I do not have a new dress for my book launch, nor given everything I have to do at this time of year (plan next book, promote last book, endlessly revise current book) will I have the time or the energy between now and then to find one. I will have to do with digging something out from the back of the wardrobe and brushing off the dog hairs.

If I sound bitter, it's because I am. Younger, infinitely more glamorous sisters with three dresses to choose from, is not what a woman wants at her book launch. Especially when the room will be full of people I haven't seen since we were all in school uniform (at real school, in case you're wondering, not just a bit kinky that way) and I really don't want their first reaction to be: God, she's aged!

On the subject of people I haven't seen for a while - Margaret from Wigan, are you out there?  I'd love to invite you along.  Send me a message on the contact page and we'll sort something out.

I should point out that my sister's head doesn't end just above her jaw line, but if I publish a full frontal without permission, her revenge will be swift and serious. She does though, as you can see, have very knobbly knees!!!

This morning, the unprecedented happened Chez Bolton. We had a lie-in. I'm married, you understand, to a man who thinks the lark a rather sluggish bird, feels cheated if he misses a sunrise and is on first name terms with the milkman; who just plain can't sleep. Today, it was nearly 8am when the dulcet tones of our son in the bathroom dragged us from the depths of Lethe's spring. 

I put it down to the frenzied exercise of the night before. And before you jump to the obvious, please see previous post on same subject. No, I'm talking about modern jive, a craze that's sweeping southern England faster than swine flu. Suddenly, church halls and primary schools throughout the Home Counties are inundated with the middle-aged, middle classes, attempting to master the shoulder sweep, the sway and the hip weave. 

It's spicy stuff, modern jive: highly flirtatious, deeply suggestive and involving prolonged contact with unfamiliar bodies.  It's going down very well in the Chilterns.

After two sessions, our class has self-divided into two groups: the stay-with-your-own-partners and the swappers. Variety is the spice, Mr B and I agree, and so we're getting to know some of our neighbours rather better than we once expected. Name me a man in my street and I can tell you his exact height, the extent of muscle definition on his shoulders and whether he knows the difference between a woman's waist and her hip.

Just one complaint, though. To a man, my new dancing partners are just not firm enough. The hand in mine feels limp, the feet could go in any direction, the movement is vague, uncertain. I find myself taking charge.

'Ladies, you have to let the men lead,' calls Patrick from the stage, and he's always looking directly at me. I try to be submissive. I fail. Patrick takes me by the hand and does all the movements out of order so I have no choice but to follow him. He is very firm; it all becomes blissfully easy.  I think I might be developing a crush on Patrick. 

I'm sorry, but there really is something wonderfully sensuous about dancing with a man who knows what he's about. It just seems so rare in Britain to meet a man who not only knows how to move himself around a dance floor, but can actually move you too.  But I tell you something, if men knew how erotically charged a good dance can be, they'd all be taking modern jive classes.  And sod the Saturday morning football and rugby; they'd be signing their sons up for ballet class. 

I've been trying hard to capture this sensual possibility in my latest book. Just  before things get really nasty, hero Harry drives Evi up to a high Tor in the Lancashire Pennines. It's early November, late at night, and they watch fireworks exploding across the moors. Then they dance, to Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark on the car stereo. Harry and Evi know they cannot get involved with each other. This one dance might be the only moment of closeness they ever know.

So hard, to capture the erotic possibilities of dancing with a new partner for the first time. Try interchanging song lyrics with snatches of dialogue and copyright laws jump up and bite you. Talking about rhythm and movement seems straight out of Mills and Boon. In the end I just had to write about the heat from Harry's neck against Evi's face, his hand, ice-cold in hers and the wind that can't seem to decide whether to join in the dance or hurl them both off the edge of the world.

Of course, She Who Believes The Red Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword may well decide it doesn't work but I'll always have the picture in my head to console me: Harry and Evi, dancing amongst the fireworks on the crest of the moor, falling in love. 

I've finished book three. (Probably)  It still has to be read and approved by a whole army of husbands, agents, editors, sales and publicity people but at least I know it's ready for that. It is as good as I can make it. The Blood Harvest. Published in 2010. (Fingers crossed)