Tuesday 27 October 2009

Back to reality!

I seem to have been away from the blog for ages. Well, I've been away from everything for ages!
Ten days in Northern Cyprus - and it felt like I was away for ever. It was such a relaxing place, and there were no computers at the hotel (they had WiFi, but I don't take my laptop on holiday with me - a notebook and pen is all I allow myself!). So I decided to be brave, stay away from internet cafes etc, and NOT check my e-mails, Facebook or anything else for ten whole days. It felt quite strange. How on earth did we manage before the internet, mobile phones, etc?

When I got home and looked at the hundreds of e-mails that had accumulated while I was away, I found one offering me a date to speak on a panel of local authors at the Essex Book Festival next year. Luckily my writer friends who are also going to be on the panel knew that I was on holiday and not just ignoring this fantastic opportunity! And luckily the date looks fine - well, it's not till next March, and I don't tend to be that much in demand! Last time I was booked to do a talk at the Essex Book Festival, a couple of years ago, the event was cancelled due to lack of support. I was pretty mortified, although I know this is just the sort of thing we not-well-known authors have to expect. So this time, having the support of a group of friends on the panel, I'm hoping we'll attract more of an audience! We all write different types of books so I think it should be fun. I'll tell you more, a lot nearer the time. (Fingers crossed!).

Since then I've been invited to talk at a local Rotary Club meeting next month, and am already booked to talk at a U3A meeting in January. Makes me think that maybe I'm more popular for giving talks than I am for writing books!!

Of course, by now the holiday seems like ages ago. It didn't help that when we got back, we found out that my mum-in-law, who was staying here while we were away (she likes to have a change of scenery from her little flat, and also cat-sits for us), had a fall almost as soon as we left, and broke her arm! What with Eldest Daughter breaking her wrist just before her wedding - I hope we're not making a habit of this as a family! Luckily, Middle Daughter and son-in-law were kind enough to come and stay, with baby Noah, the whole time we were away, to look after poor Mum-in-Law. She'll now be with us for some time, as she can't manage on her own, one-handed.

Fortunately Eldest Daughter's wrist seems to be mending well and she & New son-in-law had a wonderful honeymoon in Mauritius. Meanwhile Youngest Daughter & other son-in-law (keep up!!) went to Turkey for a week to celebrate their first anniversary - and all of us had beautiful weather and stayed in lovely places.

And the nicest thing about coming home from holiday - apart from seeing the family of course! -
is that NOW, I don't have that sinking feeling any more, about going back to work. My work is my hobby, my hobby is my work, and I know I'm so lucky. All I need is to earn a little money from it now (please!) to make it perfect! So - back to work. A book to finish, more short stories to write, and a talk to prepare soon. In between visiting my gorgeous grandson!

9 comments:

  1. Glad to hear that you had a good holiday but sorry to hear about mum-in-law's fall. Hope she's feeling better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just think, Olivia, if you had had a mobile phone/laptop with you you would probably have been informed about your poor mum-in-law's fall and the holiday might have been cut short...hurray for the pen and paper I say! And glad you all had such lovely holidays.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm glad you had a good holiday - I did wonder where you were! Sorry to hear about your mum-in-law's fall, though. Lets hope this arm breaking thing doesn't come in threes! I hope she's feeling better now.

    The les technology the better, I think, is order of the day sometimes.

    Lovely to have you back - hows our beautiful Noah?

    Julie xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't know - you turn your back for two minutes ...

    I hope your mum's okay, and you'd better starting gargling now, ready for all that talking :o)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you all! I've missed you! x I will try to catch up with everyone's blogs ASAP but things are a little difficult here as you can imagine!

    Ma-I.L. is very stoic, Colette - she doesn't complain (unlike me!)and insists she is 'OK', despite it all!

    You're right, Helen, about lack of internet etc. But Ma.I.L. was determined that nobody should let us know about her fall, anyway - she said it would spoil our holiday and we couldn't have done anything about it.

    Julie, Noah's now 7 weeks old and has started to smile while we were away! He and I had a lovely 'chat' yesterday, me talking to him about how soon he might settle down a bit at night and give his mum some rest (!), him laughing at me and making very intelligent noises in response!

    I know, Karen - you just can't trust these older people to stay in one piece while you're away! But she's well-trained. When she sees me working on the laptop, she stays quiet and reads her book!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fell into your blog and enjoyed its warmth! Hope to retrn.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks Jan! Nice to see you here! Please do come back. xx

    ReplyDelete
  8. Welcome back Olivia.

    I have received The Lovely Blog Award and I am so chuffed.

    THe rules are
    1) Accept the award and don't forget to post a link back to the awarding person
    2) Pass the award on
    3) Notify the award winners

    And I am passing it on to you, Olivia because I love your blog and not having you around for a while made me realise how much I missed reading your entertaining posts.

    I'm not sure how to pick up the award - I just saved it from Sue's and posted it to my blog xx

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh! Teresa, thank you so much! I've never won a blog award before, how exciting!!

    I'm going over to your blog right now to see if I can work out what I'm supposed to do! Thank you again! xx

    ReplyDelete