When I first moved to America, I was stunned at how many catalogues dropped into the mailbox every day. I was appalled at the waste of paper, but secretly thrilled at all the shopping I could do from the safety of my home. I would spend hours poring over Pottery Barn, Victoria’s Secret, and my favourite of all, Williams Sonoma.

Then I decided it was just horrible for the environment and I put myself on one of those lists which is supposed to stop all catalogues. It hasn’t, but it has significantly reduced what I get, but yesterday I found myself, as always, slowly turning the pages of the Boden catalogue.

For those who don’t know, Boden is an English mail order company, who have now come over here. They have wonderful photography featuring models who are supposed to be just like you and me, and on every page they ask the model a clever question. I really, really, intensely dislike the clothes in the Boden catalogue. The kids stuff I adore, but the adult clothes are just the most horrible colors I’ve ever seen. Everything seems to be a shade of sludge. Purple, brown, teal…yeuch.

But here’s what fascinates me: the answers the models give to the ‘clever’ questions.

Autumn 2008 starts with Thais and Sarah. Sarah’s kind of cool. Her second question: ‘If only:’ Her reply? ‘I had all the answers.’ I like this girl. She moves on to ‘Favourite song to drive to: Sweet Home Alabama‘. Yup, agreed. This is my kind of gal, and I turn the next page to see, ‘Signature Karaoke song: America by Neil Diamond.’ She gets it. You don’t need to like Neil Diamond, but the point of Karaoke is to sing songs everyone knows.

Then, on page 38, we meet Anouck. We start with ‘Guiltiest pleasure: 80’s music‘. Uh oh. This is off to a bad start. I hate 80’s music. All that Duran Duran, Human League rubbish. Couldn’t bear it then, can’t listen to it now. Anouck continues. ‘Favourite song to drive to: every song. Love driving.’ Anouck, this isn’t the point. Pick one. Any one. Just pick a song.

It gets better. ‘Greatest DIY achievement: (by the way, they misspell achievement - remember friends, i before e, except after c). If you’re confused about what DIY is, it’s Do It Yourself, the English term for Home Improvement. Her reply? I need to give this a line all to itself because her answer is so extraordinary

making jewellery.

Riiiiiiiiiight.

All is explained however, on page 45. Skill I wish I had: social skills.

I couldn’t agree more, Anouck, but thank you for the compelling reading. Off to read about Vanessa now.

I am feeling very proud of myself for two things today. The first is not really anything I can take credit for, but yesterday, after the children left with their dad (so around 5.15pm), I ordered, online, three pairs of shoes for them from www.zappos.com. This morning, at 11.31am, the doorbell rang.

‘Probably Zappos,’ Beloved said, from the comfort of my Aeron chair behind my desk in my office. I was sitting next to him, squeezed onto the end.

‘Ha ha,’ I said, getting up to answer the door.

And it was! I’m still in shock. Unless there’s a giant Zappos warehouse somewhere in Westport of which I have been entirely unaware, how in the hell do they do this? I’m impressed. Seriously impressed. I wish all online ordering were as quick and as easy - just think! I’d never leave the house!

Other reason why I’m very proud: I have got myself out of camping this evening. A couple of weeks ago we suggested to the smalls that we ought to go camping for a night on Cockenoe island. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. We woke up this morning and Beloved said, yahoo! camping tonight.

My immediate, and only, thought?

Oh shit.

Put it like this, I feel about camping, much the way I do about cruising. I knew I’d hate cruises, I hate anything with large groups of people I don’t know, but I thought I could deal with it for the sake of the children. We flew to Florida, got to the docking station, or whatever it is you call that thing, and stepped into a room filled with six thousand other people. Waiting in line. I wish I were kidding, but I kid you not. We were sailing on the biggest ship on the seas, and there were, indeed, six thousand people in that room.

We reached our cabin several hours later, to find it roughly the size of my desk. Two beds, with another two that dropped down from the ceiling. I was sharing the cabin with the three sons. To say it was the week from hell would be an understatement. I sank into such a deep depression I think I only said three words the entire week.

