I Had A Good TIME

Saturday night was the launch of TIME, our second TTO book. It went surprisingly well, considering the amount of wine that was consumed. The ‘official’ write-up should appear here over the next day or so, complete with photos of the evening and a bit of ‘buy our book’ spiel, so I’ll just say I had a brilliant time and it felt like everyone was having fun, which I hope is correct.

I finally met Jenn Ashworth in the flesh, after working with her on Sh for what seems like ages now, but has only actually been the past two months. She tried to start fights with at least ten of my friends. I like her a lot. She did a reading of a story she’d written earlier that day, under mounting pressure from us to comply with the Time theme. It was brilliant, and everybody laughed a lot. She definitely stole the show.

Jenn brought along Sian Cummins, whose story Gap Years would have fitted in perfectly with our theme. Sh contributor Duncan Cheshire popped across from Nottingham, too, so it was nice to meet him in real life. Jenn had never met him, either, so it was all a bit like a big strange blind date. In a good way.

Afterwards, we did some dancing. It was very good dancing, I might add. Luckily there are no photos of that, though.

And then I wowed Jenn and Sian with the coffin chute behind our house, and the promise of late night ‘body truck’ action. I forgot to mention the R.S.P.C.A. though, so I think they were woken pretty early by the sound of a hundred howling dogs. Oh well. Hopefully they’ll come back for the HOME launch in August, and at least then they can bring earplugs.

Back To School

I have been accepted onto possibly the greatest MA course ever.

I just need to hunt down a kitten and I'll be all set.

Taking a Break from Time

I am taking a break from TIME.

I have spent all afternoon stamping a clock face and the word "TIME" onto sheets of recycled paper. We got the paper that has the bits of leaves and grass in it, so I had to "encourage" them out with the tip of my craft knife before I stamped anything. It took a while.

I then had to tear the paper around the stamps to separate them. I have a nice stack of 100, and another stack of 58. Like I said, I am taking a break. There are 7 sheets left to do. They will have to wait.

I was going to take photos of the process, which would have broken it up a bit, but my camera seems to have died. It it now "in the shop". Actually, it is just in the shop, waiting to be fixed. I hope they're quick about it.

Time Travelling with John Hegley

I am going to be telling stories with John Hegley on Saturday. John Hegley is famous. I am not. I enjoy telling stories, though. Even though I am quite shy, it is strangely nice to tell stories to people, and have them listen and hopefully enjoy the listening part.

I am probably going to only tell one short story. But I think that will be okay. Biff and Nathan are telling stories also. We are billed as “Time Travel Opportunists”, which makes us sound a bit more exciting than we actually are, maybe. It’d be good if we could travel through time. Other people will be doing poetry and music. I think it will be a good night. The pub it’s happening in is The Brunswick, which is an old railway pub that serves Real Ale and has its own brewery. It also has a million tiny rooms full of railway pictures. In some of these rooms it feels like it is still 1901. It used to be my local pub, when I was lucky enough to live in one of the railway cottages. I loved living there. There was a walk behind the row of houses that instantly transported you back to the turn of the century. I might go and sit on the bench there beforehand, and let myself drift back. I might pretend for the rest of the night that I am from a different time, and do it as an experiment, and see how it all feels.

Another ramble about my dream superpower of being able to stop Time

It’s almost two a.m. and I am not one bit tired, but I know I have to go to bed very soon so I can get up for work tomorrow. I would really like to stop time right now and do more writing, and maybe drink some pop, and do a bit more writing, maybe for this, or maybe just in my special notebook. Then, after a while, I would probably think about swans again, and re-read this and then this, and still laugh at the part that goes

“He is not going to press his trousers in front of a swan.”

Then I would probably think for a bit about the time there was a swan in the road and it stopped the bus and caused ‘traffic chaos’. That was a good time. Then I would think happy thoughts about this and get excited, and not just because there are biscuits in the photo. And then I would probably practise reading my TIME stories out loud and roll them round in my mouth for ages. Then, I think I would feel satisfied that I had packed in all I wanted to do, and I would start Time again, and head upstairs for the cosy loveliness of bed.

What I Did On My Holidays

Before I went away, I did a spot of emergency dog-sitting. This is Woody. I love him. I really miss having a dog but our contract doesn't allow pets, and we only have a tiny yard and no grass, so it wouldn't be fair right now. One day, though.

Then it was off to sunny Barcelona, mainly for Primavera Sound, to see lots of good bands and eat lots of tacos in the lovely Parc Del Forum by the sea...

...this was one of the smaller stages. I like that you can see boats in the distance. It is all very picturesque. And there is no mud anywhere.

Tim Harrington's crowd forays were the big highlight, even though he got sweat on my arm. His swimsuit was fantastic.

And this guy was just a bit good. You don't get massive bronze cats just anywhere you know.

I like that there are snogging figures on a church. Looks like they were trying to do sudoku and got bored.
And then there was a bit of messing about on a lake. I got a wet bum. But it was all good fun.

The flight was delayed on the way back by two hours. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't got it into my head that we flew at 8 a.m. rather than 10 a.m. Oops. So we arrived 4 hours earlier than we really needed to. Oh well...it was a nice sunrise.

I came back to find I'd had some writing published at The Pygmy Giant. It's something I'd been trying to write about for a while, and I'm glad I did it.

And then I went to Sh to see how everyone was getting on, only to find this!

Hopefully Jenn is sleeping with one eye open.