My first Substack

Welcome to my diary...

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a habitual chronicler; writing diaries and endless notes. Occasionally, nowadays, I’ll interrupt a conversation to quickly tap something I can’t bear to forget into my phone. I write postcards on a whim, and send letters for the flimsiest of reasons (sometimes including a pressed flower). I take photographs, and make sketches, and am blessed with an absurdly good memory.

Diaries and letters are my favourite literary form to read, too; I love the way the pace picks up as you begin to know the writer(s) and their world. I love the mundane detail as much as the charming, mysterious entries that might mean nothing, or everything, the mention of a person once and never again, and that whole threads just sometimes evaporate. I like that character and incident are not merely in service to an intricate plot, that often there is no plot, save for the meandering pattern of life, and that things are allowed to just happen for their own sake. In David Sedaris’ diary Theft by Finding for instance, it’s useful to know that the young Sedaris took various low paid jobs; polishing jade, tidying apples, repairing bins, returning library books, and finally, applied for a position at the Tammy Lynn home for the retarded, but additionally—for no real reason— we’re treated to his note from 1981 about watching a stranger eating a sandwich with his eyes closed, and another time, losing control of a wheelbarrow—neither of which are heard of or mentioned again!

Now I’m going to put my diary onto Substack and I’ll explain here how I think it will develop: Anyone who has read Love, Nina, or Went To London Took The Dog will know to expect details from the life of a jobbing writer, a lighthearted, slightly baffled take on current affairs, anecdotes, and bizarre gems that find me on social media and through the grapevine, snippets from friends and family—including the youthful wisdom and goodness of my adult offspring and their pals, and thoughts on the books I’m reading.

If nothing very interesting has happened, I plan to include the odd excerpt from my works-in-progress—currently a novel about romance in later life, based on my recent experience of online dating¹)— and I’ll share some vintage material; the occasional diary entry, note, or letter of my own (‘on this day’), as well those from famous correspondents. So, it’s quite possible you’ll see the younger me sitting through the Bride of Chucky DVD with Alan Bennett in 1998 (I mean, watching it with him, not that he stars in it), and you might glimpse Samuel Pepys having his first cup of tea, Barbara Pym luncheoning at the Golden Egg, or Virginia Woolf teaching her dog to blow out a match.

excerpts from e.g. this kind of thing…

See below for an example:

* * *

15 March 2026

(Mother’s Day, UK)

Eva was coming for breakfast, so I went to the Co-op for eggs. They’d already sold out of flowers, not that I needed any, but customers stood despondent by a row of empty black buckets, there was talk of a green grocer’s stall near Kentish Town tube. A worried-looking man called out, ‘Any more out the back?’

An assistant disappeared, then returned with a few small teddy bears in plastic bags holding heart-shaped signs reading I love you in comic sans, left over from Valentine’s, which he now arranged on the counter. ‘Or there’s chocolate,’ he said, gesturing the confectionery area.

‘But can you have chocolate if you’re on the Ozempic?’ said the man, gazing about. The assistant didn’t know.

I was queuing to pay when Alfie suddenly appeared with a self-serve croissant to take to work. He relieved me of my items (coffee and eggs)

‘I’ll get these—’ he said, ‘Happy Mother’s Day’.

‘Yeah, nice touch, bro,’ said a laughing voice behind.

I turned to smile and saw it was the worried man from the empty buckets, who now seemed pleased with a three-pack of Ferraro Rocher and one of the I Love You bears.

‘Promise me one thing,’ said Alf, outside, ‘this’ll be the year you’ll read The Adventures of Augie March.’ I assured him it would, and he cycled off, waving. He was wearing the crumpled polyester trousers he bought from a charity shop in Vatican City for €1, which he can’t iron, or they’ll melt.

First edition cover

Bumped into my ex-landlady Debby on the walk home, smiling in a turquoise beret.

Eva arrived for breakfast in a party frock under a fake fur and gave me a slim bunch of flowers (chrysanthemums, blue irises, and some kind of purple gypsophila), all very much in bud. I attended to them straight away (trimming and bashing stems, arranging), which is what one must always do when given flowers or it can seem ungrateful. They didn’t look much in the rather large vase, but I could tell they’d soon bloom into a pretty bouquet. Eva, not having my long experience with cut florals, groaned.

‘Ugh! Is that it? they cost £20’

I reassured her (as above) but she called them the worst present she’s ever given me. I reminded her of the fluffy white dressing gown she bought with her M&S staff discount that gave me constant electric shocks and a heat rash inside my elbows.

