I am very successful at gardening outdoors, looking after cats, and writing books.

I am not very successful at keeping plants alive indoors for longer than about a week, looking after fish, and reading ARCs on time.

But what I am very good at, is thinking on my feet.

Last week, we introduced another fish to keep Bubbles company. Bubbles was seven months old, or at least, had managed to survive, in my fishtank, for seven months, which is something of a record.

Mini-me brought Bubbles home from a birthday fair, and she was very attached. I have to say, whilst I would not entirely describe myself as a fish girl, I was somewhat attached myself. Bubbles would do a merry little dance every morning when I came downstairs, flitting from side to side to attract my attention.

If it were possible to bond with a fish, I had bonded with Bubbles.

Blackie was purchased at Petco on a whim, and brought home, where I thought he and Bubbles would live happily ever, oh, at least another seven months.

The next morning I walked into the kitchen, long after the Smalls, to be greeted by floaters. Two of them. Bubbles, and Blackie. And Lord forgive me, I flushed them down the loo. The Smalls weren’t particularly bothered, these having been the last of numerous aquatic friends who have been flushed away to the giant fishtank in the sky.

I thought Mini-me knew. I presumed she had been in the kitchen as I gingerly carried said fish out.

‘Bubbles is DEAD?’ she sputtered, after I mentioned it in passing, later that morning.

‘Well…yes,’ I said warily, thinking oh, bugger.

‘Dead? What?’ And she started positioning her face for a major outbreak of tears.

‘Well, we’re not sure,’ I said quickly. ‘The vet thinks he may be just unconscious.’

‘He’s at the vet?’ She clearly couldn’t decide whether to be suspicious, or relieved. She went with relieved.

‘Yes. He thinks he may not have had enough oxygen in the tank, so he’s going to call me later.’

The next day, Mini-me came home to find Bubbles swimming merrily in the tank. Rather miraculously, the medicine the vet gave him made him shrink slightly, and made his tail grow gloriously long and swishy.

She didn’t notice. She was thrilled.

I, however, am having trouble bonding with Bubbles Mark II. He’s not the slightest bit interested in seeing me, does no merry little dances when I walk in the kitchen, and frankly, at the risk of sounding harsh, appears to have no personality at all.

Luckily, I have four Smalls, one Medium, one Large, one dog, three cats, and a stinkbug who appears to have taken up residence in a bathroom, to keep me entertained.

I have just returned from an event at the Westport library: Cathleen Schine reading from, and talking about her new book, The Three Weissmanns of Westport.

I do not often go to book readings, other than those of my friends, and it was a rare treat indeed to hear the author’s words in her own voice.
There was, as there always is, that terrifying silence after the reading bit, when you ask for the first question, and you are met with a sea of blank faces, but the silence did not last – unsurprisingly, given there must have been a turnout of close to two hundred people.

I love doing book events. My most favorite thing in the world is meeting my readers, and even though you read the same sections of the book, roll out the same talk, make the same jokes, each event is entirely different. There is something about walking into a room to perform, and picking up instantly on the energy in the room, which will often dictate how you perform.

It has been an art I have had to learn. I have died several times, on podiums and stages up and down the country. The last time was at a theatre in Toronto, with Jeanette Walls (The Glass Castle), and Sherman Alexie. They were brilliant. Funny, clever, engaging. I could have listened to them for hours.

Me, on the other hand? I was horrific. For starters I had thought it was a reading, and had prepared no speech. I had to stand in front of an audience of people who’d never heard of me, who didn’t want to hear me that day either, and count the seconds until I could shuffle back into the wings.

Now, I never turn up anywhere without a prepared talk. You could tell me I was only booked to sit and smile, and I would still have a talk prepared. I have learned that as wonderful as it is to read from your book, the real gift of doing events is in connecting with your audience, and those moments of magic only happen during the back and forth of talk, and question time.

You learn about the book from the reading, but you learn about the author, the inspiration, the motivation and the magic, from the talk.

I wanted to have my Westport book signed earlier today, but the line was terrifyingly long, and given that I have all the patience of a fruit fly, I wandered back upstairs to finish the copy edits on my own book, then while away a few minutes immersed in Cathleen Schine’s book, which is a gorgeous comedy of manners, clever, funny and filled with astute observations and pathos.

Coming home, I picked up another book to read while eating lunch, one of the many Advanced Reading Copies I am sent on a regular basis. I try and make time for as many as I can, at the same time as reading the published books I have bought.

