Debbie Young's Blog, page 44

When the Dust Settles…

My column for the November issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News

There can’t be many corners of Hawkesbury that have been unaffected by builder’s dust this autumn.

Lately, between the road works on France Lane and the extension that my husband is building at the back of our house…

…I’ve been living in a cloud of fallout, trying not to think of Pompeii. I’ve sneezed enough for it to count as my recommended daily thirty minutes of vigorous exercise.

Result!

As an optimist, I’m looking on the bright side:

I’m looking forward to a winter without wind-induced power cuts, now that they’ve buried the electricity cables underground.
I can’t wait to have a whole new room opening onto the garden, though we’ve not yet agreed how to use it. My daughter wants it kept clear as a dance space, whereas I’m thinking “goody, more bookshelves!”
It’s much easier to spot my (black) car in the car park from the writing in the dust that has encased it.

Whether all this dust will have the same positive impact on the local environment as Vesuvius’s volcanic materials remains to be seen. Apparently its slopes have been extremely fertile ever since the eruption that buried Pompeii. You may yet see my name on prize-winning giant vegetables in next year’s Village Show – or spot my little hatchback growing into a spacious saloon.

Provisional cover for my debut novel

Speaking of the Village Show – you may be interested to hear that my current work-in-progress is a comic mystery novel revolving about a small Gloucestershire village’s annual horticultural show. It’s an entirely fictitious work, and, as novelists always like to say, any resemblance to any person or place is purely coincidental, of course! Best Murder in Show will be published in time for the 2016 Hawkesbury Horticultural Show.

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read my other columns for the Hawkesbury Parish News, to which I’ve been a monthly contributor for nearly five years. Crikey!

Filed under: writing

Like to Listen to my Podcast for Stoneham Press?

A link to my latest podcast appearance, in which I’m interviewed by Tim Lewis of Stoneham Press about bookshops

Author and podcaster Tim Lewis of Stoneham Press

I was happy to take time out earlier this week from writing my latest guidebook for the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) to be interviewed about its subject – how to sell self-published books through bookshops (bookstores to you, my North American friends!) – by Timothy Lewis of Stoneham Press for his regular podcast series, Begin Self-Publishing. In it I talk about ALLi’s #Authors4Bookstores campaign and cite examples of fellow ALLi members’ success stories, as well as sharing top tips from the other side of the bookshop counter.

More about Tim Lewis

Tim, who is a fellow member of ALLi, came relatively recently to writing and self-publishing, following a life-changing bereavement that made him decide that he wanted to do something more spectacular with the rest of his own life than be a conventional employee. A regular listener to other podcasts, he’s generously sharing what he’s learned during his more recent career as an author via his own podcast.

It was a pleasure to meet Tim online, and I’m looking forward to meeting him in real life at the end of the month, when we’ll both be delegates at The Bookseller magazine’s Author Day in London.

Hear the Podcast

Here’s the link to the Tim’s blogpost featuring the podcast, if you’d like to listen to it:

http://beginselfpublishing.com/how-to-sell-your-books-through-bookshops-with-debbie-young-episode-21/

More about Stoneham Press

Here’s the link to Stoneham Press’s website, where you can find out more about Tim, his books and his services:

www.stonehampress.com 

Back to Work

My current non-fiction work-in-progress

And now, I’d better get back to my growing manuscript for that ALLi guidebook, How to Get Your Self-published Books into Bookstores, which will be published early in 2016. It will be available to download free of charge to ALLi members, and available to buy in paperback or ebook for non-members.

 

If you liked this post, you might be interested in joining ALLi, which provides great networking opportunities with other indie authors, both on line and in real life, and sharing best practice, experience and moral support.

More about the benefits of joining ALLi are here. 

 

Filed under: The Alliance of Independent Authors, writing Tagged: #Authors4Bookstores, Alliance of Independent Authors, book marketing, bookshops, bookstores, self-published authors, Stoneham Press, Tim Lewis

An Early Christmas Present: The First Story in My Festive Collection

A free short story from my Christmas collection

This new cover design, added for the 2015 festive season, was shortlisted earlier this month in CompletelyNovel’s “Lord of the Book Covers” design competition

Yes, I know it’s still only October, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll already have stashed away in a secret place at least one Christmas present, bought early to avoid the rush/grab a seasonal bargain/stop you panicking that you’ll leave it all till the last minute.

