Our Julia died ten years ago and her anniversary was last Monday. The BBC did her proud. They put on a dramatisation of her blog called the Waiting Room and five fifteen minute plays called Appointments during the week. It was wonderful to hear it all. And there will be more plays,poetry and readings at Live Theatre and other places in Newcastle at the end of May, so we are are all planning our trips up there. The only problem is finding someone to look after B.Wiggins and Jumble. I am hoping they can go somewhere together as they are very fond of each other in a doggy sort of way.
I went to Waterstones on Wednesday to a book launch: Patrick Gale`s latest novel A Town called Winter. I have loved all his books. He grew up in Winchester and he was a contemporary of my children including Julia and he would meet up with her at literary festivals. One of his novels: Pictures from an Exhibition was set among the Quakers and it encouraged lots of people to go to Meeting though he is not a Quaker himself at all Anyway it was a great evening and I was so pleased to see him again, I look forward to reading the new book.
We have revived our extempore writing group :Nibbles and Scribbles and five of us met at the cafe below the bandstand on the sea front last Thursday, We laughed so much at our own efforts that the Hungarian waitress asked me in halting English what we were doing. When I told her she said` Oh we do just the same in Hungary. I was very surprised..