I rather like that quote. Very much appropriate on the night before the children go back to school after the holidays and the place is littered with mismatched socks, the wrong coats, and solitary trainers for PE.

The thing about spring is it’s just so tasty.

Admit it. You’ve looked at fresh spring grass and thought you’d like to take a bite, haven’t you?

You haven’t, have you. It’s just me. Oh dear. Anyway, never mind.

I’m sitting in my my mum’s garden. It’s sort-of-almost-warm-enough to sit here on the swing. I’m believing it’s summer when the sun rays warm my legs through my jeans.

I took lots of photos today (iPhone still – being devoid of a camera when it’s your primary way of seeing the world is horrible, incidentally). They’re the way I see spring. Actually, they’re the way I see everything. Patterns of colour and texture. Tiny flowers peeking out of fresh grass. Green and green and green. I love spring best.

(I think I say that about every season.)

Thank you so much for all the lovely comments recently. I’ve been a bit rubbish at replying for which I apologise. I’m resolving to be a bit better at blogging more often.

I’ve been wondering how to fit the new life we’re making in with this blog which carried so much of my old life with it. But I realised it doesn’t really matter as long as I’m happy writing and taking photos of things that make me happy. So that’s what I’m going to get back to.

Meanwhile my toes are so cold they’re falling off and I’ve promised to take my boys to the skatepark (again). So I’m off to convince myself it’s almost summer in another part of town. Brrr.

Therapeutic baking. The other day I stood in the little front garden of this new house and pulled out the weeds that were choking the crocuses and dwarf narcissi. The smell of fresh earth hit me and I remembered how good gardening is for the soul. Today I listened to Radio 4 and baked and it was good.

Cupcakes ready to go.

Blueberry muffins (recipe below, they’re really easy and a million times nicer than the horrible oily ones you get in shops).

Not sure how long this lot will last. But they look pretty with their lilac and pale pistachio coloured icing. Someone seems to have eaten all the sprinkly things from my baking cupboard, though. Several someones, I suspect.

Photos above all taken with iPhone because my camera is dead. A new one is stupendously expensive. It might be fixable, but it looks like the cost of fixing it might be more than my battered old Canon is worth. Sob.

Blueberry Muffins

Preheat oven to 190c, 375F or Gas 5.

You need 300g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp bicarb of soda
a pinch of salt
2 beaten eggs
175g light brown sugar
250ml natural yogurt (or buttermilk would work, and milk at a push but reduce the quantity a bit)
125ml melted butter
1tsp vanilla extract
175g blueberries

Put the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a biggish bowl
Mix the melted butter, eggs, yogurt, sugar and vanilla in another bowl
Mix the two together, adding the blueberries, and just fold it together a bit (lumpy and bits of flour is fine, undermixing is worse than overmixing these)
Divide them into 12 muffin cups and bake for about 12 minutes.

I can’t remember where I originally found this recipe but I’ve been using it for so long I know the quantities off by heart. You can also do banana (a couple of over-ripe bananas mashed) or chocolate chip (big handful and a mouthful for the cook) or (yum) raspberry and white chocolate chips.

In spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Being a gardening blogger (albeit one with a blogging habit a little like my gardening habit, ie leave everything in autumn, forget about it, then return when the sun shines with renewed enthusiasm) my fancy turns to thoughts of flowers and bees and ooh, gorgeous sunshiny days and the smell of earth and mud under the fingernails.

My friend Melanie (she writes a rather wonderful just-reached-a-million-hits blog as well as being author of several books and one of my favourite people) is venturing into the world of gardening for the first time. So rather than email her, I thought I’d share my thoughts here and you can all have a look. So here you are, M. Just for starters:

First of all, Clematis: Dr Ruppel (I love the blousy, seasidey stripey flowers) and the elegant Niobe which would both grow beautifully in containers or in the ground, depending on how portable you want your garden to be. Clematis are really easy to grow, and give a new garden height and satisfying splodges of colour which make you feel like a proper gardening sort.

Pretty Aquilegia Black Barlow which will self seed year after year and fill your garden with beautiful flowers (which won’t come back true, because aquilegias are contrary beasts). and I think you’ll love Eryngium Alpinum Blue Star.

Depending on your slug situation (I bet you’ve never thought about your slug situation before, have you? Welcome to gardening) hostas are utterly beautiful and also likely to make you feel murderous. Cracked eggshells and copper tape round the pot and incantations by moonlight and coffee grounds and oh, there are a million other things that will help stop slugs having a midnight feast. Well actually they won’t at all, but it’ll make you feel good. Either that or don’t grow hostas. Some people seem to be able to grow huge hulking ones. I bet they use evil blue pellets of doom, though. They’re meaniecats, as child no4 would say. So this Fragrant Blue is a good one to try. And the Prunella Grandiflora Rubra is lovely, too. No idea how it grows, but I think you’ll like it.

