The end of 2008 and the early 2009 were quite traumatic times for me and my family. Breaking both wrists in October 2008 and the sudden death of my brother on the 5th March 2009 were emotionally draining and disrupting meaning that book signings had to be cancelled and writing came to a full stop as personal matters took priority. This summarises the end of my last diary entry up to the end of May 2009. June was, fortunately, a quiet month which allowed me some time to actually write and catch up on correspondence that had been sadly neglected, e-mails piling up like leaves in autumn and needing a severe sweeping! July was fun. We went to the Harper Collins authors’ party on the 8th of the month at the Victoria and Albert museum in Kensington, which was a fantastic success despite the torrential rain that was suffered by London that week. In fact a garden party at Buckingham Palace had been drowned the previous day with some guests having to be carried over the deluge of water that poured from the skies. On Sunday the 12th I had a lovely visit from some of my relatives who love in Redditch in the West Midlands on their way home from a trip to Ireland. They have been doing a wealth of research into our family history on my mother’s side and gave me copies of birth and marriage certificates and lots of other details of my ancestry for which I am very grateful as I have little time to pursue this interest on my own. My eldest daughter Nikki, Steve and the family arrived on Friday 17th for her summer visit from Devon and although this year it had to be for only one week we had a great time, probably drinking a little too much wine in the evenings but relaxing together and catching up on events as you can only do face to face. My youngest daughter, Tamsin, was moving house on the day that Nikki and her family were going back home and they agreed to delay their return to allow Steve, Nikki’s husband, to help Denis and Mark, Tamsin’s partner, to assist with the move. It was planned like a military exercise but the Generals got it wrong! Tamsin and Mark were moving into a town house and tall wardrobes that someone gave her were fine in a bungalow, but didn’t want to go up the stairs of a modern town house. After much pushing and shoving and not a little strong language, it was decided that they would not fit and they were consigned to the local furniture reclaim centre. But everything else went well and her and Mark have settled for hanging rails for their clothes for now. In August. in between writing, I had another trip to London, this time for lunch with my new brand manager, Kate. It was really great to meet, especially as we got on so well. I was stunned though to be recognised on Euston Station concourse by two loyal readers who said that they recognised me from my website and we had an interesting conversation together. On August Bank Holiday we went to Ireland for a two week break. We stayed the first week in Wicklow, near where my cousins Maura and Seamus live and although we went out and about seeing things we also spent a lot of time with Maura, Seamus, their daughter Tanya and her husband Pat for as well as being family they are really good company. The next week we spent in Donegal, near to the fishing town of Killybegs where we had never stayed before and we enjoyed this very much. We found much of interest in the fishing port and visited the American Ulster Theme Park, which we thoroughly enjoyed and we explored some underground caves, some of it by boat and found it fascinating. There were many sandy beaches to walk on, my cousins Mary, Eddie and Bernadette to visit and Denis found a session going on Wednesday night in a pub in the village less than a mile away so off we went with his banjo and we had a wonderful time. We also we met up with Joe O’Loughlin who has been helping me with research into my father’s life and he had actually found the homestead where he had lived before he travelled to England and we then went to lunch with Joe’s wife Ina and Mary McGoldrick, who had known my father as a young man when she was just a child. Sadly the holiday was soon over and we returned home. Apart from a visit to the local theatre with friends to see Ken Dodd, in September yes he is old fashioned but still good family entertainment and maybe not for that much longer, it was back to the keyboard., although I did have a trip to Middleton in Staffs, where my son and his family live to give a talk to the village luncheon club which was very well attended and the lunch was good too! Then at the end of the month on Saturday 26th I went to an open day at the Day Nursery Tamsin is manager of in Betws-y-Coed and read stories for the children-a trip to the past to my days as an infant teacher. November was a monumental month for me personally as, following extensive eye tests, where they found that I was developing cataracts. This is not something a writer needs and so I had the lens of one eye replaced at a Manchester eye clinic on Thursday 5th of November and the second one replaced on 10th. Now. cataracts are banished and I can now see perfectly without glasses for the first time since I was 4 years old and it is fantastic. I still have to go for regular check ups but have experienced no problems whatsoever. On Friday 13th of November we headed off to Devon for the 18th birthday party of our only grand-daughter, Briony, which was to be held in a local hotel the following evening. My surprise to everyone was, of course, no glasses and it took a little while for everyone to get used to their new look Mom and Gran and everyone thought I was very brave, but I think it’s one of the best things I have ever done. At the party the owner of the hotel arranged to do a ‘This is your Life’ style presentation at the beginning of the evening, showing all those embarrassing ‘growing up’ pictures that acutely embarrass teenagers in front of their friends. However, there was a twist in the tail. Briony’s boyfriend, Arran is in the Royal Navy and works as a sub mariner in submarines of course and was under the sea on a tour of duty and therefore unable to either contact her, or be there for her party. What she didn’t know was that his boat had developed a fault and was back in dock and at the end of the presentation, after provoking tears with the sad story of him being away for this grand occasion the presenter just said ‘I think there is someone over there who has something for you,’ and Arran walked out from the hotel kitchen