Well, the Manchester Literature Festival is in full swing.  This year has seen some fascinating events - a real mixture, from Afternoon Tea with Jennie Murray at the Midland Hotel to the Northern Poetry Grand Slam Final at The Northern. I was sitting in the Corner House the other evening and what really struck me was that aspiring writers in Manchester have such a wealth of resources. There’s festival itself, of course, which provides a unique forum to interact with writers like Russell T Davies and people in the industry, we have the Blog Awards (tonight), the Manchester Poetry / Fiction Prize and new initiatives starting all the time, such as Rainy City Stories and the Manchester Review. In fact, we’ve never had it so good.

There are still a number of events left to go, including Saturday’s ‘The Behaviour of Moths‘, which I’m particularly looking forward to.

For more info and to see the full programme go to www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk.
And if you’ve missed any of the events, there are lots of reviews at www.manchesterliterature.blogspot.com.

And so here we are in Northumberland.  We finally managed to get away from work for a few days to relax and get some sea air.  Of course these things always start with the inevitable ‘pre-journey row’. Preparations have been left until the last minute.  The house needs to be cleaned as the cat sitter is coming and the packing needs to be done.  Of course the clothes should have been washed in advance to give them enough time to dry, not the night before so that they’re still damp as you’re dragging them off the maiden to put in the cases. And of course the cats know instinctively that you’re going away and immediately start to play up.  On Thursday morning I put down two large bowls of Whiskas Oh So Fishy (their new favourite). Twenty minutes later they’d eaten their way through a day’s worth of food.

And so after, “What on earth are you taking that for,” and “Because I am, get over it,” suddenly you’re on your way.  The computer is off, the out of office messages are set up and the boot is full of books and booze. Now I’m not good with journeys.  Or, to be precise, I’m not good at sitting still for four hours doing nothing.  Generally after about half an hour I’m asking, “How long before we see the sea?” I’d be hopeless on a canal barge.  The thought of spending a week on a journey where you never actually arrive would drive me insane.  But four hours and one mild Haribo haze later we arrived and opened the door to our new home for the next few days.

I haven’t stayed in a caravan since I was a child and so wasn’t sure what to expect.  Everything else in Seahouses was booked and so we thought we’d give it a go.  It’s much more peaceful than I expected. The kids are all back at school and people seem to be quite private.  Not like the caravan park in Towyn where I stayed as a child and my mum and Auntie Irene tut-tutted at a woman who stepped out of her caravan in her dressing gown to go to the shower block. This caravan has two bathrooms, a lounge with flat screen TV and DVD, a fully fitted kitchen with cooker, fridge, freezer and microwave and two bedrooms.  It also has central heating, which has come in handy given the weather over the last few days. Yes,  the walls shake with every gust of wind but that all adds to its charm.

Yesterday we went to Bamburgh to look at the castle and the beach.  This part of the coast is rugged and unspoiled, with wild sea grass, sand dunes and crashing waves. Later today we’re going to Alnwick to look round the second hand book shop and Hogwarts.  But for the next hour I’m content to sit here under the blanket with a cup of tea and Lindor chocolates, while the rain beats against the caravan walls.

This post was going to be about Northumberland, which is where I’ll be staying for the next few days.  But I had to interrupt that with this breaking news. I, or rather Lady Levenshulme, has been shortlisted for the Manchester Blog Awards.  Yes, really!  I’m so excited I’m getting all my commas mixed up.  I had absolutely no idea at all. I was just idly reading the Manchizzle, while the wind howls around us shaking the caravan walls and waiting for Lord Levy to make the breakfast, and there it was.

Of course I phoned my mum immediately.

“Mum, guess what?”

“What?”

“I’ve been shortlisted for the Manchester Blog Awards!”

“What? Well . . . what?”

“The Manchester Blog Awards.  For Lady Levenshulme.”

Laughs.  “I told you.  Wow.  That’s brilliant.”  Laughs some more.  “Dead well done.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“I told you didn’t I.”

“Oh, mum.”

“It’ll be the Orange Prize next.”

