PETS, PRESENTATIONS, PUBLISHING AND PARTIES

This is my attempt to blog before my visitors arrive from Germany. I know they have ‘disembarked’ from the Dover ferry but they are planning to take a trip down memory lane and visit old haunts on the South coast before turning north and heading my way, so I should have an hour or so before they appear. These are the same visitors H and I, with whom Jackie, M and I spent a happy few days in Freiburg.

Last week has been quite eventful. On Tuesday Joe and I went to a live transmission at our local Odeon cinema of La Traviata from the Royal Opera. It was simply stunning. What a cast – Renee Fleming, Jose Calleja and the delectable Thomas Hampson. We’d seen both men in the flesh at a Royal Opera concert the previous week, and it was a joy to see them in an opera. One of the most wonderful productions I’ve seen for a long time. What a fabulous idea these transmissions to cinemas are. And the uptake had been so big that they had had to transfer it to a larger auditorium. A word of praise for the Guildford Odeon staff. They are always so helpful and friendly. Others could learn from them…

I put my Indian Art to good use on Thursday by giving a presentation to a class of 24 6 and 7-year-olds at Shalford Infants School, which is a little hidden gem. A tiny school in a picturesque Victorian building, but with very up-to-date ideas and well-disciplined, eager children. I stayed the whole afternoon and had such fun. First I gave them a Power Point presentation on Ganesh and his family (Shiva, Parvati etc) and all the family animals.

Then we watched a cartoon DVD ‘How Ganesh got his elephant head’, lent to me by Anjali, whose lovely children’s book, The Convent Rules, I have mentioned before. Then they wanted more – so another little cartoon and some worksheets. And I even read a bit out of Darshan: there’s actually a suitable extract involving a 7-year old boy. Here’s a bit of it:

‘If you are not too tired,’ Anil told them, ‘I would like to take you to the Bull Temple. I think it will appeal to our young friend here.’ His eyes twinkled as he looked at Dafydd.
‘The Nandi bull inside the temple is fourth largest in India, carved from a single piece of rock,’ Anil explained as we climbed the small hill toward it. He turned to Dafydd. ‘Have you heard of Nandi?’ Dafydd shook his head.
‘In India,’ Anil continued, ‘God comes in many forms and has many names. But each form has someone to ride on, usually an animal. The great god Shiva rides on a bull called Nandi. This is his temple.’
‘Wow! A temple to a bull. That’s like … like having a church named after the donkey Jesus rode on.’
‘Precisely! A good comparison. Come, let us go inside.

Of course, I had to adapt it slightly for infant consumption but it went down well.

Talking of Anjali, her book was launched with a great party on Saturday evening at her home, and Jackie and I attended. And being the lovely person she is, she insisted that we put the Goldenford books on display, in order to whip up interest among her guests. Now who else would promote another publisher’s books at their launch? If you’re reading this, Anjali, you are a star!

Before we went to the launch though, we three Golden Girls were busy promoting and signing books at Book Boys in Farnborough. One person bought 4 copies of Darshan. Thanks, K – I hope the Russian ladies will enjoy it.

On Sunday I was invited to a party at Jackie’s – I’m really becoming a socialite! Lovely food, old friends and plenty of chat.

I decided to move a chest of drawers in my bedroom and a creepy green hand crawled out from under it.

Luckily I have a good memory and knew immediately that this was a ghost from 25 years or so ago come back to haunt me. I bought this for Ant in Germany when he was a child – you throw it at windows and it sticks and slides down. One of my best buys – both kids loved it. Now it’s re-emerged, I can’t wait to try it on Miss T!

The cat’s on steroids. The vet agrees that he may have an auto-immune disease so it’s worth a try. The vet said, ‘I can’t tell you what’s wrong with him, but he’s definitely not all there.’ Well he was all there all right this afternoon, when a large DOG appeared in the garden – some sort of beagle I think, all dressed up in various collars and name tags. Not that it helped – neither I nor my neighbour could get near it. It saw the cat and raced after him (to my horror!). The cat disappeared into the hedge followed by dog, hot on his heels. Seconds later I hear blood-curdling dog-screams that seemed to go on forever. Then out of the hedge shoots terrified canine followed by HUGE cat (fluffed up to around 100 times his normal size). We won’t see that dog again.

