a very well known Norwegian publisher and I'm delighted
I will reveal all the details when we have signed on the dotted line, but I am so excited that Aoife, Beth, Dan, Tom Austin and all will be introducing themselves to a whole new audience.

Fictional places I want to live, part two...

Iris's house from The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz

This would  be my weekend retreat - strictly a no kids/ no husband zone. I would sit on the squishy chairs with his feet on the squishy footstool and the fire roaring in the hearth and I would write til my heart was content. I'd take a break every now and again just to wander around the wild garden or maybe heat some scones on the aga and then I would maybe take a snooze on the sofa with some some soft music playing gently in the background.
I don't drink tea very often but this house would make me a tea drinker. It's just oozes cosiness and relaxation and my imagination could run wild there. The bookshelves add to it, of course. I've always wanted a room just for me with loads of book shelves. When I win the Lotto this will be my purchase, I promise.

The edits are just about done...

I'm about to sign off on the edits for It's Got to Be Perfect - hard to believe it will be in the shops in just over a month.
I had so much fun writing the book - and even reading it back made me laugh out loud - so hopefully that will translate to the reader as well.
I'm so excited, I could do a wee girly squeal!

Fictional places I want to live, part one

I give you Stars Hollow

I could die happy here! A part of me may long for a minimalist chic interior but a bigger part of me longs for something just liek this - complete with porch and swing. I think I may have watched too much Waltons growing up.
Stars Hollow, from The Gilmore Girls, is a gorgeous, quaint town where everyone knows your name and people call you ma'am. Everything seems to be decked in fairy lights and there is a magical feel to the whole place.
The name adds to the magic. It sure beats Derry/ Londonderry/ Stroke City anyway.

Did I ever tell you how neurotic I am?

... I mean as if you didn't guess by A) the name of this blog or B) the fact that it is really quite obvious that I'm unhinged?
Well, you should also know if you read this blog regularly that I go quiet when I'm in a particular madzer phase. So guess why I'm quiet?

Well the vertigo continues and it is now accompanied by a headache which may or may not be migraine.
Of course being neurotic, I'm now convinced that it could also be a brain tumour. A big fecker of a one. I know such things are no joking matter, believe me. And I have taken to veering between "it's only a virus" to wondering how on earth I'm going to break it to my family that I'm a gonner.

Now of course I have no medical evidence whatsoever to say this is anything sinister except for regularly feeling like crap. I also, sadly, knew someone once who "had vertigo" except it actually was a brain tumour and she is no longer with us.

I don't know how to shake the feeling. I'm taking so many tablets that I rattle. I am anxious x 100.

And to top it all off, I've agreed to go camping in a fecking tent at the weekend. Perhaps communing with nature will give me back a sense of reality? In the meantime I'll just keep taking the tablets.

To launch or not to launch?

I've never had a book launch - ever.  I'm told they don't really impact on sales so I have never felt the need to have one.
But I have wanted to celebrate bringing a new book into the world and this time, on book 4, I'm contemplating it.
But it does seem very self serving. Really it's inviting a lot of people to come along, say nice things and buy my book. Can I really justify it? (Book launches don't come in cheap, for the record, and I've checked).
Derry - the City of Culture 2013 - has a lack of independent book shops and supportive and all as Eason are (and they are FAB!) they can't accommodate a few glasses of wine and a signing out of hours in a big old shopping centre which could hardly stay open just for little old me.
And yet, don't I deserve it? A little something? A little "yay you did it. You wrote a book with a new born and here it is and sure isn't it lovely?"

I veer between saying "feck it, let's have a party" to saying "don't be so stupid" and I just can't make up my mind either way.

Do you want to make up my mind for me?

A book which will make you laugh and cry

My lovely writer friend Fiona Cassidy's second novel is released today.

Fiona is one of us three Northern Girls - all Poolbeg authors who tour the country talking about writing, reading, Simon Cowell and other such things. We are very supportive of each other but I have a feeling this book is going to make my exceptionally jealous - because I have a feeling this book is going to hit the top spot, which it rightly deserves too.

Anyone for Me? is about this...Meet feisty, fun-loving Ruby Ross thirty-four, mad red hair, mad (in general), adopted and searching for answers . . . like, precisely whose genes are responsible for the mad red hair . . . She's impulsive, compulsive and unaware of what she s about to unleash in her quest for the truth. Isobel Ross is larger than life (despite being a serial dieter) and lives in a picturesque cottage in Donegal in the grounds of a manor-house hotel but why are the new hotel-owners so keen to get rid of her? She's harbouring secrets from the past and fiercely protective of her adopted daughter Ruby. Can she stop the wilful Ruby from opening a nasty can of worms? Throw in Ruby's forthcoming nuptials to the lovely Luke, a bling-loving bridesmaid in the shape of her best friend Frankie, a wedding planner called Gabriel who wears more make-up than the bride-to-be and you have chaos. Add to the mix a dusty box found by chance which leaves many questions unanswered, and you have a bewildered and rather ferocious Ruby asking is there . . . Anyone For Me?

This funny and moving tale about adoption is told with Fiona's trademark acid sharp wit, but where it comes into its own is that Fiona knows exactly how Ruby feels. She is adopted too, you see and she is an inspiration when it comes to seeking out answers about her own past. The book is not only hilariously funny, but raw and poignant in places because Ruby's feelings are drawn from Fiona's own experiences. But as Fiona would say herself - she gives the reader the ending she would have wanted for her own search.

