I'm ashamed of myself for the length of time since I last posted a blog, but hey, I've had a good excuse.
I've become a grandma! And life has just been too exciting.
My little grandson is a gorgeous baby, called Iskander McDowall (Iskander means "Alexander" in Urdu).
Here's a picture of him needing a bit of a snooze.
I'm not sure where the summer has gone, but it's whizzing past. There was the wonderful Borders Book Festival at Melrose in June. That's where the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction was announced. It's a new award, and I was lucky to be one of the judges. Hilary Mantel won the prize for her extraordinary book, "Wolf Hall".
The next big thing is the Edinburgh Festival. I'm off tomorrow for a week of books and shows. I'll be doing an event with David Almond on Sunday 29th August at 6pm in the RBS Corner Tent. Not sure what we'll be talking about, but do come and listen! No pictures of this year's festival yet, so here's a rather belated one from last year, with the wonderful Philip Ardagh.
And the REALLY big thing after that, is a stage production of The Garbage King at the Unicorn Theatre in London. It runs throughout October. Here's a link to the theatre if you want to find out more.