Which leads us to camping. I know I’m not a camping person. Perhaps I could be a camping person at, say, Treetops in Africa (super-luxurious), but in a sleeping bag on a dusty, buggy island in Connecticut? No lavatory in sight? No running water? No large and comfortable bed? I don’t think so.

‘Why not call our friend the Actor and see if he and the girls want to join you?’ I suggested, in a rare fit of creative brilliance, and now, here I am, tapping away at my computer in the office, peering out the window at what looks like an impending storm, and thinking of Beloved, the Actor, and all girls pitching tents and building fires as the rain starts to pour. Shame.

(The boys, who have stayed with me, wanted to camp in the garden but I bribed them with movie night and camping in the TV room…God I’m a horrible mother. But it worked.)

I will shortly be buying Honey I did something terrible and stupid to the kids if you’re eight years old on demand, have laid out cushions from the sofa on the floor, with sleeping bags on top. And I will be going upstairs to bed.

Oh JOY!

(by the way. Hate my hair. For those who have asked for pictures, my response is, absolutely. When it grows.)

I know it may not look like it from my photos, but I am in fact the most low-maintenance person in the world. I rather suspect this is down to sheer laziness. Why go to the hairdresser when I can cut it myself? And so what if it’s a little uneven in the back? I can’t see the back, therefore it doesn’t matter, surely. Why go for manicures when they only last a day? I suspect that’s probably because I haven’t got the patience to sit and let the polish dry properly, so by the time I reach the car, there are several smudges. And why have my legs waxed when I can wax them myself in the comfort of my own bathroom? What better way to waste four hours and cover my bathroom with wax?

I do, admittedly, go to the hairdresser occasionally. I mean very occasionally. Like once a year. Put it like this, no hairdresser has ever remembered me because I don’t go and see them enough. (A bit like my philosophy tutor at University but that’s a whole other story…) The only one I ever knew was Ron, my gorgeous colorist when I was blonde, and given that I’m naturally rather dark (pre-grey), I had to see him every six weeks or so. We had no choice but to get to know one another. Hell, he became one of my closest friends.

And yesterday, I suddenly decided, on a whim, I wanted sweepy bangs and layers. In the morning I took the girls - The eldest daughter and the summer daughter - to the teenage hair salon on Main Street. It’s cheap, cheerful, very stylish, and both of them got spectacular haircuts. FOR UNDER FORTY DOLLARS. I begged Rachel to take me there and then, but she was booked up. But how excited am I? I’ve now found an amazing hair stylist for UNDER FORTY DOLLARS. My friends, I didn’t think this was possible in Westport. Oh, and I did go to my hairdresser for sweepy bangs in the afternoon. Rather more than forty dollars. And not sure. It’s annoying as hell to have to keep pushing my hair out my eyes and it’s a bit…bouncy. Jury’s still out. I’ll let you know).

FYI, Beloved has just walked in here and has not only stolen my very comfortable Aeron chair (on the basis that I’m shorter therefore I should be the one sitting on the temporary folding bamboo chair), he’s now stolen my bloody coffee too…

Roll on Tuesday…

Beloved is taking the week off work, ostensibly for a ’staycation,’ although I have hardly seen him - projects have come up and he’s had all sorts of presentations and things to finish, so he’s been stealing my office, and he’s got rather sneaky about it.

This morning I was sitting at the desk, doubtless doing something incredibly important like, blogging, or reading Perez, when Beloved appeared in the doorway.

‘Want to come and sit with me while I have breakfast?’ he said, seductively.

‘Sure,’ I leaped up and headed for the kitchen, only to turn around and see him sitting at my computer with an evil glint in his eye.

‘I’ll be right there,’ he kept saying, as I moaned at him, and spent the next half hour scuffing round the kitchen waiting.