Read it. Laugh, cry, and then - if you haven't already - pick up a copy of Anyone for Seconds? Fiona's first book.

I promise I'll not feel that jealous, honest.

A night out ain't what it used to be

The definition of middle aged is simple. Take one thirty-something-year-old reporter. Mix with friends. Add a liberal glass (or three) of Chardonnay straight after work. Throw in some Tapas (but clearly not enough to absorb the alcohol) and come up with the bright idea of ordering ‘just the one’ cocktail for the road.

Drink four cocktails. Sing a few songs - loudly - in a restaurant. Try to encourage a friend to give her tried and tested rendition of the intro to the A Team a go. Laugh, probably a little too loudly. Forget you have work the next day. Vaguely remember the taxi journey home and wake up the next morning needing a bottle of Lucozade like your life depended on it.

Spend the next day, or two, in the horrors piecing together segments of the night out and vowing, never, ever to drink again. Eat enough junkfood to undo all the goodwork you have done on WeightWatchers over the last few months but not quite enough to take away the swaying, sickly feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Text your friend (The A Team one) and ask did you make an eejit of yourself, knowing full well that she doesn’t remember and will be having the same thoughts as you. Decide, mutually, you are too old for this carry on.

Realise there is a reason that most of your socialising now takes place in front of the TV with just the one glass of wine and a good film. Vow that from now on you will be letting your hair down closer to home - if at all - and vow to resume acting like a responsible adult. Don appropriate mammy smile and resume housewifely duties of cleaning and playing with megablocks.

There was a time, dear reader, when things were different. There was a time when a night out didn’t leave me praying for an early death. There was a time when I could even have contemplated going out two or three nights in a row and would even have danced into the wee small hours rather than leave early to make sure I got a taxi home before the rush.

There was a time when I could be trusted with a cocktail. And I’m talking the big gulpens of cocktails they used to serve in Henry J’s as opposed to the refined efforts we had last Thursday night.

There was a time when going out for post-work drinks was all a bit Sex and the City - me, a young single woman with no children, no responsibilities and no stretch marks, slicking on some extra lipstick at the end of the day before sauntering into the bar with my friend for a few glasses of wine. We’d talk work. We’d talk hopes. We’d talk dreams. We’d have a giggle.

These debriefing sessions were a highlight of my pre-mammy life. Me and my friend (the A Team one) took such evenings in our stride. Of course there were times when we overdid it a little (and one occasion when we overdid it a lot) but mostly we were dignified because, well, the world was our oyster.

Our nights out were almost routine. There was little organising involved apart from saying “Drink after work?” and waiting for a smiley response. No babysitters had to be booked. No children’s jammies had to be laid out before you left the house. No list of instructions had to be left for either the babysitter or the begrudging husband at home. No guilt had to be felt at using one of your precious nights off to be out with friends rather than on a date night with your parenting partner (aka the husband) in the hope of injecting some romance into a relationship which now mostly involves discussions on who is the most tired and who changed the last poo poo nappy.

Your main concerns about your night out where how much money you had left in the bank and not whether or not your delightful offpsring would wake you up at 4 in the morning to have the craic.

You could handle the hangover at work because you knew when you got home there would be no one making demands on your time or energy and you lie in your pit from Friday evening til the Hollyoaks omnibus was over on Sunday morning if you wished and no one would care.

Those were blissful times. Those were times I took for granted. Now, when the opportunity arises I grab the wine glass with both hands and don’t realise that my 34 year old self definitely has a much lower tolerance for alcohol than the me at 23 or 24. I become like a mad woman on day release - relishing my night of freedom, not caring if I’m one of those older weemin who treats the bar to a chorus of ‘Going to the Chapel’ (and no, I did not sing alone). After the second glass I forget that I’m a responsible wife and mother and I let loose.

It is only in the cold light of day that I realise, fun and all as it is, the price is too high. Maybe the answer is that I get out and about a bit more, so that it doesn’t always seem like such a treat that I act like a two year old in a sweet shop? Maybe the answer is that I accept those days are behind me and hang up my lip gloss forever? Then again, I’d like to think there is life in the old doll yet.

Now on pre-order

It's Got to be Perfect is now available on pre-order from Amazon, Waterstones, WH Smith and other retailers....
58 days til the big release.

Now on pre-order

It's Got to be Perfect is now available on pre-order from Amazon, Waterstones, WH Smith and other retailers....
58 days til the big release.

The inner dialogue of a dieter

The greatest battle a woman will ever face is that when she is having a really sucky day and really, really wants a bar of chocolate but is trying to stick to her diet. My inner dialogue is on full ramble mode - it is very hard to concentrate on anything but the hum of my good and bad self chatting through the pros and cons of whether or not to ram a Mars Bar down my cake hole.
And it goes a little something like this

• You have been good for two whole days. You deserve a treat.
• It will take a lot more than two whole days for me to get where I need to go. If I cave after two whole days I'll never get there.
• But today is Wednesday. It's a long day. And you won't get your tea til really late because of the baby who never sleeps and the whole never sleeping thing.
• That is why you brought a nice healthy and filling lunch with you, which you enjoyed - just a mere 45 minutes ago.
• But I feel sleepy. Surely a wee sugar boost will wake me up?
• Temporarily perhaps, but when you bottom out you will feel even worse again and you will have no points at all left for your tea.
• I don't need tea. (said defiantly)
• You won't be saying that at 8pm. By 8pm you will be hunting the house for scabby wains to eat.
• I can be strong.
• Ha ha ha... says she hoking for the Mars Bar just after lunch.
• But... but.... but
• Look, the chocolate bar won't help. Not really.
• It might a wee bit.
• But will you feel worse after?
• Not right away. (in denial)
• But eventually?
• Maybe.. but maybe I'll go for a walk to make up for it?
• You do know you have to walk approximately 890 miles to burn off a Mars Bar*?
• La La La La, am not listening.

