Posted on by maryhadow

First Dates

I’m going to be on it! Well probably anyway – they’re going to call at 11am today and I’ve got to Skype myself in my best gear going about my business in my home, so that they can get a handle on my personality and interests.

The first problem, as you can imagine, was getting the Skype app onto my stone-age devices. The programme-makers can also use Facetime (which I don’t think I’ve got either), but they can’t Whatsapp, which is the only one I can manage.

My mobile downloaded the app OK, but it got stuck after that. I yelled upstairs for Will to sort it out, while I departed for a slap-up dinner at Prince Hall, courtesy my great mate, Richard.

I had found myself with verbal diarrhea, speaking on the phone to the programme’s assistant producer, Jane.

“What sort of person would you like to meet?” she asked.

“I don’t know – someone who’s stronger than me, and good company?” I said.

“Would it matter how tall they were? Would 70 be OK?” she said.

Aghh – they’ve got some dwarf old grandpa in mind for me.

“Well they need to weigh more than I do, which is easier now I’ve lost nearly two stone,” I replied, “but they’d have to be really really charming and nice if they were that old.  Seventy-year-olds have wrinkly saggy boobs.”

I am most excited – the timing is fantastic.  This is coinciding with my ‘Meet the Author’ evening and will give me the chance to bang on about the most expensive B&B on Dartmoor and, even more importantly, my non-burgeoning career as an aspiring author.

Well, now I’ve nearly finished breakfast, I’d better put on a face and find some cleanish glad rags!  How terrifying! This could result in me getting publicly rejected in front of millions! Eeek!

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Posted on by maryhadow

Skinny and Brown

I have now been skinny and brown for the whole summer.  What for? Nobody has seen the beautiful new me, and nobody cares.  And now my lovely tan is flaking off like snow onto the inside of my black leggings (I’ve gone down from an M&S Size 16 to 12, so most of my clothes don’t fit anymore).

I have combed both Encounters and Muddy Matches nationally, looking in vain for somebody I might like. Nobody at all.

Yet I’ve enjoyed one of the most wonderful summers of my life! A lot has to do with the weather. And more because there’s been a child or two here, keeping me sunny company ever since June. Perhaps I don’t really need a bloke in my life after all!

Today I’m delivering Will to the dentist for a filling, meanwhile Ben is dropping off a guitar that Will lent his son a year ago.  It is clear that Ben wants to catch me, rather than bringing it along earlier in the day.  Well I don’t want to see him.  Will can tell him that I’m ‘parking the car’ which will take me a remarkably long time.  Then I shall go and buy some flowers and eggs before my next lot of guests arrive at teatime.

Nell has just informed me that a journalist from the Chagford Herald thinks I might be interesting to interview at my ‘Authors Talk’ next week. And says he’s single. Oh dear. Call me arrogant but I would be a lot more interested he were editor of the Times or something.

BUT.  You never know what anything might lead on to. So I am very excited.  Perhaps from this small acorn a socking great oak might grow!

Posted on by maryhadow

Meet the Author – Moi!

“Are you sitting down?” I exclaim.  “His grandmother taught me and everyone else I know the piano til we were twelve! She had blue hair!”

This is the result of my meeting with the MD of the Dating/Events company who’s asked me to speak at her ‘Author’s Talk’ in September.  She appears to be more interested in matchmaking me than in my books which she hasn’t read.

She’d given me his name, and original family name, so obviously I stalked him on Google the minute she was out of the door, and top of the entries was an article he’d written in the Scottish Daily Mail about his famous composer grandfather, married to my ex-piano teacher.

She says he’s brainy and quirky – well I love all that; and shoots, so he understands my world.

I told her I’d give her a million quid if she found me the man of my dreams. But since then I’ve reduced my offer to a grand, as I don’t actually have a million.  And now I’m worrying about how and when you can actually tell that this is finally ‘the one’.  Perhaps there should be a scale of charges.  Maybe thirty quid if you find yourself sharing a thoroughly enjoyable, stimulating meal together, that gets you all excited.  A hundred quid if you sleep with them; three hundred if you’re still with them after three months; and a thousand if you marry them.

Meanwhile the 6′ willowy blonde vision of loveliness that comprises Nell, the agency owner, explains that the Author’s Evening will probably comprise only around eight people sitting in a circle in a very relaxed way, and I won’t need to have prepared a talk or anything. God – I could actually look forward to this. Two hours of talking about myself without stopping, to a rapt audience! Lovely jubbly!