In the interests of helping you along, I thought I’d post up on my blog today a free sample short story from Stocking Fillers (note to my American friends: that’s British English for Stocking Stuffers, rather than an indicator of an unexpected foray into erotica). The story that follows, a fun take on the annual Christmas letters that drop through so many of our letterboxes each year, is the first of twelve gently humorous tales in this seasonal collection.

When I first published Stocking Fillers in time for Christmas 2014, one reader recommended it as an annual read in her household, to share with all the family as a reminder of the true spirit of Christmas – so a bit like Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, only with more laughs, and without an interpretation by the Muppets (yet).

If you enjoy this free story, you might like to snap up the whole collection, currently on special offer at just 99p/99c for the ebook, or in paperback for just £5/$8. It’s a slim, easy-to-wrap-and-post gift that I hope your friends and relations will enjoy. It’s available to order from all the usual suspects, including your local bookshop (quote ISBN 978-0993087929 to your favourite bookseller).

Now on with the story…

The Christmas Letter

Dear Friends and Relations

I expect you’re wondering why this year’s Christmas letter is coming from me rather than the wife. The good news is that it will therefore be free of spelling mistakes and grammatical gaffes. That’s just the first surprise in our household’s annual round up.

First, news of the offspring.

You will doubtless recall from Trudy’s last Christmas letter, if she did a proper job of it, that our elder one, Caroline, was due to sit her A Level examinations this summer. Unfortunately I was the only one who took this challenge seriously. Painstakingly I prepared revision spreadsheets and progress graphs to direct her preparations. If only she had taken more notice of her father than of that inadequate boyfriend, Jake (or perhaps his name is James), she might have achieved the straight As I’d hoped for, instead of her feeble three Bs. She seemed not to care that this dismal performance would not get her into the medical school that I’d been planning for her since the day she was born. How she could throw away such a valuable prospect in favour of the performing arts, of all things, I do not understand. That is why I refused to go to Speech Day, where the only prizes she received were for worthless extra-curricular activities such as drama. If you ask me, she has wasted far too much time starring in school plays throughout her secondary education.

I assumed her poor example would make young David buck his ideas up on entering the Lower Sixth in September, which indeed he needed to do if he is to have any chance of a career in Law. However he continued to fritter his time away on his wretched guitar. His uncanny ability to gain bookings for his band to perform live in pubs will certainly not fit him to succeed at the Bar. Neither the band’s success in some half-witted television talent show nor the resulting recording contract will convince me that he has not been wasting his time.

Sadly, Trudy has been of very little help in keeping our children on the straight and narrow, being too deeply immersed in her own selfish interests. Since she started volunteering at that dreadful women’s refuge in March, she has lost all sight of her priorities. Very often there is not even a meal awaiting my return from the office. When I have asked her to explain why she bothers working there at all when I am perfectly able to provide for all her needs, she has not been forthcoming. Her entire conversation these days consists of regurgitating the opinions of some fool called Adam (or is it Adrian?) who runs the place. I assume the inane smile constantly on her face is caused by the contrast between her pleasant home life and the wretched state of those she works with.

As for me, my continuing endeavours in the City have earned me a further promotion this year. My annual bonus was the largest I’ve ever received. It seemed only fair to treat myself to a new sports car on the proceeds – a two-seater Porsche 911 GT3, which features a six-cylinder naturally aspirated engine capable of as much as 500 HP, a top speed of 198 mph and 0-60 acceleration of 3.5 seconds. Never let it be said that, in my career and as head of the household, I do not continue to set a good example for my family.

You can therefore imagine my surprise when I discovered that each member of my family had made separate plans for the festive season. Caroline, rejected of course by medical school, has set off with a travelling theatre company for a tour of Europe. When Trudy took a phone call from her last night, the girl revealed that by Christmas she would be in Turkey. Trudy laughed and said, “What a suitable place to spend Christmas.” I do not see why as it is 99 per cent Muslim.