The Truculent Virgin and other Tales

Before I forget – an addendum (or two) to the Bad Boys-Good Boys saga. Yes, you guessed it, Virgin Media again. This time they surpassed themselves. My monthly statement from them came an hour before I was due to leave for Germany. I made the mistake of opening it and checking it through. Should have left it till I got back. Too late. Discovered to my perplexity that the ‘balance carried forward’ column, which should have read ‘zero’ as I pay by direct debit, had a figure of £124 in it. PLUS I had been charged a LATE PAYMENT fee of £10. How can a direct debit payment be late???

Nothing for it but to pick up the phone again (‘Just so you know… arghhh!) Finally (after several minutes of loud pop music and getting cut off) was put through to a male voice (British). Blurted out my tale of woe in some agitation, as I didn’t want to miss my flight. The male voice hummed and ha’d then asked me if I’d moved house recently. ‘No,’ I told him. He hummed and ha’d a bit more then said ‘Are you sure you haven’t moved house?’

‘If I had moved house,’ I said trying to control my mounting rage, ‘I think I’d know it.’

At which point – get this – the fellow replied very haughtily, ‘there’s no need to use that tone with me,’ and HUNG UP ON ME!!!!

Well, I finally did get through to a sensible-sounding woman who immediately realised that Virgin Media had got it wrong (yet again) and promised to rectify it immediatement (or at least on my next payment). I await my next statement with some trepidation and not a lot of hope…

A Bad Boy turned (temporarily, I’m sure) GOOD, is British Gas Home Care. After the sad tale of how they turned up a day late in Oxford, I now have to report that they have turned up a day EARLY to service my boiler. I should add that they didn’t just turn up – someone actually rang me to see if I was in before the man with a van arrived.

Utilities apart it’s been quite a musical week. Joe and I went up to the Royal Opera on Wednesday for a concert by three of the current stars performing there – Joyce DiDonato, Jose Calleja and the delectable Thomas Hampson. These brave souls were doing a last-minute stand-in for Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who met with ‘an accident to his vocal chords’, and who himself was supposed to be replacing Rolando Villazon, who was ill (We’d booked for Hvorostovsky, who is a dish with a dreamy voice - OK so he’s a tad pompous but I can live with that.)

The concert was very enjoyable, especially the Mahler song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, beautifully sung by Thomas Hampson.

On Sunday we had tickets for an all-Mendelssohn concert (Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall). Another lovely evening. And the view from the RFH is lovely too (though hard to photograph straight into the evening sun).

Tonight it’s a live transmission of Traviata from the ROH showing at the Odeon in Guildford. These opera transmissions are a wonderful innovation.

On the book front, thanks, Keith Parkin, for a review of Darshan on Bookcrossing – here it is – at least part of it – it’s very long.

Keith’s Review

A Journey!

Saraswathi, an Indian student at Oxford, lost, lonely and far from home, is easy prey for a religious slime-ball and arsehole who seduces her into a religious sect. Although she has her initial reservations she loses all sense of reality when she is brainwashed into the sect. She finally comes to her senses when members of the sect try to gang rape her as part of an initiation ceremony.

That John/Ieuan is a religious nutter is illustrated by his comment 'You won't find God in a stained glass window and rousing music. It's all wrong.' Later we learn that Beethoven, or at least his music, is sinful.

How wrong could he be. Hildergard von Bingen spoke of being 'a feather on the breath of God'. There are those whose art seems to transcend the transition zone, are in communication with the Soul of the World.

Or to quote Paulo Coelho on art:

'Painting is an art. And art is a power that should be aimed at developing the soul. If art does not do this job, the abyss that separates us from God is left without a bridge.'

(Here I’ve left out a whole screed on Paul Coelho and other of Keith’s causes célèbres – interesting but too much. Also left out less than flattering aside about Moon – accusing it of containing clichés (at least, I think that's what he means) – rubbish, they would never have got past me, not to mention the editors. I think he’s got the book confused with another! Or he has a weird idea of clichés)

Saraswathi decides to study in Oxford to get away from India. She also has another reason, she wants to find her estranged Welsh father who her mother will not talk about. She is also on a quest, although she does not know it yet. A spiritual quest to find her inner self. Very Paulo Coelho.

