Helen Grant - Ghostwriter

Today I made coffee and finished tidying. Wrote half a chapter of a book I’m working on, and did some copywriting. Then I gathered the children’s stuff, threw a couple of towels in a bag, and ushered them out the door, dressed like Eskimos.

It was tipping it with rain, so what started as a slow walk through the park, turned into a leisurely jog, which became a sprint for cover for the last quarter of a mile or so. The children thought it was hilarious. They jumped in puddles and Abigail used her magnifying glass to inspect plants and flowers.

When we reached the play park, we decided to give it a miss because of the weather, and jumped straight in the pool instead. The water was warm. Us girls splashed about like mermaids and Callum like a swordfish, darting about and laughing like a cheeky monkey. He thought it would be really cool to play his own version of It’s a Knockout, throwing a ball at my head when I was looking the other way, and cracking up in hysterics. The main thing was everyone had a happy day, and that was my greatest achievement today.

This week I intend to get my hands on some Lickety Sips, an ice lolly available in mango, blackcurrant and lemon from Harvey Nichols, Eat and online at www.sipdrink.com.

I’m told they’re the next big thing in beauty because they’re packed with skin boosting vitamin C, selenium, antioxidants and rose petal extract, all of which offer the same benefits as water. Whether they go global remains to be seen but they’re all the rage among beauty gurus. One lick and it’s love apparently.

When I was 21 and recovering from postnatal psychosis, I went back to work part-time as a secretary for an estate agent. One of the partners took a shine to me and the feeling was mutual - to begin with. There was a lot of flirting until one day he offered me a lift home. Our kiss was brief and unfamiliar. “Will you go out with me?” he smiled. “Yes,” I beamed.

So we went on a couple of dates, but I was still semi-away with the fairies, and his clinginess was more than I could handle. I agreed to go to his parent’s pub to meet them. I saw no harm in that, but his constant phoning and turning up unannounced at my house was wreaking havoc with my recovery. “Let’s take things slowly,” I suggested, “There’s no rush.”

“Okay,” he agreed, “Do you still want to meet my folks?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” I said cheerily, “I’m looking forward to it.” My mixed messages must have been alarming.

So we drove through open countryside (in the dark) towards his parent’s pub. Huge mistake! We were about three miles out of the city, when I relapsed - big time. I began hyperventilating, getting really scary thoughts that he was going to murder me, chop me up and fling my body parts out of the window. I was afraid to say anything in case I ‘planted the seed in his head to do just that’. Instead, I pressed my fist into my mouth to shut myself up, my heart pounding.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning at my panicked face. I was breathing really fast, sweating and light headed, rocking back and forth, and holding my knees to my chest. We were approaching a small town and I was relieved to see lights in the distance. As we got closer, there were shop doorways and a few people milling about. “Thank God for that,” I mumbled, relaxing a little.

“Stop the car,” I said. “I need air.” When he turned off the ignition, I opened the door and ran, like a lunatic down the street, desperate to get away.

I called mum from a phone box. “Help me!” I screamed. “He’s going to kill me!”

“Who’s going to kill you?”

“My estate agent friend,” I hissed.

I turned around and jumped. He’d caught up with me and was peering through the phone box window, out of breath and confused. He tried to coax me out but I refused to budge, so he sat in his car and waited while I did … God knows what, counted sheep probably, or twiddled my thumbs, or fantasised about eloping with my doctor. We’re talking 13 years ago so I can’t remember every detail, but suffice to say, I wasn’t right in the head.

Not surprisingly, I returned to hospital that night. I didn’t care. I was glad to be alive. They doped me up with pills and, as far as I was concerned, that was the end of my fling with the estate agent man.

But he wouldn’t let it drop. He visited every day, wearing the most bizarre clothes (like a pin stripe suit and straw hat or football shirt and suit jacket and sandals). I began to wonder whether they’d locked up the wrong person.

“Will you be my girlfriend when you get out?” he kept asking, and I told him I didn’t want to think that far ahead. “I’ll be as patient as you need me to be,” he said, “we can take things slowly.”

