My husband and I are communicating by email or text even though we are sat on the same sofa,  the dog is wearing a gag and I am rendezvous-ing with our postman on the street corner to fetch home the mail and stop the letterbox clanging.

It is the week of her final exams at university and I am very proud of how hard she is working and how dedicated  she is –  but daren’t say so out loud which is why I am saying it here.

How do you approach a scary Welsh cheese? Caerphilly.

I heard on the radio  that if you feed a canary red pepper it will turn orange. This could be big and very good news for the cast of The Only Way is Essex.

I saw Hannah on The Voice last night. The poor girl  did some gruesome bumping and grinding as she sangalongaknickeritch.

I read about the world’s biggest dog who is 52 inches tall and weighs 245 pounds. I reckon he might just fit into one of those gi-normous handbags that Victoria Beckham totes around.

Today though she has tipped up in the Daily Mail again saying that certain women are ‘too ugly’ for TV. Now she has lost all her dopey charm for me. In particular Samantha slags  the brilliant historian Professor Mary Beard for being unattractive.

Ms Brick  is obviously cashing in on her current notoriety but should think twice about writing such vapid vitriol about a highly educated TV presenter who is currently pulling in 1.9 million viewers per episode of ‘Meet The Romans’ on BBC2.

It’s one thing being a self elected one time only national joke on the pages of the Mail in return for a few bob, but another altogether taking the golden shilling to become their regular stoopid female assassin.

Mostly I have a great chat with all the lovely people who turn up to these signings and because I am so grateful and giddy with excitement to be sat there behind a pile of my books. I think I might even talk and laugh too much. In one bookshop a shopper told me to “Sssh!” because I was enjoying myself too loudly.

And every now and then you get a bonkers alert. Two last week, actually.

First it was the man who said he had chosen me from every writer in the world to be the first to read his autobiography which happened to be on a memory stick with a cover shaped like the Michelin Man. I told him that he would get much better advice from a literary agent but he said, very firmly, “Susan! No! It must be you who reads it first!”

I asked my husband to take a first look at what was on the memory stick in case it was squirrels in a state of undress or something offensive like that. But it was a book. One titled, and here I will paraphrase, ‘The Ladyparts Fella’. It was something else. Not a book, not a story, something else….

Then a lady who looked like a Where’s Wally impersonator turned up.  “I’ve come especially to meet you” she said, which I thought was very nice indeed, and then she added, “I am waiting for my friend. She’s a big lady. Big, but not as fat as you.”  At that precise moment my husband arrived carrying a cup of tea and a bun for me.

Mrs Wally went straight for the jugular with him, too. ”What do you do?” she demanded of him. “Hello, I’m a teacher” he replied. “And have you got the sack?” Baffled but ever polite he answered, “Not yet” with a laugh. She laughed right back and said “I thought they were sacking all the old ones because you’re too expensive?” Charm offensive over she wandered around the shop for a while and before she left came to complain that her friend had stood her up.

Can’t think why.

I chose a chi-chi florist with a wingadingadingdong website, picked  a gorgeous hand tied bunch and then  called with specific instructions about when to deliver them .  The girl at the florist sounded terminally bored with me as soon as she’d got my credit card details. I was still saying goodbye and thankyou when she put the phone down on me.

48 hours later the flowers hadn’t turned up as arranged. My friend ended up going door to door in her street hunting for her ‘surprise’ hand tied bouquet in creamy neutrals.  I told her to remember everyone was a suspect.

I called the  florist again. They put me on hold and their wait music was the death march or something very like it.Then Leonard Cohen’s twin sister came on the line again. I explained I’d paid for flowers that hadn’t turned up and what was she going to do about it?  In a series of impatient sighs she replied. Yes she’d delivered them. No she couldn’t help if they’d gone to the wrong address and isn’t life a bitch?

Stepdancing on the spot with rage I persuaded her to think again. She grudgingly offered to leave some flowers on my friends doorstep later in the day as a’ goodwill gesture’. I told her that my friend would be away for a fortnight so that wasn’t a plan, and that I wanted a refund instead.

“No refund but tell your friend  it’s the thought that counts” were her sage words.

The War of the Roses has commenced………

The bra had been ordered online and and I opted to collect it in store to save on delivery charges.  I picked it up and after trying it on at home realised it was a dismal failure so took it back to the store where I had originally collected it from for a refund.  This particular M&S branch sells undies, clothes, shoes and handbags –  but told me they couldn’t return my money because the bra wasn’t an item they held in stock.  The Manager confided he has dealt with hundreds of similar complaints, and then he told me what he had told all the other irate customers - go away.

I huffed home and called M&S Customer Services, they sympathised and offered to send out a courier  to fetch my bra  and transport it back to their warehouse. I asked if there could please be outriders around the courier’s van, but the lady on the ‘phone didn’t get the joke.

I am very happy about a lot of things at the moment, and one of them is that I don’t have any M&S shares.

Of course I fannied about with some icing sugar just before I served the cakes to give every impression that I had made them myself. I even muttered something about my pastry being so light thanks to a combination of cold fingertips and hot ovens.  My delicious lie was going down a treat until my daughter came home early from a night out and announced to my guests that I must be the only person who goes to the gym to get her cake. How we laughed……..

I did consider getting a cake to celebrate my 30 year wedding anniversary this week - but decided that no treat, even after three decades,  could be better than just looking over at my husband and hearing him laugh.

And if that’s too soppy for you, get over it. We got married the day before his 23rd birthday and each year since I have told him that I am his birthday present. I am not sure if he is convinced yet. In truth he has been, and always will be, my gift.

I was convinced I burst a blood vessel behind my eye doing an exercise class when I got a stabbing pain every time I bent down to touch my toes. Turns out the under-wire from my bra had burst out with the sheer exertion of it all, and was stabbing me in the closed eye every time I lunged forward.

I went to my local cinema to see the live streaming from the National Theatre of the play  ‘She Stoops to Conquer’. It was packed out and when I got to my pre booked and numbered seat there was a man, aged at least 110, with a zimmer frame sat in it. What would you do?

I ordered a lemon cake, a bakewell tart and 2 banana cakes to take to the healthy eating spa hotel where I will be spending Easter.

I watched the first two Episodes of Mad Men and spent more time fast forwarding than enjoying it. Ditto Scott and Bailey.

I am NOT a scrubber, at least according to the Daily Express. Here’s my recent article about how I am proud not to be a Domestic Goddess http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/311104/Why-we-re-glad-the-domestic-goddess-is-dead

I plan to have an amazing Easter break and wish the same for anyone reading this – may your lips be coated in top quality chocolate and your weekend full of sunshine.

Happy Easter! xxx

I had my suspicions he was meeting another woman because he  got up early to trim the hair that grows horizontally out of his ears and vertically from his nose, and gargled twice with extra strength Listerine. Her Majesty is in for a treat.