A Photoshoot and a Misunderstanding

The best way not to be nervous about having your picture taken is to have it taken as somebody else.  Enter Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle, striking heroic, elderly poses, yomping about in the heather in a skirt the size of Birmingham, and consorting with scarecrows.  I'd like to see that, you say?

You can - here.  Painting with Shadows is the blog of Kim Ayres, Photographer Extraordinaire.  On our shoot, which was at all times deadly serious, except for the times when it wasn't, I managed to take a few photos myself, of Kim striding about and generally getting the sunset and landscape organised -

and of Renita Boyle balancing her super-size top hat on her glasses before leaping up onto a rock as Turniphead -

My own costume included a hat and ENORMOUS skirt borrowed from the Blairgowrie Players, my father's bird-headed stick, and a big blue scarf clothes-pegged round at the back.

And the misunderstanding?  Well, on another topic altogether, I learned about a request for books for prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs and sent a couple of my sci-fi novels for reluctant readers.  And then forgot about it.  And was then bemused when an email landed on my screen with the subject line "Book Rooms in Prison" ... I thought it was some sort of weird holiday offer.  It's only when you stop reading "Book" as a verb that it starts to make sense.  To find out how to take part, without moving in, look here.