The discussion of darshan is very Paulo Coelho. Darshan is seeing God, and God seeing you. It is the Buddhist concept of enlightenment. It is the Jewish practice of Kaballah, of being as one with God. It is crossing the transition zone, of communicating with the Soul of the World. Knowing God and being known.

Darshan is a very powerful novel, part love story, part thriller, part spiritual quest.

Darshan opens with a beautiful and haunting poem.

A very interesting review – I’m glad Darshan provokes such profound thoughts. And I see he has posted the poem on the web too. Not sure if this is permissible – copyright etc. I don’t mind personally – it’s all grist to the mill.

And last but not least - if you are anywhere near Farnborough on Saturday 4th July between 1 -3 pm do drop in at Book Boyz, (16 Kingsmead Farnborough, GU14 7SL) where Jackie Luben, Jennifer (Jay) Margrave and I will be signing copies of our books.

WINE, WITCHES AND TWINS

A quick half hour before my old ( that is former) colleague P arrives for lunch. Just time to get started on my report-back from Freiburg. Jackie has already blogged her version so here's mine.

Jackie and I were both in Freiburg at the same time for the Freiburg twinning festival from 18-21 June, but we had been invited independently by different groups . Jackie had been invited by the German-British Society in Freiburg to give a reading at a bookshop, whereas I had been invited by the Freiburg town council in conjunction with the Freiburg Society in Guildford, to help to promote Guildford in the "twinning marquee " and to give readings in the "culture marquee".

It was a lovely coincidence that we had both been invited, and we travelled out together on Squeezy Jet from Gatwick along with Jackie's M. Actually, I must be fair to EasyJet - I have no complaints whatsoever. They were friendly and helpful and it was a pleasant flight. I won't wax lyrical about the wonderful Basel Europa airport - I think I covered that topic last year. Suffice to say that it is a large, pretentious, empty building whose facilities you can't access once you are out and realise that you need the loo and that you have not got enough Euros for the bus to Freiburg.

We were met in Freiburg by my friends from Mayen, H and I, who had come down for three nights especially to see me. We established that Jackie and M were staying at a hotel five minutes from the bus station, mine was five minutes further on and H and I's apartment was five minutes further on from that! So we were all in a very convenient straight line.

The other four were at leisure to enjoy Freiburg during the day, as Jackie's talk was on Thursday evening so she had the days free. I on the other hand, was tied to the twinning marquee from 10 o'clock until 5 o'clock each day, welcoming the inhabitants of Freiburg to the Guildford stand and explaining all about our beautiful city. The twinning marquee had been erected in the 'Rathausplatz' (Town Hall Square) and the hotel for the 'official delegation', which included me, was the Hotel am Rathaus, so I only had to roll out of bed and into the twinning marquee every morning.

As I was the only one among the Guildford team who was fluent in German, I found myself in some demand and by the end of the week my voice was wavering. But it was terrific fun. Freiburg's other nine twin towns, who were represented alongside us in the marquee, had a variety of interesting items for sale, including artistic T-shirts (Innsbruck), beautiful jewellery (Lviv) and gloriously decorative enamelled tin plates (Isfahan).We had plenty of brochures and leaflets to promote Guildford but only a few bookmarks and keyrings for sale, so I was delighted to be able to set out some of the Goldenford material and sell some books. It was nice to see Guildford represented by books, and I am pleased to say that there was plenty of interest in buying my novels.

I was scheduled to give two readings in the culture marquee, and the first one went off as planned.


I abandoned the second reading due to torrential rainfall. I could just about cope with the chiming church clocks during the first reading, but heavy rain on a canvas awning was a step too far!


On Thursday evening we went to Jackie's talk, which was excellent.



Then we all went for a glass of wonderful local wine at the oldest pub in Germany! (Apparently every German town worth its salt boasts an "oldest pub in Germany"!)

Our flight to Gatwick was on Sunday evening so we had a whole day to do some sightseeing. Jackie,M and J, a fellow Guildford-Freiburg 'official delegate', hopped onto a train and headed out to the Titisee, a very well-known lake and beauty spot about 40 minutes away from Freiburg.





