RNA Conference, I make another very odd speech, lots of people are very kind (or, at least, drunk with style) and cats.

Ah good, you're still here.  I must apologise for my tardiness in the blogitude this week, but I was attending the Great RNA Conference in Penrith, (no, it's not in Wales.  No, it's not in Cornwall either.  Just - I don't know, look it up or something).

And truly it was a marvellous thing.  So many old friends!  Some of them are old whilst remaining quite young, in a trick previously unknown to physicists, and some of them are new friends whose age remains indeterminate because it always seems impolite to accost a new acquaintance with the phrase "how old are you, because I need to know where to file you on the friendship-timeline', don't you think?  Anyway.  There I was.  And whilst there, I received The Rosebowl.  It has joined my other trophies in the land of cat-inaccessibility.  Look. 

Is this not a delicious sight?  It was previously much dustier, but I blew quite hard.

I don't have any roses though, which is a drawback. I'm thinking of filling it with Maltesers, but this may be a short-lived activity, plus there's some quite nice decoration on that bowl which might never look the same again if subjected to the briefest touch of a chocolatey ball.

You know who you are...

There were also moments of quiet fun.  Like this.  Those bottles are, in fact, stunt bottles, the chocolate is artificial and the grins are sponsored by M&S.  Not S&M.  And my lips are sealed on the 'fisting' debacle...

The most wonderful time was had by all and sundry, the people were, as ever, brilliantly tolerant of my inability to tell the difference between 'appropriate' and 'inappropriate' comments, Kate Johnson will never, ever discuss Fifty Shades of Grey with me again, and many other people will wince ever time that rosebowl is on public display - suffice it to say, for those of you who weren't there, my 'wee' comments during my previous speech were NOTHING compared to what I said this time...

And now, for those who were mentally scarred by the whole 'Jane Makes a Speech' event, here's a picture of cute cats.

Abraxus and Cal asleep on the sofa.  Yes, it does look uncomfortable, doesn't it?  But they are already planning how this pose will look when performed in a rosebowl.

A small insight into how I came to write about Vampires. And more pictures of really BIG knickers. But mostly writerly insights. Honestly.

In somewhat less than a month (well, thirty days, actually, but since it's only me that's counting, let's call it a month, shall we?  Go on, humour me) my latest novel will be released upon you in all its paperback glorification. It's available in its Kindle glorification now, if you're interested, look, here although I can completely understand your desire to have a concrete article clutched between your warm, sweaty pectorals.  No, no, it's not really made of concrete, obviously, because this would be impractical and heavy, although nicely waterproof for bathtime reading, also handy for swatting flies just as long as they didn't land on anything precious or breakable. But useful for propping open doors...maybe I should investigate this new material for books further...  And now I'm thinking about your pectorals...  ooh, nice vest...

Ahem.  Anyway.  Vampire State of Mind, for such is the novel of our current conversation, is poised, trembling in the slips.  No, it's not hiding in my underwear drawer, besides, do I look to you like the sort of person who wears a slip?  Quite frankly, you are lucky I'm wearing knickers, never mind the more ethereal of undergarments.

The underwear du jour...

There is, you should be warned, nothing ethereal whatsoever about my knickers. But, that's fair enough, since there is nothing ethereal about my bottom. If you are looking for something ethereal, here you go...

Ether, either, let's call the whole thing off... Sorry.

Now, you see what you have done?  I arrived here all full of straining eagerness to talk about my vampires, and now you've got me on to the twin subjects of underwear, and your chest. You really know how to lower the tone, don't you? Anyway.  What I was going to talk about, before you started on about nether regions and stuff, was how I came to be writing about vampires in the first place.  Well, I shall tell you, lovely people who aren't at all underpant-obsessed...

