Well, yes, I have been busy. The big treat was a holiday in Oz, including a trip to Adelaide and a magnificent drive back along the Great Ocean Road. We stayed mainly with my Borlenghi family in Beaumaris, just outside Melbourne. It’s a beautiful spot on the sea and Charlie Johnson and I are now enamoured of a local artist who lived there called Clarisse Beckett – an Australian painterly version of Stevie Smith. She often painted the beach at Beaumaris and thereabouts, including Black Rock where picture below was taken. We spotted quite a few of her paintings in the gallery at Adelaide which is full of hidden treasures.

When we got back from Australia just after Easter it was nearly time for our Harwich event: Art, Books & Music which was great fun. Harwich is a lovely, rather neglected place and the gallery where we had the show is 15th century and includes original wall paintings.

Charlie showed some of his latest paintings, including Tollesbury, in Essex:

I spoke about my latest novel, Dorek, which is partly about deafness.

A few days later I was at the London Book Fair which has returned to Olympia. It was quite a maze but I finally managed to find my way to all my appointments.

We are now in Italy, having driven back via Holland, Germany and Switzerland. It’s pretty here at this time of the year and the sun is shining but we have a water leak. Let’s hope we have sufficient water for me to wash my hair on Saturday. It’s the wedding day of Sara Elena Rossetti (author of Arcobaleno Rainbow)! I was very pleased to tell her this week that her book was the first sale to be made in Australia!

More to follow…