Wow, what a couple of days! I will try and sum up, but first I have to apologise for the lack of photos. With all the excitement I totally forgot to bring my camera. However, there are excellent photos on Liz Fielding’s blog, Fiona Harper’s blog, Liz Fenwick’s blog, and of course Kate Hardy’s blog. In fact, you should go to Kate’s blog right now and congratulate her.
On Monday morning I was up at five. This was partly because of nerves, though mostly because of the Fecklet, who has decided this is a good time to wake up for the day. However, because of complicated travel plans involving getting to Pimlico by 9 am and avoiding the totally outrageous peak time train fares to London, I had to catch a train at 7.24 am, so no sooner had I got the Fecklet up than I was bathing and primping myself for my exciting day. I put on my black and purple flowered silk dress, my black tights, my silver shoes, and my “good luck” jewellery: a mother-of-pearl and silver bracelet that once belonged to my grandmother, my Mills & Boon charm bracelet (I’ve put on charms that relate to my six M&B books), and the heart necklace that Kate Walker gave me when I sold my first book. Of course “good luck” jewellery was completely superfluous by this point, as the winner of the Romance Prize had already been decided by the judges, but it made me feel better.
I spent a very pleasant train journey reading Penny Vincenzi’s Wicked Pleasures and trying not to wrinkle my silk dress. I did spill a bit of coffee on it, and was very glad I had chosen to wear black. Then I picked up Anna Lucia, who was looking beautiful in a fuschia silk tunic, black trousers, and killer (literally–apparently they really hurt) fuschia shoes. We jumped into a cab, crying “High Street Kensington, away!”
Outside the station we spotted a very distinguished and mysterious personage, leaning on a railing, reading Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak. This was no random fan but in fact Ian Rowland. Ian is the author of The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, which is a quite extraordinary textbook on how to, apparently, read people’s minds and foresee the future. I got in touch with him some years ago, admitting I had blatantly stolen his technique for my fake psychic story, Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak. Ian is kind enough to call himself a “consultant” for the book rather than suing my butt (I think this has something to do with my putting his name first in the acknowledgments, ahead of Derren Brown, James Randi, and Harry Houdini), and I’ve been wanting to meet him for years.
Ian is one of those fascinating people who is fascinated by people and we passed a very enjoyable hour chatting over coffee. However, I could tell when it was getting close to the time of the lunch because my hands started involuntarily playing with my lucky bracelets. Ian said that his psychic powers told him that I was going to win an award (he did, however, neglect to say WHICH award, and claims that his prediction was accurate as long as in the future I win some kind of award or other).
Then Anna and I dodged through traffic to get to the Royal Garden Hotel, and the awards lunch.
To be continued…
more!
Yes, yes. Then….
Julie, I love the sound of your charm bracelet, that’s such a good idea!!
Great to see you Julie. Loved those shoes