April, 2003

Funny how sometimes time really flies and other times it drags its heels like it's not really that bothered. So much has happened in the past six months that last September now feels like another lifetime.

Jascha and I went to Majorca in September with our friends for a week of eating, drinking, sunbathing and racing around the Med in a 100ft luxury speedboat like a bunch of D-list celebs.

That long-ago holiday turned out to be a last-chance saloon kind of a trip as two months after we got home I found out that I was pregnant! No more drinking for me for a few months - well, no more getting drunk, at least (I'm practising a French-style approach to pregnancy!). A week after this mind-blowing news (which was planned but still came as kind of a surprise) we moved into our new flat and fell in love with the place instantly. I'd had my reservations about the move - our old flat was a place full of nothing but happy memories of good times, both professional and social, and I thought I'd be really sad to leave it behind. But the moment we arrived here with our piles of boxes and upended furniture I knew we were in the right place. It took a couple of months to get the place straight and we were living with the builders until the day before Christmas Eve but on Christmas day my entire family came over for the day and the place looked so beautiful I knew it had all been worth it.

Jascha and I decided to take a third honeymoon last month in anticipation of the fact that we won't be holidaying quite so extravagantly again for a fair few years and went to South Africa to visit my brother-in-law who's out there learning to fly. He took my husband-and-father-of-my-unborn-child out for a ninety minute flight and by the time they got back, in my head I was a grieving young widow with a fatherlesss child! The longest ninety minutes of my life. Not nice.

We drove the Garden Route, which was beautiful and stayed at all sorts of wild and wonderful hotels courtesy of our friends at www.i-escape.com

Then the week after we got home we went for my twenty week scan. We'd decided already that we wanted to know the sex of our baby - well, I wanted to know and Jascha just went along with it. And it's a girl! I'd thoroughly convinced myself I was carrying a boy so it came as something of a surprise, but was a lovely feeling nonetheless. I'm one of three girls and I've always got on better with girls and girls are so much easier …. I think!

The trouble with all this house-moving/builders/being-pregnant malarkey is that writing my next book seemed to keep getting pushed to the end of the line priority-wise and I didn't actually start it until January - naughty novelist! But I'm cracking on with it now so it should be in the shops by next autumn, baby and hormones allowing. I'll let you know a bit more about it nearer the time, but it's basically an epic love story set over three decades about a couple who keep missing each other and their destiny. I won't even bother giving you the working title as it always gets changed at the last minute anyway, as regular visitors will know!

As for the enigmatic Friend of the Family, in order to avoid being buried under an avalanche of JK Rowling's new one in June I've been shifted back again to the beginning of July. I'm really sorry about that - I know it's been ages since the last one (it'll be almost two years by the time it finally comes out!) and I just really hope you'll all think it was worth the wait. I saw the new cover artwork last month and it looks fantastic. You can see it for yourself here or, if you're American, here and if you fancy it you could place an advance order while you're there!

That's it for now. The baby's due at the beginning of August and I'm getting fatter and huger by the day - people keep asking me if I'm sure I'm not having twins - so by the time all the publicity for Friend of the Family starts to appear I shall be completely vast. I'll write again in the autumn once the book's done its thing and the baby's here and I might even post a (very small) picture of my little girl but I promise promise promise I won't turn into a baby-bore, honest!

All the best for now,

Lisa xxx

Previous updates:
September 2002
April 2002
November 2001
September 2001
July 2001
April 2001
September 2000