When I was ‘released’ we dated for a while. God knows why. We had nothing in common, and I didn’t fancy him. I kind of felt sorry because he had no friends. He was supportive and encouraging, a genuinely nice guy. But we weren’t right for each other.

“As long as we’re together,” he said, undeterred, and I nodded. I was so poorly; I’d have agreed to marry him right there and then and been none the wiser. Living in each other’s pockets would have been okay if there was chemistry (we could shag all day to pass the time) but I fancied him about as much as a smartie dipped in arsenic. I’m not sure how he felt about me, but as he made no sexual advances, I can only assume he was in it for the companionship too.

So our brief ‘relationship’ consisted of a couple of picnics, a date to the cinema, a mad drive through the countryside, the odd snog, and a few afternoons in bed, sitting side by side in matching tee-shirts, reading to each other. It was a bizarre experience, but hey, life would be dull without the odd battle scar, and bizarre experiences make up the grand tapestry of life.

I woke up screaming this morning. It was very disturbing. I can’t remember what the dream was about. All I remember is what I saw when I opened my eyes. There are handbags hanging on the back of the door near my bed. In the half light, they looked like people hanging on a noose. I jerked upright and screamed the house down, waking the kids up in the process. This was early, just after 5, so I’ve been up ever since with a thumping headache, feeling anxious.

I’ve had dreams about falling, being naked in a room full of strangers, but I’ve never dreamt about people hanging in my bedroom doorway before, and I’ve never woken up screaming. When I was little, I had those dreams that most kids do, where in the hazy first stages of sleep you think your teddies and dolls are monsters and the posters on your wall look at you in an evil way, their faces twisted into scary shapes. I spent many long nights cowered under my blankets, praying for daylight.

When I looked up the meaning of dead people, hanging and screaming in a dream dictionary, this is what it said:

To witness a hanging in your dream, represents your feelings of insecurity. It can also mean something in your life has been left hanging or unfinished. To see the dead in your dream, forewarns that you are being influenced by negative people and are hanging around the wrong crowd. Death in a dream can also mean the end of one chapter and the beginning of another, and may indicate that you are becoming enlightened or spiritual.

Maybe it was my brain telling me to slow down and relax. I’ve been stressed about a lot of stuff lately. Or it might have been a night terror. Right now, there is so much pressure inside my head it feels like it’s going to explode.

Night Terror symptoms

Sudden awakening from sleep, persistent fear or terror that occurs at night, screaming, sweating, confusion, rapid heart rate, inability to explain what happened, usually no recall of bad dreams or nightmares, may have a vague sense of frightening images. Many people see spiders, snakes, animals or people in the room, are unable to fully awake, difficult to comfort, with no memory of the event on awakening the next day.

Regent’s Park is hosting a picnic for thousands of people this weekend. With grub from London’s best resturants + famous chefs, live music and fine wine, the Taste Festival is going to be a feast for hungry bellies. 

Expect such culinary delights as grilled fillet of seabream, strawberry and champagne jelly, pumpkin and seafood curry and braised beef and potato gratin.  Veggies will be spoilt for choice too. Oh, and Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson are going to be there. Buy your tickets here.

If mattress gymnastics is your thing, check this out for a giggle. It brightened my day.

… is a collection of images by Peter Menzel from a book called Hungry Planet. Check out the difference in family dinner tables in 15 homes around the globe.

As expected, the world’s favourite foods vary as dramatically as the climate. The Kodeira family from Japan like sashimi, fruit, cake and potato chips while the Sobczynscy’s of Poland are partial to pig’s knuckles with carrots, celery and parsnips. The Ahmed’s of Cairo salivate over Okra and mutton and the Aboubakar’s knock back gallons of soup with fresh sheep meat.

Spot the difference yourself here. It’s interesting to note the varying style of kitchens too.

… and run Forrest run! It’s fun, social, free and the best stress buster known to man (apart from meditation). There are few activities that burn calories qucker than running, so if you want to lose a few pounds, grab your trainers, head for the door and go like the wind. You might want to read this book first to get you motivated, but once you get going, there’ll be no stopping you.