We did lots of touristy things, like looking inside the cuckoo-clock shop, admiring the local beauties,


taking a boat trip on the on the lake, and at last I got my slice of Black Forest Cherry gateau (huge, delicious but not quite as good as the one my mother used to make - but then she did use a litre of Kirschwasser for each cake!)


All in all I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, was delighted by my book sales, but over and above that it was lovely to be with friends, both German and English, to make new friends as well, and to promote Guildford. I have come away with lots of ideas for interesting people in our beautiful town, and I hope I am given a chance to put them into practice!

Now it's back to routine, which involves urgent preparation of two Goldenford book events at the beginning of July - a signing at Book Boyz in Farnborough on fourth of July and a talk at Bookham library on the 14th of July. More about these in future blogs.

NAMING AND SHAMING.

During the last two months I’ve been faced with the unavoidable task of contacting various utilities groups, banks and so on and notifying them of changes in my circumstances.

Well, it’s been a lesson and a half and I herewith present the results of my experience. Some, you will understand, I will not name for obvious reasons, but those I can, I will.

THE BAD BOYS

BRITISH GAS: not actually my disaster, but a tale of horrors that happened while I was in Oxford at the end of May. My son had purposely organised these clowns to service their boiler on the afternoon of 26th so that they could do it while I was up there looking after Miss T in her hols. It’s a long sad story, but basically they didn’t arrive on the appointed day (‘engineer’ problem, apparently) but promised I’d be first on the list next day (between 8 and 10). Suffice to say that after three furious phone calls from me and several broken promises from them they finally arrived at midday. Which meant Miss T and I had to stay in all morning waiting for them. We amused ourselves by drawing pictures of vicious boilers turning on the tardy boiler service man and gobbling him up.

THAMES WATER: as I reported last time, denied all knowledge of a fault when my water stopped, though I have proof that it was widespread in the area.

A WORLD-RENOWNED BANK – totally incapable of getting my name right – several documents arrived with IRINE instead of IRENE in spite of repeated phone calls (from me) and assurances (from them) that it had been changed on the computer. When my new card finally arrived Irene was fine, but Irene Black had become Irene Blacks. I await the replacement.

ANOTHER WORLD-RENOWNED BANK – sent me three identical letters at three week intervals, each sympathising with my circumstances and each telling me I had to close my account and open a new one (both of which I had done even before the first letter arrived). When the new pin code arrived I did all the silly coin scratching ritual and was left with an illegible pin number. So they had to send me another one – which is just about decipherable.

VIRGIN MEDIA: they take the prize for total incompetence. I was told I would have to close the account and open a new one. There would be no interruption in my TV, broadband or telephone services. Oh yes, and they would even throw in an extra – free weekend and evening telephone calls. Sounds good? Hm. A week or so after I had arranged this by phone, sent off the initial documents etc. I switch on my computer, try to open my email and find my entry blocked by a large box telling me that as a new customer I have to register for a new email address. I go spare, ring up VM again (and if I hear that awful female recording saying ‘just so you know we sometimes record this for training purposes…’ again or get blasted by the horrible pop music they regale you with while you wait in the inevitable queue I shall probably do something drastic like reverting to BT)… anyway the woman on the other end of the line (ie in India) tells me that I do indeed have to register with a new email address before I can access my emails. I explode at the poor woman. ‘Just a minute,,,’ she says in alarm , switching me back onto the earspilling pop-racket. When she returns, she announces ‘I’ve fixed it for you, Madam. You will now not have to change your email address’. I ask myself why she had to fix it in the first place but am relieved that it’s been fixed. But the woman adds, ‘There will be a slight delay before you get into your email system.’

‘Delay?’ I have a bad feeling about this. ‘How long?’

‘Only twenty-four hours…’

‘Twenty-four hours???’ I erupt. I blow a fuse. I am no longer responsible for my actions. The poor woman is out of her depths. She has not been trained to deal with hysteria.

Only one thing for her to do, and she does it. ‘Just one moment, Madam.’ More mindless thumping musak then she’s back. She’s fixed it again. ‘Now there will be no interruption in your service, Madam.’

So what was all that about? Why did they put me through all that trauma in the first place. Ah well, at least it’s all sorted now. Or not. A few days later my Virgin Media contract arrives. I have to sign it and send it back. I scrutinise it. It is gibberish. Each item is listed twice - 2 broadbands, two TVs, two phone connections etc. AND a charge of £3.45 for the extra that they so kindly said they’d throw in.

