GODS, GURUS AND THE GREAT FISH HUNT

Not a moment to draw breath last week. I’ll miss out the boring medical check-ups etc. and do a quick resume of the highlights.

Tuesday: a trip up to Watlington with Himself and Joe to preview Wednesday’s sale at http://www.jonesandjacob.com/ . We left several bids, but low ones, so weren’t too hopeful. Called in at SIL and BIL’s for a cuppa on the way home and admired her onions – all homegrown.

Wednesday: started with a lunchtime stint at the Guildford Institute selling and signing books with Jackie. And we did sell a few so well worth the effort. We also treated ourselves to another wonderful vegetarian lunch.

Book selling stint completed I hopped onto a train and sped up to London. First stop British Museum, where Himself was located in the Islamic Section (where else?) getting ideas for his Islamic Art assignment. But he’d been busy before I got there. Armed with photographs of our ‘oriental panel’ and our two Indian wooden horses, he’d gone to seek wisdom from the Asian Department of the BM, who are open for consultation on Wednesday afternoons.

Well, to put it in a nutshell, he was ushered upstairs into a consultation room, where he eventually found himself face to face with Richard Blurton, the Assistant Keeper in the Department of Oriental Antiquities (to give him his full title), whose book on Hindu art is a ‘must have’ in every Indian art scholar’s library.

After Himself got over the excitement of encountering one of the great gurus of Indian art, he discovered that this great guru is a totally lovely man. And he confirmed my diagnosis about the two horses – they are indeed off a ratha, an Indian processional cart, possibly 19th century. The oriental panel – now that stumped him too. He thought it was Indian, possibly Anglo-Indian, which is what we’d thought, and he directed us to a book on Anglo-Indian furniture.

After a quick panini with roast Med veg we ambled along up to Asia House http://www.asiahouse.org/web/index.html on New Cavendish Road in time for the lecture-cum-launch of my ex MA supervisor Crispin Branfoot’s new book on Indian Art. And who should be introducing the lecture – none other than Richard Blurton. So I also got the chance to hobnob with the great and the good. A thoroughly fabulous evening. Brilliant lecture, excellent company. A mildly schizophrenic feeling of being part of an elite ‘set’ and at the same time realising that none of the research carried out by the wonderful gurus at the lecture is of any relevance to people outside the Asian Art history Ivory Tower. But who cares? Isn’t it enough to immerse oneself in the study of a fascinating area? It all helps to piece together the jigsaw of our world.

Thursday: back to the Guildford Institute for a last book selling session with Anne. Another yummy lunch and plenty of laughs though the sales were a bit thin on the ground. Discovered I’d won one of the bids at Watlington – 4 Beswick birds and some unspecified ‘other items’.

Friday: cat to cattery! He hates it but had to put up with it as Joe’s away in Nottingham this weekend. We left him his favourite towel and it was only two nights, after all…

So, cat safely stowed at Treetops, we headed off to Oxford. A strange encounter lay ahead as Ant, Kay and Little Miss T treated us to the Great Fish Hunt. A parking area somewhere outside the city centre: it’s pitch dark.: some 30 minutes before the event is due to commence, hoards of people materialise from hidden vehicles. Mainly ethnic Chinese, some from the Indian sub-continent and a smattering of brave – or foolhardy – Europeans. A hundred people or more gathered on the open space amid mounting excitement. Some distract themselves by stocking up on mysterious Chinese vegetables touted by mysterious Chinese vegetable-vendors scarcely visible in the dark. Kay bought something that looked like pak choi but not quite, as well as something that resembled bunches of grass but smelled like garlic.

Then, as hysteria reaches fever pitch It arrives. It being a large white van covered with Chinese writing. It parks and throws open its sides. For the next few minutes men with large red plastic boxes emerge from the van’s innards and set out the boxes in front of the van, pressed in by the crowd. At last the invisible starter’s pistol sounds. Kay warns me to keep out of the way as things can get fraught as punters ram themselves forward to angle for the best fishy bargains.

Yes, this is a mobile fish shop, up from the coast, with the freshest selection of fish and fruit de mer you’re likely to see. A stampede ensues as people fill up the green bags provided. Various types of fish, crabs, squid, fish heads (yes, honestly) and other delicacies in the crates outside, then up the ladder they scramble, into the van where more bulging crates await, and out through the back to join the pay queue.

