The FABULOUS BAKE-A-BOY CHALLENGE is now over, and I’m thrilled to announce that the winner is…
IFFATH, for her magnificent Gingerbread Susie!
Look! It's me, only gingerbready!
I have it on good authority that there was an iced version of those green Converse, but it went the way of all gingerbread before it could be photographed. 
Congratulations, Iffath – signed books and gingerbread goodies will be on their way to you soon! And since she’s apparently multi-talented, the rest of you can cheer yourself up by visiting Iffath’s brilliant YA book blog, LoveReadingX.
Am running out of creative ways to wedge books into my overflowing bookshelves, so I’m back in local library mode – which means my choices are down to serendipity (and how many I can fit in my handbag). Just finishing Madeleine L’Engle’s classic A Wrinkle In Time, which has the best opening few chapters imaginable. I could live without the unicorns and the bits where I get told how Jesus is a bit like Rembrandt – but there’s Proper Science, a heartfelt quest for a missing mathematical genius parent, and kids who are weird and brainy and that’s presented as really quite handy. Hooray!
Writing group met this weekend. We interspersed our usual curry and wailing with masses of practical stuff, and much constructive hand-holding. How people carry on writing without that sort of support, I’ll never know. They giggled at the appropriate moments in my chapter, anyway – and reminded me of several abandoned projects of mine I’d completely forgotten. They say when you finish a manuscript, you should put it in a drawer, so you can gain some distance. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE IT OUT AGAIN THOUGH. Brain, please take note.
Wishing daytime telly still meant Utter Bobbins, and not Chuck reruns and Project Runway; attempting to explain the British electoral system to a 16-year-old Kazakh student (apparently I should’ve said ‘we don’t have one’, sigh); becoming oddly obsessed with ham.
Did you win the Fabulous Bake-A-Boy Challenge? Winner announced! http://ow.ly/1Jxy3
Drumroll, please! | every day should be a susie day: Wishing daytime telly still meant Utter Bobbins, and not Chuc… http://bit.ly/aTfXC5
Drumroll, please! | every day should be a susie day: Wishing daytime telly still meant Utter Bobbins, and not Chuc… http://bit.ly/aTfXC5
Congratulations, Iffath, I love it! Bet the green Converse icing was tasty.
Gingerbread Susie, you look very friendly and I like your mascara.
That is actually what it looks like when I put on mascara. (Formative years wearing specs = complete bodginess at such things.)
There’s my (yummy) Gingerbread Susie!! Hahahaha! I can’t believe she won! Thankk you so much, Susie!
And yes, she was scrumdiddlyumptious, Luisa! x
hurray hurray! x
Now I know how a jelly baby feels.
Have to love a book with the word ‘wrinkle’ in the title anyway.
The wrinkling is how you time travel. (Clearly my face has started to time travel lately.) It’s dead good actually – there’s this really simple-but-clear description of how dimensions work, and the 5th dimension works like a wrinkle. V handy for the science-deaf like me.
(Also a very welcome distraction at present. Can I time travel past a Cameron administration, pls?)
smiles