What can you do with a lot of grapes?

For five years we tried to grow grapes. The vines grew 6 inches then keeled over. Then a few years ago this happened. The vine grew all the way up the wall and invited itself in.

We prune it to an inch of the ground every year. Clearly it doesn't mind.

It's a glass-roofed room, so too cold to sit in most of the winter. In the summer it’s great, but...

... although the vine leaves keep the glare of the sun out, the vine leaks sap. The sap makes newsprint run so it’s an unpredictable business sitting in there with a cuppa reading a newspaper. 

Splat! Half the article is indecipherable. Splash! Direct hit in the tea. 

I suppose grape sap isn't poisonous.

Now they're just starting to ripen. And what can you do with all those grapes but convert them into bottles of red wine?

Hearing voices outside my head @livingaudio247

It has never occurred to me before to link voices with a rabbit’s ears and Belgium. I've lived with a lot of people’s voices inside my head but never heard them through my ears. Living Audio is turning The Doll Makers into an audio book and I'm going to hear Annie’s voice for the first time. Not only her, also Pieternel, Aunt Marian, Dean, Mike and all the cast.

listen to ‘Studiocast 1: James is getting prepared to record #TheDollMakers by @PennyGrubb’ on Audioboo

So wherefore the rabbit’s ears? It’s a weirder feeling than it should be, knowing that the audio project is going ahead and I’m going to hear the voices of these characters. It can hardly have come as a surprise, so why does it feel so odd?

I think it’s because I've never taken these ideas out and looked at them properly, they've just been there as background. And it reminds me of the 21st birthday party and the family reminiscences that turned to pets in general and a particular rabbit. ‘Do you remember,’ said the birthday girl, ‘the time Flopsy got ill and the vet made her better but the medicine turned her ears black.’ Sudden pregnant silence. One of those old memories, sitting there as background for years, is taken out and considered intellectually. Oops.

And Belgium? Same principle. My father had a trip to Belgium when I was 4. It went down in the family annals for all manner of reasons (tractor having to be called to pull a car out of a ditch and so on) but the thing I took from it at the time was that my father was flying there. Ergo, Belgium was in the sky.

I didn't make my first trip to Belgium until I was in my 30s. I went by plane. I was forced to think in a non-abstract way about where Belgium actually is. And what a surprise. My mental image still saw it in the sky and it genuinely astonished me to find it terrestrially located (bit of a relief though).

So it’s that but without the rabbity trauma. I knew once the book was going to be audioed that I’d hear the characters’ voices. But hey, I’m REALLY going to hear the characters’ voices.

The 2013 World Creators’ Summit

The Summit was held in Washington DC, June 4 & 5 and being packed with musicians and songwriters was a dynamic and vibrant conference. Writers were in a minority at this one.

The business bit

Click here for an outline of who was there and what went on 

The main conference hall

I was there with Barbara Hayes, ALCS Deputy CEO and Janet Anderson, former UK Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Janet spoke on the panel Orphan works – Balancing access and creators’ rights. I spoke on the panel Who benefits from the business of digitalbooks? 

 With Jean-Michel Jarre

The Washington bit

Washington is a wonderful city. So much space! We took a boat trip down the Potomac to Alexandria... 

Watergate from the Potomac

Alexandria's famous cupcake shop

...had a guided tour of the Capitol... 

and got within photo distance of the White House before being shooed away by security guards. 

I also found the wonderful Museum of Unnatural History, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills. I only wish I'd found it sooner and been able to spend more time there.

Would I go back? Like a shot. Nowhere near enough to time to see all there was to see.

Editing in the sun, International Rescue and the Hood’s revenge

Wonderful to sit out in warm sunshine for several hours with a heap of paper to edit. Better still without a heap of paper to edit, but needs must.

The cat initiated a game of International Rescue. She was the Hood, leaping from the long grass with murder in mind and baby frogs in her sights. I was the various Thunderbirds flying to the rescue, scooping baby frogs back into the pond.

The Hood might be thwarted but never defeated and eventually retreated to the beck. I edited and forgot about cats, Hoods and F.A.B flying craft.

Then the Hood in feline form flew out from the beck clutching a baby rat, streaked into the house pursued by the dog and dropped the rat which ran for cover and got away. The message was clear. For every baby frog rescued, a live rat will be added to the household.

It’s not like the cat to think outside the box (she prefers to sleep inside the box). Now night closes in with the cat in her favourite place, the dog asleep and the rat making itself at home behind the skirting board.

Hastings, the sand! It gets everywhere

Having been watching ITV’s excellent adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, I found myself in a position to quote the Belgian detective today as we walked on the beach.

Beautiful sunshine, just a bit of a breeze. The tide was on its way out leaving us to walk either on the sloping stretch near the top of the beach – pebbles but dry sand – or the flatter sandy bit which tends to mini quicksand when the sea has just left it.

Not that we were going to disappear up to our necks, but it has a way of seeping inside the shoes.

First time this year we’ve seen people in the sea, though they had to battle through surf and wade a long way out to be deep enough to swim.

The title is a quote and not a location. Not Hastings at all, but East Yorkshire.

The Public Woman

The Public Woman by Joan Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was not without reservations when I picked this one up and began to read. I had no doubts it would be well-researched, would cover ground that needed covering, say things that needed to be said and I knew that all in all I was going to be in sympathy with its general message, but I wondered if it might be hard-going. Would I feel preached at?

Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. It was riveting. It was fact-heavy and fascinating. I was captured from the opening paragraph of the introduction. Sure the subject matter is pretty heavy, but the treatment was deft and enthralling. I had to make myself put it down at the end of the Intro to get on with my day job, but I’d finished it by the end of the following day.

The opening chapter on modern narcissism gives a fascinating insight into the lives of some celebrity women (without patronising them – there’s a refreshing change). The chapter on FGM is grim – it couldn't be otherwise – but it’s a stark and badly needed reminder that this is a global problem, not someone else’s. It was interesting to see certain press cultures laid bare from within, elements from the Leveson enquiry that didn't make it to public consciousness. And in amongst the many cases quoted, I was pleased to see a detailed exploration of the appalling case of Amanda Knox, crucified not only in an Italian court, but also in the press in the UK and USA; all this not only in the absence of evidence against her, but in the face of evidence that backed her innocence of the crime for which she was convicted. Shades of the conviction of Edith Thompson. Thompson’s conviction for murder was essentially censure for her extra marital affair. Knox’s was disturbingly similar, but this is the 21st century, for heaven’s sake, not the 1920s.

We've come a long way, but Smith provides a timely (and extremely well written) reminder that we've a long way yet to go.


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And a cat called Tomate

L'Auberge by Julia Stagg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book came labelled as Joanne Harris meets Clochemerle. It's a long long time since Clochemerle and I can barely remember it, but I love Joanne Harris, so this had a lot to live up to. Did it make the grade? Yes, I loved it. The Websters, the English couple who fell in love with a small part of France and wanted to make it their future, find reality hitting them in the face with the minutiae of French politics. Papon, the Mayor, makes a superb baddie but he's a 3D person, not just someone to boo every time he steps on to the page. The various facets of village life play out beneath the often unseeing eyes of the Websters who struggle with everything from the language to building regulations. Each member of the cast brings his or her own surprises as the different strands of everyone's life weave in and around each other towards the denouement, but don't think you know what's coming - there's a wonderful final twist. It's beautifully observed and written, and I'm not surprised to learn that tourists go looking for Fogas believing it to be a real place.
And the icing on the cake for me was the cat called Tomate. A real Joanne Harris touch.

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