Two nice things happened in the last week...

The first was a trip to Kilkenny in Ireland to watch my father, Tom Phillips, launch a book called In the Shadow of the Steeple.  It's a compilation of articles written by historians, storytellers and locals who make up the Tullaherin Heritage Society.   This was number 10 in the series and it's compelling - the sort of book that you read and you can feel your roots and know that they are strong.   It's societies like this who have the foresight and expertise to commit our stories to paper so that they can be preserved.  Custodians of all our yesterdays - I felt very proud.

The other thing happened last night.  It was the first prizegiving evening for the Elmbridge Literary Festival  - the children's evening.   The other readers were the poet, Agnes Meadows and the writer Simon Cherry.  I was first to read. It was a poem written by a six-year -old girl and I thought it might be nice (for her!) if I asked her advice beforehand on how to read it.  Very seriously, I read the first couple of lines and said, 'Is that right?'

She rolled her eyes and looked at me as if I really hadn't had my Weetabix.

'Noooo,' she said, 'don't sing it - just say the words!'

Right so. 

Later they lined the children up for photographs with the Mayor.  To see a row of small kids, all clutching their certificates, with their chests stuck out so far they looked like chickens was a treat. 

Tonight it's the adults' turn.  I have to read a story by a talented writer called Terry Ryan. There are a lot of song titles in it. I will not attempt to sing any of them.

I will just say the words...

It's in the papers all the time.  I read how this fellow or that has made a name for himself, really 'got himself out there' by blogging reguarly and encouraging a devoted following to hang onto his every word.   Blogging is the way to go - if you're not too busy twittering of course.

I like to get out there.  I love the talks and the workshops and the people who walk up and say, 'I read your book and I wanted to tell you something...'  and they do.  They've read the story more recently than I have and although I claim a mother's knowledge of my characters, they claim a lover's - there are things I don't know and they are determined to tell me. I love that too.  Through the talks I've done this year I've met SO many people who don't have computers, who think 'blogging' is a fancy name for bragging (and the answer to that one is??), who won't ever read an ebook because they love the crack of a spine when you open a book for the first time and the smell of clean paper when the words are still on it, as yet unread.

And I chat to them - for ages.   It leaves little time for blogging and it makes me look inefficient to you if reading blogs is your thing. 

But it's human.  As one lady said recently, 'Isn't it nice that we can still do things are don't require us to plug something in?'

;-)

On Monday last week I went to Brockham in Surrey to talk to their Evevning WI and on Thursday to Peaslake to celebrate the 10th anniversary of a Book Group and set them off reading Soft Voices Whispering.  I was already exhausted when I left home on Monday to find Brockham.

They say 'a change is as good as a rest'.  Isn't  it lovely when things said are true?

Brockham turned out to be a gorgeous village, spread along both sides of green spaces with the hall in which I was speaking at the far end.  The ladies were lively, friendly and so welcoming that I didn't bother with notes and just stood and talked.  Afterwards, two explained that they'd lived in the village all their lives and had their families there.   I left feeling buoyant and more than a little envious.

Peaslake is another rural village but this time, one hidden behind high hedges.  The house was along a lane that appeared to be leading nowhere.  Eventually I found it and a group of women who lifted my spirits.  Maybe it's that I'm interested in people anyway but it seems that recently, the ones I've met leave me feeling vindicated in a long held belief that women are beautiful by virtue of what they possess and not what they lack. 

The sort of vacuous polished faces that pout from the covers of weekly glossies leave me cold - It is in the vibrant, life-filled faces of the women I have met recently that real beauty exists.