This is not the first time. His stuff is slowly taking over my office. And he doesn’t like the way I don’t put anything back where it belongs (I don’t like it either, but I can’t help it. I’m genetically wired to put things down in ridiculous, unlikely spots, never to find them again).

I love having him home. And when we build our house, I’m making sure he has an office all to himself.

Every so often Google sends me a blog alert if people are writing about The Beach House, and today I found myself looking at gorgeous pictures of Nantucket on a blog by Sarah Laurence who is, it seems, an author and an artist (beautiful watercolor at the top of her blog that I’m presuming was painted by her - I may have to ask her if she has work for sale…). She set off for ‘Sconset to try and find Nan’s house, and took the most stunning pictures that utterly capture Nantucket - definitely worth taking a look.

http://blog.sarahlaurence.com/

Up until two months ago when I became completely obsessed with blogging, I didn’t really understand what blogging was about. Apart from reading Perez Hilton, which isn’t so much a blog as an unedited, scathing issue of US Weekly, I didn’t read other people’s blogs. I still don’t very much, but now that I’m doing so much myself, I stumble upon the odd blog.

The other day I found myself clicking to a blog by a young mother, from another blog that is known as being one of the biggest and best around. The young mother’s blog was raw, and angry, and made me wonder who in the hell would want to continue reading it. It reminded me of these young journalists who think they have to make a name for themselves, and the more horrible they are in print, the more of a name they think they’ll have.

It happened to me only once. A newspaper in Chicago. The girl who came to interview me was young, and sweet, and said she was writing a novel. We had what I thought was a perfectly nice interview, and I forgot all about it.

A year or so later, I was being interviewed by another journalist and he said, so what did you mean when you said you found the people in Westport ‘amusing.’ I looked at him blankly. Amusing is not one of my words. You know there are words that you use a lot - for me that includes lovely, gorgeous, darling, ghastly, horrific (dramatic? moi?) - and then there are words that you just never, ever, use. Amusing is one of them. Amazing? Absolutely. But ‘amusing’? Never. Plus, I just wouldn’t have said I found the people in my town amusing. Not that I don’t, occasionally, but it’s just not a word I would use. I might say they’re bizarre, or hysterical, or peculiar (Peculiar’s a big word for me), but I just wouldn’t say amusing.

I had no idea what he was talking about. He rifled around and presented me with a press cutting, written by that sweet young journalist I had offered to help, and it took my breath away with it’s vitriol. It was judgmental, and, what we call in the business, a total stitch up. It was also entirely unnecessary. Fine, she may not have liked me, but it presented me as imperious, snobbish, difficult, which is about as far away from the truth as you can get. It seemed to be based on my accent, which is rather English, but given that I was born and brought up there, not a lot I can do about that one.

I was a journalist for years, and have come across that phenomenon many times, I just hadn’t been on the receiving end and it wasn’t pleasant. So, back to the blogger who is, unsurprisingly, an aspiring writer. I say aspiring, because I honestly don’t know if wanting to be a writer, or writing and being unpublished, or thinking you have skills as a writer, qualifies you as a writer. Maybe it does. In which case I am not just a writer, I am also an architect, a dermatologist (specialising in skin rashes in children), an interior designer, a chef, a florist, a landscape designer and a gardener.

Someone had left a comment on this blog, saying something along the lines of people not being comfortable reading such negativity, constant complaints etc, which is perhaps why she complains about not having any readers.

This then led to a response from the blogger, which was vitriolic, filled with fury and self-righteousness. It turns out the blogger is a recovering alcoholic. I felt for her, because there is a very big difference between being sober (she is), and living in recovery (she would not appear to be). Being sober without recovery just means you’re not drinking. It also means we dwell on what we call ‘the pity pot,’ blaming everyone else for our problems, lashing out because it makes the hurt go away for just a little while.

I wish her well, I wish her more meetings, and perhaps a sponsor who encourages her to work the steps. I also hope she discovers that writing rageful blogs, however clever or well-written they may be, is not something many of us wish to read.