It’s been a full on couple of weeks. To take you back – we last spoke after a rather nice Friday night at Sadler’s that The Mother and I enjoyed…

The next two days were a whirl of chores. A full on Spring Clean from top to bottom. There was laundry, bed linen changing, ironing, bathroom and kitchen scrubbing. Oh what joy!

My dear friend Nat sadly lost her dad after a long illness, so Friday afternoon I joined her at the wake. She was obviously devastated, but stayed strong for the rest of her family, and managed to look stunningly beautiful as well.

Friday night I joined my friend Lorrie and her fiancé to celebrate his 40th birthday….

Saturday we held a family picnic at the local park – I spent the morning baking a wealth of savoury and sweet lovelies, and even managed to cut up a fruit salad!

Sunday My Husband and I took The Niece off to Legoland for the day. Exhausting but fun, although without the 2 for 1 Adult ticket it would have been a shockingly expensive day….

Monday I received the painful news that my ex-boyfriend of some 15 years had passed away. We hadn’t spoken for nearly two years, and hadn’t been a part of one another’s lives for a long long time, but none the less the news knocked the stuffing out of me. I went to the church service on Friday morning, and am still reeling to be honest. It was heartbreaking, and whilst our relationship ended very badly, I will miss the memory of him dearly.

Friday evening, The Mother and I took ourselves off to the Coliseum to see the long awaiting Carlos Acosta & Guest Artists. I had been looking forward to seeing him, and his show for about 18 months – but wasn’t really in the right place to enjoy it. Carlos was breathtaking, but certainly not the highlight of the show for me.

Saturday saw us at Asda, and then home again for some chores and an afternoon nap. We watched The Secret Life of Bees and curled up on the sofa…

Then yesterday we went for a 20 mile bike ride, I had another nap on the sofa in the afternoon – and here we are, Monday morning again…

Friday night The Mother and I took ourselves off to Sadler’s for a touch of Dorian Gray. Cripes, what a feast for the eyes and the loins. Sexy, scary, exquisite. Matthew Bourne and his New Adventures Company sure do know how to put on a show, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Continuing in the thriller mode, I finished Still Life over the weekend – a new book from New Work coming in paperback later on this year. Not quite as scary and horrific as The Crucifix Killer, but equally as tense and gripping - it tells the tale of beautiful, successful and happily married Casey who is the victim of a hit and run accident which breaks nearly every bone in her body and plunges her deep into a coma. She is left unable to speak or move, but hears perfectly well…and learns that the accident may not be as it first appears…cracking and well worth a read.

So, 40 years ago we managed to get some American dudes to walk on the moon (allegedly). We can split atoms into tiny bits of fluff. We can expand technological wizardry to the extent that even my Mum now knows how to text. And yet... bus drivers apparently need a fucking electrician to turn off the fucking heating on the fucking buses when its 32 degrees outside and about 132 degrees inside, cause they haven’t been on a 12 weeks course to learn how to master the fucking OFF button yet. And... Even when we finally get air conditioning on the tube in 2010 the trains are too big and the tunnels to narrow and too deep on the Central line that it will still be like a fucking sauna down there… and I will still want to cry and cry and cry cause the journey is so fucking unbearable.

We can get microchips tiny enough to fit in pen nibs to take photos. We can get microchips tiny enough to store millions of megapixies of information on something the size of a postage stamp. But we can't work out how to put a fucking fan on the fucking ceiling of a fucking train – or, shock horror, have fucking windows that open!

I literally want to stab someone in the eye with a plastic fork. Anyone. I know! I’ll start with Bob Fucking Crow. Why? Cause he’s a cunt.

If I used all my various digits and appendages, I could probably name all the books I’ve ever read (as an adult) that were outside of my chosen genre…and perhaps still have enough fingers to lick some raw chocolate cookie mixture off… (I digress).

I’ve dabbled in a bit of crime, a bit of award winning contemporary fiction… I’ve even (heaven help me) tried a touch of SciFi and Fantasy. But, if I was EVER to swap allegiance from all things pink and sparkly, it would be to the disturbing and troubling world of the Thriller.

This morning, on my extended journey to work (does anyone know what the fuck was going on with the Uxbridge Road today?) I finished one of New Works new books The Crucifix Killer - a thriller if ever I’ve seen one.

The book I finished on Sunday night before I started on Crucifix was the last one from Matt Dunn Ex-Girlfriends United which was fine. Fine and dandy. Fun, fine and dandy. Not spectacular, not ground breaking – but a good laugh, and a great Summer Read.

So Crucifix has been a right old shock to the system. Gruesome. Chilling. Tense. Tightly packed. Gripping. ..a Thriller in every sense.


If you wanted to get your hands on my proof copy, drop me a random comment below.