“I haven’t written a novel, mum.”

“Or an Oscar.”

“Mum, they don’t give Oscars for blog posts.”

“But you could write  the book that’s made into a film.  I could be sitting next to Meryl Streep.”

“Book writers don’t win Oscars. It would be the person who adapted it for the screen. . . . Mum I’m not going to win an Oscar. It’s . . .  ”

And so it went on from there.

The best thing is that someone out there nominated me and it wasn’t Lord Levy or my mum (she swears). Whoever you are.  Thank you.  It means a lot to me.

Here comes Autumn, my favourite time of year.  The nights are drawing in, the leaves are filling up Cringle Park and soon thousands of students will be descending on Manchester, all fresh faced and clutching pristine copies of ‘Grub on a Grant’.  And once again we’ll have to queue in The Cod Father.  But at least the noticeboard will be full to give us something to read while we’re waiting.

And in a few weeks hundreds of literary types will be heading for venues around the city for the Manchester Literature Festival.  I’m especially looking forward to it this year as I’m going to be one of the MLF bloggers.  I can’t wait.  As always there’s an exciting line-up including appearances by Jenni Murray, Russell T Davies and  Carol Ann-Duffy.  The venues are also intriguing, from Matt & Phred’s Jazz Club to the Lord Mayor’s Parlour in the Town Hall.  You can keep up with what’s happening on the festival blog.

As part of the community reporters scheme I was invited to blog about a Thinking Women event which took place in Manchester last week.  I was a little wary at first.  I don’t normally go to women only events and I’ll be honest, I had a few doubts.  Why do women need their own events?  What would women say about men only events? What kind of women go to these meetings?

The last question is the easiest to answer and so I’ll start there.  There were around 30 women from different backgrounds: entrepreneurs, students, housewives, performance artists and many more.  We sat in a circle in The Friends’ Meeting House and listened to guest speaker and Well Heeled Diva, Jane Kenyon. The subject of the seminar was ‘Finding Courage, Losing Doubt: Strategies for Life’. A tough gig for anyone to tackle but Jane talked frankly and honestly about her own life and this filtered through when we split up into smaller groups to discuss some of the issues.

I’ve been to lots of seminars, workshops and lectures - some good and some bad. For me the mark of any successful event is if I can take away one valuable thing. This could be advice, an idea or a contact. Last week I learned a number of practical tips but the one thing that stayed with me was the idea of deconstructing negative beliefs and substituting them with positive ideas.  It’s too complex to tackle here but if you’re interested in learning more take a look at the sites below.

And the other two questions? Well, I still don’t have comprehensive answers to those but I think I know two women who do.

Jane Guest - dynamic entrepreneur, motivational coach and one of the founding members of Well Heeled Divas.

Jessica Symmons - social entrepreneur, creative thinker and one of the founding members of the northern strand of Thinking Women

Further Info:

www.thinkingwomen.org

http://wellheeleddivas.typepad.com

I’m off to the New Islington Urban Folk Festival next week.  Judging from last year’s photos it promises to be a grand event with music, art, theatre, film, food, drink and dance.

Here are some pics from last year.

This year’s events include Sketch City gets Arty, Yarn Bombing, Knitting Circle, Pimp my Barge and Knot Crazy.

It takes place on Saturday 6th September between 2 and 8 pm at Old Mill Street, New Islington, Manchester.

For more information Visit the NIF Facebook Group or go to www.newislington.co.uk.

More next week . . . .

It’s been a few weeks since my last post and I’ve been itching to catch up. I logged into the blog this morning, clicked on ‘Write’ and . . . nothing. Couldn’t think of a thing to say. Chewing my pen (I really need to stop doing this - especially when I’m typing and don’t even need a pen) I thought surely I must have done something worth mentioning. More pen chewing and ruler tapping - I must be a nightmare to work with - and nothing. It seems that the last few weeks have slipped by almost unnoticed in a blur of 12-hour working days, take-away dinners and taped episodes of Big Brother.