I fell off the wagon

and hit myself hard on the way down.

Dear reader, it has been a tough few months - what with the vertigo, and the meh-ness and a virus type thing which soared through our house and hit everyone but the boy and with various other life stresses.
And I've eaten, quite a lot. And I've put on a few pounds, lost a few pounds, put on a few pounds etc and not progressed on my "weightloss" journey at all. I'm still here, still needing to lose another four stone, still feeling meh and in a vicious circle of eating to make myself feel better and then feeling worse because I've eaten.
I keep trying though, reminding myself that is not a sin to fall but only a sin to lie there. And I've made myself one of those irrational promises which seems like a good idea but maybe isn't. But the fact is, I can't face Weightwatchers at the moment. I know my leader is VERY supportive and lovely and I know she understands what I'm going through but I personally find it very hard to sit at a meeting feeling like a bit of a fraud.
So I'm taking a few weeks off. I've promised myself to do my very best to get below the magic number I was at.. and indeed to my next goal (which personally is 5.5lbs off) and then I'll go back to WW. Promise.

Hush little baby

We put the baby in her cot last night. Yes, I know she is 16.5 months old but from the night she came back from the hospital she has slept in beside me, or us, or her daddy - in the musical beds that our house has become. No one wakes up where they go to sleep and no one ends up waking up beside the person they went to sleep with.
So, we decided, enough was enough and with one near falling out of the bed despite a bed guard incident on Saturday night which put the fear of God in me (it could have been nasty, believe me) she went into her cot last night.
Much was made of “Cara’s bye-byes” and “Cara’s big girl bed”. We let her play in it for a bit and I changed the sheets - washing them nicely and huggled her as she drank her bedtime milk before kissing her and laying her down to sleep.

It took 2 hours for her to go to sleep - mostly she sat up, sang, chatted, barged a little, stood up and lay down until she eventually passed out upside down in her bed.

She slept quite well there - while I felt bereft at the missing baby beside me. After all the wee critter has been beside me for 16.5 months and had been in my tummy for the nine months prior to that. We are not used to not sleeping together.

Joseph woke at 3 and decided he wanted sleepy snuggles with mammy. Hubby was still awake so (cunningly) sneaked into the boy’s bed while the baby, now disturbed, wanted to make the most of using her bed as a newly discovered trampoline.

Joseph slept through it. I didn’t. I tried, thinking no, I wouldn’t give her any attention at all. I broke at 5.30 when the call of morning and getting up for a long day at work was getting too much. She went into the boy’s bed with her daddy. I stayed in our bed with the boy. I slept fitfully until it was time to get up for work and they all slept on while I got ready.

It would be very easy to give up and accept that I have made a rod for my own back and may well take my oil. But I have to start cutting the umbilical cord at some stage.
I guess we will try again tonight.

A playdate convert at last

It’s three weeks into the school holidays and already my house is ringing with those immortal words “I’m bored” at least ten times a day.


It seems, that despite his protestations at the end of term that he really was very ready for his holidays, the boy is missing school and all it entails - most notably the company of other six year old boys with the energy levels possessed only by six year old boys and no one else on the planet.

To try, the best we can, to combat the boredness - and to assuage my working mammy guilt - we have delved into the world of the playdate. This, of course, is a fancy way of saying we invite a couple of his friends round for a few hours and feed them tea and hope they all survive without killing each other.

Being a mildly OCD kind of a person, my first foray into playdates involved a mini-transformation of Chez Allan. The husband looked on in bewilderment as I hauled all babyish toys from the boy’s room and cleaned it until it shone. He tried to assure me that six year old boys care not one jot about dust in a bedroom as long as there were toys to play with. I disagreed.

I also disagreed that the patio didn’t need bleaching or the fence didn’t need treating or that the window boxes could do without filling. If - which was unlikely as it is July - it stayed dry and the boys got to play outside I wanted them to play in a nice environment.

The kitchen was scrubbed, the stairs hoovered, the bathroom practically fumigated and the scented candles lit. The last time I went this overboard in the house was two days before the baby was born. I was not nesting - I can assure you - but I was in panic mode that even a six year old boy may pass judgement on our humble house.

It was, I admit, more than a little irrational (especially when I found myself up at four in the morning pre-preparing the make-your-own-pizza treats for later). But the thing with playdates is, if you don’t do them well, no one will want to come again. And, even more worryingly, no one will ever ask you to their house in return.

For working, and stay at home mammies everywhere, the playdate which happens away from your own home is like the holy grail. It is a time when you know your child will have fun and when you know they will be safe and when you can just lie on the sofa eating chocolate and watching ‘Private Practice’. Those few hours are bliss and the mammy who takes your child becomes some sainted creature whom you want to shower with gifts.

