Yesterday I was up in Washington Depot, Connecticut, picking up Biscuit from the dog trainer. Biscuit now realises she is a dog, which is an extraordinary accomplishment, as up until very recently, she, and all the Smalls, thought she was a fluffy, live teddy bear. She has stopped leaping around like a fluffy, live teddy bear on Adderall, and is now sitting, lying down, and staying on command, waiting for us to give her directions. Magnificent.

But while I was up there, close to where I used to live, I passed beautiful houses. Through the main drag of Woodbury where each house is more beautiful than the last, on to Washington, and Bethlehem, where the older antique houses are prized, restored, sell, on occasion, for many millions of dollars.

And I wondered how it is that my town is an hour away, and yet the sensibilities are so different. Here the old seems to no longer be prized, restored, with only a few exceptions dotted around town. Here it seems each house is bigger than the next, builder interpretations of shingle houses, or colonial mansions, that are too large to have any charm.

I love my town. Although I have not loved it in the past, that had less to do with the town, and far more to do with my own unhappiness. I feel blessed every day to live here, to be able to send the Smalls to extraordinary schools, to be by the beach, to have all that I have in such a beautiful place.

But I don’t understand how it is that one town can cherish the old, history, a past that is worth preserving, and others cannot wait to get rid of it to make way for bigger, better, more, more, more…

Just an observation. And a shame, it seems.

This morning we had a meeting with the architect, the landscape designer, the gardener, the Sherpa and Beloved. We saw the garden plan which is gorgeous - everything I wanted - lots of beautiful little garden areas, gravel courtyards, a sunken swimming pool that’s hidden, an area for the vegetable garden, a flower garden, and even a ‘white’ garden a la Vita Sackville-West, in a little parterre by the guest room.

And the house is truly breathtaking. I didn’t think it was possible to design a house that looks exactly as if it was built in the mid nineteenth century. The scale is exactly right, the proportions perfect. Aside from wondering what on earth we’re thinking, building a house in the worst financial market we have seen for many years, we’re both now sure we’re going to end up with a house that is truly magical in every way.

It’s bigger than I would have liked, but with five children and visiting relatives, it’s hard not to be. But what it isn’t, is a mcmansion. The rooms themselves are not huge, save for a large kitchen/family room that is modelled on the one in the house in which we’re currently living, but more contained.

They are reminiscent of the way houses used to be built, before people assumed they needed ten foot ceilings and giant archways, which, as far I’m concerned, do little other than turn these great big rooms into giant corridors.

The mass of our house isn’t overwhelming at all, but rather gracious and elegant, pretty rather than impressive.

We’re talking Nantucket picket fences, old reclaimed brick paths, clipped boxwood hedges and balls, lawn paths that lead you to the different areas.

A Victorian greenhouse that serves as the link between the garage and the main house, an elegant carriage house that will be the garage, and not disturbing the beautiful three weeping willows that stand majestically on the side of the garden, nor the two ancient maple trees that cast dappled shadows over what will now be the front.

But more importantly, I look at the plan of this house, and I can truly see ourselves living in it, and using every room. The ‘formal’ living room will not be formal, but instead will be furnished with squashy sofas, and a hidden television, used as a den, rather than a room in which we perch only a handful of times a year. The dining room will be walled by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with ’stations’ for computers, and will be used as a library and homework room, a place for the Smalls to use computers and work at the table.

We’re still ironing out a few minor details, but I can’t wait to share the plans with you…

A gorgeous room set in Dovecote

We went to a party last Friday night - new friends, people we don’t know that well, but are looking forward to getting to know. It was at their home, the other side of town, and we hadn’t been to their house before.

We know they moved in recently, and have been working with decorators to get it finished in time for their house-warming party, and I know she has exquisite taste, so I was dying to see the house.

It was beautiful. Shades of cream and mushroom everywhere, beautiful rugs, coffee table books artfully and sparingly stacked on the elegant tables and shelves.

Stunning paintings, opulent curtains, it looked just like Dovecote. Dovecote is the most beautiful furnishing store in town. Their accessories are gorgeous, their furniture to die for, I go in there and I want everything in the store.

The problem is, you realise that after a while all these Dovecote houses look the same.

And as beautiful as they are, I’m realising they are not a home.

I thought this house was one of the most beautiful houses I’ve been to, and the decor was flawless. But did I want to kick my shoes off and curl up on a sofa? Did it look, for a second, as if there were three children living there (the children have a huge playroom/bonus room above the garage, plus games rooms and playspaces galore in the enormous basement). I walked around almost holding my breath. I was far too worried to sit in the living room with my glass of red wine - what if something happened? I’d never forgive myself. I rather suspect they’d never forgive me either.

In my old life, I had a house like that. A great, big, glorious new house. The children weren’t allowed to play in the living room, and everything had to look perfect all the time. Contrast this to today, piles of cookbooks in the kitchen, toys that are supposed to have been put away but haven’t been, sofas that are showing the wear and tear of five children living, truly living, in the house. The entire house…

I used to think I had to be perfect, because I didn’t feel good enough, and my house was a reflection of that. Now I am happy, and I am good enough, and our house is finally the home I always wanted, and if it’s not perfect, that’s okay.

Neither am I.

There are three computers in my house. One in my office, one in the family room which the kids tend to use, and one in our bedroom.

I am not a fan of computers in the bedroom, but when my assistant is here, she is in the office and the easiest place for me to be is the bedroom. It’s quiet, I can get stuff done, and no-one disturbs me.