Eva’s profile picture before she changed it

Told Eva how sad I am that she’s replaced her profile picture on WhatsApp.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I had to, someone at work’s got a banana phobia and it keeps triggering them.’

‘Oh dear.’ I said.

‘Banana phobia is a real thing, mum.’ She said, as if I were showing a lack of empathy.

‘I know.’ I said and reminded her of poor (redacted) and his crisp phobia, how he’d been taunted by his girlfriend with sour cream & chive Pringles at the airport until I’d intervened. And poor old Yusuf, terrified of Michael Jackson. And Misty’s phobia of parquet flooring, and male camel-toe.

Eva has decided to go back on the Hinge dating app, which was probably the real reason she came round in person, tbh. She was banned from the app back in 2023—after being reported for using it to find models for a photography project at college—so she registered as me, which meant that when I went on the app two years later, I had to use Vic’s details. (Vic’ll never need it, having found her perfect husband on Match.com in 2011)

Anyway, Eva needed a verification code in order to reactivate her (my) account, which we did after breakfast, then scrolled through the available young men. I find I can’t tell who is handsome or not. The ones she admires are slightly terrifying to me and the ones I think sweet are completely out of the question for her. She’s going to date ‘more intentionally’ and though I’m not sure quite what that means, it sounded positive. Also, she’s trying to help her dear friend (redacted) find a Sugar Daddy.

Later, Alf dropped off The Adventures of Augie March for me as promised, and Hard Times for K.

Round up from Gels Groupchat:

Rachel is back from younger daughter’s wedding abroad, posted a short video of the happy couple & baby being professionally photographed on the beach, laughing, leaning into a strong wind, and baby Timothée being sick down his waistcoat. She’s brought back a mechanical donkey that shits cigarettes when you push its ears back.

Sadly, (redacted) has just applied to have her marriage annulled. She’s filled in a ‘nulity form’ (DN8) and sent it to Bury St Edmunds with a cheque for £612. They’ve never ‘properly consummated’, apparently, and he breeds mealworms. The final straw this week when he confessed that he’d been discharged from jury service after falling asleep in a people-smuggling trial.

In happier news; Misty has invested in five barrels of whiskey and an oil painting by a Winnipeg artist who’s about to be discovered.

I shared the news that I’ve been on the Merlin Bird app and identified many birds, including the Water rail (a bird of the rail family that breeds in well-vegetated wetlands across Europe, Asia and North Africa) which is not rare, but shy.

Guardian: Royals and Celebrities warned to watch words as lip-reading videos (of Prince William and Andrew MW) go viral.

BBC Radio 4: US military claims to have ‘totally demolished Kharg Island’ (the hub through which 90% of Iran’s oil exports flows). Trump now threatens to strike the Island again ‘just for fun.’

Instagram: Film of a man and a captive dolphin doing cartwheels for each other. Brought tears to my eyes.

TikTok: “the way a man views tofu is the way he views women”

Len Deighton has died (97)

Starting Augie March tonight.

* * *

Old Diaries … 15 March 1988

thinking I should go for a job at the London Review of Books. Good because Mary-Kay would be my boss which I’m used to, and I’d get to learn about that kind of (…) journalism. I could bring MK Sesame Snaps and Juicy Fruit etc. which I bet the other editorial assistants never think of.

The only thing.. all those years of slagging off Shakespeare, Hardy, and Chaucer etc. to make up for. Plan is to get MK to see I’ve matured. I’m not going to say anything. I’m just going read the LRB sitting down, not just the ads, and mention Angela Carter.

Stella says MK won’t ‘fall for it’ and even if she did it would be for the wrong reasons, and I’d be out of my depth and unpopular, which I’d hate. She thinks I should go for for the BBC or a book publisher but NOT at a literary journal where I’m friends with the boss, and I’d be the thickest person there.

Kylie Minogue has sent Prince Charles a ‘get well’ greeting after he nearly died in an avalanche in Switzerland. Sam jealous.

That’s all for this time. Thank you for reading. I hope you get the gist. I’ll post again in the next week or two, (usually at around 3pm on a Monday) by which time I’ll have learned more about formatting from Sophie Heawood

1. I got a new boyfriend from Hinge, but I’ve been made aware of how smug that can seem to other people (even if the boyfriend only bathes twice a week, and plays the spoons), so I shall keep all that to a minimum.