Judging a book by its cover

I crawl out of my foxhole like a soldier in a very battered tin hat, accessoried with khaki netting, my bayonet still raised to ward off any stray pink hearts which could still be circling, ready to attack. I feel my military metaphors are hopelessly tangled, but you get the idea. Thank God Valentine's Day is over for another year. Things were so easy once upon a time. I just smiled prettily, and I got shedloads of chocs and hothouses of flowers. These days, with True Love, the donkey getting lost on the way to Mantua with Juliet's letter explaining the whole potion/crypt thing to Romeo looks like an efficient and speedy means of communication, with a possibly less fraught conclusion to boot.

Never mind. My children are at school for a reason - to distract me from my life. Half term is so over. The alarm clock shrills and we are plunged back into 'who stole my tights?' and 'you know I've always hated Cheerios!'. Ah, sweet music.

No sooner do I scramble back on to the school run, however, than more pink hearts appear on the horizon. This time, they are being sent by my adorable publisher, Ullstein, and are - gasp! - on the cover of my soon-to-be published novel, Hot Chocolate or, I should now say, Schokoherz, which all German-speakers will know sounds much better in German.

I do love all the warm, rich red tones, which go beautifully with my character, Bella, who is as toasty as a ....well, toastie, actually. She is, of course, the me I wish I was - constantly funny, kind and magnetic, whereas I, though I try to be a good girl, have unfortunate tendencies towards rattiness, depression, fecklessness ...feel free to fill the rest in when you have a moment.

The whole book issue, though, brings me to a difficult matter. My name. I'm afraid I won't be able to resist more mentions of the book, when it comes out, though revealing the whole, entire cover (the version here is doctored) will, inevitably, blow my own cover. The Dulwich Divorcee will be wandering through the village wearing only her skimpiest negligee. Just be grateful that I'm sparing you total nudity.

I've always thought of dear DD as a fictional creation, a warm-up for writing Novel Number 2 (going v slowly) and Not Me at all. But perhaps she is just a mask, or a negligee, which I cower behind while taking a pop at poor dear True Love when he is already down.

Whatever, I shall have to resolve this, and soon. It is, after all, nearly spring - could be time to prune!

Have a heart

It's Valentine's Day. Sniff. The children are with Mr X. The only post was from the Inland Revenue, demanding £793.

But am I downcast?

Well, der, as Child One and Two would say in unison, if only they were here. My cast is definitely down. However much one steels oneself, that naughty little worm, hope, will keep on wriggling. And, in fact, I will be seeing my True Love later. But sometimes we both seem to be lugging so much baggage around that we each need a separate carousel.

Luckily, there are important cybermatters to attend to which will distract me from the sight of the rest of the world, and especially Dulwich, wallowing in red velvet-swaddled deliciousness, the lucky, lucky beasts.

Right, now, before I get distracted and go off on another rant, what was it that Potty Mummy asked me to do? Ah yes, 'Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures. Pick the 4th picture in that folder. Explain the picture. Tag 4 people to do the same.'

Off I go, weaving in and out of the good, the bad and the ugly stacking up in my computer. Though I am fairly hopeless at remembering to capture those golden moments, somehow the PC's innards are silting up with blurry, out of focus images culled from my mobile and stored here, for what purpose I cannot say. I come to the fourth of the fourth - and it's one I can't show you. Like the lovely Potty herself, I shy away from using real pictures of my children in my blog. I change names, I change events, I can be economical, not to say parsimonious, with the truth. And yes, I know you'll be shocked, but I feel we know each other well enough now for me to admit it, my first name is not Dulwich.

Nevertheless, I am perfectly happy to blather on a bit about the picture, even if I'm not going to whip it out of my cyberskirts with a great voila. It's a (blurry, out of focus) shot of my darling Child Two, at her - gulp - 9th birthday party, just after we had hit these shores. The party was held at the Build A Bear Workshop, in sunny Bromley, with Child Two's newly acquired schoolchums. Build A Bear, in case you have had the good luck not to be exposed to it, is a joint where you can choose, then stuff, your own bear. You even choose a little satin heart, make a wish, and put it inside the bear. Then you dress it up in mini clothes, including firemen's outfits and tinkerbell costumes. The whole place is so camp, I'm always surprised that the entire line-up of the Village People doesn't burst out of the shop performing YMCA every time we pass. It is also completely shocking that you can buy skateboards and sunglasses for your bear - so very Marie-Antoinette before the tumbrils that, if I were the company, in these crunchy times, I would start building my own barricades.

Still, there we are, and she looks very happy in the photo, clutching the bear which she named Blossom, and apparently at ease with the other girls. But, looking back, I realise how difficult it must have been for her. She hardly knew these girls, whereas she had grown up with the friends left behind Abroad.

I've put everyone through so much. I hope they'll forgive me.

Meanwhile, I have to pass on the tag - I'm nominating the lovely Rosiero, Rural Villager, Part Mummy Part Me and Nunhead Ramblings.