The man on the phone actually agreed with me. It was a gibberish contract. Not to worry, they would send me a new one, with the doubling up and extra charge removed.

The new contract arrived – they managed to remove the doubling up. But oh dear, the extra charge is still on there. Another phone call (just so you know, we sometimes record this…blah! Blah! Blah!). The man on the phone assures me that though the charge is on the contract it has been removed from the computer. So that’s OK then… you’re joking of course, I tell him. I’m not signing this. So I now await yet another corrected contract.

DOMESTIC & GENERAL: some second sense made me scrutinise my Dom & Gen insurance policies for the last year. So I find to my amazement that I have two disherwashers insured – on in Guildford and one at the Oxford flat. I ring up D & G. There is no dishwasher in Oxford, I storm down the phone at the man I finally pin down. A cooker, yes. A dishwasher,no.

Oh, says the man. He agrees to refund the payment made on the non-existent Oxford washer. This amounts to £89. Well, actually it amounts to more like £110, as the policy for the phantom washer was actually more expensive than the real one, don’t ask me why. But since I’ve already dutifully closed down the credit card on which the higher payment was made, they can’t pay it back, can they? Of course not. So I have to agree to the £89 option. They promise to pay it into my bank account. So I was distinctly unimpressed when I received a letter telling me they had paid £71 into my account.

THE GOOD GUYS

BUPA: a totally stress-free experience and a pleasant reduction in my charges

ENDSLEIGH TRAVEL INSURANCE: handled my claim for two cancelled holidays efficiently and sensitively, phoning me weekly to tell me what progress had been made on my claims. Not 100% perfect though – was it really necessary to make the doctor complete an initial form and then later send him another one to fill out (for which I had to pay £20)? And it seemed a pity that Endsleigh couldn’t combine the claim for my 2 cancelled holidays instead of charging me an excess of £50 for each. But I suppose that’s what all insurance companies do.

NORWICH UNION: yes, hard to believe, but, apart from a slight communication problem, they handled all my insurance policy changes without causing me too much stress.

P & O FERRIES: both refunded my cross-channel payment within days of notification.

EXPEDIA.COM : refunded my hotel booking payment within days of notification. Sadly blotted their copybook by sending several emails asking how I'd enjoyed the cancelled holiday!

Good that’s that off my chest.

NEVER A DULL MOMENT...

Cake- making...

...painting, strawberry ice cream, dinosaurs, riding on the top of a double-decker bus...

... and curly pigs.

Just some of the joys of looking after Miss T in Oxford last week during her half-term holiday from nursery. I had great fun. I hope she did too. Mind you, at the end of my stay I had trouble doing up my belt: at least I would have done had I been wearing one. Quite apart from the cakes and ice cream, there were daughter-in-law’s delectable Thai-style stirfries and soups in the evenings and on the last night we went out for a meal at Mamma Mia’s in Summertown where I had the biggest pizza I’ve ever seen.

On Friday I left Oxford and headed over to Tring to have lunch with SIL and BIL and view the next day’s auction. I saw a couple of Indian pieces I liked and left ludicrously low bids as the estimates were over my self-imposed limits.

Home seemed a haven of calm and quiet after my child-centred few days. But there was work waiting for me. Two talks to get ready (one on my books, the other on Indian art), material to sort out for my forthcoming trip to the Freiburg Twinning Festival (Guildford is one of its twin towns), where I am giving two readings of poetry, short stories and my novels. How to fill two one-hour slots with readings for a German audience is a challenge. I have been assured that only people with reasonable English are likely to attend. Just as well. Although the beginnings of The Moon’s Complexion and Darshan have actually been translated into German, all my other stuff is in English. I shall read in English and give short German explanations. Daughter Joe had a good idea –she suggested I read out A Dog's Life, a short story about Indian pariah dogs that was a prize-winner in a BBC competition few years ago and was read on radio by Bernard Cribbins. Which gave me the idea to take along the BBC recording (Joe can convert the CD to mp3 format) and give myself a rest by playing that to the audience. I’m delighted to say that the audience will consist of at least 4 people as my friends H & I are coming down from Mayen in the Rhineland to cheer me on, and Jackie Luben with her Other Half will be there as Jackie has also, quite coincidentally, been invited to the Freiburg Festival to give a reading from her delightful novel Tainted Tree.