I am now three quarters of the way through the ARC, and it is not very good. I think perhaps I didn’t realise it wasn’t very good until I took a break for Cathleen Schine, and now everything else seems to be paling in comparison.

On Monday night I am going to another reading, and I shall aim to go to far more. I shall also aim to get this ARC over with as quickly as possibly – Catherine Schine has a whole backlist – of which I have only read one: She Is Me – to explore…

I have been spending vast amounts of time this week watching television - a combination of being under the weather, and the Smalls being with their father for Winter Break.

I’d love to be able to tell you I am now completely up on current events and have had CNN running non-stop, but sadly, that has not been the case. I rarely watch television, and these past few days I have been addicted to things like The Millionaire Matchmaker and Real Housewives of Wherever.

Happily, there are a few things I have learned this week. When Figless Manor is built, I am planning on having a greenhouse, primarily to be able to grow vegetables year-round. Beloved and I are becoming more and more interested in the detrimental effects of agribusiness in this country, and the changing face of farming. I have long grown my own during the summer, but on the Martha Stewart show yesterday, I learnt how to erect an inexpensive tunnel, a bit like a cold frame, that will enable me to grow things year-round, without the expense of a greenhouse.

I am thinking of inviting a few friends to form an unofficial co-op, whereby we swap vegetables/fruit/eggs. The Smalls are also desperate to sell things, and a farm stand may be a nice alternative to lemonade. One day a couple of Summers ago, Twin B and Mini-me disappeared. I found them on the front lawn, with all their toys on a table they had dragged outside, waving down cars as they proferred a large sign offering Toys For Sayle.

As for chickens, I am thinking this Spring may be the time to introduce them to the fold, and given that my entire family is obsessed with eggs for breakfast, it has to be more cost-effective, not to mention healthier.

We watched a movie on Netflix recently called Food Inc., which I am encouraging everyone to watch. It’s a measured, intelligent lesson in understanding where our food comes from, and the process it goes through to reach our tables from the farms. It isn’t shocking, sensationalist, or gory, but it may make you think harder about the benefits of buying organic, grass-fed, free-range meat.

We are off the vegan wagon, although I am not eating dairy, and mostly fish. Interestingly, Promises to Keep/The Love Verb is filled with some of my favorite recipes, both vegan and otherwise - I’m excited to share them with you.

I am still not one hundred per cent, which means, on this cold Friday morning, I now have to go…Live with Regis and Kelly is about to start, and who knows what I might learn today…

Many of you know that I suffer from a dangerous addiction to online shopping. I have recently spent a week unsubscribing from emails that arrive by the boatload on a daily basis, informing me of fabulous sales that day. I have to look, because…well…it would be rude not to, and then, because I’m a girl who can never resist a bargain, I usually end up buying something, because…well…it would be rude not to.

The emails have now stopped, but every now and then I pop on to one of these sale websites, just to window shop. Today at www.gilt.com, they have a sale of Elle Macpherson Intimates.

Elle Macpherson is  a gorgeous Australian model, sometime actress, and mother, who lives in London. This Christmas, on our way back from the Bahamas, we arrived at the teeny tiny little airport on our island (and know that when I say “airport”, I actually mean “hut”), to find a group of the most gorgeous, glamorous people I have ever seen, standing around waiting for their plane to be ready (and when I say plane, I actually mean private jet).

The tallest, and most gorgeous, was Elle Macpherson. Tight white jeans, flat sandals, Ray Ban aviators and a straw cowboy hat, The Eldest Daughter turned to me and breathed, “she’s a MOTHER?” Yes, well, thought I, in my shorts and T-shirt. Quite.

I was vaguely aware that she had entered into the fashion world, and now, thanks to Gilt.com, I know she makes beautiful, delicate lingerie. However, for once, I am not tempted to buy anything, and this worries me.

Once upon a time, I had drawers filled with gorgeous lacy frippery, but something terrible happened to me after I gave birth to my first child.

And nobody warned me it would happen…

That amongst the physical and emotional changes you undergo when you first give birth, there is another, lesser-known one, but one that is omnipresent: Your lacy, be-ribboned beautiful matching sets of bras and panties, will be pushed to the back of your underwear drawer, replaced by stretch T-shirt bras, in various shades of nude. And panties that do not match.

And you will wear them until they are faded, stretched and pilling. In fact, you will wear them until they fall off.