It can take an hour to pay, but luckily the Black contingent is there in force so Ant keeps a place in the queue, Himself gets busy with the camera, YT and Miss T hop around enjoying the entertainment. Kay manages to slip elegantly through the scrum and emerge triumphant, clutching two bulging green carrier bags, while the rest are still squabbling over fish tails and tiger prawns. An extraordinary entertainment!

Needless to say, we took the booty from the evening’s fishing back to Ant and Kay’s house, where Kay conjured up the most mouth-watering, delicious Thai-Chinese feast you could ever imagine. Afterwards we were too stuffed for chocolate cheesecake and that’s saying something.

Saturday: we braved the cold and rain to trot around Waterperry Garden Centre http://www.waterperrygardens.co.uk/ followed by a VERY long (3 hour) lunch at the Bat and Ball in Cuddesdon http://www.a1tourism.com/uk/batball.html . Great food and Miss T got thoroughly spoilt with jelly babies and butter shortbreads to finish off a meal of sausages. Where does she put it all?

On the way back to Oxford we detoured to Brill, which probably is brill when the sun’s shining, but in the wind and rain the windmill was wonderfully eerie and atmospheric.

Oh yes, did I say? The bid at Watlington. Picked up the spoils on the way to Oxford. Seems I may have stumbled on some lucky extras. I seem to have acquired a very nice Japanese Satsuma vase and a 19th century ginger jar. Pity about the ten-ton German cheese dish and the fifty-hundredweight 1950s peeling plaster flower plaque…

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Time for the Sunday-night reportage again. Here I am in front of the telly, laptop on lap (not lime-green) and an eye on the news. What a dismal lot of events this weekend. A new focus of unrest on the Iraqi-Turkish border. Another child shot in Manchester. Benazir Bhutto’s horrific homecoming to Pakistan. Isn’t there any good news? Even the sport was a letdown. I was disappointed for Lewis Hamilton. He seems such a breath of fresh air. Not so disappointed about the rugger, having seen the reaction in South Africa. If their win brings black and white together there, it’s far more important than a bit of chauvinistic flag flying for Britain.

Enough rambling. Focus on last week. A quiet week full of resolutions that didn’t get fulfilled (send off some short stories, start painting the living room, do the darned ironing…). I did get as far as looking at ‘The Noontide Owls’ my half-finished YA fantasy, but the mood didn’t grab me, ie my head was empty of inspiration.

On Wednesday and Thursday I did some book selling/signing along with the rest of the gang of Four (YT, Jackie, Jennifer and Anne). We pitched camp at the Guildford Institute. Here it is.

Its future is a bit rocky at the moment due to the inability of Surrey University to fund it. But it’s a gem of a place. For a small annual fee you can use the facilities it has to offer. Guildford Writers’ Circle holds its meetings there fortnightly, and we’ve given the occasional afternoon talk there. Most important of all, on weekday lunchtimes it turns into a divine vegetarian restaurant, totally scrumptious with puddings that make you fat just eyeing them. So despite indifferent book sales, lunch was a treat (and somehow I resisted the puds!) We did sell some books, and a very nice lady came across and told me that she’d read ‘The Moon’s Complexion’ and thoroughly enjoyed it. That was really great, ‘cos she didn’t know I was the author!

Today I thought I’d take a spin to Newlands Corner and get some autumnal pictures as the light was so good. You must be joking! Got stuck in a traffic jam in the car park for 20 minutes and even then I couldn’t find a parking spot. So drove back home and went for a walk up the garden instead. Wondered whether there were any ‘Birkenpilze’ under our young birch trees. These are really delicious edible fungi, familiar to me from my fungi-collecting parents. Fungi collecting is not without its dangers but I’m still here. Sadly, there weren’t any Birkenpilze, but the lawn was covered with little toadstools.

The editing of Moon for Virtual Tales continues and has highlighted some differences between ‘English English’ and ‘American English’. Since Virtual Tales is an American publisher and my editor, Betty is in Canada, Moon is being ‘translated’ into American. It’s sometimes annoying, often amusing. Luckily VT are sensitive enough to realise that the dialogue should be left in ‘English English’ (or occasionally Hinglish) as this is appropriate to the speakers. But some of the narrative has been changed. So, for example, aeroplane has become airplane, ‘out of the window’ changes to ‘out the window’, ‘come and see’ is now ‘come see.’ It will be fascinating to compare the finished US version with the UK one. We’re over halfway there now.