The cat's whiskers

As you know, after listening to my sister-in-law's CDs of the Secret, I have been keenly awaiting the arrival of a Louis Vuitton handbag as, to summarise the Secret (and save you from listening to 4 CDs), if you expect something hard enough, it will turn up. Well, nothing to report on the handbag front - yet - but I am now the proud owner of a Dyson Motorhead vacuum cleaner.

This did not exactly drop onto my doormat via the stars, but came from a lovely Dyson PR lady, who invited a group of Mummy Bloggers along to test out her wares and be converted to the wonderful world of bagless suction. Yes, I am at last part of a global phenomenon. It is not the Secret, but instead is embedded advertising. You may already have caught on to this sort of stuff via the current TMobile ad, where everybody gets up and dances, apparently spontaneously, at Liverpool Street station in London. This was first sent round like a virus, from person to person in an email, then appeared on YouTube, and is now coming at you from all sides, while doing an extremely groovy boogey-woogey, admittedly.

Well, I can't promise to boogey much with my Motorhead as it is, as the PR lady warned me, rather heavy. And she did say there was absolutely no need to write about it. But she did also say it is the best for getting out every bit of filth and, as you know, I am nothing if not obsessive about my cleaning. Moi, not write about a new appliance? No, it's just too irresistible and, I'm afraid, too revolting to pass up.

The truth is that I nearly passed out after vacuuming only the sitting room and filling the clear drum up to its max capacity in moments. Given that I am sad enough to enjoy nothing better than a quick whisk round with the hoover on a distressingly regular basis, I really wasn't expecting to pick up much, but soon found a heady mixture of Mme Bovary's whiskers, Jumbo's fluffy tail, and miscellaneous bits of teenage yuck which I couldn't bear to scrutinise too closely, all swirling around the clear plastic innards. Here comes my only criticism so far of the lovely Dyson - when emptying out the cylinder, the compacted dust was most reluctant to leave its glamorous new home, and I had to insert a finger and poke around a bit, with my eyes closed of course, but still, euwww! But maybe because that's because there was just so much in it, euwww again!

Anyway, it was lovely to meet my fellow bloggers, and I am thoroughly enjoying my brush with embedded advertising - and now seriously considering getting the little hand-held Dyson, which looks like the kind of space-age gun that Lara Croft would prance around with in Tomb Raider. Though I shall probably spare the Treasures the sight of their mother dressed in shorts and singlet.

Snow joke

Oh, the bliss! The Treasures' ludicrously expensive schools are shut, shuddering at the thought of a single snowflake sullying their immaculate tarmac, and we have spent two days at Brockwell Park, whooshing down slopes on my least favourite tray from Peter Jones, emblazoned with an unpleasantly photographic rendition of a passion fruit.

There was some muttering from the darlings, I do admit, as they are used to their top of the range Swiss sleigh, which has every possible embellishment a girl could want, short of a team of matching Lipizzaner ponies to pull you along (I was working on that when everything went belly-up Abroad). But, as I pointed out, someone just along from us was using a blue Ikea bag and there were a couple of boys making do perfectly well with corrugated cardboard, accessorised only with merry smiles.

Best of all, while I was working on developing a lushly apple-cheeked glow in the great outdoors, True Love was snowed in at home, unable to get to his office in an achingly trendy part of town and forced to bunker down in Divorce Towers with only his laptop and Jumbo the bunny for company.

Natually, the moment we were back, he managed to get the front door open, (my strategic piles of snow were no match for his manly muscles, sigh) and he was off, saying he was going to do the panic buying at Sainsbury's Local. I thought that would be the last we saw of him for some time, but he made his way courageously home through the wild, snow-blasted terrain of Herne Hill with not one, but four different types of humous and a brace of avocados.

Hmm. Humous was on the list, and I was mindful that, as ever, I was not only looking a gift Lipizzaner in the mouth but kicking it in the shins for good measure by even mentioning staples like milk, bread and butter. 'Humous?' I said weakly.

He shrugged. 'They'd run out of doughnuts,' he explained.

The Twilight Zone

De-de de de De-de de de De-de de de ....

Yes, I fear it is true. Divorce Towers has entered the Twilight Zone.

It all started when my lovely sister-in-law gave my eldest treasure a stack of books by some American person called Stephenie Meyer. Apart from a passing wonderment that the author spelt her first name in such an unusual way, I felt nothing but gratitude. Reading is one of the few things that absorb Child One enough to dam the tidal wave of hormones which otherwise rage around the house. It's not just her, I hasten to add - her younger sister and I are just as likely to take offence at the way a cup is put down on the table or burst into tears while watching Andrex ads. Is this what happens when women live together? If so, how do nuns stand it? Mme Bovary, the cat, has been spending a lot of time with her paws over her ears, when she is not escaping next door to take refuge with her boyfriend, Archie the tabby, while poor old Jumbo the rabbit, feeling outnumbered, has taken to hiding behind a copy of the FT in his hutch, twitching slightly while waiting for it all to blow over.

