A lot of things happened before the weekend and it has sorta taken me until now to understand. So here goes – as people filed into the 18th-century Hawksmoor church (above) in East London on Friday for The Lovie Awards …

I was on Oxford street lugging bags and my camera (a Nikon D300 since I get a lot of emails about it) and trying to find a black cab. After a quick blowdry downstairs here in Topshop I’d stepped out into this twinkling scene and couldn’t help but stand and stare at so many Christmas lights. Strange how easy it is to get delayed. I spent the next half hour trying to capture the big twinkling stars and umbrellas and boxes. I’ve learnt that blogging involves a lot of standing about like this, lucky I’d had a cupcake for sustenance.

Earlier Miss Cakehead had tempted me with a Google cupcake at The Hospital Club in Soho, which was so so good. Afterwards I spoke on a panel with Mariel Reed of NotJustaLabel, Giuliano Giorgetti, the digital director of AC Milan, Mirko Pallera of Ninja Marketing and Raj Chaudhuri of Bleep.com as part of Internet Week Europe. We spoke about social media and accountability (tip, craving more Google cupcake isn’t accountable Giséle). I could possibly become addicted to Miss Cakehead’s cupcakes if they were more widely available. I took this picture of it just before I ate it. Not a very unique thing to do.

But I really couldn’t help myself. The Twitter ones were just as tasty.

When I eventually did find a cab and made it over to East London on Friday evening, Bjork was making her acceptance speech after she’d won a special achievement Lovie Award.

Then I still can’t believe that this happened. The Goddess Guide won these; one for writing Fashion and Beauty and one for overall Fashion and Beauty blog. Most of the time I feel like I’ve so much to learn still. How could we have won these? We’re still so young. I think they must have judged it on your comments (I seriously mean that).

Then of course I danced around for a bit… in my Nicholas Kirkwood shoes. He let me pick something out and I went with these nude leather motion platforms. My attempt to make them more sweet street was to layer black tights underneath. I liked the black against the nude, it worked well. It was a real Goddess moment wearing these. And just to say that any of this wouldn’t have been possible without your constant support; you read the books and now you read this blog. Big Love to each and every one of YOU. You’re awesome! xxxxx G

You know how you hear a word for the first time and then hear it again twice more in the same week? A similar thing is happening to me with books. A couple of weeks back, I found myself documenting backstage during the month of fashion weeks. As if that weren’t exciting enough, there were books. A good few people were reading this one above, Scar Tissue (the autobiography of Red Hot Chilli Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis penned with Larry Sloman). The first I met was Canadian born model Tara Gill (above) who told me that since buying it in Toronto she could barely put it down. I concur. It’s excellent and exciting. Currently I have it on the go along with…

Ulysses. I know. Could it be any different? I like to read a few books simultaneously but James Joyce’s Ulysses, well it’s a challenge which I started yesterday on my birthday (you’ll agree that’s a good incentive as any to finish it). I’ve always wanted to read it properly so I’m digesting it in little bites. Worth mentioning, I think, that in a radical break from tradition, I’ve typing this blog post about books in public and not per usual behind my writer’s closed door. I’ve been downing copious cups of tea here in The Parlour at Sketch feeling a lot like J.K. Rowling must have done when she was doing her first Potter book in that bistro in Edinburgh. It would be optimistic, however, to claim, my efforts will have the same striking effect on the global cultural consciousness or my future. It’s nice here though handwriting first and then tapping away on my laptop. I always hand write things first (even blog posts) as my flow of thought is different on pen and paper, more free, uninhibited and relaxed. The best thing about this is that many seem to agree with me. I hope they do, anyway. It’s a nice excuse to have nice notebooks and pens. I like having physical copies of my words.

And having saved all my books (they line the walls of my boyfriend’s house in Dublin) even before clothes when I survived the ordeal of the floods at his house in Dublin a few weeks back, I decided that maybe like Marta Ortiz above I’d carry some of my most favourite hardbacks with me digitally when traveling so that they wouldn’t get scuffed and worn (of course I am a sucker for the physical book so a physical copy will be added to my little collection back in Ireland for safekeeping and when I depart and go to that big library in the sky I’d like to donate the lot to someone who might love them, like I do.) The morning after the Dublin floods I made my way back to London and in a way the incident sparked a change to my writing life. I realised that I simply have to read and write a lot more so I started by buying a copy of Ulyses at the airport. Yesterday for my birthday I promised myself I’d finally start to read it and next week I plan to reorganise my book collection. Strange behaviour? Of course, but this kind of relentless archiving makes me very happy. No doubt a psychologist would say it gives me the illusion of being in control over my life. And they’d be right.

Virgina Woolf wrote that the common reader (yes, that’d be me) “snatches now this book, now that, without caring where he finds it or of what nature it may be.” And a really good book has the power to stay with us, at first the effect is subtle but it changes us for life. T.S Eliot echoed this, “reading introduces us to one powerful personality after another and so affects us as entire human beings.” Eliot believed that an author’s views could stay with us long after we’d finished a book and even colour our own views over time. I think it’s obvious from the shots above that a good book whether on paper or digital has the power to steal us from reality just for a little while and lets us live life in a new and different world. Model Georgina Bevan backstage at Vivienne Westwood thought that The Understudy by David Nicholls gave her “a different fashion week experience.” She said she smiled more. I believe that each of us secretly has one book that has done that.