And finally – another Dragon Dictate gaff. I phone up Graham the plumber to rant about the non-materialisation of the new bidet plug. I am faced with having to leave an answerphone message, which always sends me off into a tizzy of panic-stricken errs, ahs and ums. I take a deep breath and leave my irate message: "where the hell is the ruddy plug??” Or words to that effect. I'm on a high, pleased with myself for overcoming answerphone-phobia. And what do I do at the end of this tirade? "Full-stop," I shout at the ruddy machine. Which sends me off into a fit of giggles and apologies to the darned thing. (Sorry forgot I wasn't dictating etc etc) I guess I'll never get my bidet plug now.

PS how do you say ‘autumnal’ in American?

FRIENDS, FAITH, FARNBOROUGH, FOLK FESTIVALS AND FLOWERS

A busy week has zoomed past. Where does it all go, eh?



I do like the occasional trip up to London, like last Tuesday. We’re really very lucky here, living in a picturesque, very green part of England, and yet we can be at Waterloo in half an hour.

We spent an absorbing afternoon in the British Museum, starting with the Faith, Narrative and Desire exhibition of Indian Paintings http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/faith,_narrative_and_desire.aspx

We also diverted to look at the fabulous Korean Moon Jar
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/the_korean_moon_jar.aspx

There was a little video to accompany this. The Moon Jars were (and now are again, since the art has been revived) made in two parts and joined. Only the perfect ones are kept. If they have any flaws they are take into the forest, smashed up and buried. My heart bled!

Then we found ourselves back in the Asian section (what a surprise!).

For once it was luxury. Usually I’m in a rush and whip through in no time. This time I had a good two hours before we were meeting Will for dinner. After a while Himself trudged off down to the Islamic section (he’s doing an online course in Islamic Art), while I stayed in India.

(This is Bhairava, a fierce form of Shiva - look at his fangs. 12th Century Hoysala Dynasty, Karnataka)

The evening was spent in the delightful company of Will, an Englishman, who lives in Holland. He’s another of our Indian Art groupies so we decided on The Malabar Junction http://www.malabarjunction.com/ . Fabulous meal. I recommend the Vellappam with Egg Malabar. Totally full of the scrummy flavours of South India. We arrived there at 6 pm and it was nearing 10 pm when we left, replete with chat and food. Just as we were heading for a train at Waterloo, with a minute to spare, Joe rang to say she was just leaving the Royal Opera House at the end of Götterdämmerung, the fourth of her Ring Cycle marathon. So we watched the train pull away without us and waited for her (well, that’s what parents are for, isn’t it?). She made it from the ROH in 20 minutes just in time for us all to catch the 10.45 Portsmouth Harbour train.

Just listening to Bob Dylan at the ’65 Newport Folk Festival. He electrified me then and he still gets me right there. Some of his lines just blow me away:

yonder stands your orphan with his gun/crying like a fire in the sun.

Wish I’d written that!

Don’t get me started – I could go on and on. What a genius.

And so to Wednesday: Jackie and I jumped into my trusty Almera and took ourselves off to Farnborough once more to meet up with Carl at The Bookboyz, a great bookshop in the Queensmead shopping centre. Carl was as nice as his email. We did the sales talk and showed off all the Goldenford books. He said he’d already ordered some, then invited Jackie and Yours Truly to do a book signing on 6th November. So if you’re anywhere nearby, do call in and meet Jackie (Jacquelynn Luben) who’ll be signing copies of A Bottle of Plonk, and YT, who’ll be signing The Moon’s Complexion and Sold… to the Lady with the Lime-green Laptop.

Thursday took us to Leatherhead where the manager of Corbetts Bookshop was much too busy to give us much attention but took our brochures and asked us to email or phone him next week.

This week saw some more website sales, so this seems to be catching on. Ant is convinced that ‘Moon’ is going to acquire a cult following. I tell ya – if you haven’t got a son, acquire one. They’re terrific morale-boosters. Daughters too – eventually. Mine has finally read Moon – and she liked it! Praise indeed from one whose usual reading diet is more Tolkien and Terry Brookes than my exotic Asian psycho-dramas.

Talking of exotic – so where was this taken?

Answer- my back garden, last week. But it’s getting cold outside at night. Time to wrap up the tree fern so he’s snug for the winter.

And having maligned a peculiar hanging plant all month for not flowering in October as prescribed on the blurb I got with it from Wisley, I suddenly noticed these, hanging at the ends. Pretty, aren’t they?