One day I started wondering.  Oh, I don't know which day.  Maybe it was a Sunday.  Yes, let's say it was a Sunday.. I was wondering about general vampire fiction, where human women fall madly in love with a vampire and, inexplicably in most cases, this love is returned, and this is where I started wondering... how the hell does she think this is going to work?  I mean, in twenty years' time, he's still going to look young and gorgeous and she's going to look a bit...well, let's face it, large underwear is going to be worn, isn't it? And bits are going to be heading south, and, given another ten years she's going to start forgetting where she put the car keys and why she's still got her slippers on, and in another twenty years people are going to think she's his grandmother - so how can it possibly work?  Without her becoming a vampire and therefore the entire book being about two perfect, immortal people being perfect and immortal together?  Which, come on, isn't exactly something we can all relate to, is it?

I mean, essentially, we are looking at this

Ian 'sometimes plays a vampire' Somerhalder

going out with this

Generic old woman. Well, a mask really.  So as not to offend real old women.

and I think we can all see the discrepancy, can't we?  If we can't, I suggest that we take a visit to SpecSavers, which might just save us from a long, and humiliating series of failed dating experiences.

And this then got me thinking about why a vampire might love a human, and how it must feel to be nearly immortal and constantly watching people you love die.  Like being Doctor Who.  And then I started thinking about how your personality would change if that happened, and what kind of a person you would become.  No, not you, I already know what kind of a person you are. You're obsessed with knickers, for a start.

So I wrote Vampire State of Mind. About people.  Some of them are vampires.  Some of them can't work an electric pencil sharpener, some of them have absolutely no sense of humour, and some of them are severely addicted to HobNobs, but they are all people, underneath.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and look at that picture of Ian Somerhalder again, for a while.  About a week should do it...

I tell you about my travels. And swans. No, don't rush off, there are pictures...

Happy First of Julie, everyone!  I am a little tardy today because I've been...no, not bigger on the inside, that's tardis, and I've never been a little Tardis.  No, what I have been is to Oxford, where I was collecting Daughter Number One from University.  I should, at this point, mention that she is Number One in temporal placement in the family, not because I operate some kind of ranking system among my children, because this would a) be immoral b) be very difficult and c) lead to some extreme paperwork, the like of which I try to avoid.

So.  I was in Oxford.  Which is a very lovely city, in possession of more than one Thorntons chocolate shop and a Primark, both of which recommend themselves to me, but in very different ways.  But very busy.  Very, very busy, because it has been the end of term for the Universities, necessitating parents collections of their offspring, clutching bits of paper and wearing odd hats - almost exactly like when we used to pick them up from Playgroup, only now the bits of paper have degrees and things on, not handprints, and the hats are meant to look like that and are not made out of soggy paper and tinfoil.  Well, not usually, unless they go to a really progressive college.

All the hotels in Oxford were, in consequence full.  Of people, probably, I never stopped to ask.  I suppose they could have been full of Golden Retrievers, or cockatiels or something but...you know, lacked the willpower to find out.  So we ended up staying in a place called Shillingford, at a lovely hotel by the river.  Look.

This is, both the river and the bridge. Yes, I don't know why it's called Shillingford when there is, quite patently a bridge.  Shillingbridge makes it sound like a really cheap toll road, I suppose.  But it's near Wallingford, where there is also a bridge, so, go figure, as they say.

And the weather was lovely, and the food was lovely, and the wedding, whose reception took place underneath our bedroom was, no doubt, also lovely, although sleeping to the booming sounds of 'Sex On Fire' coming up through the floorboards was a little tricky.  But, all in all, very lovely, and the disco did finish at midnight, which isn't bad at all on a Saturday night.

That is why I am late to the bloggage post today, anyway.  A four hour drive back from Oxford, complicated by the Sat Nav losing its way and having to stop and ask for directions from other Sat Navs, the addition to the carload of an exercise bike - if we'd stuck wheels on it she could have ridden it home - and the need for boiled sweets.

So, to finish, because, what with the late night disco, the stacking of the car with a complete daughter, the long drive over several counties (oddly enough, not the same counties as were there on the way down) and the subsequent removal of daughter's entire life from the car, I'm knackered, here is a gratuitous swan shot.  Because everyone likes swans, don't they?

They can break your arm, you know.  It's true, just under the water there is some fairly heavy-duty torture equipment; they can also rip out your fingernails and cause a lifelong seafood allergy.  Just bear that in mind next time you sling them your left-over Warburtons.