In the new house we will have one office to house all the work stuff, and my assistant, and I will have a pantry/office. I know it sounds odd, (what the hell is a pantry/office anyway?) but I see it as a second, smaller kitchen, a place to arrange the flowers I cut from the garden, a workroom, a chair pulled up to one of the counters to serve as a desk. It will be off the kitchen, connected to the heart of the home, but a room that is truly my own.

Until that time, the only place for my computer is the bedroom, and the very fact of having a computer in the bedroom bothers me. I don’t even like the television in the bedroom. I have always seen my bedroom as a haven - the quiet, peaceful place I can relax in at the end of the day, but it’s hard to relax with all that technology around (Everywhere I look these days there appears to be a mobile device of some sort, charging).

And I’ve developed a worrying habit now that it’s there. Waking up in the night, I have to just quickly check and see if there are any can’t-miss-emails, and before I know it I’m popping onto Perez to see if there’s any can’t-miss-gossip, and then two hours have passed and I’m wide awake. Disaster.

Last night I vowed to go Cold Turkey. I had a gorgeous evening, lying in bed fully immersed in American Wife, not even missing the computer for a second.

By the way, I am loving this book, cannot recommend it highly enough, and despite being fiction, it gives the most extraordinary account of a fictitious first lady’s life, based, not too loosely, on Laura Bush. It is so credible it is hard not to picture Mrs Bush on every page.

Digressing ever so slightly, I once sat opposite Laura Bush at a dinner. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. Getting conversation out of her was like squeezing blood from a stone, but mostly I felt bad for her. She seemed to me to be a woman who doesn’t enjoy her position in the public eye, is not comfortable making small talk, would much rather be living a quiet, private life.

So, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, and I, in bed, relaxing. At 2.30am I woke up. I won’t do it, I told myself. I hadn’t even brought the computer upstairs, had left it downstairs after I got back from the library, and I tried not to think about the computer, even as it called me ever so softly. At 3.32am I gave up, creeping downstairs to get the computer. Disaster.

I went back to sleep at 5, only to be woken up by the smalls at 6.15.

I am thinking more and more about our increasing dependence on computers, about how isolated we are becoming as a result, and let me tell you, a writer’s life is isolated enough.

I used to write all my books from home, and used to think an average working day was around eight hours.

Until I started going to the library, which, at that time, didn’t have wifi. It turned out that an average working day, minus all the time spent doing ‘research’ on the internet (largely consisting of net-a-porter), was in fact only around three hours. Bit of a difference, no?

My life is happier and more productive when I am not disappearing to mess around on the Internet. It is happier and more productive when I am engaged in that life: cooking, gardening, being with my family and friends, and no email is so important, no gossip so vital that I should be putting the computer before sleep.

On that note, I’m off to take a nap.

A big thank you yesterday to all at the Pearson Foundation Challenge and Jumpstart’s Read for the Record campaign. I sat and signed. And signed. And signed. It was like a fairytale, the line that never ended. Every time you thought you were coming to an end, more people would appear. But a wonderful day, and so wonderful to meet so many great people. Thank you to Jennifer, to Carol, and most especially, to Frank the Book Shuffler.

I will be resting my arm today.

I have a new secret addiction I have to share with you…Swingtown. I haven’t seen it since the beginning, but the last few weeks I’ve been watching and I love it. Maybe that’s because I live in a town in which key parties seemed to be all the rage a few decades ago. I’ve heard people say they still go on today but I’ve certainly never been invited to one. Up until a couple of years ago, I didn’t believe it for a second, was convinced it was just an urban myth.

Bring me names, I said to people. I refuse to believe until I have names, and not just a friend of a friend, but you. And then someone told me she’d been to a party, thrown by a girl I think of as The Knickerless Wonder. I call her this because rumor has it a few years ago she wore no underpants (knickers, as we say in England) to a party, got very drunk, and spent the evening flashing the various husbands at the party, causing, as you can imagine, enough gossip to last a good year.

My friend went to a party at The Knickerless Wonder’s house. There were many drinks. Vodka shots, if I recall correctly. Then it was down to the basement for the ‘party games’. My friend saw the beginnings of the swapping, got cold feet, and ran.

I don’t blame her. But now I believe, and I’m happy to live vicariously via my television set, thank you very much.

And thank you for all the suggestions to help out my, clearly lacking, interior design skills. Particularly to Adiam, who made me laugh with this email: I don’t think you should stop at the family room in decorating. I think the kids rooms could use a bit of gopher skin - dyed of course to match the rest of the room’s decor. The kitchen could also benefit from a bit of deer skin above the stove. Some white-tailed deer can add a subtle change to the foyer. I can see the Architectural Digest spread.

I know I’m a sucker for punishment, but here’s our bedroom.

REPEAT. THIS IS MY BEDROOM. NOT SARAH PALIN’S…

Any suggestions? A stuffed beaver head above the bed, perhaps? A squirrel lampshade? Braided chipmunk pillows?

In truth, if this were my own house, rather than a rental, I would have different paintings on the wall (those are mine, but too small for the space), and I would have a different bedside table - we had just moved in and Beloved had nothing - I found that pretty tray table in one of the antiques emporiums in Stamford, but there should be a more solid chest of drawers there.

We do decorate quite differently in England. My fashionista friend would be proud, for we don’t do ‘matchy matchy’, instead mish-mashing all different styles together, bound with books, and art, and things we have collected over the years.

England is the only place you can mix chintz with chinoiserie, and leopard-print, and have it look wonderful.

Or hideous. Depending on your point of view…