Got another chapter back from my Virtual Tales editor – it’s getting there- slowly. Hope the eBook version of Moon will be out in time for Christmas. By the way, I’ve entered the cover of Laptop for the Covey Awards this month, and next month (November) will be the turn of Craig Jennion’s fabulous cover for the Virtual Tales version of Moon. So if you feel they deserve it, your vote would be appreciated. http://thenewcoveyawards.blogspot.com/

Okay – time to sign off and get on with another week.

FREIA’S GOLDEN APPLES AND THE LADY VICAR'S LOCAL

Literary trappings

A measure of the selling success of launch month was that I sent off a fat cheque to ActionAid for their Child Poverty Day appeal www.childpovertyday.org/donate – £1 for each book sold in September (excluding store and online sales), mainly Sold... to the Lady with the Lime-green Laptops, but also other Goldenford books. So thanks everyone who bought.

Great to get away from the computer last week and do some ‘on the ground’ selling. Tuesday was Guildford’s High Street Monthly Market. Jennifer, Jackie and I were there in force (and a formidable trio we are, indeed). We set up outside Waterstones as last time. Lots of interest and some sales, so a satisfactory day’s work. And a cosy feeling to know that the books we were selling outside, were also on sale inside Waterstones. There was also an interesting view of the windows opposite.

I did let one little fish slip through my fingers. A punter turns up, looks at The Moon’s Complexion and says ‘I’ll buy that. I’m interested in India.’ She gets out her purse and lo and behold – empty. No chequebook and we don’t take credit cards. ‘I’ll come back later,’ she says. Of course, she doesn’t. They never do. But oh, what an opportunity missed! Why didn’t I tell her to nip into Waterstones and buy it there, bring it back out and I’d sign it? Duh!!


On Wednesday Jackie and I set out for the uncharted territory of Farnborough, to look up a bookseller, who had shown interest in Goldenford. We owe this to reviewer and BookCrossing www.bookcrossing.com/ supporter Keith Parkins, http://www.heureka.clara.net/sunrise/keith.htm , who’d stumbled on us at the Guildford Market the previous month and passed on the word to his buddy at the bookshop. You can check out what Keith had to say after our meeting on http://www.heureka.clara.net/art/irene-black.htm His copy of The Moon’s Complexion has now been ‘set free’ and is currently (so I understand) in Cypress.


The route to Farnborough was successfully, if somewhat stressfully completed, with the help of AA Route-planner and Multimap. The omens looked good. Took us a while of wandering through endless pedestrian zones, building sites and shopping malls to find the shop. And when we did - wouldn’t you know it, we picked the one afternoon when our contact wasn’t there?

All was not lost. We left a brochure and flyers with the afternoon staff and I followed up the visit with an email to our contact. What a lovely man! He emailed back that he’d love us to do a book-signing and he’d be very interested in our ideas for workshops and readings. So we’re planning to go back this week. On a day when he IS there.

Elixir of Youth?

Finally got round to buying some of Boot’s No. 7 'Protect and Perfect' miracle wrinkle remover (guaranteed to work in 4 weeks). But it’s got me thinking. What happens if you achieve your baby-smooth skin and then they stop producing the miracle cream? Does your face crumble into corrugated cardboard overnight, far worse than before, because of the ‘hidden’ weeks of aging? Visions of Wagnerian gods on their mountaintop, who, deprived of Freia’s golden apples to keep them forever young, mutate into crinkly wrinklies in front of you on the stage. In which case, perhaps it’s better to live with the wrinkles and not let people get used to a rejuvenated you.



In tune with the gods?

Talking of Freia and the gods, Joe has taken on a marathon. She’s treating herself to the whole Ring Cycle in a week at Covent Garden. This takes a strong constitution. I might have been tempted except that it’s such a visually unprepossessing production – at least the ones I’ve seen, either at the opera house or on the box earlier in the year. Some of it seems to take place in some horror-story-people-dissection-plant. Joe decided to go ahead in spite of this. You can always shut your eyes and listen to the music. Well, it seems they’ve taken note of the public’s revulsion, and have changed the sets somewhat.

Why, oh why, do producers have to impose ridiculous ‘interpretations’ on us? Do they think we’re idiots that can’t use our own imaginations? The Ring Cycle is a legend, let’s enjoy it in the traditional manner. We’re quite capable of reading parallels with ‘real life’ into it (some of which are not at all easy reading). Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind experimental staging – one of the best I ever saw was a very modern production of Siegfried put on by the ENO many years ago – all aluminium foil and fibre glass, with a dragon that looked like a reading lamp – unforgettable. But beautiful. Another one I saw from Bayreuth had no staging at all – it was all done through lighting. All this is fine. But crowding the stage with the producer’s 'interpretation of meaning', or how it relates to current issues, is usually unpalatable.