Roses. You have to grow lots and lots of roses to fill your garden with scent and bees and beauty. This Black Baccara is utterly gorgeous and will smell heavenly. And after years of loathing them I’ve grown fond of Dahlias but they’re another slug magnet, so if you buy them as tubers rather than established plants (which is cheaper) you’ll need to keep an eye out or they’ll be there one day and completely gone the next.

Look at that. It’s an email to a friend that’s masquerading as a blog post. But hey, it’s a blog post.

New year, new life, new house, new attitude.

I’m going to finish my book. I’ve spent since July thinking about it, and it’s time to get the rewrites done and start resubmitting it to the agents who said almost, but not quite, and to the publisher who said yes please, we’d like to read more.

There’s something about writing, the act of sitting down with this laptop and letting words fall out of my fingers, which makes me feel whole. I need to let it out. I have words and words and words all jumbled up in my head and they are desperate to escape. So much of last year was taken up with dealing with life and I didn’t have time to lose myself in words. I need them.

A few days by the seaside always help to clear my head. We saw in the new year in Formby, in a beautiful cottage where the children could rampage around the garden and roll down giant sand dunes, and I had much needed grown up time talking and relaxing and being me. No proper photographs, though, because I managed to forget my camera battery. I won’t make that mistake in a few weeks when I go to France, I promise.

We’re in the new house. And look, everyone is happy. Hooray. Here’s to 2012 and all it brings. Have a lovely Christmas.

There isn’t an easy way to say hey guess what we’re getting divorced and my ex has moved to Canada and I’m here with four children and a dog and a cat and a tank full of blooming tropical fish I don’t know how to look after, is there?

But there you go. Most of you know it, anyway, and if you didn’t, well, there you are. And yes, it’s horrible and hard work and scary and I’m excited at the same time. Life is starting again, and I like it.

But I was cleaning the kitchen today whilst doing eleven billion other things and dealing with my broken children, when I thought about this blog. It’s a pretty good metaphor for the way I am right now. It’s sitting here, all shiny and beautiful and nothing’s-changed-ish, and I don’t know what to do with it. And we move to our new house in Buckingham in less than two weeks, and I’m sitting in my house and it’s all shiny and beautiful and nothing’s-changed-ish. Because I’m a bit scared. Because when I start packing (or writing) it’s real. Properly real. And I don’t know how to fit a washing machine. Or put the bunk beds together. Or the children. I don’t know how to put them back together.

And I’m actually terribly untidy, and since July when I started living alone with the children I’ve been fighting against a sea of bits of paper and lego people and squeezy yogurt wrappers which sneak under the cushions and wine glasses and oh, help. And I don’t know how to fix the broken dishwasher, either. And there’s a million tons of paperwork and we forgot to put the bin out and my favourite chicken died the day my ex left for Canada and it’s really scary being a grown up. And this isn’t flowers and pretty and village life. But it’s real life. And it’s all I’ve got right now. You can keep me company whilst we start over, if you like.

I’m on my way back. It’s been a long old summer, with lots of changes for everyone, but I think I have found myself again in all of it. Have a lovely weekend, and I’ll be back with photographs and the usual ramblings next week.

It’s almost time. All over the world, people are starting to think about National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo.

Last November I started a book and wrote 50,000 words in one month. Scary stuff, and I spent the whole time in a words obsessed haze. So for anyone contemplating it this year, here are ten things I learned whilst doing NaNoWriMo.

It was worth it! An excerpt of Sealed with a Kiss reached no1 in the Harper Collins Authonomy chart for unsigned writers – have a look, you can read the first few chapters there. And a year (and an editor, and lots of twiddling with chapters and characters) on, I’ve had interest from agents and publishers, and I’m about to take a huge leap, inspired by my friend Melanie, and venture into the world of self publishing.

And if you’ve even wondered what NaNoWriMo looks like, here’s photographic evidence.

And this? This must be the best feeling in the world.

Happy writing. And good luck for NaNoWriMo 2011!

Apart from the first photo, which was taken by my lovely friend Elly, photographer extraordinaire and member of the Bourne Borderers Morris side, the rest of these are just camera snaps. But it was such a gorgeous day I want to remember it.

We drove to Lincolnshire on the spur of the moment yesterday to visit some very dear friends. There was much Morris, there was a samba band, there was whirling on the waltzers and eating melty ice cream in the baking hot October sunshine.

The beautiful tatter coats, blackened faces (a disguise which prevented the police from arresting them for begging) and colourful decorated hats are all part of the Border Morris tradition which dates back to the 1600s. Have a look at this link if you’d like to book the amazing Bourne Borderers to dance.