#Guestpost: @SueMoorcroft on summer & holidays, best & worst #JustfortheHolidays @AvonBooksUK

I’ve never really made much of a secret of how much I love Sue Moorcroft’s writing, have I? I’m often loud and proud about being one of Sue’s Street Team: if you love her writing too, come and join us here. But with all my recent trials and tribulations, I really haven’t shouted as loudly as I wanted to about her latest, Just for the Holidays – published by Avon, and available from the usual on-line stores and most high street retailers – other than a quick pre-holiday review, that you can read again here. Should you have a kindle, just at the moment it’s perhaps the best 99p you could spend. I loved it – Sue’s writing at its very best, and highly recommended to all.

I’m really delighted to welcome Sue Moorcroft as my guest on Being Anne today, with a great post about the best and worst of summer and holidays. Welcome, Sue!

Thanks to lovely Anne Williams for inviting me onto Being Anne to share with you my best/worst scenarios. In the interests of transparency, I love summer. I was brought up in hot countries and have never lost my love of the sun. If you’re more into gasping, ‘Phew! Isn’t it hot?’ whenever the temperatures crawl past 20 degrees Celsius you may well have answered the following questions differently!

Best holiday as a child

This is a bit of an odd question for me as I lived in Germany, Cyprus and Malta for most of my childhood up until the age of eight and a half so I only had two actual holidays before my teen years.

The best was at a holiday camp when I was twelve. My parents very sportingly took not only me and my brothers but their girlfriends and my friend. Safe within the barracks-like fences I had freedom to go where I pleased and all the entertainment was paid for. It’s amongst the first examples I remember of the phenomenon that was then ‘the disco’ and instilled in me an early love for the dance floor. Whenever I hear R. Dean Taylor’s There’s a Ghost in my House I think of that holiday. It was played non-stop not only at the disco but in the amusement arcades, on the fairground rides and just about everywhere else.

Worst holiday as a child

Another holiday camp when I was four or five. I went down with a severe case of tummy troubles. Enough said, I think.

Best journey to another country

In March this year I was invited to lead a course at the Dubai Writers’ Center and appear at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature. I was flown out in business class and it was awesome. Seven+ hours in a comfy armchair with my Kindle while lovely people brought me champagne, tea and chocolate. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Worst journey to another country

Driving into France on a camping holiday with two small children and nearly running out of petrol. At that time most of the filling stations seemed to close at noon on a Saturday and this vital piece of information had escaped our notice. Eventually we were directed well off the beaten path to a village. Three men came out of a wedding reception to try and help us and once they understood my ‘Franglais’ they fetched the garage owner out of the wedding to fill up the car. Relief! By then it was too late to reach the campsite we’d booked so we camped at another one in an absolute hooley of a storm.

Best holiday ever

This is a hard one because I’ve had some great experiences. I’ll choose three weeks in Japan in 1986. I loved Japan and it was so different to everything I’d ever known that just walking through Tokyo was a treat. We saw the sumo wrestling, drank with American marines in a bar, ate nettles, rode the fastest train in the world, sailed across the lake in the crater of a dead volcano and generally had a great time.

Worst holiday ever

Another holiday camp experience (I’ve only ever done the holiday camp thing three times and they all appear in this post!). The children were very small and going to a holiday camp seemed a good idea. Unfortunately, the accommodation turned out to be truly, truly dreadful with holes in the wall, a shower that didn’t work, grubby old beds and a leaking toilet. It rained nearly all week and the food made school dinners seem like dinner at The Ritz.

Best thing about summer

Sunshine. I adore sunshine. I love to be able to eat outside, walk in the sun, leave the back door open all the time and invite friends round for barbecues. I love not having to wear socks, cardigans or coats. As I’m fair of skin I slap on my factor 50 once-a-day sun protection and then I feel I can stay out in the sun all day. Of course I can’t, because I have to work, but if anyone ever invents a laptop screen that can be seen in the sun I’ll be first in line to buy it.

Also, there are lots of lovely summer books around!

Worst thing about summer

It’s too short.

Best thing about travel

Visiting other countries, often those that have sunshine when the UK doesn’t. Meeting people from other cultures, trying new food and not worrying too much about calories. (I regret this last once I get home.)

Worst thing about travel

Delays and queues.

Best thing about sunshine

It’s warm! It makes me feel happy. Everything looks more beautiful against a backdrop of blue skies and fluffy white clouds – the sea glitters and gardens bloom. People seem to smile more.

Worst thing about sunshine
Overexposure to the sun with unprotected skin and the soreness and worse this leads to.

Sue, thank you! May the sun continue to shine on you this summer for a little longer yet…

About the author

Best-selling author Sue Moorcroft writes contemporary fiction with occasionally unexpected themes. The Christmas Promise rose to #1 in the Amazon Kindle chart in 2016 and her summer 2017 book is Just for the Holidays, which transports the readers to France where Leah Beaumont has allowed herself to be persuaded to support her sister who has ended her marriage but found herself very inconveniently pregnant. And the husband is on the holiday, too. If Leah didn’t love her nephew and niece so much she would have run a mile. It’s fair to say the holiday does not run smoothly.

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