Why I write a lot about friendships!

My next book ‘A Summer Fling’ is coming out early and that’s a big thrill.  Although I must admit I’m more interested in how this one is perceived more than any other.  Why?  Because it’s got a vampire in it.  But more on that at another date – it’s the right time for launch, especially as the sun seems to have come out of hibernation on time this year and my book is very much about warmth and sunny days.  The major theme of this book is how friendship pushes aside barriers –especially ‘age’ in this book.  It was inspired by some wonderful ladies with whom I worked when I was in my 20s and they were in their 50s, 60s and 70s. The age thing just didn’t matter.  We had so much in common and the friendship between us was like a breath of fresh air.  Now I have friends much older and much younger than me and I don’t feel any barriers between us as we are putting the world to rights over a few glasses of wine and slaughtering a cheesecake.

My friendships have always been one of the most important pleasures of my life and I write a lot about the warmth and support women give to each other.

One day, I was watching Princess Diana on the TV and I was thinking how much we had in common more than how much we were world’s apart – two sons, crap love-life, always worrying about our weight.  Here’s a wee poem I wrote in the light of that – how friendship has absolutely no regard for things like creed, age, colour or class.

We’d have got on like a house on fire

Princess Di and Me

We’d have bonded over lots of carbs

And great big pots of tea

In her Prada and my Primark

We’d have moaned about our weight

And done some serious bitching

‘Bout those women that we hate

We’d have ‘fessed up all our stresses

And how once in every while

It’s just nice to shut the world out

And watch a Jeremy Kyle

We’d have talked about our sons

And all sorts of mother things

Like trying to keep them safe

When they start to stretch their wings

We’d have laughed about our exes

What a useful bunch of farts

And cried about the hungry

Prince-shaped hole within our hearts