A night to remember

As usual I’ve been extremely busy but now the summer holidays are here I have a bit of time to catch my breath and catch up on my blogs, although I'm currently away on the North coast of Scotland where the mobile broadband signal is flaky to say the least so blogging isn't too easy!

On 15th July Steve and I attended the gala awards evening for the 2010 Brit Writers Awards at the O2 in London. My Preserves book (available to buy from my ebay shop, by the way) had been nominated for the non-fiction category prize. Apparently there had been 21000 entries to the competition as a whole so reaching the top 6 in any category was a huge achievement. It is fantastic to have people read your work and to decide it is good enough to be seriously considered for such a prize. Amazing really that a recipe book can generate that much excitement in people who aren’t actively seeking a solution to a glut of fruit or veg.

As the evening was a black tie event we had to get ourselves poshed up for the event. This is not something that comes naturally to me. I’d rather be stood on the allotment in a t-shirt that has seen better days and a pair of trousers with a few holes in. It’s not to say that I neglect my appearance but with so many things to get done in a day, spending time on my hair and make-up is a low priority and my clothes need to be practical. So it was a rare treat to go to the hairdressers and have someone spend 45 minutes transforming my long red locks into a glamorous “updo”. And then slip into a long velvet dress and give myself a makeover. As an unexpected finishing touch my Business Buddy friends had buttonhole flowers delivered to our door for Steve and me.

At 3 o’clock, with my mum setting off to pick the girls up from school, Steve and I headed into London. It’s not often that I get treated like a VIP but I think I could get use to it should I ever become a famous writer! At 6 we sat down for our VIP meal and then around 8 the awards ceremony began.

I didn’t expect my humble recipe book to win, and that proved to be the case, but it was an honour to get that far and to treated like a VIP for the night. Like Cinderella, I was home and in bed for midnight but unlike Cinderella, the next morning there was the school run to do and plenty more potatoes to peel!