'How to be Lost' by Amanda Eyre Ward

I finished a novel last night, first one I've read since the New Year. In fact I was re-reading this, which I found in the Oxfam bookshop in St Austell in the winter. I couldn't put it down the first time. This time I was more interested in the writing and the way the story lines are put together.

I can't recommend it highly enough. The story, about a little girl going missing and what subsequently happens to her family, is absorbing, with great touches of humour. Her sister Caroline decides to try and find her after their mother spots a magazine picture she thinks is the girl grown-up.

The stories of the family and the missing daughter come together beautifully and in a very satisfying way. I'm going to lend it to Liam - for some reason I've had him in mind both times I've read it, presumably beacuse he too writes about relationships and he's very observant about the odd little things that people do.

I'm now going to get her first novel 'Sleep Toward Heaven' from an Amazon bookseller. It too is apparently unputdownable.

On the rebound

We've just bought a rebounder, one of those mini trampoline things. It was Andy's idea, he'd heard they are really good for keeping fit and staying generally healthy.

It's great. After a long time sitting at the computer only exercising my brain, it feels good to go downstairs and bounce for ten minutes! That's all I can do at the moment - it's surprising how tiring it is. It somehow helps to redistribute my energy back into my body from my head, without even needing to put on shoes or go outside.

If only half of the claims are true, I should be wobble-free within weeks.

Rouge Noir

At last I've done it. The weather's been warm and sunny for days now and I've started wearing sandals, but what with deadlines and lack of energy due to the ferocious stomach bug, I've only just got round to applying the obligatory coat of Rouge Noir.

I've been addicted to the stuff for years and nothing else will do. I've tried buying other shades of nail polish but always end up giving them away to friends. And there are absolutely no substitutes. You've just got to buy the real stuff. It might seem expensive but it lasts for years. (Someone told me once to keep it in the fridge, and certainly it's still useable several years later. Even better possibly, as it's now a bit gloopy so you only need one coat).

So now at long last my feet are respectable. I defuzzed my toes, of coures, before baring them - it was that or be mistaken for the missing link. But bare toe nails just look wrong. They remind me of a friend of my mother's who wore flat leather sandals when I was growing up in the 60's. In those days before Birkenstocks became fashionable, only children and 'weird' people wore flat sandals. I realise now that the woman in question had bigger problems than her choice of footwear. Then I just knew there was something strange about her and that I didn't want to be like that. So now that I spend all summer in Birkenstocks, I make sure I have Morello cherry toes, so looking at my feet doesn't remind me of that disturbing presence. Odd how such trivial things can have such a profound effect.

The latest diet?

The tummy bug(ger) has been a tenacious little beast, hanging on in there for dear life and raging back whenever I thought I'd got it beaten. I've lost weight of course, having eaten so little over the last week, which is not a bad thing with the weather warm and sunny and clothing having fewer and fewer blubber-covering capacities. It may have been a beast but at least it's been a timely beast.

Knitter of Nightmares, more like

OK, so who was the joker who christened it Dreamweaver? Some dysfunctional computer geek with an unhealthy penchant for machines over people, I'll bet. I've just discovered that I can't make a lot of the changes I thought I could make with Contribute because they are 'part of the design'. It makes me want to spit. Dreamweaver indeed, Knitter of Nightmares, more like.

Actually I was physically sick. I thought at first it was the crushing IT disappointment, but it became rapidly apparent that the symptoms were alarmingly real. A touch of the stomach bug currently doing the rounds, presumably. Anyway, it sent me crawling to bed clutching a bucket and pinned me there for the rest of the day.

Until Life on Mars. How fantastic has that series been? I loved it. I even wrote it in my diary the last two Tuesdays so there was no danger of doublebooking and missing it. I dragged myself and the bucket downstairs for the final installment. And was so engrossed I forgot to feel sick. Marvellous - Gene Hunt heals. Or as he would say 'Oh shut up, Dorothy.'