Books and bookkeeping; back to normal

First, another view of the unusual Parliament building in Edinburgh.

The figures in my last blog on one of the shops in Queen Street, Edinburgh, were probably carved out of Bath Portland stone, which seemed to be used extensively in Edinburgh and also Glasgow. I wondered if Bath Street, where we stayed, was modelled on a street in Bath. Certainly many of the buildings around there were constructed from carved, square white blocks, reminiscent of Bath.

We journeyed home on Tuesday last week, up early enough to walk down to Central Station, even though the suitcase had a wonky wheel, which had caused problems since the beginning of the journey. The photos show highlights of our journey in reverse - Edinburgh, Berwick upon Tweed (Hadrian’s Wall) and Newcastle, including the Tyne, a great majestic river that looked like a wide, flat road, when I first glimpsed it.

On the outward and the return journeys, I read the third book of my prize from the Winchester Writers’ Conference last year (for Tainted Tree). Called One Dance in Paris, by Julia Holden, I suppose this would qualify for the description ‘chick-lit’. At first I thought it was better than the first two of my prize books; then towards the middle, I got a bit irritated by the ‘boy meets girl’ romance which happened all too quickly. The book centres around a girl’s search for information about her dead mother. (I told you it had a familiar plot and that’s why I chose it.) I was interested to see how different it was from my own novel, but it bore no resemblance to Tainted Tree, despite its similar theme. Nevertheless, I found it particularly interesting in the first half, when the heroine is following up clues to her mother’s life. Despite the fact that the mother’s life was as a nude dancer at the Folies Bergere, there was very little explicit sex in it. As a writer, you worry (at least, I do) about how much sex should go into a novel and it seems that there’s no great necessity for an excess. Some of the writing seemed rather formulaic, as one after another, old contacts and flames of the mother are wheeled into the story - and, for me, there was too much emphasis on the outfits that the mother wore. Full marks for the character, though. I liked her and I wanted things to go her way. But when I saw that the writer’s earlier book was called A Dangerous Dress, there was no doubt I’d give it a miss. The heroine is left a ‘beautiful vintage Parisian silk evening dress’ and investigates its origin. Another outfit, different main character, but, no doubt, same story.

I’m now reading the Reading Circle book, Engleby, by Sebastian Faulkes. A very different kind of book. I’m reserving my judgement at the moment.

In the mean time, things are getting back to normal here, after a quiet weekend and a session of Goldenford bookkeeping, which I hope has got everything up to date. I’ve also managed to lose the three pounds I seemed to have gained whilst in Scotland - even though I was not tempted into eating any haggis.

Irene came over for lunch today, despite not being at her best, and last night, we and Jennifer went to the Mole Valley Arts Alive launch party in Dorking. We met up with Peter Snell who took copies of our books at his shop, Corbett's in Leatherhead, and he tells us that he has now moved the shop, changed its name to Barton's - and, good news - he's still stocking the books. I don’t know what the party did for my diet, as I was stationed next to a bowl of crisps and made deep inroads into them. Goldenford has a slot in October, when, as part of this arts festival, we will do a presentation at The Green Room in the Leatherhead Theatre, one of a few events in which we will participate in the autumn. There are compensations for the end of summer.