LIZ FIELDING

GETTING BACK TO NORMAL...

We've been decorating. Since the middle of January.

Obviously this hasn't been just a slap of paint and freshen up job. We've had new patio doors put into both the rooms looking over the garden, new windows upstairs.

We've built a brand new en suite bathroom and added fitted wardrobes in the bedroom and generally thrown out more accumulated rubbish than you can believe two ordinary people could accumulate in the nearly seventeen year we've been in this house -- we moved in just before my first book was published.

There's just the new bedroom floor to be fitted (Les is coming on Tuesday to do that), the new curtains to be hung, and trip out to choose a blind for the bathroom and some rugs for the toes to step onto first thing in the morning, which we'll hopefully manage today.

All I have to do now is catch up on the dust, make one last run to the tip to dispose of the detritus and hopefully that will be that. There's a certain amount of pressure to get that all done this week since the dd and s-i-l are coming for the Bank Holiday and at the moment we're in the guest room. I'm praying for good weather since the s-i-l has never seen Wales other than soaked in precipitation and when the sun shines there is no prettier place on earth.

I did take a break from the painting to meet up with the Carmarthen Chapter of the RNA on a brilliantly warm and sunny spring day last week. It wasn't a "glamorous author day", but a casual meeting of writers, some of who'd travelled a long way to join us. We met at an ancient thatched pub and talked writing and ate a great lunch. We're a mixture of pub'd and unpub'd and provide a support group for one another.

The post man (the incomparable Steve) brought me a package containing my author copies of the Large Print reprint of Gentlemen Prefer...Brunettes yesterday.

This is one of my earlier books that never had a LP Library edition -- I'm working through these. His Little Girl was published earlier this year and Dangerous Flirtation, An Image of You and Eloping With Emmy will be available to borrow from the library (worldwide) in LP format within the next nine months.

Here's the background --

Nick Jefferson can't resist a challenge, or a blonde, so when the latest platinum-haired woman to cross his path challenges him to cook her a romantic dinner, he accepts. Cooking can't be that hard, can it? Women do it.

Big mistake.

TV chef Cassie Cornwell is not Nick's type -- she's a cuddly brunette -- and he's certainly not hers. She's allergic to sweet-talking playboys. But she needs him as much as he needs her and a deal is struck. It should have been plain sailing, but Nick discovers that he's much rather be in the kitchen with the cook than seducing the blondes.

To whet your appetite, here's where they meet.

Veronica, the blonde, who plays a lively role in this book has her own story in A Suitable Groom, by the way, which Mills & Boon published in LP several years ago.

Finally, just a reminder of the Mother's Day contest over at Anne McAllister's website. Drop in on her blog, too, to see pictures of her new grandson, Henry. He is gorgeous.