I don't do football....

Football is not my thing, never has been and never will be, but that didn't stop me enjoying a football themed book launch last night. Along with some writing friends we gathered at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast to help Jenny Ireland launch her third YA novel 'Matched Up' out into the world. 

With some of the audience sporting football shirts, football partyware, delicious sweet treats and goodie bags we were spoiled!

It was a lovely relaxed event with the coolest of music and included Jenny reading from her new novel. I was delighted to get my copy of the book signed and touched to see our gang of writing pals included in the acknowledgements. 

Writing can be a slow and solitary process so it's great to build connections and support networks to keep encouraging and motivating each other when things don't go to plan. And it's such a joy to be able to celebrate our writing pals' successes at events like this. 

It was a lovely end to a good writing day, which had started out with squeezing in some time to write out in the garden in the morning.

The beach is calling

It felt like a summer's day down at Coney yesterday, with the sun shining, brilliant blue skies and litter pickers tidying the beach. 

And it reminded me of many happy summer days we've had there. It’s been a while since we've all been together, with a lot happening so we had much to catch up on and talk about. 

With the sun warming our backs we spent a lovely morning talking over coffee and chocolate and banana muffins, shared some of our work and some of our plans, (some of which are very exciting!) and we also did a writing exercise. 

And inspired by the morning, the theme continued in the afternoon back home in the garden when I caught up on some reading.