loved them. Emma loved them. I left them behind in Sarah's office at
Bloomsbury and we went out for an unbelievably early lunch. I was the
only one drinking, but I offer by way of excuse the fact that I was
still feeling distinctly travel-sick from the journey down. God knows
why, but early morning trains make me want to throw up. I have to do
labour breathing for the first two hours or else it's a short trip to
the big china telephone and a reacquaintance with whatever I had for
dinner the night before. Joy. So my lunchtime g&t was medicinal,
right? It settles the stomach in a far more pleasant fashion that
Andrews Liver Salts or, urgh, shudder, that hideous Italian digestif
called something like Rabarbero (?)
Anyway. My beautiful book is safe in the hands of its publisher. Yo -
Dragons! I wandered off to the National Portrait Gallery and spent a
few hours with the Tudors marvelling at the pomp and opulence of all
those kingly and queenly ruling classes. Then I walked to the tube
and endured a short and brutal hurtle through the damp and dirty
underbelly of the Capital. God - I so loathe the Underground, but
can't afford taxis and don't know London well enough to walk. I feel
I should be having a wild celebration, treating myself to at least
dinner on the train with a spot of champagne to send my dragons on
their way, but, d'you know what? That would be Old Dragon behaviour.
In my new improved incarnation as a globally responsible citizen
( you, Boy, yes you, stop snorting at the back , I know I'm not
perfect and I've got some huge carbon-guzzling wrinkles to iron out,
but I'm working on them, right?) I ate my vegetarian supper and then
got on with putting together a slideshow based round the making of
the whole book. I've got a talk to do at the National Library of
Scotland and they suggested that I might put together a PowerPoint
presentation to illustrate my talk. Now this kind of facility with
technology is something I've successfully managed to avoid for...oh,
all my life but I thought that I'd better make some kind of attempt
to pretend that I am a joined up 21st C citizen rather than a woad-
slathering Luddite with Neanderthal tendencies...
Sadly, I couldn't find a pattern or a recipe for PowerPoint, so have
had to cobble together something on i-photo which took the better
part of six hours, but hey, that's what train journeys are for,
right? Fingers crossed that cross-platform functionality is part of
the whole i-photo schtick. If not, well heck. Right now, all I want
is home, bath and bed. It's been an insanely long day and it's not
over yet. And the on-train wi-fi isn't allowing me to send messages,
only receive them, so this post and the previous one will have the
wrong time and date on them. But who cares, huh? A post is a post no
matter when it's datestamped.
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