You couldn't make it up

To Waverton this week to talk to the Waverton Good Read Award crew because Salvage is on their list. This is brilliant. Waverton is a small Cheshire village where reading is really big, mainly thanks to bibliophiles Wendy and Gwen. And they know how to treat writers. Firstly they feed you a proper three course meal (with wine). Then they make an awful lot of the village come out on a vile, wet dark night and PAY to hear you speak about your favourite subject (you and your novel). Then they ask intelligent, well-read sort of questions which give you an excuse to speak about your favourite subject for even longer. Rather than rioting at this point and burning down the hall, they thank you politely and give you more drink - and then they promise that they'll all read your book. And away you go.

Now I'm home again, I'm wondering if Waverton really exists. After all there's a nasty virus going around that gives you a high temperature- maybe a touch of delerium? If it wasn't for finding the mug next morning you might think Waverton was the sort of place invented by an over-optimistic fictioneer.

Gene-genie

October was a wicked month, dry of writing and then just dry.

I once had four uncles. As October breezed in, the last and dearest of them - Uncle George - found he was going to die. All of a sudden. No prologue and not much time for a finale. We don't mess around, we North Wales Prices. He accomplished the task stoically, in good order and with all preparations made, before the month's end.

Fittingly he had been born on April 25 - Shakespeare's birthday.(Some boring pedants hold out for the 23 but that's rubbish- it was 25th, trust me). Of all the word jugglers, language baiters and story-budders in the extensive Price family my Uncle George was most practised and best. His narratives, his contrary emotional postures and some of his
single lines I've hoarded all my life and ransacked often. Of course we never ever discussed my writing - though he was a great reader, Nicholas Monserrat was the man for him. And anyway I was family. That's a relationship that grows in the mulch of talk.

Uncle George would have been especially pleased to see a November now so mild there are still dandelions in bloom on the marsh fields down to the river- and on untended vegetable plots.

"How's the garden?" I remember asking him.

"Show quality, the dandelions are. A wonderful display. This year they're in every shade from palest lemon to a deep sunburst gold." Pause for effect. "But mine are the size of dahlias."