I was lucky enough to be in London for a reading of poems written specially for the Alice exhibition at The British Library. The poems were a wonderful and diverse collection and a lot of them were very humorous. Holly McNish had me in stitches. I didn't know her work at all but have now ordered a copy of her book 'Nobody Told Me'. It was a joy to hear Mona Arshi, Robert Seatter and Amali Rodrigo, among others. I was hugely impressed by how beautifully everyone read and it was wonderful to be in London and able to catch this event. I miss this kind of thing in Portugal.
Our Stanza group is going from strength to strength and we have found a beautiful venue for our next reading. We are still investigating but it is in a lovely second hand bookshop called DejaLu in Cascais. The bookshop is run as a charity to help the professional development of young people with Down's syndrome. It would be great to be able to raise funds and/or awareness at the event. We are in the early days of this plan and probably won't think of holding the reading until after the summer.
Meanwhile, I am spending longer in London than first planned, as my poor 96 year old mother fell over and broke her hip on Mother's Day. She is very feisty and progressing well. This morning she was attempting the Times 2 Crossword, 18 hours after her anaesthetic!