Last week we had a bad day. The baby was sick with a horrible bokey, snottery, teething virusy thing and had taken up residence on my right hip. There was nowhere i could go without finding her beside me. There was nothing I could do without having a wee trail of baby slobber follow me looking at me pityfully through sad blue eyes. She was, as my daddy said “wile lookin’” and her wee face would have brought tears from a stone.

The boy tried to understand, as his sister demanded ‘CBeebies’ all day. (I tried to understand too, if truth be told but there is only so much ‘Zingzillas’ an educated woman can take). He tried to understand when mammy couldn’t read with him, or take him out in the car or do anything remotely fun but by lunchtime his understanding (and my patience) was waining.

It was then my phone peeped to life. One of Joseph’s friend’s mammy was taking some of his friends swimming and she wondered would he like to go. I almost leapt with joy from my seat. It was like manna from Heaven - a gift from the Gods - a chance to entertain my son and also save my sanity rolled into one.

When she arrived, to a house which had not a floor mopped, or a candle lit, or a pizza pre-prepared, and with dustballs on the stairs and the picture of misery attached to my sorry hip I could have hugged her. (I didn’t though, the last thing you want to do with a sainted playdate mammy is get them sick).

She took Joseph, and she kept him til 7pm. Sure I didn’t get to lie on the sofa and eat chocolate and watch Private Practice but I got to devote my attention to my sick little girl and I got to rest assured that Joseph was having a blast with his school friends.

He came back content and buzzing with all the latest six year old gossip (mostly about the World Cup, and dinosaurs, as it happens). I felt revived and while next time it is most definitely my turn, I’ll be more relaxed honest. Seems six year olds really do only need each other and the chance to be wee boys afterall.

It's Got to be Perfect - the Blurb

All Annie Delaney really wants is her happy ever after. A big dress. A big day. A big commitment. She even has a scrap book filled to bursting with ideas for her dream day, her dream home and – of course – her dream man.


Only problem is, the current man on her arm isn’t so much of a dream as a nightmare and as for the man currently in her bed… that’s a whole other disaster in the making.

With her relationship, and her life, heading into a tailspin Annie realises she has to re-examine just what can make her happy, while trying (and failing) not to make things worse.

But it’s never going to be easy – especially when she sees her friend Fionn heading straight towards her own big day with her Mr Right. But then Annie misjudges the difficulties Fionn faces with Mr Right’s very own Little Miss, not to mention the ex waiting in the wings.

Turning to her sister, Darcy, for support Annie has her eyes opened to just what can make you happy – or indeed make you sad. And she ponders that age old question – is there ever such a thing as the perfect relationship?

It has been busy

Well...

• I've had a virus
• The baby has had a virus
• The husband has had a virus
• The copy-edits have begun on It's Got to be Perfect
• The plans for the launch of IGTBP are being formed
• The deadline for book five looms
• I've been doing a wee bit of writing for the web and talking for the radio
• I've also, I apologise, been Sky-plussing and watching a lot of 'Criminal Minds'.
• There has been very little wine drinking - apart from the night Derry won the City of Culture thingy - then there was much drinking and it was awful the next day... but completely self inflicted.
• I've lost about 4lbs.
• My house is a mess despite my ongoing OCD tendencies
• I've two fab book launches to go to in the coming months.

So I'll try to get on here more, honest.

No one has ever looked at me in *that* way

I was cleaning the house today, mooching about, doing the dishes, loading the washer, trying to ignore the feeling of doom in the pit of my stomach and the feeling of dizzines at the top my head.
As I cleaned I switched on the TV for some background noise and Oprah was on. Now usually I'm working at this time on a Monday so I don't get to see Oprah but she was talking to some woman about weightloss. My attention was pricked. The woman - who is Star Jones - (I had no idea who Star Jones was..) had lost a big old pile of weight, it seems.
So I watched and I listened. I didn't get to hear how she lost the weight but she talked about how she felt afterwards. This bit almost made me cry. She explained how one day she was changing in the loo of a airplane after losing weight and came out and a man looked her up and down with approval.
"No one had ever looked at me like that before" she said and in that instant I knew what she meant. Sure my husband loves me and all but when it comes to members of the male sex I'm not a person who grabs attention for the right reasons. No one looks at me in that *that* way and do I know how I would cope if they did?
Nope.
Still, weigh in is tomorrow and hopefully the backward slide will be reversed.

And, a quick google of what Star Jones looked like before and after highlights just why she gets those admiring glances now.

So the chocolate Weetabix arrived

...in advance of its launch tomorrow (12th) in Sainsburys... and I admit we felt special. We have it before everyone else you see and we feel dead posh and important.
But, what does it taste like, or look like? Can chocolate and wheat mix? (In fairness in my head almost everything mixes with chocolate, except maybe fish...) Will the children want to eat it? Will they want it again or will it just the allure of a once off?
You see I have awkward children. They don't like breakfast. They have to be "encouraged" to eat in the mornings and after a long time of being increasingly creative with breakfast foods to get them to eat we figure anything that lasts more than two days in a row is a winner.
So we opened the box. The boy (6) was impressed. He takes after his mammy in her chocolate obsession. I pointed a portion with WeightWatchers and two biscuits are an impressive 2.5pts, so with cold skimmed or semi skimmed milk you are looking at a points value of three for a filling breakfast. That's me sold - esp beside some of the other cereals on the market which three spoonfuls seems to a portion make.
The boy tried it first, and loved it. He finished the bowl in record time. Declaring that 'Mammy, this is 99 plus 1% excellent'. He has eaten it every day since. He opted for it with cold milk and crunchy.
The baby has had it with warm milk and mashed up and she is also a fan, and I don't feel like I'm poisoning her because the nutritional information speaks for itself. It may contain chocolate but is still low fat, low sugar and high fibre. And SHE EATS IT. And my baby NEVER eats anything.
Me? I broke the Weetabix ban and have to admit, with cold milk and crunchy it's lovely and I'm tempted to get some natural yoghurt and try it with that as well.
Did it make for a happy breakfast in the Allan household? It sure did. And we will be buying more.
Chocolate Weetabix is available from Sainsbury's from July 12 and from other supermarkets from the following week.