There are exceptions (if done with intelligence), such as this magnificent performance of The Flying Dutchman that I was oh so privileged to attend at the Bayreuth Festival in 2005. It dispensed entirely with the scenes on board ship. But even though the interpretation (not to mention the venue and singing) was unforgettable, I missed the Dutchman's battered barque and its ghostly crew, condemned to sail the seas in search of redemption! Oh, the romance and thrill of it!



So, forgive me for rambling on about Wagner – of course the same goes for any interpretation of theatre or opera – including Shakespeare.

Back to this week’s marathon – Joe described a pure Wagner incident during Walküre last week. The guy singing the role of Hunding (the villain of the piece) lost his voice. The announcement explained that he’d still be doing the role, but miming, while the understudy stood at the side and did the singing. Very odd. Why couldn’t the understudy act as well as sing? Joe soon spotted the reason. The understudy was also physically challenged – he had his arm in a sling! Only in a Wagner opera…

Dining at Dibley


On Sunday we motored up to Turville, in the Chilterns to celebrate SIL’s BIG birthday! Now being a philistine I’d never heard of the place, but have since learned that it’s where the Vicar of Dibley is filmed. Not only that, but lots of other films, including Midsomer Murders and some of the Inspector Lindley Mysteries are filmed there. We’d been booked into the Bull and Butcher http://www.thebullandbutcher.com/ for lunch. Good thing we were early as it took us some twenty minutes to find a parking place as the town is swarming with tourists, walkers and diners heading for the Bull and Butcher as it’s got quite a reputation. I managed a few photos before both my camera batteries ran out!



Lunch took AGES to arrive but was truly delicious so well worth the wait. SIL and BIL, SIL’s three children, their two spouses and two grandchildren and us. A noisy bunch (especially the 2 little ‘uns). I recommend the passionfruit cheesecake. (though my home-made New York cheesecake is even better!)

SATURDAY NIGHT EXTRA

The calm after the storm. Lime-green Laptop has been successfully unleashed onto the unsuspecting public. I can relax. Well not quite. I’ve got to sell them now. Marketing. That’s the worst thing about this game. Some writers seem to spend their lives networking on the Internet. Does it work? I’d really like to know whether it’s worth putting your life on hold to sit in front of your monitor day in day out, in the hope of hitting the big time. So if anyone has any rags to riches via the Internet stories, do share them – it might just rub off!

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to give all you virtual punters out there the occasional nudge nudge wink wink, to remind you that my novel The Moon’s Complexion has had some great reviews (find them on http://www.ireneblack.co.uk/ and some also on www.amazon.co.uk )

and that Sold… to the Lady with the Lime-green Laptop has had the general thumbs up from those who’ve bought it.

Time to start thinking about Christmas pressies, folks. What better than a topical romantic-psycho-thriller set in India (The Moon’s Complexion)

or the ultimate stocking filler for anyone with an interest in computers, collectables or simply with a sense of humour (Lime-green Laptop)? And while you’re at it, why not pick a different Goldenford book for six different friends/relatives? Apart from the two above, there’s:

Jacquelynn Luben’s A Bottle of Plonk – an ingenious novella set in the 1980s

Anne Brooke’s Pink Champagne and Apple Juice – frills and spills in Uncle John’s transvestite club


Esme Ashford’s On the Edge – quirky poems, sketches and short stories


Jay Margrave’s The Gawain Quest – a mystorical novel set in the days of King John


All the above can be ordered from http://www.goldenford.co.uk/, or from Amazon, Waterstones or any good bookshop.
Or how about a really original and trendy present? Both A Bottle of Plonk and The Moon’s Complexion (complete with its American cover) are available in electronic form online from http://www.virtualtales.com/

Launching my Laptop

Looking back on last week, apart from The Launch on Sunday, Not a lot seems to have happened. That is – I haven’t canoed over any cataracts, climbed Everest, swum the channel – or even tackled the M25. Having said that, a couple of momentous (sort of) events did occur.

Firstly we completed our tax return and HANDED IT IN with a day to spare!!!!! Good riddance! That’s that. As always we made a last minute trip to the tax office just to check we’d filled the darned thing in right. Of course we got there at 9 am on the only day they don’t open till 9.30 am. So we sat on the stairs and admired Guildford Castle and the River Wey through the window. Hm.

