Sancerre, sunburn, and sex and the city…

So I'm back after my long night in the city, and a couple of things happened yesterday that were a little disconcerting.

The first was that my glorious couple of hours on the beach earlier in the day, when I lay back as the kids built sandcastles around me, and thought, why don't I do this more often, led to a familiar tightening feeling in my cheeks at around 5pm.

And my shoulders. And my forehead. And my chest. Yes. I am now horribly sunburnt. Lobster-like, in fact. I am shining like a beacon and I cannot believe I have lived in this country almost eight years and I am still stupid enough to lie on a beach, at lunchtime, with no sunblock.

Yes, you heard me right.

At lunchtime.

So, red-faced, I rolled into Candace Bushnell's radio show on Sirius satellite radio, where she insisted, nay, forced, a huge glass of white wine on me. What can I say? I'd had a two-hour car journey in, I was uncomfortably burnt, and a little stressed. I drank it. In pretty much one go.

I wish I could tell you how the radio show was but in truth I don't really remember. I do know that I adore Candace - she's funny and irreverent, and brilliantly talented - not many people could write and create a phenomenon such as Sex in the City (I also think she might be completely bonkers...sssh. Don't tell anyone)

I then left the gorgeous Candace (you can see from the picture how teeny tiny she is. And look at me! Red, shining and HUGE! And horrible hair. I've bought these new heated roller things and I'm determined to figure out how to use them, but every time I do, I end up with scary Dallas-like big hair, and if anyone's reading this feeling upset in Dallas, I'm talking TV series...)

Note to self: never have picture taken next to teeny tiny skinny gorgeous women who write books and television series that feature other teeny tiny skinny gorgeous women who dress in great clothes. They will always make you look like a small whale.

For the record, Candace had on amazing crocodile mules. And metallic blue nail polish. Just in case you were wondering. I then staggered over to Borders on Park Avenue for an event.

A wonderful event - lovely people, and one, Natalie, came from Baltimore. Baltimore! To meet me! Do you have any idea how far that is? I think I made sense, sobering up somewhat after the bucket of wine at Sirius radio, although the microphone died halfway through my best story at the event, and we all sat around uncomfortably, smiling awkwardly, me at audience, audience at me, while - as luck would have it - the manager who lived a previous life as a DJ, came and fixed it.

Anisha Lakhani came, who is the author of a terrifying and quite brilliant novel called Schooled, which tells the truth about the elite private schools in New York City - she is a former head of an English department at one of them, and was a private tutor, so she knows. Boy, does she know. I couldn't put the book down, and I think she's going to get VAST amounts of publicity, but we all have to wait until August 5th for the book to come out.

She brought her mother who reminded me about growing up on a steady diet of Enid Blyton books, so I'm now off to track down Mallory Towers for my daughter, and then I'm off to weed the vegetable garden.

Seriously, what the hell IS my hair doing?