Loving My Book

There was something about her face in the programme that made me want to listen to her talk. Her name seemed vaguely familiar, but I may well have been thinking of someone else. Anyway, I knew nothing of her books.

Cousin’s Friend had chosen the two events at the John Hewitt International Summer School for which I had had the task of buying tickets in advance. She has more elevated tastes than I have, so on the Monday we went to the Seamus Heaney/ Dennis O’Driscoll Memorial Lecture, delivered at some speed by a third poet, Bernard O’Donaghue. My guess was he had prepared an hour, and only realised at the last minute that he needed to allow fifteen minutes for questions.

I may be being generous. Cousin’s Friend, who doesn’t hear so well these days, went to sleep.

We had hoped to arrive in time to get tix for Ian Sansom, but we left home too late, and then couldn’t find a parking space. Everyone we spoke to later told us how wonderful he had been. I bared my teeth in an attempt at a smile.

However we did have time to investigate the bookstall, and I picked up and read the first page of every book they had by Christine Dwyer Hickey. They confirmed my desire to hear her on the Wednesday.

We made it by the skin of our teeth. I bought the tix and hovered anxiously in the foyer while Cousin’s Friend found a parking space. We rushed in and found two seats together about two minutes before the event began.

Now some people are good at reading aloud and some are not. Christine Dwyer Hickey falls into the first group. We were enthralled (though Cousin’s Friend again nodded off). Afterwards we rushed to the bookstall and bought books. I bought her latest, The Lives of Women, which I really really want to read.

When I reached the front of the queue, nobly giving way to those holding tickets for the next event which was about to start, CDH, pen poised, asked me my name. I told her, but explained I had bought the gift for Cousin, and gave her name and spelling.

Cousin’s Friend bought Last Train from Liguria. CDH signed her copy and said it was the favourite of her novels. She was also very pleased that the shop was selling the American version as she prefers the cover.

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Duvet Days and Cultural Craic

It's weather that tells you to curl up on a sofa with the papers or a book. Yesterday I *babysat* the puppy while everyone else attended a funeral. There were three funerals locally. Some wanted to show their faces and pay their respects at all of them.

Cousin lit a fire before she left. Yes it was that cold. Pip thought it was a great idea.

The two adult dogs, no doubt correctly reading the attitudes of the humans around them, also decided it was a day for little activity. A duvet day, Cousin called it.

The puppy, aka the Thuglet, was not on the same page. As Pip and Westie Boy snuggled into warm beds, she had just one idea on her mind; to make them play. She really didn't want to take no for an answer. Even when that no was uttered in increasingly impatient and irritated growls.