It is Valentine’s Day today, and I have decided to let Elle Macpherson save me. I’m off now to Gilt.com, and for once, I suspect Beloved will be happy about my online spending…

I am finally starting to dig myself out of the sand of writing and editing, and getting back to the business of being a mother, wife, friend, cook, chauffeur, amateur pediatrician with a specialty in dermatology, and hostess.

Those of you who have been following me on Twitter or Facebook, will know that we have gone back and forth on the title of my latest book, and once again we have had to settle on different titles for the US and UK markets. It is frustrating when my readers search online and end up buying the same book twice, and I apologise, but the two markets are very different, and a title that works for one country, simply doesn’t for another.

In the UK, it is The Love Verb.

In the US, it is Promises to Keep.

In many ways, this was the hardest book I have ever written. Part of my journey last year, and part of my blogging silence, was due to my friend Heidi, aka The Eskimo, being diagnosed with Stage IV Breast Cancer. From the day of her diagnosis, I felt she wouldn’t be with us long, so I stopped everything to look after her and be with her as much as possible.

She died in September, just as the leaves were beginning to turn, as the seasons, and my life, changed.

One of the gifts of being a writer, is the ability to process emotions through your books. I have long written about the events and emotions that mean something to me: from women’s relationship with food in Jemima J, to my own feelings about marriage and divorce in my later books.

Writing not only gives me an outlet, it provides a catharsis, and often helps me understand how I feel, long before I have consciously processed it. There is something meditative about writing, feeling the words flow out through your fingertips, and often I am surprised at what comes out, and the truths contained within.

And so this book is for Heidi. It is not her story, for I never write entirely about the events in life. Instead, we writers draw upon our lives, and the things we go through, use the people we encounter as inspiration, not as characters.

I wrote it with tears streaming down my face every day, and I felt her watching over me as I wrote.

Callie Perry has a pretty perfect life. It may not be everyone’s idea of happiness – her husband spends more time travelling for his job as a commercials director than he does at home -  but it works for her. It gives her time to work – she is a successful family photographer – and be around for her two kids, and her friends. She lives in Bedford, New York, is beloved by all who know her, and wakes up every morning grateful for how happy she is.
            

Her younger sister, Steffi, the baby of the family, has never grown up. In her early thirties and the epitome of a free spirit, she’s never held down a job, or a boyfriend, for longer than six months. Her latest incarnation is as a vegan chef.  She’s living with the latest unsuitable man, in a sixth floor walk up in Soho, and her parents have almost given up hope that she’ll ever learn what it is to be responsible.
            

Lila Grossman is Callie’s best friend. Single, she’s finally met the man of her dreams. Ed has a son she adores, a crazy ex-wife she doesn’t, and she finally feels ready to settle down. If, that is, their goals are the same.
            

And then there are Callie and Steff’s parents. Walter and Honor . Divorced for almost thirty years, they haven’t spoken for most of that time. They may share two grown-up daughters, but it is agreed by all who knew them, they share little else.
            

Until they all receive a shocking phone call that changes their lives forever, and brings them all together one short, snowy winter.
            

Promises to Keep is about the hard choices we sometimes have to make; about having to be a child, long after you’ve grown up, and mostly, about the enduring nature of love.

Many of the recipes on the blog feature in the book, and some new ones. Coming out of the fog of writing and my annual winter hibernation, I am finding myself starting to cook and entertain again. I’m off to London in March to film a TV commercial for The Love Verb, and am about to start planning events in the US this Summer.

I have a new agent, and a new editor in the US, which has been life-changing. This book was written in a very different way from my previous ones – I sent my editor chunks of the book as I finished them, and we sat down over delicious lunches and talked about it, where the story was going, what this character might think, etc etc. It felt like much more of a collaboration, and was hugely inspirational creatively.

Figless Manor will hopefully be built this year. (Good LORD – why didn’t anyone tell me how long this would take???) We now have an entirely different house from the one we started with – not, any longer, an Italianate based on Beloved’s childhood home – but a low-slung antique farmhouse. I blame the movie director Nancy Meyers. Years ago I walked out of Something’s Gotta Give and instantly re-did my kitchen, and this time Beloved and I walked out of It’s Complicated, turned to each other and said: Bugger. We’re building the wrong kind of house.

(I’d also quite like to move to Santa Barbara, but I suspect I’m better off staying put).

The website is being re-designed, and hopefully will be up and running within the next couple of weeks. It’s busy, busy, busy, and I’ll be keeping you posted on all that’s going on…