Well worth a watch... lovely Derry

Proud of the town we love so well

We're all hoping aren't we? I'm holding my fingers tightly crossed and really, really hoping that come next Thursday when the City of Culture is announced the judges will have decided that Derry/Londonderry is the place worthy of the title.
I'll admit something, I was a cynic when this first started. For one, our major theatre doesn't seat very many people and is nigh on impossible to get parked near to. Secondly, it's Derry and traditionally not very many good things wing their way Derry's way.
Now, proud as I am to be a Derry wan - and very proud I am too - I couldn't but feel we were pitching out of our league. Yes, we have Seamus Heaney, and Brian Friel and Cathal Breslin, Nadine Coyle, Jennifer Johnston and a whole other pile of dead famous people among our midst but we don't really have the infrastructure to host the UK's largest arts events for a whole year.
And then there was the embarrassment that was local political parties throwing the rattly out of the pram over a UK banner flying high over Derry/ Londonderry/ Doire. We seemed destined to shoot ourselves in the foot before it even began.
But as the campaign has built momentum, as we have edged nearer to the finish line, something new and exciting has started to creep in. Derry has started to hope. We have started to value ourselves. We have started to stand up and say we are proud to be who we are and we are on a winning streak.
The most emotional week I had recently was undoubtedly that in which in the Saville Inquiry reported back, exonerating all those who were killed or injured on Bloody Sunday and pointing the finger of blame squarely where it deserved to be pointed.
Two days after that report - that most momentous and gloriously sunny day - I went to the Nerve Centre and watched the 'Voices' video - the short film made to support the bid and I was blown away. (Of course the fact that my sister and two gorgeous nieces feature, albeit briefly, in the video had absolutely nothing to do with that, honest guv.)
I've always been been a staunch fan and supporter of Derry. I've set my three bestsellers on the banks of the Foyle and been delighted when people from outside the city have contacted me to say they now see the city in a new light. But when I saw the Voices video, I saw the city in a new light myself and it was a damn nice light.
Gone are the barriers, checkpoints and building sites/ bomb sites of my childhood. Gone are the rusty slides and hard concrete floors of dodgy parks. Gone are the same old people rattling on about the same old past. Gone is the fear and replacing it all is a sense of hope and of pride. And great shops, restaurants, bar, clubs, parks, community groups and even the fountains in the Guildhall Square are a good job.
The pride that Phil Coulter sang of in 'The Town I Love So Well' - in those lines 'There was music there, in the Derry air, like a language that we all could understand' seems to be back. Derry looks and feels like a cool place to live. It feels like the place it always should have been - but which we lost somewhere along the way. It feels like a place steeped in history - a gateway to the North and the South. A place with a young, vibrant community. A place with a remarkably talented and vibrant community who give and give and give and never stop to ask for much in return.
I'm hoping that the judges in the City of Culture bid have seen all this. If I can have my eyes opened to a place I see every day and see it as something special then surely those looking at Derry with fresh eyes will see what we have to offer.
Personally I'll be standing on the sidelines on Thursday, waiting to see what lies ahead - planning a chick lit convention or something equally fabulous - should we get the go ahead.
But I won't beat my chest and shout about the unfairness of it all if it doesn't happen. As far as I'm concerned those behind the City of Culture bid have already achieved what they wanted to and more - they have given the people of this city a sense of place, a sense of pride and a sense of hope.
So, as Thursday approaches and I start to feel even more emotional and melancholy about the place which always has been and always will be home to me, the words of Phil Coulter sound in my ears once again.
"For what's done is done and what's won is won
And what's lost is lost and gone for ever
I can only pray for a bright, brand new day
In the town I loved so well".


Oh, and if you want, you can watch the video here!

First shoes

The baby got her first proper shoes.
She has started to take faltering steps... a few at a time and my heart is both filled with pride but breaking.
I read somewhere once about how buying a baby's first shoes is a difficult time for a mammy. Of course I'm delighted she is progressing, growing, developing and becoming independent. Of course another part of me knows she is one step closer to being completely independent.
She is my last baby... there will be no more... so I want to cherish every tiny little moment as much as possible. The shoes, the smiles, the wee bunches in her hair, the cheeky grin, the penchant for singing Lady Gaga (change the words to Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma baby face and you have a perfectly acceptable song to to sing to your child...) the need to do everything for herself... yesterday.

Oh baby, I love you. Just don't grow too fast.
xxx

But I did make this video...

Me talking to Lynsey Dolan of Dublin's Country Mix FM about Jumping in Puddles

I still can't find the dodgy poetry

... but I am managing okay.
Yesterday I even put make up on - and proper make up, not the "only cover the spots" kind. I even used mascara and it looked nice.
Then I went for a drive, and sang Lady Ga Ga with my baby girl and wrote about 1500 words.
Now all I need to do it switch my brain off - the constant "but" and "what ifs".