So, when Child One stomped off to her room with the books and slammed the door, all I felt was relief, once I'd hoovered up the fallen plaster and shards of doorframe. Several weeks later, I realised I hadn't seen the dear treasure in a bit, apart from brief appearances at feeding time. I was just starting to worry - nearly - when the child appeared, ashen of face and bird's nesty of hair. This, from a child who had just discovered grooming in a big way, and had recently taken to manicuring her manicure while waiting for her manicure to dry.

'Darling, are you all right?' I asked, feeling her forehead. It was cold and clammy. There were violet circles under her eyes. Something was clearly very, very wrong. Damn this teenage vampire saga, I thought, giving my precious one nightmares. 'Have you been up all night, darling?' I said, thinking how fiendishly cunning it was of Ms Meyer to have reinvented Mr Darcy for today's teenagers. Who could be more emotionally inaccessible, more aloof, more impossibly unobtainable than her vampire hero? And what could be more irresistible than such a challenge?

'Yes, I couldn't sleep all night long ...' said Child One, in the weariest tones imaginable.

'Don't worry, darling, you know, it's all a story ...it isn't real ..' I said, wringing my hands.

'Oh don't be silly, Mummy, I wasn't talking about the book. I spent all night worrying about the film ....you know, it's really, really, scary ...'

'What is, my lamb?' I said, as I pondered which of my many lawyers to use to sue the filmakers for scarring my child for life.

'Well, I just can't choose who's the better looking, Edward Cullern or Jacob Black,' she said.

Sigh.

Alpha Mummy

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The Emperor's new clothes

One of the joys of living in London is the close proximity of all that delicious culture. Naturally, I make absolutely no use of it unless I have to, when guests appear. Then I thumb feverishly through the review sections to get a crash course on what the latest must-see is, how on earth you get to that bit of the city and, most importantly, what I ought to be thinking about it when I get there.

Of course, it is also my sacred duty as a Mummy to expose my treasures to as many good influences as possible. Having signally failed in my private life (My dearest darling True Love! Sniff!), I Must Try Harder to nurture my darlings' tiny brains and fill them brim-full with a cornucopia of, er, learning, or something. Thus I have dragged my children around countless cathedrals, museums and galleries in a wide variety of European cities, effortlessly putting them off, in no particular order, great art, religion and music. Oh, and walking too. They really, really hate that.

No-one can say I am not persistent, though, so when one of my far-flung relatives came over last week, bringing with her a delightful selection of cousins, neices, nephews and aunts, there was only one thing for it. An exhibition.

Tate Modern was the obvious place. So big! So, er, modern! So concretey! So handily on the 68 bus route from Herne Hill!

Except that it isn't really that near a 68 bus stop, and after a 20 minute walk to meet the relatives, my little treasures were fit to be tied already, and that was before we'd even got in to the Rothko exhibition, the Tate's current big show.

I have to admit I've never seen the point of Rothko. It is maddening when people say of Jackson Pollock, for instance, 'that's not art, a child of two could do it!', and I tend to brush off my best sneer and dismiss them instantly as philistines. When it's Rothko they're talking about, I put my head on one side, muse for a nanosecond, and think, 'actually, they have a point. And never mind the treasures. My cat could do that.' Not that Mme Bovary would ever deign get paint on her fur, you understand.

Anyway, there we were, a bunch of teens and pre-teens, me and my darling relative, and deep, dark, gloomy old Rothko. 'A lot of people find him very, very moving,' I said, hoping to inspire some sort of interest in the children. 'Let's all go in and see if we can feel the emotion!' Many pairs of cool, near-teenage eyes flicked fractionally upwards to signal a lame adult alert, but I pressed on regardless and we strolled in to a room full of large, looming, red and black canvases. The children made to stroll straight out again, but they were forcibly encouraged to come back and have another go at emoting. No luck. We hurried onwards, tried the slightly smaller, slightly more colourful canvases, then the big purply ones, the half-black, half-white ones (I'm sure Mme Bovary would have got the demarcations clearer) and, finally, the large battleship grey ones. Here, we collapsed onto the bench. Just as I plunged into a despair almost as impenetrable as Rothko's own, as all the children failed to evince a single, solitary flicker of feeling, my adorable niece piped up. 'I like that one over there. It's neat!'

I perked up instantly. 'Where? Where??' I shrilled, looking down the long line of steely, cold canvases. I couldn't quite believe she had found something to love here, but I was certainly willing to make all the other children stand in front of it and try and catch a bit of feeling, too.

'That one, way down there, right at the end of the gallery,' she said, gesturing to a grey rectangle a bit longer and wider than the rest.

I looked a bit closer, full of hope and excitement. Then my shoulders sagged. She was pointing to the exit.

But she was quite right, we did all feel an exciting rush of emotion as we rushed through the grey door and straight into the gift shop. It was relief.