China Blue Book Signing at Hunts Bookshop

It rained and it rained and it poured. It was torrential for more than an hour. So, you can guess that I wasn't inundated readers.  No, it was not a busy book signing. But in many ways it was lovely and it was funny.

Looking surprised? I was.

After hours of rain and deserted streets I was genuinely surprised when someone came through the door.  Oh, but I don't think this man, or the one wandering in behind him are interested in buying a novel.  Two lovely old bookworms entered who told me when they wandered over - out of curiosity - that they didn't read fiction, 'Oh no! tut tut!' but they were happy to come in out of the rain, eat food, drink wine, and tell me what they did like reading. Oh, and entertain my friend Roger who was serving wine. Or was it Roger entertaining them?  Yes, I think it was that way round.

Rugby was a flood.
I expect to see Noah to walk in and volunteer the Ark to take me home.
Photos of empty flooded streets anon. 

Thanks to Theresa and Graham LeFlem I did have people come and buy books, or have the books they already had signed.

Mum's book, but the lovely little boy asked for it to be signed

Catherine, me, Pauline Hunt and Peter.

Food For Thought After Dinner Talk November 2015

Happy memories and photographs of my super evening with the fabulous people of Lilbourne. 

Food For Thought, November 2015.

Graham Le Flem lighting the set. 

I was invited (at the suggestion of Theresa and Graham Le Flem) to be the after dinner speaker at an evening called, Food For Thought.

From the minute I walked through the door everyone was helpful. Genuinely pleased to see the costumes, posters, play scripts that I'd taken, they helped to set up.

Author and friend Theresa Le Flem reading a play script after bringing the costumes in from the car.

If she isn't writing novels and poetry, painting, illustrating, or throwing pots, she's reading.

"Come on Theresa, put the book down."

Right: Setting up costumes that I wore when I played Iras in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.

Left on the rack, an Arab dress, my first night gift from Vanessa Redgrave when we opened in London's West End, Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

The Arab costume was given to Sir Michael Redgrave by D'Aglef when he produced The Fire Bird at Covent Garden in the 1920s.

The table set for the talk. I was given a fabulous flower arrangement. Not easy to see here, but there were three lovely small cards of Foxden Acres, Applause, and China Blue amongst the flowers, which were red white and blue, to depict World War Two.

Lovely arrangement of flowers with cards of  my novels. 

A lovely flower arrangement, which I have since tried to replicate and failed miserably. My mother could make a flower arrangement out of a stick of keck and a dandelion. Me? Not even a half decent arrangement if you gave me a dozen red roses...  Perfer daffodils and tulips - they don't need arranging. Daffs open, stay tall, find their space and fill it. Tulips are fluid, like ballet dancers they bow and lift their heads depending on how warm they are. They look more beautiful every day.

The people were lovely, the meal was delicious, and the audience enjoyed the talk. Well I think they did, because they laughed a lot. xxx

Graham and friends from where he works

Lisa Webb and her mum, looking the wrong way.
David Bailey I am not!

A lovely evening. 

Thank you for inviting me to speak at, Food For Thought.