London and general exciting-ness

It's our final night in London, after two days of heat and rain and walking and meetings! I still can't quite believe that it has all happened. I met my editor at Random House yesterday afternoon. I arrived painfully early, and so spent a few minutes walking round and round the block until it was a respectable time. I dispelled any chance of appearing suave by staring at the building in awe, and then struggling with the complicated doors for a few minutes while the receptionist looked on in amusement. My editor met me in the lobby and took me for coffee in the Random House canteen, and we chatted about the book and how the pre-publication schedule is going to pan out over the next eighteen months. The cover design is one of the first things on the list! So exciting. When we had finished our coffee, she took me upstairs to meet the other members of the editorial team. It was fantastic - they were all so passionate and enthusiastic about the book.

When we had finished looking around the offices and meeting people, she took me to the impressive wall of bookshelves that spanned the entire room.
"Would you like some books?"
"Some ... you mean, some of these books?"
"Yes. Go on, take as many as you want."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
Kid. Candy store. I didn't want to take too many, as:
a) I secretly believed that I was hallucinating and that a security guard would appear at my side as soon as I started rummaging
b) We're travelling, and I have to be careful with suitcase weight
... but I came away with a large stack anyway. I looked longingly at the new hardback A.S.Byatt.
"Go on, take it."
"I'd love to, but it's so heavy ..."
"Ah, fair enough." She scribbled herself a note. "I'll post it to you in New Zealand."
Honestly, I feel like I'm living in the book equivalent of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the moment. This is what I have been working towards for my entire life, and I still can't quite believe it's real. Although it feels considerably more real after meeting everyone in person!

I wanted to celebrate, so spent this morning dragging poor LOML around Oxford and Regent Streets. I tried on a dress in French Connection that I've been lusting over for ages, but even at half-price it was still too expensive for me. I bought a hat, though!

I met with my agent this afternoon, as well as the lovely ladies who are handling my foreign rights and my film and television rights. It was so good to meet my agent - she has worked so hard to find a good home for the book, and with such a great result.

Tonight, LOML and I met the lovely Fleur, who is even more beautiful in person. I felt quite shy at first, but she was so nice that it wore off quickly. We had a lovely dinner, looked at photos of each other's cats and chatted. Towards the end of the evening it started to bucket down with rain, and we all got soaked (as you can see).

Look how pretty she is! She's so pretty. I'm still starstruck.

Thanks for all your comments and good wishes, as always! Sorry I can't reply to all of them at the moment; computer time is limited. I'll catch up eventually. Speaking of which, computer time is up and I feel like I haven't even begun to go into all the great things that have happened over the last two days. Expect more!

Berlin!

Take a deep breath, everybody, because this might be a long one. LOML took far better and more numerous photos than these, but they are on his camera and so will come later. These are some of the considerably less awesome ones that I took.

IWe spent the whole of Thursday travelling - first up to London, then to Dusseldorf, and finally to Berlin. We stayed in the Courtyard Marriot, and it was just wonderful, I can't recommend it highly enough. We had a gorgeous waitress who was very understanding of our attempts to speak German, and who taught us some very useful words and phrases!

The hotel restaurant had absolutely wonderful food - we ate there every night (and had the rest of our meals out). Naturally, we had to try the local beer.

Our hotel was very close to where the Berlin Wall used to be. We went for a walk after dinner on the first night and found Checkpoint Charlie practically on our doorstep. I formerly had only a very scanty knowledge of the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but after visiting Alexanderplatz and reading the story on the installation there, I am even more moved and impressed by the struggles and heroism of the German people as they worked towards reunification. I won't recount the story here, but if (like me) you have never really studied it, you should definitely look it up. It's hugely inspiring (and harrowing). LOML posed with a statue of Axel Springer near some fragments of the old wall.

Our first full day in Berlin was Saturday. The weather was just gorgeous, hot and sunny. We strolled down Unter den Linden from Alexanderplatz to the famous Brandenburg Gate, stopping regularly to look at the many amazing old buildings, monuments and statues along the way. And there were so many! Berlin is such a great city for walking, and LOML and I felt perfectly comfortable exploring on foot. For such a large city it has a very laid-back, almost peaceful atmosphere. We had to take the obligatory tourist photographs in front of the Brandenburg Gate, naturally.


We spent the whole of Sunday in the Berlin Zoo - a really amazing, vast place. I had never been to a 'proper' zoo before - all my experience of wildlife growing up was in game parks. It was a beautiful place, with large and luxurious enclosures, and I saw so many animals that I had never before seen in real life: brown bears, pandas, sea-lions and very hot-looking polar bears sweltering on rocks. An orangutan who looked like a gigantic orange shag rug put on a show for us, swinging and somersaulting from his ropes, and a very friendly little goat followed me around for a while in the hopes of acquiring some food. I was especially thrilled to see the otters - I know they're not the most spectacular of animals, but they have a special place in my heart. They seem like little underwater cats. Perhaps I was an otter in a previous life?


I was impressed by the size of this rhinocerous's rhinocer-arse.


I feel like I'm not doing justice to this wonderful city at all, but I would be here all night if I tried to. More and better photos will be forthcoming as time wears on and LOML downloads them, but I wanted to catch you up on our doings.

Thanks so much for all your comments while I was away! I was thrilled to find out that I had been selected as one of the Wardrobe_Remixers of the Week this week, too, which is a great honour. We're here with my grandparents for the day tomorrow, and then on Wednesday we set off for London once more. I'm meeting with my editor on Wednesday afternoon, and my agent on Thursday. A busy week ahead!

The New Forest

I'm standing outside Soup Vintage in Lymington - it had just stopped raining, and so I'm a bit rained-on and windblown. Didn't find anything to take home with me (lots of 70s polyester), but it was a lovely shop. We had a cup of coffee at The Buttery down the road, where the scones were like little boulders. We gamely swallowed them down anyway (stiff upper lip and all that. They could easily have been used as battle scones by Discworld dwarfs), and I think they might lodge in our small intestines until we are very, very old.

LOML was much better today (thanks for the get-well wishes), and so we meandered about the New Forest, stopping at various little towns along the way: Lymington, Brocklehurst and Beaulieu, among others.
We saw dozens of New Forest ponies grazing at the roadside, and stopped to photograph a few. I tried to entice one to eat from my hand, but it ignored me. Rather ostentatiously, in fact. It kept turning its back on me and looking away, as if we had had an embarrassing one-night-stand several months ago and it was pretending it didn't recognise me.


P.S. Happy birthday to BestFriendAlly! She is twenty-two today. Sorry I can't be there, and I hope you have a fantastic day.