The other day someone asked me what it was like to be my own boss and have no-one to answer to. I told them that there was no such thing. You’re always answerable to someone. In my case I answer directly to the clients and therefore have lots of bosses. I also don’t get to choose my working hours. I have to be up when the clients are up and work lot more besides. Generally I’m in the office at 7 o’clock and sometimes don’t leave until 8 or 9 at night. Weekends are luxuries.

And what happens when I’m ill? Well there’s no sitting with the duvet watching morning television, I can tell you. Fortunately (and touch wood) I don’t pick up many bugs. However, on the odd occasion when I’ve had a cold, Flu, food poisoning, that rotten virus going round before Christmas last year and a dislocated shoulder, you can generally find me in the office, in front of the computer screen, working.

And if I had the chance would I go back to a 9 to 5 job (if such a thing still exists)? Too bloody right. No, I’m joking. Despite the hours and waking up in the middle of the night convinced I haven’t sent what turns out later to be a fictional email, I like my job. I like the excitement of new ideas and new projects. I like working with a whole range of people, from large fashion retailers, to the guy who writes novels and publishes them on his website (my favourite client). And most of all I love turning the lights off at the end of the day and looking round our tiny office and thinking, this is ours.

Aha, I did find something to write about after all.

We’ve got an allotment. Yep. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about this. My husband comes from a long line of gardeners and can trace his roots back to agricultural workers in the 19th century. His father and his father before him were both market gardeners and this seems to have rubbed off on him. I on the other hand have never grown a thing. I can’t even keep a house plant alive. Once I tried to grow an apple tree from a pip but it never took.

In addition to the land, we’re now the proud owners of a wheel barrow, various gardening tools and implements, propagators, seed compost, fibre pots and a whole coffee table full of books. There are new words too, like chitting, earlies, second earlies, main crop and dibber. And other less pleasant things like the muck pile, 10 foot long brambles and grubs.

The first sight of the allotment was a bit of a shock. In my mind’s eye I’d thought of a small plot of land with neat rows of beds and shed in the corner (and well secretly of ‘The Secret Garden’). Instead we were presented with this.

As you can see we have some way to go.

I’ve been meaning to add a post about our weekend in Whitby. If you’ve never been it really is a beautiful part of the world - wild and unspoiled coast lines, narrow streets and ginnels, a busy fishing port and a ruined abbey. In fact, I wonder why The Famous Five never visited?

Anyway, here are some pics.

We stayed in a beautiful sea view apartment in a complex called Metropole Towers.

Metropole Towers started life as a hotel back in the early 1900s and has period features in abundance - grand corridors and stairways, ornate mirrors and vintage door bells.

The sea, the sea!

There are lots of back alleys like this. It reminds me a little bit of Hampstead but with beaches and less Prada.

It was a lovely weekend with lashings of sea and sunshine and not a smuggler or wrecker in site.

After a few weeks of calm in a spotlessly clean house the wheels have come off and we’ve gone over to the dark side. I did next to nothing this weekend. While this is a bit of a luxury- weekends are usually spent working - things have descended into chaos.

Saturday was spent with a sore head and nausea from the previous evening’s shenanigans. I wouldn’t mind but we didn’t even go out. Just a ‘few’ drinks while watching old Friends episodes. And yesterday we had all sorts of plans. I had a written list which said:- clean the house and sort out the back room. But instead we sat around all day watching DVDs and eating sweets.

The upshot is that today I’m now back on a diet and have given up alcohol. Again. I also had to get up at 4.50 to give me time to do my hair and still make it to work by 7.00. I was only slightly hindered by Tori who sprayed the settee twice. I then sprayed him (with water, I should add) and poor old Blossom got caught in the crossfire. Valuable minutes were spent consoling her and apologising profusely.

And just to put the top hat on it we started the day with a bit of a row, where I ended up slamming out of the house and coming to work on my own. If I get up at 4.50 in the morning I refuse to be late for work. Lord Levy, however, does not share this philosophy and spent 12 minutes (I timed him) on the toilet whilst playing cards on his mobile phone.

So, there you have it. Not a great start to the week.