Love (Wanting it so bad you overlook the obvious)
Thank you, Book Referees for taking part in the Conditional Love blog tour, and thank you for inviting me to write a guest post for your blog today. I love the title that you gave me – it is so appropriate for the book! I must admit I looked at the topic long and hard to start with, thinking ‘but I’ve been married for twenty years…!’ But then I realized this is something we do that doesn’t only refer to members of the opposite sex – we want stuff all the time that really, deep down; we know we shouldn’t have.
So I’ve pulled together three of the things I know I shouldn’t have (or have bought!) but that I love so much, that I have them anyway!
My Killer Heels
When I first saw these shoes on the Boden website (not sure if you have Boden in the US, it’s a catalog and online fashion brand) I fell in love. I mean, purple suede shoes – what’s not to like? I wear a lot of purple, and I thought I would wear them all the time. I totally ignored the fact that the heels are so high that I wouldn’t be able to walk in them. However, they were really expensive. Really, really expensive, so I didn’t buy them. But imagine my delight when they went on sale at 30% off! Yep, I bought them. And even though when they arrived, I could barely walk in them; I adored them. I have worn these shoes once. They are far too high for me. I wore them out to a restaurant and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I had to walk so slowly in case I slipped over that everyone stared at me like I was drunk!
My Polish Cherry Vodka
And talking of drunk… this is my absolute favourite alcoholic drink. It is cherry flavoured vodka, and you might be able to see from the bottle that the label is in a foreign language. That’s because this is Polish vodka, bought on my trip to Krakow with my family and another family who are our friends last year. The other family lives nearby to us in Nottingham but Rob; the husband is Polish, and he introduced us to all sorts of Polish delicacies that we had never tasted before. We bought a bottle of this vodka took it back to our apartment and put it in the freezer. I never normally drink spirits but the taste of this just blew my mind. We finished the bottle and bought a second one! It is very strong stuff, and I don’t drink it often, but now I always keep a bottle in the freezer for special occasions!
My ‘Off the Back of a Truck’ Garden Bench
Last year, I held the launch party for Conditional Love in the village phone box near to where I live. I sold lots of books and the following week, unusually for me; I had quite a lot of cash in the house. One day, that week there was a knock at the door and when I opened it, I found a man who had driven his truck up to the front of my house. He claimed that he was on his way back to his company after the end of a sale of garden furniture at a nearby golf club. He had some stock left over and wondered if I would like to see it. I fell in love with an oak bench, negotiated a good price and handed over the cash I had just earned for the first ever sales of Conditional Love. After the man left I suddenly worried about how wise I had just been to buy something out of the back of a truck! However, the bench is beautiful; it looks great in my garden, and it always reminds me of the launch of Conditional Love.
So there you go, three things that I just had to have so badly that I overlook the obvious – what are your guilty pleasures?!