Meanwhile there’s the house to sort out and the garden’s bursting out all over. I did the lawn last week, with the snazzy new mower, and this week Joe took on the task.

To my great joy the miniature water lily SIS gave me for my birthday last year survived the dreadful winter in its tub and is in flower again. I took this yesterday. It closes up at night and opens again the following day. Gorgeous!

Today I had lunch with an Indian writer friend. It was with some trepidation that I had sold her a copy of Darshan some time ago. As a non-Indian writing on Indian themes, I can’t help a certain apprehension at what the reaction of an Indian reader (particularly one who has just published her own first book) might be. To my delight my friend adored it. To the extent that she persuaded a lady who runs a reading group to read it, the upshot being that the reading group are selecting it as one of their books this year and I am being invited along to talk about it in September. Without the backing of a huge publishing company, ‘word of mouth’ recommendations are like pots of gold to writers like me. Goldenford works very hard to promote our books, with gratifying success, but Penguin they ain’t. So thank you, Anjali, you’ve done me a huge service.

In return, let me tell you about the book she has just published. You will find it here:

It’s a book for children and is wonderfully, refreshingly just the sort of story that children love, but the kind that is hard to find in these days of computer-game mentality: it’s an adventure story set in a fictitious convent school in the mountains of a mythical country. It was short-listed for the 2009 'Write a story for children' competition.

Anjali illustrated her own cover and it is totally charming, as is the book. This is how the Author House website introduces it.

The Convent Rules by Anjali Mittal
On the highest peak of the mountainous resort sits a strict convent school for girls. Tammy, Marina and Betty wait in anticipation for the arrival of the Hamilton sisters. When Anya and Sacha Hamilton turn up at the school they have to contend with getting used to being away from home, all the strict rules, the girls at the school and not to mention the ghosts in the corridors. Who would have known that the girls would be thrown together to experience the greatest adventure of their lives? A tale about secrecy, mystery and courage. Above all a story about how everlasting friendships are formed.

It’s a lovely book and I look forward to reading it with Miss T in a few year’s time.

Oh, yes - to my amazement I won the bid for a nineteenth century Indian bronze at the Tring auction. I got it at a knock-down price. My Indian art collection is beginning to look respectable...

KITCHEN, COMPUTER, CULTURE AND COUNTRYSIDE

I can’t imagine a more catastrophic sequence of events than Tuesday brought. For starters I had just put conditioner in my hair when the water went off. Completely. Thames Water Homeserve shunted me off to some other Thames Water number, and they didn’t want to know either. The man who fitted the bathroom, someone called Aquasplash, has long since disappeared. Anyway, eventually the water came back on again and I could rinse my hair. So far so good. Until the next time. No idea who I’d call for help.

Then the oven decided to fuse the house. Now it won’t work at all. I’ve had to call someone out. They are due this afternoon and no doubt will tell me I need a new oven. As they do.

Finally my computer decided to go mad (not this one – this is the laptop, I mean the PC). It kept shutting down, restarting, getting as far as the Windows loading page and restarting again. So I had to abandon it and call out the PC Guru, who has now taken it to computer-hospital. Hopefully it won’t catch a MRSA or any other virus while it’s there.

Meanwhile I’ve been recovering from a hectic couple or so of days.

On Saturday Joe and I trekked up to London. We went to the Kuniyoshi exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Most interesting, fascinating in fact but very crowded. Kuniyoshi was a 19^th century Japanese woodblock print artist. He had a sense of humour and found amusing and subtle, if slightly risky ways of getting round government censorship. Some of the prints were amazing.

After that we had lunch at Woodlands (South Indian Restaurant) where the dosas and uttappams were yummy (but not as yummy as the ones you get in India, where the ingredients are fresh and not imported.)

Then on to the Royal Opera for a stunning performance of Lohengrin. The costumes were traditional and splendid, as were the props. There was virtually no scenery except for a screen at the back for projecting different colours and shades to represent water. It proved to me that you need costumes and props to evoke the sense of time and place, not necessarily stage sets.

