It's summer, and I have big plans...

Here are the plans:

And, OK, these aren’t the only plans I have for the summer: actually, these are just the books I’m taking on holiday with me. (And maybe one more book.) (And any I might happen to buy at the airport.)

(I actually feel a bit self-conscious posting this now because it doesn’t seem like a lot for two weeks — like, I literally bought my first Kindle because otherwise my suitcase would be totally weighed down with books back in the day — but, well, I have a 7 year old. And when you have a kid, holidays are not the same, folks. They’re just not.)

Where was I?

Oh, yeah: these aren’t all of my summer holiday plans, but… they also kind of are, because … I have a 7 year old. Which means that, once the schools are on holiday, all bets are off. Seriously, at the time of writing, we’re on day two of the summer holidays, and this is literally me:

And I don’t even smoke, guys.

Anyway, by the time you read this, I should hopefully be lying by a pool in the sun, with a cocktail in one hand, and one of those paperbacks in the other. I say ‘hopefully’: unfortunately for me, all of the recent air crashes have triggered my fear of flying, which had otherwise been pretty much under control for the past few years — mostly because I’d basically reached a stage in my life when I realised that catching a flight was literally the only way I could guarantee myself a few uninterrupted hours to read. I’d actually started to quite enjoy it.

Then, of course, 2025 came along, and, with it, a whole lot of reasons for me to start to fear flying again. (Fun fact: in my early 20s, I once bought a copy of Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, thinking it was a self-help book. Spoiler alert: it is NOT, in fact, a self-help book…) But, the fact is, I might hate flying, but God, I LOVE being on holiday — as in, I genuinely LIVE for those two precious weeks per year when I get to be somewhere that is not here — so, as I said, by the time you read this, I’ll either have arrived safely, or you’ll have seen me on the news, in which case this newsletter will acquire a poignancy I could not otherwise have guessed at.

(Other than the bit about Ben Afleck, obviously. I’m actually considering taking that out just in case something does happen, and that’s how you all remember me…)

My plans for the rest of the summer holidays, meanwhile, include:

• Providing endless amounts of drinks and snacks to Max and his friends.

• Trying not to completely lose it when he wakes up in the morning and says, “Mummy, I’m bored!” before he even gets out of bed.

• Hoping to God he doesn’t decide to try to re-capture the two ‘pet’ snails he begged to be allowed to keep last week, and was very reluctantly persuaded to liberate again.

• Possibly more edits for book number 9.

• Plotting for book number 10.

• A potential trip to Kent for a family get-together.

• Attempting to stay sane.

For now, though, I’m going to concentrate on those books…

Until next week,