I'm in Love!

It's official - I'm in love with Turnberry!

I knew that being invited to take part in the second Turnberry Children's Book Event was a very nice thing - a lovely way to round off a busy author visit season - a bit of west coast mojo to set me up for The Great Bookwriting Sprint I have planned for next week - but heavens to Betsy and blimey O'Riley, it was MORE!

From the wonderfully polite and literate notice on the golf course, to the story-telling skills of the young man who showed me my room and explained about Ailsa Craig and the Irish giants, to the concierge who smiled benignly when I told him about my cunning plan to unscrew the number on my door and stay forever, writing books and only emerging for beach walks and breakfast (oh, my, breakfast!). And THEN (the reason I was there, after all) a fully-booked Slightly Jones session with the nicest group of kids you could hope to meet on a fine spring day ... as the man said, "Bliss it was" indeed.

Thank you, Turnberry, for having me, and thanks also to my friend from Edinburgh Blackwells who sold books so elegantly and well and only briefly had mayonnaise on her nose (and then only in the privacy of her own lunch). I will stop waxing rhapsodic now and leave you with some photos that, really, say it all.








P.S. Can anyone tell what bird this is? I got two photos of it - one with a perfectly focused tail and everything else fuzzy, and this one, with a fuzzy tail. I don't recognise it at all and would love to know! Thanks!