David, meanwhile, will be spending the school holidays performing in London with his band, paid for and, I hope, supervised by the television company. I remain deeply concerned about his attitude to his studies: he left behind the revision bag of schoolbooks that I had carefully packed for him.

In their absence, Trudy has now announced that she’ll be working at the refuge throughout the Christmas holidays. Apparently Alan (or is it Andrew?) was especially keen to have her there. You’d think at her age she’d know better than to put up with such obvious bullying. Anyone would think she was the homeless one.

I am therefore writing to you now, my dear friends and relations, to offer you the opportunity to have me spend the festive season with you. I’m afraid I won’t be able to satisfy you all, so it must be first come, first served. I apologise in advance to those who will inevitably be disappointed. I look forward to sharing more Christmas cheer with you.

I anticipate your prompt reply.

Yours sincerely

Charles

“The Christmas Letter” is o ne of twelve seasonal stories featured in

Stocking Fillers ,

now available as an ebook from all the usual online retailers for just 99p/99c,

or in paperback for just £5/$8 (ISBN 978-0993087929)

Buying link on Amazon UK

Buying link on Amazon US

 

Filed under: writing Tagged: Christmas humour, Christmas stories, free stories, Stocking Fillers

Queen, Cousin, Bishop – My Topical Take on Rock, Paper, Scissors

The esteemed editor draws attention to my column on this month’s cover with a patriotic shout-out for HRH

In my October column for the Tetbury Advertiser, I invented a topical equivalent to the traditional playground game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”

Was I the only person holding their breath last month till the moment the Queen officially became our country’s longest serving monarch? Knowing my Scottish husband’s Republican tendencies, I kept to myself my anxiety that the Queen would fall at the last fence (a metaphor of which she would surely approve), until my daughter (12) piped up out of the blue “So exactly what time did the old King die? I don’t want to celebrate too soon.”

No matter what your political beliefs, you’d have to be hardhearted not to feel pleased on Her Majesty’s behalf. I always love feeling that I’m living through a historical landmark moment that will be chronicled by historians and taught in the classroom to future generations of schoolchildren. No monarch is an island, and her achievement surely touches us all, in the same way that we can’t help but feel a little fillip of excitement (no, not that sort of Philip) and ownership when our country wins a major sporting award, even if we take usually take no interest in the game.

Cousin Trumps Queen

My grandma’s cousin Nina, now 99, with my daughter Laura, sharing the family smile and pose

But the Queen’s longevity was dwarfed a few days later by our visit to my late grandmother’s cousin Nina (99). On our journey to her elegant seaside apartment (I think HRH would feel right at home there), it occurred to me that at the time of the Queen’s coronation, Nina would already have considered herself middle-aged, having been born during the First World War. Greeting Nina feels like hugging history. (Thank goodness that modern standards have shunted our definition of midlife to a much older age. I’m in my prime, I’ll have you know!)

Bishop Takes Cousin

A few days later, a local historic landmark put even Nina’s longevity into perspective: the consecration of Rachel Treweek as the first female Bishop of Gloucester. I caught an interview on BBC Woman’s Hour with her ecclesiastical garment designer, Polly Meynell, who observed that at her enthronement Bishop Rachel will become the first woman to wear the bishop’s cope (cloak), which has been worn exclusively by men for the last 1,000 years. I just hope she gets to launder it first.

Queen, Cousin, Bishop – there you have it. 

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read my tribute to the Queens-Award-winning journal in which it appeared:

In Praise of Community Magazines

If you’d like to join my free mailing list, to be kept informed about my new books, events and seasonal offers, you can do so here:

Filed under: Tetbury Advertiser Tagged: Bishop of Gloucester, longest serving British monarch, Queen, Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, rock paper scissors, Tetbury Advertiser

A Visit to St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street

A report on my recent visit to St Bride’s Church in London

(unfortunately without a camera)

The famous “wedding cake” spire of St Bride’s Church, Fleet street (Photo by MykReeves at English Language Wikipedia)

I have a longstanding policy of whenever I’m going somewhere far from home on business, I try to squeeze in a touristy trip before or after the meeting.

