The Great Estate

This was me, taken by my very talented friend Carol, reading out a bit from my most recent book, Walks in the Footsteps of Poldark, at the Great Estate festival at Scorrier last weekend.

This was a new festival and although I hadn't seen that much publicity about it, there evidently was more than enough, as all the car parks were jammed, including the overflow ones and those for campervans and motorhomes - overall they had over 13,000 people, many of whom weren't even from Cornwall.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and met some fellow writers on the Saturday to see where we'd be performing that afternoon and, in my case, Sunday morning - in the Dead Beat Poet's Corner, next to the Secret Gin Garden. The picture taken above was me reading on Sunday when I sold some books, inspired others to read the Poldark books, and was delighted by the dear mates and strangers who turned up. Even better, I've been booked in for next year, so looking forward to that...

After that, myself and two other friends did some busking and really enjoyed that - one fellow stopped to listen to us and said, "I got some second hand clothes, and now hearing your beautiful singing, that's made my festival!" so we're on to do some more performing when Heather gets back from her travels.

On Monday we were hit by gale force winds and torrential rain and I did an interview with BBC Radio Cornwall (by phone thankfully) to promote the reissue of my first book, Discover Cornwall, which sold out the first print run. It's now got a much brighter cover, updated walks and new pictures so we're pleased with that.

Apart from a really sore back - I'm sitting here with a bag of frozen spinach pressed against my lower back - I'm now trying to get some other work. And preparing for our gig at the Sea Shanty Festival in 10 days time..... in between showers!