Like so many people I suppose I need to learn to be happy in the here and now instead of focusing either on the past or on the possibilities of the future - which are all still just possibilities. My life must move beyond the "I will be happy when I lose weight/ get a UK deal/ move house etc etc" monologue.
I need to be happy now.

Anyone care to share what makes you happy? Maybe I could give it a go. I'm up for almost anything as long as it does not involve fish of any description.

Chocolate weetabix???

I got an email today about Chocolate Weetabix. I'm getting a free box in the post, it says.
I'm very excited.
And a little apprehensive.
You see when we were little we were force fed * regular Weetabix. I loved it, don't get me wrong, for years and years and years. I feed my own children it because, it's damn good stuff and it keeps you regular **
but I've not eaten it myself in aaaaages.
And I want to. It's low in WW points, high in GI and as I said, keeps you regular.

I shall report back shortly on the great Chocolate *** Weetabix**** experiment.

*We weren't actually force fed. Just served it, every day, with warm milk.
** TMI, I know. Sorry.
*** One of my most favourite things in the world ever.
**** How can the two things mix??? I dunno! Time will tell.

So, I know I've been really quiet

But my head has been up my rear - i'm starting to come out of it now, I think. This particular depressive episode took me by surprise. Everything was going tickety boo - book was selling well, kids were fine etc and then bam I woke up under a black cloud which hasn't wanted to shift in, ooooh, about a month now.
But today feels a little different. I've been doing all my usual self help thingies - reading my note from the universe, checking my angel cards, writing a little (not always easy with vertigo, which the doc thinks is stress related) and sleeping around the clock.
Last week I was plagued with nightmares every night - thankfully they seem to have stopped but I'm freewheeling it this week on no medication waiting for the prozac to exit my system before I can start my new tablets.
I'm doing a lot of thinking.
One of the major reasons for me feeling as low as I do is the feeling that I'm not good enough. It's not surprising that a great deal of my books deal with the feeling of being not good enough - I think a lot of people feel that way.
As an exercise to myself the other night I listed my achievements in my head... I know pride is a sin, but if you don't mind I'm going to share a few now.
Later today, I'm going to post some very bad poetry I wrote once about life and the achievements which count which are not academic, or professional or whatever but I need sometimes to remind myself - and perhaps the world - that I'm not "just" anything. I've done a lot for someone of 34. Perhaps the person I need to remind about that most of all is me.
Maybe you could all do the same? You might surprise yourself?

• I drive a car. It took me seven years and four tests, but I did not give up.
• I was the only person in my journalism course to pass the Masters element first time round. I went to graduation on my own (well, with family, of course) and loved it.
• I freelanced for a year writing for local, regional, national and international newspapers.
• I covered everything - courts, councils, breaking stories, front page leads, human interest features.
• I secured a staff job when I was 23 and started with the Derry Journal where I'm still there, still working and, where eight years ago, I became the paper's first female columnist.
• I covered the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday, was first at the scene (reporter wise) of several attempted murders, covered crown court trials, cut my teeth in the magistrate's court, wrote extensively on domestic violence, city centre violence and other issues which plague our city.
• I pitched and ran three consecutive Children of the Year Awards for the Derry Journal - rewarding the best in the young people of the city.
• I have written three bestselling books.
• I wrote my first book in six months, got an agent straight away (first agent I queried) and got a book deal by the end of that year. This is not to make those who didn't get lucky straight away feel bad about themselves,I'm just fed up of always apologising for my success as if I don't deserve it. I do. So there.
• I have been a spokesperson for Aware Defeat Depression.
• I've been on TV - I've even done a life on air broadcast for Sky News as their roving reporter at the scene of a gas explosion. I've appeared on discussion programmes about PND. I've done radio. All of this inspite of chronic self esteem issues!
• I have been a writing mentor.
• I am a good, talented and conscientious person.

Have to go cold turkey on the "wow"

My nephew, who is 22 months old and very cute when he is not giving me the evil eye, has christened chocolate "wow".
I can see his point.
Everytime he sees chocolate he shouts "wow", so the result is we have all started calling it "wow" and really, when you think about it chocolate is pretty wow... all that soft, chocolatey, melty goodness.

The problem is, I have developed a wow addiction in the last few weeks after doing really, really well with the diet and the scales are starting to move in the wrong direction.
This MUST stop. I do not want to undo the work I have done. I do not want to get fatter. I look at myself now and cringe when I think how I must have looked at 22lbs heavier. Yikes. And definitely not "wow".

So the wow is being consigned to the bin for now and I will get back on track. I won't use the excuse that I am feeling meh and have vertigo which would make a donkey boke to allow me to eat what I want when I want it.
I'm pretty sure I could stomach more than wow.

Let's hope.

Mammy, why did they shoot people?

Derry watched this week. We stopped, collectively as a city, and we waited. We held our breath and even though the town was thronged with the world’s media it still felt eerily quiet.


No one wanted to speak - no one dared to guess what would or could or might happen. I had tried to explain it to my son that morning as we drove to school. Radio Foyle was on - the journalist in me unable to ignore that the biggest story of my career so far was unfolding on our door step.

“Why are they talking about something which happened years and years ago?” he asked.

I told him a wrong had been done. That the army had come in and shot innocent people in Derry and that it was important that the truth was told.

“But mammy,” he said, “the army are supposed to be there to protect people if they are in danger. Why did they shoot people instead?”

