My friend, the author

Sarah lives next door to me, in the old Methodist Chapel. During lockdown she has written a children's book called "Ghost, the Christmas Stag". It is about a rare white stag and the little boy who protects him in the forest. The book has been successfully crowdfunded and will be published in November.

Sarah needed a photograph for the cover of the book so this morning we spent time in the garden - well socially distanced - to try to find an image that would be suitable. The sun came out and created terrible problems with contrasty conditions. Later it was behind a cloud and we did better.

I thought some of the earliest shots were fine, but as we looked at them we lost a bit of confidence and tried different things. I was keen to have Sarah amongst the trees because the story is set in the forest. She wasn't so sure.

This is probably not for the dust cover (do books still have these?) but I like it very much. She has a wonderfully engaging smile.

Mum wrote a haiku about it all:
Smile please for photo
Author needs portrait for book
Congratulations!


 In other news, Maureen has been transferred to a 4 bedded ward. This will be much less boring for her during the day. 

This evening, we watched a concert from The Globe, which is a community based music venue and bar in Newcastle. The theme of tonight’s concert was Dances and Visions and it featured Bradley Creswick on violin and Roberto Carrillo-Garcia on guitar, with David Murray on piano. The programme included Tangos by Piazzolla, Hungarian rhythms of Bartok, Hubay and more.

We have followed Bradley Creswick since he was appointed leader of the Northern Sinfonia in  1984. He had a spell away in London, but returned to lead the orchestra again and has fairly recently retired from it. He has been immensely popular with the audiences. He has also never learned to take a bow without looking like a puppet on a string! We love him.

The concert was great fun. They had a small, socially distanced audience at the venue and 50 people watching on line. Well done to The Globe.

I'm not mentioning Arth.....