This dates back to when I was a trade press journalist for an international magazine based in London, and often had to go to European cities to report on trade shows and press conferences. I wish the FitBit had been invented in those days, as it would have been rewarding to see how many paces I’d notched up pounding those city streets when my work was done.

A Tourist in My Native City

Since I’ve lived in the Cotswolds for nearly 25 years now, visiting London, even though I was born there, counts as far from home. Whenever I go to London for a meeting, if possible I plan my train times to allow spare time to be a tourist before or after the business chunk of my day.

Thus I found myself one day last month striding through torrential rain from Faringdon tube station to Fleet Street, before I was due to join Orna Ross at the Free Word Centre for a meeting with two lovely people from two publishing trade organisations.

Destination: the legendary St Bride’s Church, which on its website is dubbed “spiritual home to the media”. When I was a teenager, I thought my career might lie in Fleet Street, which when I was growing up was still home all to the national newspapers and many more print media. I assumed it would only be a matter of time before I was passing St Bride’s every working day.

Before long, virtually all the press and print trade had moved east, to the regenerated London Docklands. During my stint as a trade press reporter in my twenties, I was based in Belgravia. So my close acquaintance with the church remained a teenage daydream.

The name St Bride’s also had other associations from my formative years, as the girls’ secondary school I attended aged 11-14 (alma mater also to my mother, sister and aunts), was divided into four houses for competitive purposes: St Anne, St Bride, St Francis and St Mary. It wasn’t a Catholic school, and they never actually taught us anything about our saints, but the impact of the houses on our daily lives was such that my old schoolfriends and I still remember which one we belonged to and which colour they were. I was in St Bride’s, which was yellow.

The History and Heritage of St Bride’s Church

Just off Fleet Street, the shady, welcoming and peaceful church of St Bride’s still retains its ethos as “the journalists’ church”, despite the departure 30 years ago of virtually all the press and print businesses – “London’s last remaining manufacturing industry”, as the informative exhibition in the church crypt advised.

This part of London has been the historic home of the print trade ever since Caxton bequeathed his first moveable printing press to his aptly named assistant, Wyken de Worde (now there’s a nice piece of nominative determinism for you).

St Bride’s Church prides itself on having been a source of comfort to the local print trade from its early days, through subsequent generations, including Samuel Richardson and Dr Johnson, to the birth of the first news sheets to the thriving newspaper trade of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, whose boom in sales was made possible by the coming of the railways to disseminate them to the masses around the country. Nearby are many other sources of succour, i.e. atmospheric Dickensian pubs straight out of an illustration by Phiz.

The Spiritual Home to Journalists (No, Not that Sort of Spirit)

Not surprisingly, the church, for its own part, takes its role seriously as comforter, offering daily services before work and at lunchtimes, plus regular special events.

It’s easy to be cynical about journalists’ preference for comfort, especially when at the time they left Fleet Street in the 1980s, the culture remained that it was acceptable to drink alcohol at lunchtime.

I had friends who worked in City branches of Barclays Bank who regularly drank two or three pints of beer during their lunch break. At the press conferences I was attending at this time, you were thought a wimp if you didn’t accept at least one glass of wine, no matter what time of day it was. A few years later, when working in PR, I had a client who would bring out the sherry for a 10am meeting. He once drove me to the local station to catch my train when I knew him to be well over the limit. Yet he was MD of a very successful company. How times have changed – and just as well!

Spend a few minutes inside St Bride’s Church, and you’ll gain a different and more touching picture of the nation’s press. Soberingly (groan), in one corner stands a table crammed with photos of departed journalists, including those missing in action, victims of terrorist kidnap, and of murder. Beside these is a transcript of the Journalist’s Prayer, in which the supplicant asks God to help him use his powers for good. I’m not religious, but, I was very moved, and I lit a candle for solidarity.