I guess that question, from the mouth of a child - someone who was born 32 years after the events of Bloody Sunday - says it all.

I admit that me - who is usually never stuck for words - struggled to answer his question.

Indeed it took 38 years, and almost £200million for someone to find an answer to the question we have all been asking. The army were supposed to protect people if they were in danger. Why, indeed, did they shoot people instead?

What the army did on that day in Derry was wrong. We always knew that and now the highest figure in country has publicly admitted it. And then they lied about it, and the British government lied about it and it took the strength of 14 families, and the determination of a city, to make them admit they were wrong and say sorry.

Of course to a six year old’s mind, those who do wrong must say sorry. It’s one of the first and most important lessons we teach our children. He looked at me, the confusion still etched across his face and asked why had they not said sorry before?

He’s too young perhaps to understand the politics of the time. Thankfully my children are being raised in a city far changed from that I was raised in the 70s and 80s. We don’t see soldiers on the streets any more. It is not a common occurance to walk down the street and find that a solider has been tracking you with their gun. There are fewer check points. There are certainly fewer bombscares. The air is not so filled with the buzz of helicopters and a drive to the beach on a sunny day no longer involves a long queue in traffic waiting to pass through an army checkpoint and wondering if you were going to be searched. The news, thankfully, is not filled with the same local atrocities as it once was.

I’m grateful for his innocence. I’m certainly very grateful for the life my children live where things are as normal as they can be. I am grateful that they are not in the stranglehold of sectarianism but yet when he asks such questions I do him no favours to brush them aside.

What this city went through - as painful as it was and is - must always be remembered. Those who marched for civil rights on Bloody Sunday - both those who did and didn’t come home that day - must never be forgotten.

The determination of the families of the dead, and of the injured, must be explained to all who can listen. Yes, our children deserve to have their innocence protected but they also need to hear the truth about our past - just as the whole world did on Tuesday.

It would be easier to change the subject and talk about something less painful - but ignoring the truth does not make it go away. Thankfully we have all learned that lesson.

Of course questions will be asked about whether the cost of the inquiry was justified. Questions will be asked as to why it took 12 years from inception to the production of the report. Questions will be asked as to why it took 38 years for the world to acknowledge the truth that the people of Derry knew from the moment the first casualty fell.

In basic terms yes, it should have been unnecessary - because as my six year old would tell you those who did wrong should have just said sorry straight away.

But given that they didn’t - and given that they concocted lie upon lie to justify their own murderous actions - it was of course the very least the people of this city deserved.

To paraphrase the words of Lord Saville himself, the killings were unjustified and unjustifiable. Therefore the inquiry - whatever the cost - was both justified and justifiable. Even my six year old agrees.

Random conversations with the boy - the joy of music

Joseph has decided he wants to be in a rock band when he is older. He knows already that it will be called "Rock Bros"  (that's Bros pronounced BROOOOOS, not Bros as in Matt and Luke Goss, he is very particular about that...)

As part of their repetoire he tells me they will sing 'Dream On' by Aerosmith (which he likes listening to on the Glee soundtrack).

"When Aerosmith die, mammy, I will sing that at their funeral and then I'll become the new Aerosmith."

He isn't content with being a cover artist though - he has some original ideas.
J: "I'm already writing songs, mammy. Our first one will be about knowledge."
Me: "And how will that go?"
J (singing) : "Hamsters live in a cage, but they die very soon. Fish swim in the water and they need the water to live."

The boy is going to be a star!

What the day will hold

I sit in the relative quietness of the Derry Journal newsroom.
In a short time this will turn into one of the busiest days in our history.
This afternoon the Saville Report into the events of Bloody Sunday will be published. As a much younger reporter I covered the hearings as they took place in Derry's Guildhall.
I know how important what happens today will be to the people of Derry - mostly of course to the families of those who died on that horrible, devastating day.
This morning I walked with the families as they made their way to the Guildhall and the sense of grief really did seem raw and palpable.

I only hope that the truth will out.

Letting go

I went for the angel reading yesterday - I'm still mulling it over. Some of it was completely off the wall - some seemed to relate to the relations who had accompanied me and were sauntering about upstairs in the shop.
A lot was spot on, I suppose. Yes, my confidence has taken a battering over the years and I'm certainly not the assertive young woman I once was when I thought the world was at my feet (Yes, I know it still is, but life has a habit of getting in the way...) She pinpointed events (oh how I remember how absolutely dying in love I was with a tall dark haired man only for him to take a fancy to one of my friends.... And how on another occasion I sat one day and just stared into space for hours unable to move, crippled with depression, but how an angel was by my side the whole time...)
She pinpointed that I was crippled with anxiety and that particularly lately things had been tough.
She told me it would be okay.
But she also told me I needed to put more of me into my writing. I'm trying to mull that over. I think I do put a lot of me in my books, and in my columns. Some times I feel as if I lay myself out on line too much and that is why, at times, I feel completely raw as if I have no secrets.
But then again there is so much of me that is just me - that I put on a show, plaster on a smile and become "author Claire" as opposed to boring mammy/ wife Claire who just gets on with things and has some Very Dark Thoughts from time to time.
I 'm just not sure which one of those ladies is real me though. Is it the bubbly, confident one who can make people smile or is it the boring, moping, dour one who makes people switch off. I'm a little bit afraid of both.
But I do remember that day, aged about 19 when I got all glammed up for a night out with friends (including the big crush). He looked at me, genuinely really shocked at how well I scrubbed up and he flirted mercilessly all night. He even stayed over (he slept in the living room, you dirt birds). He made a move and I backed off - always a little scared. That same week he told our mutual friend he was mad about her and "Claire was okay... but he really liked her".
And thus sealed my belief that I always was the consolation prize.
The angel lady gave me some techniques for dealing with negative feelings and they are helping, but having brought things I'd thought I'd long forgotten back to my consciousness, I now have to work through them. I have to make myself believe that I am more than "just ok".

