Where do I start?

Here. As of today, and throughout August, I am one of the ‘Featured Authors’ at The Book Club Forum. I hope they’re gentle with me!

You may be wondering how the photo shoot went for the Evening Chronicle yesterday. The photographer was friendly but it was very obvious that he didn’t like my dogs – unfortunately, that seemed to encourage them to jump up at him. I was surprised as they aren’t usually so boisterous. It didn’t seem to go down too well. He asked me to find some photos from childhood, so I went upstairs (taking Holly with me, as she seemed to unnerve him) and grabbed a photo album from the spare room. The spare room is my dumping ground for mess and un-ironed clothes. Why is this significant? Well, I returned downstairs, dog and photo album in hands and felt something dragging along beside me. When I looked down, there was a pair of Gordon’s boxer shorts snagged on to the beading on my jeans!!! I was SO embarrassed as I hadn’t realised what they were until I picked them up. I quickly stuffed them beside the sofa, hoping the photographer hadn’t seen them (but knowing that he probably had)! That was worthy of Paige, the heroine of Karma! I told you I intended to be brutally honest with you in this Blog – surely sharing that story proves it!

Then, he decided he wanted photos outside (arty shots), so I rang my mam to ask if she’d look after the dogs for a little while. When she arrived, he insisted on taking photos of us together as it would be on the front page (presumably of an insert and not THE front page). Mam was not happy as she had no make-up on. She will still look better than me in the pics as she is far more photogenic than I am! Then off we went to Barmoor for some ‘action shots’ of me writing and then me hanging on to an old pit wheel thingy (which is like a momument to all the mining that went on in the area – sadly, someone has gratiffied it). Unfortunately, I had to remove my sunglasses for the piccies (if you know me, you’ll know it’s rare for me to be out in even slight brightness without shades) so spent the remainder of the day out of action with a migraine! Between you and I, I’m a bit worried that this is a larger piece than I imagined. For a start, it’s going to be in either this Saturday or next…and they took an awful lot of photos. I just have my fingers crossed that the article is accurate, I don’t offend anyone and that the photographer has performed some miraculous feat and made me look…well, even average would do!

UPDATE: Just had email from one of the Newcastle Waterstones and the lady said she was going to contact the wholesalers. Surely a good sign?