A Parliament of Media

Without a flicker of irony, lining the walls and pews are sponsored plaques commemorating great journals and their journalists. Also, curiously, one from British American Tobacco, which made me look out for others from Gordon’s Gin and kindred spirits, without success. The plaques for the serious broadsheets dominate the north wall, while the south sports the frivolous popular press, their brazen redtop logos undimmed by the serious setting. This gave St Bride’s the appearance of being the Parliament of Fleet Street; I pictured The Times and OK magazine hurling abuse at each other across the floor of the House.

A small gift shop at the back of the church offered low-priced branded souvenirs. I came away with some bookmarks, a pencil to inspire my next journalist piece, and a gratifying sense of having communed shaken hands with the history of the media.

(Apologies for the lack of photos, but my smartphone was away for repair, and I no longer possess a stand-alone camera. The photo at the top of the post is by  MykReeve at the English language Wikipedia.)

To find out more about St Bride’s Church and to see more photos,

visit its website: www.stbrides.com

If you can visit it in person, even better.

If you enjoyed this post, you might like this piece reminiscing about one of my journalistic trips abroad:

Flight of Fancy: A Cautionary Tale
If you’d like to see my frivolous post about nominative determinism, read:

Nominative Determinism, Pope Francis and Other Keywords I Have Loved
If you’re interested in reading more about my career background,

here’s the most recent version

 

 

Filed under: nostalgia, tourism, travel, writing Tagged: Fleet Street, heritage, history, London, media, nostalgia, press, Printing, publishing, St Bride's

Stocking Fillers Shortlisted for Book Cover Design Award

Old design (Christmas 2014)

Regular readers may remember that I published a collection of festive short stories last year in time for Christmas with a festive red cover, featuring a stylised Christmas tree design.

Or at least, that’s what I thought it was. But when a bookseller remarked that she didn’t know what it was meant to be (despite the hint of snowflakes at the corners), I decided that perhaps that it was a bit of a Rorschach ink blot test. Looking again, I considered it could be interpreted as a shooting star, or star of Bethlehem, or a hundred and one other things.

New Look for Christmas 2015

I therefore determined to refresh it for Christmas 2015 with a more straightforward design, and the result was the jolly affair pictured below, reminiscent of a vintage Christmas card. (I hope it’s uncontentious that it’s Santa at the top there.)

Opened up to show both the back and the front covers

I rustled up both these designs with some fab free software called Canva. Or least, it’s free till you’ve sold over 1,000 copies of the book. By the time that happens, I’ll be happy to pay the necessary extra out of my royalties.

I then got carried away and redesigned the covers of my other seasonal short stories – the two stand-alone single shorts, Lighting Up Time and The Owl and the Turkey, pictured in the masthead at the top of this blog.

Competition Opportunity

Competition logo channelling Tolkien – or Lord of the Dance!

Then I spotted the opportunity to enter a cover design competition run by a publishing services company called CompletelyNovel. They’re a partner member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, of which I’m an author member. I don’t usually enter competitions, but thought I’d go for this one just to be supportive, and thought no more about it until a cheery message arrived in my inbox congratulating me that my cover had been shortlisted for the award. Of course, I was very chuffed.

The shortlist of 20 covers, 75% of which have been designed by specialists, is now displayed on CompletelyNovel’s website, and you’re invited to vote for your favourite here. If you’d care to vote for mine, that would of course be lovely – but to be honest, I’m happy just to have made it this far, not least because I know that the shortlist was chosen objectively by CompletelyNovel’s experts, whereas the ultimate winner will be the one who receives the most votes from members of the public. Any competition open to public voting ends up being a bit of a “who’s got the most friends?” competition – or at least, “who is brazen enough to put the most pressure on their mates?” contest!

Once I’ve sold enough copies, and my budget justifies it, I shall invest in professional covers for my books, but in the meantime, to have gained this accolade gives me the confidence to go on doing-it-myself, particularly for the short stories which are never going to be big earners, because short stories, whoever writes them, never are huge sellers. The cover for my debut novel, Best Murder In Show, will be revealed early in the New Year, so watch this space.

