London and Lumb Bank

I've been looking forward to this week for ages. On Tuesday I went to London and met my editors, my new publicist and my agent. I went to the British Museum, alone (which meant moaning children weren't trailing after me) - hooray!

And I ate an ice cream that was almost as long as my forearm.

In the evening I went to the Desmond Elliott longlist party. The Desmond Elliott Prize is, apparently, the only prize to throw a party for its longlisted authors. What a lovely idea! Eight of us attended the party at Foyles on Tuesday evening.

It was so nice to meet the other authors, some of whom I've chatted to via Twitter and Facebook, but had never met in real life. Here I am chatting to Claire Fuller and Jonathan Gibbs.

Here are the eight authors who were at the party - 'Don't blink! And smile!'

And here we are with the judges.

I had to race off before the party had finished in order to catch the last train back up north because my daughter was due to leave for a residential school trip the following morning and I wanted to see her before she went.

Once my daughter was safely dispatched I caught the train to Hebden Bridge and went on to Lumb Bank where I was the visiting writer during a course on the short story taught by the brilliant Rachel Trezise and Adam Marek, both previously shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize, amongst other things.

Almost two years ago I was at Lumb Bank on a writing course. It was fun to read some of the stuff that I'd been working on while I was there. I hope the writing students enjoyed it, and I hope it gave them some confidence in their own writing, too.

I'm finishing off the week with end of term marking. Not quite as fun as the other stuff, but still, I've probably had enough fun for one week.