Hi Tesco Books Blog Readers,

There’s a New Yorker cartoon that I love. Two women stand together at a cocktail party, watching a man walk through the room. One murmurs admiringly to the other, ‘My dear, I love what you’ve done with him.’

I wonder if people say that to Jennifer Aniston about Justin Theroux since she made him shave off his Grizzly Adams beard? Or to Victoria Beckham about David? Shane Warne’s new penchant for fake tan and lipgloss makes me doubtful that anyone has said it to Elizabeth Hurley, but I’m pretty sure she loves what she’s done with him.

While we all hope for a man who will love and accept us just as we are, I’ve noticed it can be hard to resist the compulsion to make just a few little improvements to the men in our lives. It’s for their own good, you see. Amongst my own friends, I’ve seen some excellently masterminded makeovers aided by the fact the men in question don’t seem to mind (or even notice) a female influence over what they wear. Especially if it means someone else will do the clothes shopping for them.

Kate, the heroine of my new book, The Foster Husband, thinks upgrading your husband’s outfits is strictly for amateurs. Her own marriage has just ended, but clearly that was her husband’s fault and nothing to do with her. Now her sister Prue is about to get married, Kate thinks the very best thing she can do to help is makeover Prue’s unsuspecting fiancé. She’s not concerned with what he wears, she’s working on the big stuff that she thinks ruined her own relationship: how to clear up after yourself without being asked, when to interpret a hint as a command, why ‘you decide!’ does not mean ‘you decide!’ but rather, ‘work out what I want without my having to say so, and decide on that, or else’.

It doesn’t work out quite how she thinks it should. For all sorts of reasons, but mostly because when you’re busy telling everyone else how they should change, the person who should change is probably you.

I’ve had the reverse experience of the New Yorker cartoon, when a friend rang me to report with breathless excitement that an ex-boyfriend who I had steered away from his heavy metal tendencies was now back wandering the streets in a pair of previously banned lace-up-crotch jeans. We were too busy laughing hysterically at the terribleness of the resurrected trousers to reach the conclusion that should have been obvious to both of us: while you can change what a man wears, you’re unlikely to change who he fundamentally is. And nor should you. My poor head-banging ex was perfectly happy in his crotch-huggers, it was only me who minded. No wonder he pinged straight back like an elastic band the moment I let go of my influence.

By all means consign your partner’s ratty old university sweatshirt to the dog’s bed. Book him a haircut before he thinks he needs one. Compliment him extravagantly whenever he wears clothes you have chosen, and say nothing at all when he doesn’t. We can all agree that these are merely the acts of a sensible woman who would rather not be shown up in family photographs. But, ladies, let us tread with extreme caution if we think we can truly change anything else other than ourselves.

Pippa x

Get your copy of The Foster Husband in store for just £1.95 as part of our New Talent Chart! 

Who out there has had a memorable experience volunteering in your local schools or communities? Or, should I say, who hasn’t had a memorable experience…? The truth is most volunteering has its sticky moments: standing at a fete stall in an empty field in the summer rain; stuck behind the bar at a social while everyone else is drinking; making a cake for a sale, and then watching, circling, as it is left last, alone, on the table. There is generally a point where you start to mutter: what kind of a mug was I to get myself landed with this one?

When my eldest started reception, my friend and I were asked to run the sweet stall at the Summer Fete. Of course! Easy enough, surely, and we would be popular for an afternoon at least. Then someone remembered to mention the tradition that the junior children made the sweets. Splendid! And that we would be donating all the ingredients for them. O-kay then – we all must do our bit. Oh and, by the way, we two would be in school for hours and hours single-handedly supervising all of this. Ah. Gosh. Jolly good. Well, wouldn’t that be fun…

Actually, the afternoon was fun – the kids were, predictably, mad keen and we all got through it with wits intact. What it was not, however, was productive. From a mountain of sugar, chocolate and cream we were left with a vat of fudge that would never set, truffles you could fire out of a musket and coconut ice a shade of white more likely seen on an old bloke’s Y-fronts. Yum.

There was only one thing for it: buy it all again, and make another batch of everything. On our own. When fete day dawned, the children were amazed at the delicious looking sweets on the stall. Did they really make them, themselves? Er, no. They didn’t. But, of course, we didn’t let on. We just sold it all back to them and their proud mums and dads for a fraction of what we had spent.

A lot of the fund-raising we do turns out like that: so much more work than it’s worth, often costing more than it raises…. But you always meet new people and have a good laugh while you’re doing it. My new novel, The Hive, is about exactly this – a Parents’ Association trying to get the money together for a new library, with all the fun and games along the way.

To celebrate the release of The Hive, Tesco are running a great competition – the chance to win a fantastic designer bag from The Cambridge Satchel Company plus goodies from Burt’s Bees! And five runner-ups will each win a Burt’s Bees Honey Collection!

To be in with a chance of winning, simply tell us in the comment section below about your most memorable experience when volunteering for something – be it good, bad or downright disastrous!

Now before you shoot off to go and buy a copy of The Hive have a read of the first chapter here…

To find out what happens what happens next and just how badly wrong a school quiz night can go! – get your copy of The Hive in store now!

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