Holiday, play and RNA conference

I'm really not very good at this, am I? Since last posting, I've been in a play, been on holiday to Turkey and attended the RNA conference in Leicester.

Starting with the play, Murder, Music and Mayhem, known as the 3Ms, we played to packed houses and made a lot of money at the box office. I was Lady Evadne Thrusting, well known middle-aged drunk. Type casting, some said. I then went off to my favourite place, Cavus in Turkey for a week. Not as good as usual, as the hotel was full of Turkish families with hoards of children. Don't get me wrong - the Turkish families are probably more entitled to be there than the British visitors, but we are all regulars who go for the peace and quiet. It's a very small hotel, with a small but beautiful pool, right on the beach. The other problem this time was the fact that the temperature stayed between 40 C and 50C for the whole week - and the air conditioning in my room broke down. We spent every other day out on boat trips with our friends Hassan and Kerim, and even then, the wind blew hot. Looking forward to going back in September when the children will have gone back to school and the temperature is lower.

Came back from that, into the chaos that was Gatwick airport after the Glasgow fire-bomb, and the following Friday attended the Romantic Novelists' Association conference at Leicester University. A great time was had by all, and I met up with many friends whom I see only too infrequently, including Kate Walker, Mills and Boon novelist celebrating her 50th book. I have contributed to her blog party today, offering a copy of one of my books as a prize in a competition.

Anybody reading this who doesn't know about the Romantic Novelists' Association and is a writer of contemporary women's fiction, published or unpublished, should check them out. They are the friendliest and most supportive group of writers I have evr met, and I count some of my best friends among the members. And in case anyone has the idea that this is a bunch of little old ladies in pink who have a sweet sherry before dinner, as one friend put it, the bar staff were gobsmacked by the ravening hoard of women queuing - not for wine by the glass - but by the bottle!

Amanda Grange, to whose website there is a link on this page, gave an impromptu talk on the web, sites and blogs that stole the show and Liz Fenwick took some wonderful photographs including Bernardine Kennedy and me in the bar!