We have 3 Norwegian Forest cats, Otis, Georgia and Dixie and three sheep, Rambo, Jet and Lucky.
Cathy Hopkins
I lived in Kenya in East Africa until I was eleven. It was a wonderful place to grow up with a perfect climate and stunning scenery.
My dad, Billy Hopkins was also a writer. He started when he was aged 70 and wrote 8 books, including Our Kid and Kate’s Story, which were bestsellers. He died in 2012 and I miss him every day, particularly our conversations about writing. When stuck or having a bad writing day, he’d always say ‘just get it written, you can always go back and change it later.’ Good advice for when doing a first draft.
I lost the hearing in my left ear five years when I had viral labrynthitis. It went overnight and consultants say it will never come back.
When I was 19, I sang with a band called Driving Rock and the Rockettes though my main memory from that time is sitting in the back of a transit van on the M1 on the way to gigs, squashed in with all the band equipment.
I write my books in different places. I have an office but when I’m working on a book, I tend to move rooms, sometimes daily. If my husband brings me a cup of tea, he has to search for me – ‘where are you today?’ I don’t know why this is. Maybe because when writing, I feel restless until the first draft is down and the moving about is a symptom of this.
My guilty pleasure is watching First Dates. For anyone who likes people watching, this show is a must. Some of the people on the program appear to be shy and lacking in confidence, others come across as brash but the series manages to get behind the masks everyone presents to the stories behind which are fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking. The series shows everyone just wants to be loved.
I moved from London to Bath about 7 years ago and love living in this beautiful, heritage city. I feel like I’m holiday when I go into town, especially around Bath Abbey and the square behind the Romans Baths.
My favourite place to go is the Rame peninsula in Cornwall. It features in a teen series I wrote called Truth Dare but is also where the main character in my new book, The Kicking The Bucket List lives. My heart lifts whenever I go there and my husband feels the same so we try and get down there as often as we can.
Books are my shopping weakness. I can’t resist if someone tells me about one they have enjoyed. I have piles of books waiting to be read all over the house, currently about 150, maybe more. To me, they are like unopened presents and there is always the anticipation of what new worlds and experience are waiting for me in there.
