"Come over and talk to Granny," my son says, skyping me from Iceland.


"No." My grand-daughter's vowel is as rounded and golden as if she were rehearsing to take over should Her Majesty of England keel over in the middle of an address to the nation.


And why won't she come? Because she is busy reading. She has a pile of books in front of her and is earnestly going through them, one by one. The fact that the grand-daughter has just turned three is beside the point. Who could possibly object to her refusal to engage in conversation with someone in France? Especially Granny, who makes a living from writing books that – with any luck – even people over three will read. Reading is definitely the way forward.


Earlier this year, she and I sat together in an armchair while we looked at the same books I had once read to her father and uncles. Oh, the joy of re-discovering Where The Wild Things Are, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Horton Hears a Who or The Whale and the Snail. And how much I look forward to further pleasures as she grows older and wants different books. I do hope she doesn't develop a liking for Barbar the Elephant books. So teeth-gratingly boring. Back in the day (I love that ludicrous phrase, first encountered in a Lee Child novel, though it must have been around long before that!), I was eventually reduced to hiding them from my sons. Was this shameful or merely life-preserving?


It's lovely to think that there is a whole world of childrens' books out there, just waiting to be read aloud to a receptive grandchild. Especially Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak – who sadly died last week. No child should grow up without knowing the story off by heart, along with the hefty illustrations.

In Iceland

FEBRUARY  18TH 2013

What do you do when there's a sub-zero gale blowing, the air is full of spiky little snow-pellets flying painfully into your eyes, nose and cheeks, snow is tipping down and the pavements are lethally slippery?  Well, if you're visiting your son and his family in Iceland, you – what else? – find the nearest outdoor pool and go swimming.  Iceland is thermal, a constantly living landscape of lava fields, eruptions of steam, sudden geysers leaping out of the ground, so at least the water isn't cold. 

I step off the plane.  "Do you want to go to the pool?" my son asks.

"No," I howl.  "Besides, I didn't bring my—"

"Don't worry if you haven't brought your costume," he says.  "We can hire one for you."

"But I don't want to," I say. 

Fifteen minutes later I'm picking my way across freezing paving stones slippery with wet moss, praying I don't fall and break a hip.  Yes, the water is lovely. Warm.  Hot even.  Full of healthy chemicals and life-restoring nutrients – and much nicer once you're in than, for instance, leaping into Hampstead ponds in the dead of winter, as one of our renowned poets has been doing for decades in the search for eternal youth … a fruitless quest, if the  photos are anything to go by.  It's the getting out again that I dread.

But Icelanders are among the healthiest people in the world.  The pollution is minimal, they smoke less than most, they eat well and they drink even better.  And the outdoor bathing certainly does add a healthy glow and feeling of well-being.  Except that I wasn't feeling all that bad before I went in. 

Back home, my son asks if my grand-daughter if she would like Granny to read to her.     

"No," she says, the vowel as golden and rounded as though she was rehearsing to step into the breach should Her Majesty of England suddenly keel over in the middle of an address to the nation. She would much rather go through the pile of books in front of her – and who can blame her?  She's only three, but reading is definitely the way to go.

Last time I visited, she and I enjoyed so many of the books I'd read to her father and uncles at the same age..  Oh, the joy of once again reading aloud Where the Wild Things Are, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, or Horton Hears a Who.  And as she gets older, how many more revisited pleasures lie ahead?

Is It Just Me

 IS IT JUST ME?

I was astonished to read, in the correspondence pages of a writer-orientated magazine, a letter of complaint from someone who had written 'two really good stories' which did not fit the criteria of a story competition she wanted to enter.  What about, she asks, insisting on a synopsis and a higher word count, or changing the competition to that of a novella rather than short story? 

The arrogance of suggesting that the organizers of the competition should change it to an entirely different form leaves me amazed. 

After I'd managed to close my mouth, I thought, Why doesn't this person try writing to the competition's word-specification?  Or else enter a different competition?  Why does she think she could receive special treatment? 

But then I am often surprised by reactions like these, especially from people who have not yet succeeded as writers.  Nearly every authorI know or have met (and in the course of a longish career, that's plenty) is not just humble but entirely unassuming.  If someone likes what they've written, that is a cause for genuine celebration.   

There is such a difference between quiet self-confidence and self-importance.  In my experience, it's the former who get there in the end.

lst Blog

Here's my first blog!  I am determined not to lag behind electronically, whatever the emotional cost.  People tell me it's easy-peasy, just buy a book or two on the subject, lock yourself away with your laptop, food and drink to hand, and after only 3 or 4 years, you too can amaze and delight with your attention-grabbing,insightful selling-tool. 

Gone are those starving-in-a-garret days, when you wrote a book, someone published it and if the world wanted you, it came looking for you.  Now, you have to get out there and look for the world.  Which I am trying to do.  I joined LinkedIn only five minutes ago and already I am digitally 'connected' to most of the world's population and probably some extra-terrestrials too, if I but knew it.  99.9% of my new connections don't know me, nor do I know them, but we are united in a hands-across-the-globe sort of way which is both oddly reassuring and faintly sinister.

Now I'm off to Iceland.  Will post my next blog on my return.  Bless (which is Icelandic for goodbye).