For those of you who live in Camden I have some wonderful news!<\/p>\n
Camden Libraries are going to stock two of my books!\u00a0\u00a0 Sweet Lady and Singles’ Holiday.\u00a0 How cool is that?\u00a0 I am beyond ecstatically pleased as it’s difficult for us self-publishing authors to make headway sometimes; pleased and humbled.\u00a0 Woo hoo!<\/p>\n
That’s something good that’s happened this week.\u00a0 Because if I’m honest I have not had the best week.\u00a0 The sale of Mum’s flat is still no further forward.\u00a0 It’s a saga of epic proportions, which is far too complicated to try to explain in this journal.\u00a0 In the words of Richard Littlejohn: You couldn’t make it up!\u00a0 It’s now a month past the date we’d hoped we’d have completed by and we’re still trying to sort things out.\u00a0 I had wonderful plans – two weeks in Antigua before going back into the Ladykillers on 28th of this month.\u00a0 However, that looks like it’s not going to happen which is a tragedy on so many levels.\u00a0 I\u00a0NEED to go to Antigua because I have bills to settle, papers to sign, things to set up.\u00a0 Plus I WANT to go to Antigua to spend some time in Avocado Cottage, to see my friends, to relax and to have the Fella Who’s Far Away turned into the Fella’s Who’s Nearby for a short while.\u00a0 We’re both avid tennis fans and at the moment we have this bizarre situation where we’re both watching the French Open four thousand miles apart from each other and texting after every point\/game\/match to comment on what we’re seeing on the screen, or talking through Skype.\u00a0 Isn’t technology wonderful?\u00a0 He’s upset because his favourite, Federer, has gone out.\u00a0 My boy – Rafa Nadal – is still in and will, I hope, lift the trophy on Sunday, although in one of the worst seeding cock ups in Grand Slam history\u00a0(IMHO), he meets Djokovic in the semi-final and not the final.<\/p>\n
I was thinking today, that if people who owed me money paid me then I’d have enough money to carry out all my plans – including putting the pool in at\u00a0Avocado Cottage – and wouldn’t have to worry\u00a0about money at all.\u00a0 It’s seven years since I wrote Paradise View and I’m still waiting for payment.\u00a0 I took the production company to the High Court in Antigua.\u00a0 They were given five years (yes, that’s right five years!) to pay me, at the rate of EC$1000 per month.\u00a0 In\u00a0over three years they’ve only made ten payments.\u00a0 But, they’ve made a feature film which they’ve gone round the world promoting.\u00a0 Yet they claim they can’t pay me.\u00a0 They’ve recently\u00a0hired an attorney after representing themselves up until now and he\u00a0can’t come cheap.\u00a0 Yet they claim they can’t pay me.\u00a0 They’re now arguing that they can’t afford $1000 a month and want the Court to reduce it to,only $800.\u00a0 Yet they still aren’t even paying me that amount.\u00a0 We’re back in court at the end of July, so whatever judgement is passed won’t be implemented immediately as the High Court then adjourns for its summer recess.\u00a0 So they gain more time.\u00a0 But I’m not going anywhere.\u00a0 I worked damn hard on the series and I deserve to be paid for my work.\u00a0So even if it takes ten years I WILL get my money from them.\u00a0But it’s galling to think I’ve had to borrow money from the bank when I could have been living\u00a0problem-free on what I should have been paid.<\/p>\n
We’ve had yet another ceremony to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, this time a service of thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey and the Old Trout was up the front again wearing a hat than the chaviest Pearly Queen would have balked at.\u00a0 I thought she was going to do the Lambeth Walk down the aisle.\u00a0 And Saturday it’s Trooping the Colour.\u00a0 I’m Royaled-out.<\/p>\n
Last night the Sister and I went to the recording of Paul Sinha’s Citizenship Test at the BBC.\u00a0 it was a really enjoyable evening and the first time I’ve ever been in the audience for a radio show.\u00a0 Sinha is very witty and makes the greatest observations.\u00a0 It goes out on Radio Four on 1st September.<\/p>\n
And today I had my beautiful daughter to myself for a whole hour and a half when we had lunch together sitting in the Greenwich sunshine (don’t tell her boss she went over time).\u00a0 The Daughter is the most positive person I know and her words of wisdom were just what I was meant to hear.\u00a0 And then I went on to visit Auntie who was so much better than the last time I saw her in hospital.\u00a0 Being back in her own home has made such a difference.<\/p>\n
And\u00a0tomorrow the Sister and I go to our second funeral in three days.\u00a0 Both for amazing women, both in their prime,\u00a0one a cousin, one a friend, who fought so long and so hard against their\u00a0conditions. Devastating.<\/p>\n
So tonight, I’m practising GRATITUDE.\u00a0 Because I know that in spite of the stress that selling Mum’s flat is causing, and the frustration of not being able to carry out my plans and of not being paid what I’m owed, I know that I’m fortunate, very fortunate.<\/p>\n
My books are going to be in Camden Libraries; I had lunch with my beautiful daughter; Auntie is better; the sun has been shining and I’m alive and well.\u00a0 And soon I’ll look back and laugh because this, too, shall pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For those of you who live in Camden I have some wonderful news! Camden Libraries are going to stock two of my books!\u00a0\u00a0 Sweet Lady and Singles’ Holiday.\u00a0 How cool is that?\u00a0 I am beyond ecstatically pleased as it’s difficult … Continue reading