Never Too Early to Start Christmas Shopping…

And finally, if you’re looking for a jolly Christmas read, or for a, er, stocking filler present (more commonly known as stocking stuffers in North America) for a friend or relation, you can buy the new-look Stocking Fillers as an ebook or paperback from all the usual suspects. If you have trouble tracking it down, let me know and I’ll post one to you myself. The content is exactly the same as in the old red book, of which I have a few copies left, if anyone prefers it. Signed copies of the paperback are also available on request, to add the personal touch to your gift.

To read more about my short stories, click here.

To read about my latest short story ebook,

which happens also to be my very first short story to be published,

before ebooks were invented, click here.

 

 

 

Filed under: writing Tagged: book cover design, Canva, Christmas, short stories, Stocking Fillers

Seeing the (Traffic) Lights

In my latest column for the Hawkesbury Parish News, I’m taken aback by the sudden appearance of the trappings of urban traffic in our quiet Cotswold village.

Stopping the traffic outside my house for the last couple of weeks

“Sorry I’m late, I was held up by the traffic lights outside The Fox.”

When I first spotted them, I very nearly crashed  my car in surprise. What an epic fail that would have been. These shiny new lights looked so out of place in our village centre that they reminded me of stray cats and dogs that had wandered too far from their territory. Surely their rightful owner must be missing them?

And then the diggers arrived – excavating the road outside my bedroom window

Using mechanical signals to communicate with each other doesn’t feel right in our village, where drivers and pedestrians frequently exchange cheery waves and shouts.

Our cat scarecrow, made for the village scarecrow trail last week, keeps a close eye on the workmen

“Do you KNOW those people?” a visiting friend once asked me, puzzled as to why I kept waving to passing cars on my way to the Hawkesbury Shop. His townie habits dictated that he kept his eyes averted, head down, as we walked along the road, rather than risk engaging with passers by. That struck me as sad.

My daughter searching for water in Farm Pool

Although our traffic lights are temporary, serving a valid purpose, I for one will be glad when they’re removed. Seeing them in our High Street seems as unlikely as discovering a bus lane down Sandpits*, or a flyover above Farm Pool. Or water in Farm Pool**, come to that. No, now I’m just letting my imagination run away with me…

*The next road to ours, which narrows to a single track with passing places

**The old drovers’ pool at the far end of our village, long since dry

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like this musing about road signs:

Do Traffic Signs Drive You To Distraction?

Or this one about our motoring crisis in Belgium: 

En Panne in De Panne

Filed under: Hawkesbury Parish News, humour, lifestyle, village life Tagged: Hawkesbury Upton, roadworks, traffic lights, village life

What are The Mall’s Fashion Show Organisers Trying to Tell Us?

Oh goody, a goody bag!

A trip to the Bristol Fashion Week Show (Autumn/Winter), staged at our nearest out-of-town shopping mall, The (imaginatively named) Mall, at Cribbs Causeway near Bristol, has become a twice-yearly treat for my sister, my daughter and one of her friends. But the contents of the goody bag we brought home this time has set me wondering whether they organisers are trying to send a secret message to audience members about their own appearance and demeanour…

For the price of a cinema ticket, we’re treated to a glamorous spectacle in a large black marquee, lined with about 500 chairs either side of a large catwalk (runway to you, my American friends). It’s regularly hosted by television fashion stylist Mark Heyes, a cheery, warm chap who makes the audience feel right at home, and this year he was joined by the lovely Denise Van Outen, the famous and elegant actress who is just the right fit for this kind of audience – mentioning her young daughter and her love of high street shops made her seem more like a friend than a celebrity.

Balanced Style

With glitzy AV effects and light shows, and the odd puff or two from a smoke machine, it feels like there’s all the glamour of London Fashion Week, but without the mad hairstyles or eccentric make-up, or the cutting-edge designer clothes showcased in the national press after their shows. Funky choreography set to pop songs adds drama and ups the cool factor.

By contrast to the London shows, at The Mall’s event, the clothes are sourced from familiar chain stores such as John Lewis and Marks and Spencer, the anchors of this shopping centre. The models are all interesting and different, including two cute kids to appeal to our maternal instinct, an older lady with white hair, a healthy ethnic mix, and one  “plus-size model” (which I interpret as any number above size)  – although my grandmother would have said of the leaner ones “I don’t know where they keep their organs”.

