Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Notes, rings and Bones

Have spent most of the day trawling my way slowly, slowly through the vast numbers of notes I took on last week’s Away Day. It’s like wading through treacle. When you have no map. Soon I think I will lose the will to live entirely. Hey ho.

Still, I’m much cheered by the thought of nipping into town at lunchtime to look at eternity rings, hurrah! I’d like one with emeralds, as the engagement ring is an emerald and, dahlings, you know how I do so hate to clash … UPDATE: I found a ring I really, really, really like in Cry For The Moon. Swoon. I’ve asked them to put it aside till Lord H and I can see it together on Saturday. It’s fabulous – I am seriously in love with it. Give me jewellery and give it to me now!... Oh Lordy, but I hope he likes it too. Anyway, while I was there, I also paid in a cheque (for books, double hurrah!), picked up a copy of the Radio Times and tried to see if there was anything about me in this month’s Writers’ Forum magazine – there wasn’t. Lordy, but I have a planet-sized ego for sure – just a shame I don’t have the confidence to go with it. Now there’s a scary thought.

Meanwhile, the tension continues to mount on the journey of the US Amazon Maloney’s Law – it now has a publication date of 29 June 2008, which is obviously wrong. But hey at least we’re moving forward towards some sort of resolution, possibly, so I’m not complaining.

And today’s exciting Chaplaincy phone query (the Chaplaincy office is temporarily with us while they’re being rebuilt) which I answered as Ruth G isn’t in today: where can I do A Level Hebrew in Surrey? I think I managed to dredge up some off-the-top-of-my-head knowledge about local schools and colleges but, goodness me, sometimes I could really do with a Phone a Friend or Ask the Audience button. It’s tough here in the hot seat, you know.

Ooh and the lovely Megan Taylor, author of the marvellous How We Were Lost, has just finished reading Thorn in the Flesh and has been kind enough to call it “a gripping and intriguing read”. Thanks, Megan – glad you liked it!

Tonight, I’m supposed to be going to both Guildford Writers and one of the Diocesan Summer Schools – I’m nothing if not overbooked … However, they’ve moved this evening’s Summer School course to somewhere near the Lido and I am too much of a Geography Wimp to attempt to work out how to get there. If only they’d kept it at the Cathedral, which I know without having to think about, then I probably would have gone, but the thought of driving to a strange place is beyond me and I am filled with existential terror. Really, it’s astonishing I go out at all. I’m just a hermit in the making.

So I think I’ll stay in and concentrate on The Bones of Summer instead – I’m on Chapter 10 of the edit now and doing a lot of juggling. Which incidentally is an essential writers’ skill that I wish they’d teach you at Writers’ School – we all need to know how to text-juggle, believe me.

Ooh and on the way home, I bravely popped into see Gladys - and she was the most pleasant and chatty she's been for a long, long time, hurrah! So I didn't need to wear my body armour after all ... I think the trick is not to talk first but to wait until she's ready to talk to me. I just went straight into her room and started sorting out the bird table outside her window and doing a lot of smiling. She seemed happier with me then, so maybe I'll try that trick next time. But hey, result!!

And finally I don’t think Lord H and I are going to be able to resist the no doubt High Tosh Factor of tonight’s new TV series, “Bonekickers” – or “Boneknickers”, as we like to call it. Archaeology, doom and ridiculous plots – just what the doctor ordered.

Today’s nice things:

1. Shopping for an eternity ring
2. Another small addition to the US Amazon Maloney entry
3. Feedback on Thorn
4. A pleasant visit to Gladys
5. Editing Bones
6. Tosh TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website

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