Joanne Harris's Diary

I’m in the lobby of The Delaunay. ‘My usual, please.’ The maître d’hôtel nods approvingly and brings over a glass of champagne. ‘For you, ma’am?’ he asks me. ‘Er, I’ll have the same.’ I’m having dinner with Shelley von Strunckel, stargazer and self-styled champagne mystic, and I can only envy her that she even has a ‘usual’, or that the maître d’ knows what it is. I wonder what, in a parallel world, my ‘usual’ would turn out to be. Pepsi Max, probably. And from what I’ve seen of The Delaunay, it isn’t a Pepsi Max kind of place.

Shelley is one of my new neighbours. She has a flat on the same street as mine. So has my old friend, the author Chris Fowler. No, I haven’t left Yorkshire, where, in spite of having lived almost ten years in our house, my husband and I are still sometimes mistaken for the home help. But yes, I’ve finally succumbed and bought a flat in London. Admittedly, it’s mostly for my daughter, who starts at King’s College this autumn, but it strikes me that this may give me a chance to go to the theatre when I like, avoid hotels and cultivate a ‘usual’.

‘Well, you can afford it, I guess,’ says my daughter cheerily, ‘now that you’re in the Millionaire’s Club.’ I try to explain once again that my membership of this club (a club in name only) is based on a million copies sold in the UK of one book (Chocolat), not an indication of personal wealth. Still, it’s nice to have written a story that has attracted so much affection, as I found at the launch of my new book, Peaches for Monsieur le Curé. I think a lot of people assume that an author’s life is glamorous. In fact, 99 per cent of my life is divided between my usual visits to the shed (my place of work and hideaway), and time spent with my family. The remaining per cent is often unusual to the point of being surreal; this month has been no exception.

A launch party at my favourite gallery, where the owner, Chris Beetles, is holding an exhibition of one of my favourite illustrators, the late and wonderful Ronald Searle. I’m lucky to have a launch party, so many authors don’t, and it’s good to be able to celebrate the result of two years’ hard work – not just mine, but that of all the editors, proofers, PRs, booksellers and reps who work equally hard behind the scenes. I’ve never had a birthday party. My mother never had time to organise them, and I would listen enviously to my friends’ reports of guest lists and frocks. Perhaps this is why my list for the launch was so lengthy and self-indulgent, including not only publishers, writers, journalists and family but also (the result of a shared passion with my daughter for musical theatre) a number of friends from the West End, including, among many others, the gorgeous Caroline Sheen (currently playing Fantine in Les Misérables), Sofia Escobar (Phantom’s lovely Portuguese Christine), who actually took a night off from her show to attend, and the marvellous Rebecca Caine, star of both the original Les Mis and the original Phantom, the memory of whose bloodstained performance in The Coronation of Poppea last year still makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. My theatre-mad daughter was almost as starstruck as she was the night Ramin Karimloo (who played the Phantom in the sequel) welcomed us into his dressing room, shirtless.

My only regret was not having time to talk to everyone for as long as I’d wanted. But I did get a red Moschino party frock and Bellinis (which, if I were auditioning for a ‘usual’, would certainly get a call-back), before being swept off to the Caprice, and thence to a week of TV and radio. That wasn’t quite as glamorous as it sounds, but I did get to meet Gary Barlow and the Swedish winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as taking an evening out to see Les Mis with my daughter (again), and to plunder Dress Circle, the musical theatre shop on Monmouth Street, where, if I were a real millionaire, she’d happily spend every penny.

After that, it was Hay-on-Wye, to read to a packed house and to catch up with literary friends (including the poet Simon Armitage, who also lives just down the road from me, but who I never meet except in far-flung locations). The next day, I spoke at a literary lunch for Good Housekeeping, with Julian Clary and Pam Ayres, both of them tremendously witty and entertaining speakers. I’m not used to all this socialising, and I’m starting to miss my shed, but the unadulterated joy of hearing Pam Ayres utter the phrase ‘prodigious sexual athlete’ makes everything worthwhile.

The waitress brings dessert. It’s a raspberry Pavlova. ‘It isn’t your usual, I’m afraid.’ It takes me a moment to understand that she thought I’d prefer chocolate. I smile. ‘I don’t have a usual.’ I’m starting to think I don’t need one.

Peaches for Monsieur le Curé’ is out now (Doubleday, £18.99)