It is April Fool's day and I know that Ellie has been planning a host of practical jokes, so I put the clock forward so that when she wakes up, it is past midday. The joke backfires on me as Ellie bursts into tears when I tell her she has slept through the morning and April Fool's is over. For the rest of the day, as I feel so mean, I submit to having plastic eyeballs put in my coffee, pepper and chilli sauce in my tea and a 'cracked screen' on my phone, amongst various other practical jokes. Ellie asks if it can be April Fool's day all day as we are stuck at home. Agreeing is also part of the penance I pay for upsetting her earlier.
It's my last day of 'school'. From now on, I am going to concentrate on my writing and finishing a proofreading course I started in January.
My publishers write and ask me for a photo of myself for my new book, All Come to Dust. The one they were planning to use is not of a high enough resolution so I ask John to take some pictures of me. It is a painful exercise with John telling me turn one way and me saying that I'll be looking in the sun if I turn that way and then him getting annoyed with me as every photo has me either squinting or looking as though I've just woken up. I don't like photos and I am not photogenic at all. People have told me it's because I am too self-conscious, but actually the worst photos of me are the ones people have taken when I have been unaware. I don't know how it happens, but it always looks as though I have been pulling a face; my teeth are sticking out or my mouth is pulled to one side, my nose scrunched up, my eyes looking in different directions. It is all just far too weird.
Sian stands at her bedroom window, making faces at me which doesn't help. I try my hardest to look sophisticated and authorly, but it does not work. Any attempts to look 'mysterious' or 'literary' only make me look like I have been at the gin. Eventually, John manages to get a couple of photos which I send off to my publishers.
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