where we had hidden him with a huge bouquet and a broad grin provoking floods of tears but much happiness. This set the standard for the evening and a great time was had by one and all. All the teens there were brilliant and a credit to their generation. We came home from Devon on Monday16th with a break at my son’s house in the Midlands. On the journey from Simon’s to home we had the misfortune to be involved in a massive accident due to heavy rain and severe driving conditions. We crashed into the central reservation which sent us into a spin and we spun round three times as we as we crossed from one side of the motorway to the other. Crashing into the nearside barrier stopped us mounting the bank, but we were facing the wrong way on a motorway with no hard shoulder near Chester in the rush hour and there we sat for about an hour and a half till the motorway police spotted us. We knew we had written off our car and this resulted in us and the car having to be relayed from the M56 to the police breakdown garage in Cheshire. Then our insurance company liaised with the AA who brought us and the car home. It was very scary but thanks to the fantastic crash protection systems built into the car, Denis and I escaped without a scratch, not even any whiplash injuries. I can’t praise the Cheshire police enough for their kindness and helpfulness, or our insurance company who dealt with the incident with thorough professionalism. We have now replaced the car a Citroen C5 with an updated model of the same make and as we feel we owe our lives to the protection it afforded us. On 19th November I was in London again for the RNA’s winter party. I had a lovely new outfit and purple party shoes you would die for – you know the type. It was really good to catch up with all my writer friends and as those of us who come a distance all stay at the same hotel, the party just goes on. But then came December and everything that we had planned for that month, a present exchange with the children, Christmas meals with friends and fellow writers, plans for the festive season, even our six monthly dental check was cancelled when we got the devastating news from Germany that my brother in law, Denis’s sister’s husband, Werner, had died in hospital after a protracted illness. We dropped everything and flew to Germany to comfort Ann, who suffers from MS herself. just before the snow fell heavily in Northern Germany. Simon and Nikki came over by road for the funeral which was held on Wednesday 16th of December. We intended leaving Germany on Monday 21st but on Sunday both Dusseldorf and Manchester airports were closed and all train services in north Germany were suspended due to the snow and we thought we were to spend Christmas in Germany. We did manage to fly home though we faced long delays due to both airports only having a few runways open and we arrived home at half past eleven at night after leaving Ann’s apartment at two o’clock. Christmas was a little curtailed as we had just three days to decorate the house, buy and wrap presents for the family and each other and, of course, do the big Christmas shop. . By Christmas Day everything was done, but we were exhausted and then that morning as Denis, Beth and I visited Tamsin and Mark to exchange presents and greetings we got the best Christmas present ever. Tamsin is giving us another grandchild in the summer. On Boxing Day, we spent the evening with friends and on the 30th we celebrated Beth’s birthday with her, a family affair but very nice. December 31st is, of course, New Year’s Eve but it is also our wedding anniversary so is usually a happy and festive occasion. However, at mid-day we received a phone call informing us that Pat and Tanya’s daughter, Leah, was seriously ill in hospital. And then, after a traumatic night, we were told that Leah had had a massive heart attack and passed away at mid-day on New Year’s Day-she was twenty years old. This was such terrible news and our hearts went out to the family. Saturday afternoon was spent on the internet, arranging ferry crossings and accommodation in Dublin and Donegal, for though the first Requiem Mass was to be held on Monday Jan 4th in Dublin the Interment Mass and Burial was to take place in Greencastle in Donegal on the 5th because it is where the family originally came from and where they still have a family house. We sailed for Ireland on Sunday 3rd of January and our son and our niece and her husband flew over. It is impossible to find words to describe the emotions that ran wild in those few days in Ireland. We heard of the neighbours and friends who had welcomed her body home, from hospital on Saturday night, lining the streets with lighted candles. And those same people - about 200 of them- walked behind the funeral car on Monday morning where approximately 150 young people lined the route into the church. We noted the strength and dignity of her parents and brothers as they celebrated Leah’s short life, the love displayed by her many friends both in Dublin and Donegal, the heartache and sadness when she was laid to rest. We can’t imagine the grief of losing a child so young; we can only support the living in their ongoing sorrow. Leah was training to be a nurse and had, before Christmas passed her exams to go on to further training to nurse terminally ill children. Her Requiem Mass in Killiney, Co Dublin was held on the day she was due to start that new training. May 2010 be a better year for all of us. And because life has to go on, the last book of the Sullivan series, “The Child Left Behind”, the book that wraps the whole thing up is out on 21st Jan. but because of the adverse weather conditions promotion is put off until Feb. I am doing a formal signing in WH Smiths in Union Street on Feb 2nd between 12 o’clock and 2. And then will be signing in and around Birmingham, including the airport on 8th and 9th. The rest of the promotion I am doing with Annie Groves or some of you might know her as Penny Jordan as she was when she worked for Mills and Boon. Together we’ll be giving a talk at Frankley library on Wednesday at 10.30 and another at Acock’s Green Library at 2 o’clock. On Thursday we are travelling to Liverpool where we are having a meeting and answering questions of reading groups in the morning, the venue not yet being finalised and in the afternoon we are giving a talk at the Central Library in Liverpool at 2 15. If you live near any of these venues, I would love to see you. Please make yourself known to me.