….and here are the, er, goodies

Happy Endings

Making it even more accessible and meaningful to the audience is a special feature when they introduce a member of the public to whom they’ve given a makeover – a different one at each fashion show, which is very generous of them. People are invited to apply in advance for the privilege, and the lady featured in the show we saw, Jo Perrin, had been chosen for her story about feeling low after being made redundant. Not only did they give her a lovely new haircut and outfit, but when they took her into Marks and Spencer to choose her outfit to model, she was invited by the manager to apply for a job there, which she promptly got! A lovely touch of real life and a feel-good factor quite different from what you’d expect at a fashion show.

Exciting Win for our Party

Another highlight of the show is the prize draw. Each audience member is given a numbered ticket on arrival, and the prize varies from year to year. This year’s prize was a personal styling session plus various treats from John Lewis. Both my sister and I had a feeling that we might win this time, so we were overjoyed when my daughter’s friend’s ticket was the winning number. (Cue for a big “aaah!” from the audience when they realised a little girl had won!) We were so pleased we even forgave Denise Van Outen for pronouncing her name wrong when she presented her with the prize.

Only two small gripes:

The complimentary drinks beforehand – they’ve morphed from sparkling wine the first time we went to healthy vegetable smoothies this time, cunningly disguised in plastic martini glasses. My sister and I gave them a miss, but my daughter and her friend liked them, possibly because they didn’t know what kale was.

Not my idea of a must-have fashion accessory

The contents of the goody bags – these are lovely cloth bags with a nice fashion show graphic on the front (we’re acquiring quite a collection show by show). But this time the contents conjured up a bizarre profile of what the organisers thought the average audience member might be like. These included: shampoo and conditioner for badly damaged hair; tablets for irritable bowel syndrome; vouchers for an eye test, glasses case and a hearing aid; countless sachets to treat rough skin; and, to everyone’s embarrassment, the little gem pictured right. The only redeeming features were a Specsavers pen (regular readers will know about my passion for pens and pencils) and a tiny sample of perfume (thank you, Paco Rabanne). Somehow, I suspect none of these items went into the models’ pre-show preparations. Well, at least, I hope not, for their sake.

Even so, it was a great night out for less than a tenner a head, and we’re looking forward to the next one already. Well done to the whole team responsible, and thanks for all the fun.

For more info about the fashion show via the Mall’s website, click here. If you fancy going to a future show, book early, as the seats quickly sell out. 

Here are the twitter links for Denise Van Outen, Mark Heyes, Jo Perrin, The Mall and Marks and Spencer, where you can see heaps more photos and videos of the event.

Here are some other posts about my own dubious take on fashion (cue scornful laughter from my 12-year-old daughter Laura):

Dressing Down
The Travelling Wardrobe
How to Pack for the Summer Holidays
Travelling Light, Laura’s Way

PS This is not a sponsored post, just a bit of fun

 

 

 

Filed under: daughter, fashion, lifestyle Tagged: Bristol Fashion Week, Cribbs Causeway, Denise Van Outen, fashion shows, Mark Heyes, The Mall

What’s Not to Love About Colouring?

In this issue…

My latest book column for the parenting magazine Today’s Child licensed me to do a bit of fun research into colouring and other activity books.

Anyone who read my piece in this month’s Hawkesbury Parish News will already know I have had a life-long passion for colouring. I’m so glad that this year’s publishing sensation of adult colouring books, which The Bookseller magazine describes as a huge contributor to bookshops’ summer profits everywhere,  has licensed fellow adult colourers to come out of the closet.

All the Rage – I Mean, Calm

Cool, calm colouring for all ages

Colouring books are everywhere, to suit all tastes and interests, and it’s not only the cost of the books that are boosting booksellers’ economy. After all, what’s a nice new colouring book without a lovely new pack of pencils – then a pretty box to keep them in – and top quality sharpener to keep them all pointy…

Before you know it, your low-budget hobby can start to rival the cost of a golfing habit. You might as well just go out and buy a yacht.