What I want to know, is WHY DO WE HAVE TO FILL IN A RUDDY TAX FORM IN THE FIRST PLACE? Why can’t they concentrate on the BIG FISH and leave us poor little tiddlers alone? At some stage we seem to have got caught in the ‘self-assessment’ trap, and now a wretched tax form plops through the letter box every year, and gives me the heebie-jeebies. What’s going to happen in years to come when we’re both gaga and simply can’t manage the thing? I can just see the headlines OCTOGENARIANS FACE LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR NON-DECLARATION OF £2.70 TAX. It just beats me why they (whoever they might be) can’t get their priorities right.

Enough of that. Momentous event no. 2. In the course of my twice-weekly physio with Harry, he looked at the x-rays of the arm I broke earlier this year. As he took them out of their envelope, a note from the radiologist to the specialist slipped out, describing the damage. This started with the words ‘There is a well-healed break of the left distal clavicle.’

‘Oh, yes, said Harry. That’s your collarbone.’

Collar bone? Never in my life have I broken my collarbone, left, right or any other. Must be a mistake. Harry was nonplussed. Subsequently (at the launch of Laptop) I was telling this story to a friend of mine, also a physiotherapist. She decided to examine said collarbone there and then. ‘Yes,’ she pronounced. ‘There is a distinct swelling there, resulting from a fracture.’

Himself next day looked at the x-rays and confirmed the fracture. It was ‘healed’ by the time of my first arm x-ray, so was nothing to do with that. So when did I break my collarbone? Nothing, but nothing in my past even opens up the possibility of such a thing.

Do I have a parallel existence?

So, with that thought, on to Sunday and the launch of my crazy little tome on eBay selling: Sold… to the Lady with the Lime-green Laptop. We’d decided to hold it at my place, and, in true Goldenford tradition, all other Goldenford books were also on sale.

Drinks and nibbles were mainly from Sainsburys online. I kinda over-ordered on the basis that too much is better than too little. I don’t mind the left-over quiches and dips. But help – I’m positively drowning in crisps and horrible little cheesy snacks. I’d gone for anything that said ‘2 for the price of 1’. Bad move. I should have gone for taste instead of greed. The crisps are okay. But the so-called cheesy things are like expanded polystyrene sawdust-covered fuzz. I could use them as padding for my eBay sales. Or – better idea – I’ll take them to book sales to tempt in the punters -maybe.

Jennifer introduced Goldenford to our captive audience and then I did my spiel on Laptop. All a bit off the cuff really – I rumbled on about the point of it all (selling collectables online, I mean). It’s good exercise, I said, ha ha! I gave them a potted history of how it all began, and demonstrated the enormous intellectual benefits of the activity by drawing on an example from the book, namely the Chinese silk iron.

I researched this charming little item (as I do everything I sell) and discovered that British sailors often brought them home from places like Shanghai and the turn of the 19th/20th century, as love tokens for their sweethearts. Every item has a story – that’s the real fun of collecting. There’s also the fun of watching the bidding going up – or not! It’s all in the book.

Sales were good – one of the best events we’ve had if you calculate books sold per head. We sold copies of every book on the Goldenford list, including several Moon’s Complexions, which surprised me as most of the guests already had a copy. One guest said she was buying a second copy for a friend as she’d enjoyed it so much. Someone else said it ‘deserved a wider audience’. Lovely comments. Sorry to sound big-headed, but us tiddlers have to promote our own books in whatever way we can!

Jackie, Anne and I were delighted to be able to welcome one guest – our MySpace ‘virtual friend’ Jan. Well, Jan’s a lovely lady and she’s virtual no more. She’s a brilliant artist, by the way. A very talented lady.

Wow – at last online sales are taking off – there have been several this week – either from my own website http://www.ireneblack.co.uk/ or the Goldenford website http://www.goldenford.co.uk/ . Also Anne’s virtual friend Sue has apparently ordered a copy of Laptop online – so thanks, Sue.

I’ve already had two feedbacks from last nights sales – totally unsolicited, I hasten to add. Two guests have already read Laptop and thought it was great fun. On the basis of enjoying Laptop one lady said she was going to buy all the other Goldenford books. Whoopy!

Last but not least – this was the guest who didn’t make it into the house. Another enigma – you may have seen my previous sunflower post, about my height-challenged potted examples. This chap was planted straight into the flower bed outside the conservatory window. But why is he staring in? He should be looking south, surely, not north. But he seems happy enough, and has been cheery company at mealtimes for the past few days. Long may he continue to brighten up this increasingly drizzly, grey October.