Alex Bell - fantasy author

I seem to have neglected the blog a bit recently. This is partly because of the party I had for Jasmyn last week, which took a lot of preparation. Those ice swans don’t carve themselves, you know . . .

Here I am with the giant swan, stuffed full of champagne. The swan, that is. Not me. Not by that point anyway. That swan weighed almost exactly the same as I do, which I found quite strange.

Here I am with fellow Princesses of Fantasy Fiction, Jaine Fenn and Suzanne McLeod:

Please note that, despite what this photo may suggest, I am not a freakishly tall person. It’s just that Jaine and Suzanne are both quite petite, and I was wearing heels. I dislike being called Gigantor to my face, and am likely to react unfavourably towards anybody who does so.

In spite of my earlier fib, I did not carve the swans myself. Ice sculpting is not something I can add to my list of talents. But I did help make the cupcake mountain:

Three hours. It took two people three hours to decorate the thirty eight cupcakes on that stand. They tasted good though - once I got over the fact that people were actually going to eat all our hard work.

Jasmyn really suited itself to a themed party. When it went dark, all the twinkly lights in the marquee came on and made it look gorgeous. I think, from now on, whenever I go to start a new book, my first thought should be: will this make a good party later?

It was a great evening. A great night, actually, as I didn’t go to bed until seven o clock the next morning. A sure sign of success in my book. Big thank yous to everyone who came and made it so much fun. It just wouldn’t have been the same sitting in the marquee and drinking bottle after bottle of champagne all by myself.

It’s good to be home. I like going on holiday but towards the end I start to suffer from intense cravings for two things: meat (of the vegetarian variety, obviously), and my animals.

On our last night in Las Vegas, we stayed in the Luxor. Nowhere near as nice as the Mirage, and we were all having a bit of a whinge about it, and saying we should have stuck with the first hotel. But then we went into breakfast and there, on the menu, was a side order of vegetarian sausages. Vegetarian sausages! I wouldn’t go so far as to say I actually wept with delight but . . . well, it was a near thing. There’s only so much lettuce a person can take, after all. Now I won’t hear a bad word said against the Luxor.

I was probably suffering from meat cravings even more than usual at that point because of the white water rafting we’d just done in Colorado. This involved a night of camping. And, believe me, there is nothing more painful than watching bacon sizzling away on a campfire, smelling all tasty and delicious, when you know you can’t have any of it. Later on they got the marshmallows out but these ones had gelatine in them, so I couldn’t have any of those either. By this time I could feel the cold sweat starting to prickle the back of my neck. Given all this, can I really be blamed for feeling so profoundly delighted by the veggie sausages at the Luxor?

Anyway, the bacon aside, the white water rafting was fantastic. What I loved most about it was that my brother fell out of the raft about five minutes after we set off down the river. Much amusement was had at his expense, but we dragged him back in eventually. I did not fall out at any time during the two days. At one point, however, I did neglect to jump in quickly enough. We got to this bank in the middle of the river and were carrying the raft across to the other side. Everyone else seemed to leap in nimbly enough. I slipped, or something, and ended up clinging to the side of the raft as it started to move on down the river. The problem with this is that when the water is moving faster than the raft, you have to hang onto the side tight in order to avoid being dragged underneath it. I had horrible images of being, effectively, keel-hauled beneath the raft. So I clung to the rope like a limpet, all the while shrieking, ‘Pull me in! Pull me in! Stop laughing and help me!’ Finally, my brother and his other half managed to drag me in between them. It was quite undignified though. I ended up sort of sprawled on the floor of the raft like a landed fish.

Anyway, now all that adventuring is behind me and I am back home with the menagerie. Moose has outgrown her car seatbelt whilst we’ve been away. She’ll outgrow my car soon too. My Siamese cat gave me the cold shoulder for the first few hours after I got back. But, since making her displeasure known, she has spent virtually the whole time glued to my lap. If there was any animal I missed more than Moose, it was Suki. That little cat is the absolute apple of my eye. Nothing she does ever irritates me. Not even when she shits on my bed. I mean, obviously, I’m irritated that there is shit on the bed, but I’m not irritated with Suki. She is a Siamese, after all, she can’t help being neurotic. Here is a photo of her:

I have been told she looks evil in this picture, but I just think she looks ridiculously cute. Something between a kangaroo and a gremlin. It makes me want to kiss her feet. In fact, I’m gonna go do that right now.