I am delighted to welcome singer/songwriter KT Tunstall to Catching the Comet's Tail. KT's new album, Invisible Empire// Crescent Moon, is as haunting and plaintive a record as you'll ever hear, capturing a unique time in the singer's life. Recorded over twenty days in the middle of the Arizona desert,...

I'm delighted to welcome author Ben Hatch to Catching the Comet's Tail. Ben is a master of the kind of acute observation of family life that has you pondering the deeper significance of the type of breakfast cereal your spouse prefers. His last book, Are We Nearly There Yet? about...

This week, Catching the Comet's Tail features author Matt Haig. I like to imagine that if, by some time-bending miracle, Rene Descartes could meet David Bowie at a space cafe where the only thing on the menu is peanut butter served on slices of philosophical bread, Matt would be there...

This week, Catching the Comet's Tail features author Rosie Fiore. Her second novel, Wonder Women, is a brilliantly observed, multi-layered story about three women at a crossroads in their lives. Through her engaging, realistic cast of characters, Fiore tackles important issues such as motherhood, marriage, female friendship and ambition. Rosie...

Welcome to Catching the Comet's Tail, a series of interviews with writers, artists and musicians discussing creativity and their creative process. This week, I spoke to Swedish contemporary artist Ylva Kunze during her first London show, Artist in Residence. Her canvases, informed by the woods and lakes of her childhood...

Welcome to Catching the Comet's Tail, a series of interviews with writers, artists and musicians discussing creativity and their creative process. To launch the series, I am delighted to welcome English author Elizabeth Fremantle. Her first novel, Queen's Gambit, based on the life of Henry VIII's sixth wife Katherine Parr,...

I'm having a dilemma.

Am I a parent, or am I a mother?

Am I a uterus, or am I a person?

It sounds funny, but actually, it's quite serious. From the age of eleven, I have been reminded every few weeks of my 'reproductive potential'. Now, in my mid-forties,...

Most women are born with their life quota of egg follicles, somewhere around 2 million of them. In an average life, these eggs diminish to about 750,000 by the onset of puberty to around 10,000 by the age of 45. Medically, the menopause describes the moment when a woman runs...

I am of a delicate disposition. Utterly invertebrate. Had I been born in a different era, I would have been a wan-faced, smelling-salt fainter type prone to swooning into the arms of that blonde bloke from Downton Abbey. Instead, in this robust moment in women's history, I am a secret...

The leaves are coming down which means the tights are going up in our house. While the Teenage Songbird is dressing her shapely pins in skeins of sheer and shimmer, the Biscuit Thief and I are just plain itchy and scratchy. We, with our highly reactive 'sensitive' skins, practically BLEED...

You know that horrible twist of self-loathing you feel when you're doing something you don't really believe in? That sickening sense of the brick in the belly, the invisible snake that tightens around your throat and stops you from swallowing? Well I had it yesterday. Why?

Because I was writing...

One of my most abiding Olympic memories is of the Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Montreal Games. As I recall, there was a heatwave that summer, one that scorched its way across the US like a smoldering fuse-wire, raging through cities and forests, melting tarmac, setting prairies alight...

I'm back from a camping sojourn in the sodden British countryside and I have to reveal a shocking truth; everything in nature is about sex.

Stuck in my urban flat, I don't notice these things; my 'outside' world mainly concerns fighting or buying stuff. In the countryside, it's all different.

I'm really looking forward to half term week with my 6 year-old Biscuit-thief, and I'm determined not to watch Cbeebies even once, however much I miss it.

This is my top five list of things we'll be doing that cost under £1! Yes! These activities cost less than a sausage...

A wise woman with a French accent once told me, "Until you can drive a car, you cannot drive your life."

"But that's ridiculous," I scoffed through a mouthful of biscuits. "I am completely in control of my life!" Then I slipped on some cat sick and banged my head...

Dear Gym,

It's over.

After nearly five years of flirting, sweating and a whole lot of grunting, I've realised we're just not good for each other me and you.

Gym, oh gym,

you do not make me slim.

You make me bored and annoyed like the One Show and doing...

My eldest daughter Lily finishes school this week, by which I mean she will have completed her 'formal education' to age 16.

From now on, it's up to her whether she continues with her schooling or leaves. Today, she has her last ever PE lesson after which she intends to...

When I was a child, I assumed that by the time I was in my forties I would have achieved certain things. I imagined I would be living a life of sophisticated inner-peace as I breezed around my creative business empire wafting of Eau du Coutts and Cotswolds. Instead, I...

We all know the school gates are more toxic than a post-curry air bagel. Here is my guide to surviving them...

1. Regarding looking knackered in the morning

Firstly, I advise trying to get your partner to do the school run. If this doesn't work I suggest...

1.Choose a personal theme tune early on and stick with it. This is extremely useful for the cinematic enhancement of dramatic life moments such as break-ups, anniversaries and celebrations. It will also provide comfort during time spent on runways waiting for Easy Jet flights to take off (approx. 98 hours...