Today I have mostly been listening to this...

And breathe...

...The meh-ness continues. I can block it out if I keep busy - like very, very, very busy - but if I sit down for anything more than three minutes the panic kicks in.
This is not helped by the boy being uber whingey and the baby being uber clingy. Admittedly they are probably picking up on my mood so now I have the meh-ness AND the guilt that I am mentally damaging my children.

I do, however, feel over the moon that Jumping in Puddles has hit the top ten. There is a nice voice that is running through my head saying "three times bestselling author Claire Allan" over and over which is comforting. It is certainly less annoying than the voice which is trying to shout over it going "crappity crappity crap crap" over and over.

I've booked to have my angel cards read on Sunday.  I am hoping that lifts me from my funk.

Any other ideas?

I ONLY BLOODY DID IT!

NUMBER EIGHT!!!!

Thank you to everyone who bought the book, read the book, tweeted about the book or put it at the front of the queue in Eason.
LOVE YA!!

Me on the radio

"

WikiUpload Free File Hosting

"

The vice like grip

For the past week I have been gripped by anxiety. Yes, I have had good times in that week but then when I least expect it a knot of tension will rise inside me and I will get the familiar urge to crawl into a dark space and just be for a bit.
It has been building for a while but last Thursday as I drove to Dublin for the book tour I felt it overwhelm me. I pulled over, felt my chest tighten and my head swim, and texted my husband and mammy to say that I just wanted to turn the car around and drive home. I had a feeling Very Bad Things were going to happen. I couldn't quantify the Very Bad Things - it was just that feeling and in that instance I didn't want to talk to anyone, drive anywhere or put on my happy smiley author face and run the gamut (is that spelled right?) of interviews and booksignings - all of which can be lovely but which can also make you feel like you are walking into your work stark naked and hoping no-one notices you.
My mammy - she who is wonderful - and my hubby - he who increasingly patient - both encouraged me to carry on with my journey. Yes, I was to take a little pit stop, breathe a little and then set off again and take it an hour at a time, an interview at a time and a bookshop at a time.
The feeling that Very Bad Things were going to happen didn't leave. In fact I was perhaps more paranoid than usual climbing into taxis and Darts and walking the mean streets of Dublin* that someone would rob me, or I would get lost or the few measly Euro secreted in my bag would not be enough to pay for ANYTHING (I have a pathological fear of the Euro... I have no understanding at all of its value. I just hand coins and notes to people and pray they don't laugh. In that respect I am an easy target for swizzers).
The interviews went well - helped by the fact that the interviewers were lovely - even the one who said "How come such a well educated person as you is writing chick lit?" in a tone which sounded a lot like "You kill puppies? For fun? How could you?"
Turns out he was just after a bit of banter. The banter was great also when I met the lovely people from Poolbeg for dinner (and perhaps too many drinks). I left feeling my ego had been pampered but also with a sobering (literally) picture of what the book market is like just now.
The booksellers were, as always, lovely. Like REALLY lovely but for the first time seeing my wee book there among the jillions of other new titles I felt sorry for it. I wanted to tell it never to worry, it will be okay and all it can do is it's best and sure that's good enough.... isn't it?
I drove home to Derry, mission accomplished, still with that Very Bad Feeling and it hasn't gone away, you know.
In the last three nights I have had every anxiety dream in the book - teeth falling out, remembering I've not cancelled the lease on my old student digs and owe 13 years rent, having to sit my A Levels again, being back in my old student house starting my degree again and wondering how I'll pay the mortgage, fighting with people yadda yadda yadda.
I look, and feel, zombified. I'm told the dreams are my internal fears about how I'm seen externally and I suppose that is true. The control freak in me does not like the lack of control which comes with books being out there and, well, generally with me a nutcase. I've been dosing the Prozac into me like a good 'un. Admittedly I've not been the best when it comes to taking it recently and that must have made an impact on my mood. I'm trying to get out and about more. I'm trying to assure myself that the Very Bad Things which might happen will not be insurmountable and in the grand scheme of things a book flopping is nothing as long as I have my kids and my health and - most importantly - their health.
Still, my head hurts and the desire to curl into a foetal position and wish away the days has not left and I feel as if I'm teetering on the edge of something. It could either be good or Very Bad Indeed but for now I'm just sitting here, arms outstretched, trying to keep my balance and hoping that very soon someone shows up with a safety net.


*I do not think all Dublin folk are robbers and murderers. I'm just a yokel from the North who is scared of all big cities. Even Belfast, which is quite wee really.On really bad days even Dungiven gives me the shakes.

Tales from the book promo tour, part two

How authors trash rooms.... not as cool as rock stars but here's my crap.. half an hour into my stay at the Hilton

Tales from the book promo trail part 1.

See that? Me and my friend Patricia Cornwell all book of the weeky together in Tesco! See, I'm not making this up - not even one wee bit!