Talk and Growing Old

My talk at the weekend was a fringe event as part of the Falmouth Book Festival. It went very well, courtesy of the utterly brilliant BBC's Daphne Skinnard who is a very clever interviewer, and my friends Sam and Dave Pentin who run the Terrace Gallery in Penryn - a small but excellent place for small events. It was quite a novel experience (pardon the pun) being interviewed by someone rather than the opposite way round, and it's always interesting seeing what other people make of you.

To start with she said, "you have had a rich and varied life" - which is usually a polite way of saying that I never stuck at any one job. By my advanced years, however, this turns me into someone Interesting. Worth interviewing and writing about. Funny that - it's only when you're virtually unemployable that this becomes an asset rather than a liability.

But I digress. As I haven't written another walks book for a while and therefore haven't had a book launch for a few years (covid notwithstanding), I'd almost forgotten that I've written five books. It was heartwarming to see them all sitting there on the table next to me. My little family. And to hear that people were actually impressed by them was very good for my confidence.

All in all we had a lot of laughs, shed some tears (me) and I sold some books and had interesting talks with the audience afterwards. Which was fantastic and made it all worth doing. Who knows, maybe this time next year I will be talking about my soon to be published novel - that would be even better.

The downer to life at the mment is that my poor Mum isn't well. She's had a run of things recently - she fell and broke her shoulder, though that's finally healed. But she has been plagued by small infections which have combined to make her feel rotten poor thing, so I am shooting up there on Monday - we're only allowed to visit for 30 minutes - with a friend who I hope will be able to drive as I find driving incredibly tiring. If not she can talk to me to keep me awake.

It's been a few months since I've seen Mum so it will be lovely to see her and give her a hug if we're allowed. I'm going up again to see her mid November and then in December, so she will be fed up of seeing me by then, but at least will make up for any absences. She's so brave and stalwart; a real credit - so it's horrible seeing her struggle. Growing old really isn't for sissies.