Good old Inland Revenue. They sent me a form to complete and even a window-envelope to send it back to them in. Pity that the only way to get the thing to fit into the envelope was by having the address upside down in the window!

On Monday evening Joe dragged me off on another sponsored walk – only 10 km along the River Wey and back, she assured me. Easy-peasy after the marathon last week. Not. Unfortunately they neglected to clarify that they had changed the route drastically from last year and that it was now a tough 8 miles up and down the North Downs Way. We started along the river

but soon headed off upwards onto the Downs. No checkpoints and the leaders scarpered with their maps leaving the mapless pack to struggle along after them – or get lost. And being the evening there was always the possibility that it would get dark while we were still out there. Luckily a colleague of Joe’s had managed to scrounge a set of instructions and the three of us managed to find our way – eventually.

We lost most of the pack – no-one but we three seemed in the least interested in looking at the stunning views and taking photos. We walked past the grounds of Loseley house,

and there was a family of geese on the lake.

We trudged through fields and overgrown nettle-ridden tracks. It was all very beautiful, if painful. We also saw a splendid fox, but Joe's pictures of it are much better than mine! We finally made it back to Guildford just as the light was fading and we hobbled thankfully into the first pub we could find!

Got the initial programme for Freiburg today. I’m giving two readings in the ‘Culture Tent’ – and I’ve been allocated an hour for each. So I’ll try and include some poetry, a reading or two in German, some from my novels and a short story or two. Hopefully I’ll get some kind of audience. The bad (or possibly good) news is that there’s to be a free distribution of beer by a local Guildford brewery at the same time as my second reading. Hopefully slight inebriation will render the attendees at the festival more rather than less receptive to English literature!

BLUEBELLS AND A NEW BEGINNING

Hallo folks – I’m back. Those who know me will understand the long silence. Now it’s time to pick up the pieces and carry on…

On Sunday Joe and I did our bit for the RSPCA – a 10 km circular walk from Shalford (Guildford). The countryside is stunning. We walked through bluebell-carpeted woods, along bridle-paths between meadows peopled with horses, cattle and very woolly sheep, or simply dotted with buttercups and a whole host of other wild flowers.

The hardest part of the walk was up St Martha’s Hill to the little church at the top and a stupendous view. We did it though, and here's the (awful) photo to prove it.

The weather was perfect for walking – warm and sunny but not too hot. We were back home by early afternoon, aching and exhausted. It was sheer Heaven to sink into the whirlpool bath and relax for twenty minutes.

Earlier in the week we, the Goldenford Trio, spent a very enjoyable evening at The Deli in Farnborough, reading ‘foody’ extracts from our books and enjoying the delicious spread, painstakingly provided by our hosts – Bagels and smoked salmon for Jackie’s Tainted Tree, vegetarian samosas and mango pickle for Darshan and The Moon’s Complexion. And for Jay Margrave’s ‘mystoricals, The Gawain Quest and Luther’s Ambassadors there were ‘Mountain Oysters’ otherwise known as... lambs’ testicles. I did not investigate these further. Here's Jennifer (Jay) holding forth before the talk.

Delighted to discover two new reviews of Darshan on Amazon.

This one from ‘Pauline’.
This is indeed a brilliant book! I can't recommend it enough, but don't do what I did and start reading it in the evening as you too will be up all night. Irene Black is a 1st. class writer and well deserves to be recognised as such. I have recommended this book to all my friends and family.

And this from ‘Bill’.
Having read both of Mrs Black's novels I have been most impressed with their quality. The plots are well planned and designed to induce maximum tension and interest, and where they refer to India are very atmospheric and authentic. Her travels in India have given her a particular knowledge and appreciation of the country and its cultures as have her studies of Indian temple art. She is therefore well placed to deal accurately with the inter-relationships of religions and the differences in mores to which she refers. In Darshan she deals most effectively with the subtle psychological ploys used by fringe religions ( as indeed dictatorships ) to influence, control and capture their acolytes. Her characters present as rounded and interesting personages in their own right. In short these novels reveal all the attributes of any successful novelist and are so well written that one is immediately intrigued. They deserve wide popularity, and I for one thoroughly recommend them.

So many thanks to both those readers. I should be back to regular blogging now. But don’t go away if there’s a gap or two.