That’s why I was also pleased to include in this issue’s feature a delightful book that will excite any adult raised on the BBC children’s TV programme Blue Peter, which in my day always worked hard to find a delicate way of describing the inside of toilet rolls, as much as staple of their craft projects as good old “sticky-back plastic” and “sticky tape”, which we all knew were BBC code words for brand names Fablon and Sellotape. (As the BBC likes to say, other products are available.)

Here’s One We Prepared Earlier*

Everyone needs an affordable hobby

Now here’s a new craft idea that should suit anyone’s budget, provided you don’t start using more sheets than strictly necessary to liberate another toilet roll tube for decorating…

Happy colouring, folks! 

To read the article in full in Today’s Child’s online edition, click here.
To read my previous post about colouring, click here.
And for a fun anecdote about my Grandma’s attitude to toilet roll, click here.

(* for those who weren’t raised on Blue Peter, that’s one of their famous catchphrases when demonstrating craft projects for viewers to try at home)

Filed under: Today's Child, writing Tagged: book reviews, colouring, Today's Child, toilet rolls

The Library, the Witch and the Wardrobe

My latest column for the Tetbury Advertiser praises the iconic Narnia wardrobe and public libraries – not as unrelated as you might think.

This edition of C S Lewis’s classic chlidren’s story is the one I grew up with

On arrival at their holiday cottage on Brownsea Island, Dorset, the birthplace of Scouting and Guiding, what do you think was the biggest hit with my daughter’s Girlguiding unit? Spotting copious red squirrels, finding exotic tail feathers dropped by the resident peacocks, or discovering the beach at the end of the garden?

Trick question! Actually, it was finding an ancient wooden wardrobe in each dormitory.

“I’m just off to Narnia!” the girls would call, taking it in turns  to step inside the wardrobe. Their imagination did the rest to keep them entertained.

Variations on the game soon arose. “Our wardrobe takes us to Rainbow Land.” “Ours leads to Hogwarts.”

Did C S Lewis realise what a timeless icon he had created with that wardrobe? Surely the promise of a  secret world of adventure behind a mundane facade is never far from the thoughts of anyone who has ever read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – or is that just me?

When is a Library Like a Wardrobe?

Only the other day it struck me whike taking the shortcut to Tetbury Library that this winding, blinkered alleyway leading away from the hubbub of the shopping streets provides a Narnia-like transportation to a secret oasis of calm.

As when entering the  fabled wardrobe, those crossing the library’s threshold will find different adventures according to their character and attitude. But unlike Narnia, where it is always winter but never Christmas, in a public library it is always Christmas. Any day you visit, you can walk away laden with gifts: books to read on free loan, DVDs, games and invitations to courses and events. All you need is the courage to open the wardrobe door and step inside, and, with faith, you’ll find what you’re looking for. And if you’re not sure what you’re seeking, you’ll be readily assisted by expert librarians, who are not likely to resemble Mr Tumnus or Mr and Mrs Beaver in appearance, but they will share their generous and resourceful nature and specialist knowledge.

Keeping the Faith

Only if there are enough people keeping the faith will libraries like Tetbury’s survive. Otherwise they will slowly morph into just another lost mythological world. I hesitate to imagine the conversation with my grandchildren years from now.

“Yes, that’s right, dear. The books were all free. Thousands of them, there were, on every subject and in every genre.”

“Yet people just didn’t bother using them?”

“Yes, dear, and that’s why they shut them down.”

I’m proud to be a columnist for the award-winning Tetbury Advertiser

To me, closing a public library is as unthinkable as locking the Professor’s wardrobe and throwing away the key. Who would want to live in a society in which the most adventure to be had from a wardrobe is assembling an IKEA flatpack?

By the way. I’m reliably informed that there are no witches in Tetbury Library. I’m not so sure about IKEA.

This post first appeared in the September issue of the award-winning  Tetbury Advertiser

 

Filed under: Tetbury Advertiser Tagged: Brownsea Island, C S Lewis, Guides, Ikea, imagination, Libraries, Narnia, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe