Why Mummy Drinks: The Sunday Times Number One Bestselling Author

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I pointed out that my three dogs would doubtless consider four Siamese cats nothing more than a delightful Christmas buffet, at which Mum huffed and sighed and said of course, if anything happened to the cats in the cattery then I really wasn’t to blame myself. Her first book, Why Mummy Drinks, was the bestselling hardback fiction debut of 2017, spending over six months in the top ten of the Sunday Times bestsellers chart, and was shortlisted for Debut Novel of the Year in the British Book Awards. Gills Sims has written this in a really true to life format where you empathise with the main character throughout, at no point did I feel she was in the wrong! You’ve spent the last twenty years trying to get some peace and quiet from the kids and wishing they’d bugger off,’ Simon pointed out. Ellen often feels fed up and cross with Simon who is always too tired to help out in the evening or at the weekends, despite the fact that Ellen also works part-time.

I reminded myself that I must be glad for Jane that even if her boyfriend’s parents had ridiculous taste when it came to naming their children, that at least they went some way to making up for that by being obscenely rich.This would be the year when the carol singers would carol, the pudding would be figgy (or perhaps not… imagine the potentially disastrous effect of figs on digestions already overloaded with Christmas excess), my halls would be (tastefully) decked, the bells on high would ding dong and the merry gentleman would rest dismayless (unconnected with any quantities of port they may have imbibed).

And Barry, my giant horse dog, who had been quite large enough already when I originally brought him home – I’d been assured by the nice rescue lady that he was fully grown, only for him to proceed to grow and grow – cavorted through all his best tricks to try to make me laugh, until he stood on Judgy, who objected vociferously, and Flora, not entirely sure what was going on, flung herself into the fray as well. I wanted very much to collapse into a toddler-like heap on the floor, clutching my phone and shrieking, ‘BUT WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEEE?The four Why Mummy titles have sold nearly a million copies across all formats to date and are published in eighteen territories worldwide. You weren’t that fussed when they didn’t want to come away with us in the summer, in fact you were quite excited about it.

And now they have, you’ve come over all earth mother and decided you want nothing more than them back at home! The most other people would be involved in our Christmas might be a very civilised tiny Christmas Eve drinks party with just my best friends: Hannah and her husband Charlie, and Sam and his husband Colin and their children, who most serendipitously are best friends with my children and it would all be MAGICAL and DELIGHTFUL AT LONG BLOODY LAST! This never boded well, because Jane is of the generation that regards actually talking on the electric telephone as a deeply unnatural and suspicious practice, and she can therefore only be induced to venture into such uncharted waters under great duress or in emergency situations.She claimed that was not my finest parenting hour, but I pointed out that really, it was a very easy mistake to make, they were right next to each other, but Jane insisted that knowing what country your teenager is visiting is really the very minimum you should expect from a parent. However, on the bright side, in the interests of economy and the environment, it is fewer flights to be undertaken, thereby improving your bank balance, my carbon footprint and the plight of the polar bears.

I can't tell you how excited I was to find out that the woman behind the Peter and Jane Facebook page was publishing a novel. My widowed stepmother Natalia, whom Dad had married just before he died, was going home to her own relations in Russia (a pity, as Natalia was by far the sanest member of my family).His plaintive cries when failing to cope with his little dears if Mummy is out for a while made me laugh and I think that many stay at home parents will recognise the other parent not really understanding just what they do all day with the children. The book group liked the diary format of 'Why Mummy Drinks', comparing it to 'The Diary of Adrian Mole', but this time with a 39 year old (equally irritating and confused) mum. Simon passed through the hall and I asked him if he wanted to help me make mini salt-dough decorations to adorn our gift tags, like I’d seen someone do on Instagram.