Rejection

Happy about Spring!

In a week that begins to look like lots of other weeks in my life, I had one really busy day at the London Book Fair. My aim was to dip my one good toe in the water to see if I could find a publisher for my book. I set off from my little village for the train station on my crutches knowing that it would be a long day hobbling. I pre-planned my route round Olympia to reduce the amount of travel and I thought I had the ideal bag for getting to things quickly while holding two crutches – I don’t think there is an easy-access bag designed for those who wield crutches. Have I spotted a gap in the market?

Each time I dug down for something from my rucksack, my crutches inevitably fell on the ground and someone would rush over to help me. Actually, I am quite adept at squatting on my one good leg and picking stuff up from the floor. Other things are much more difficult. Waiting for lifts instead of popping up stairs is much harder for me to deal with. I now realise that I am the sort of person I hate to be behind in a crowded place. More patience is needed for this.

The fair itself was quite overwhelming. The hall was chokka with literary types. Lots of people on their badges announced themselves as authors – something I aspire to. I just put myself down as being a writer and editor. Nothing too grand! My contact at the fair was really helpful and again this helped by directing me to the best people to have a conversation with. All those I spoke to were really positive about my book and so far I have one rejection. This rejection was so complimentary and was written so nicely I wanted to jump up and down on my bed except that would have hurt my leg. I just bounced a bit and smiled a lot.

The journey home was not without incident. My train was cancelled. Hanging around on the station, I met a magazine owner who gave me his details – another positive link there – and a woman who whose initials are LB and she lives in LB! For once, hanging around waiting wasn’t a bad experience despite the nip in the air. I got to Wolverton Station and seeing the steep stairs to the bridge over the railway line made want to hunker down on a bench and wait til I had regained some energy. This is where I think the world smiles on us. One of the passengers took one of my crutches and walked slowly up and over the bridge with me. In my temporary state of invalidity, so many people rush to help. Thank you…

Meanwhile, back on the home front, I have seen lots of my grand daughters again this week. At my place, I accidentally let Mattaya bump her head on the coffee table. She loves standing holding on to fingers, unfortunately she made a drunken lurch forward while holding on to me. Whoops… This is probably the initiation she needed to my accident-prone life. Ezra-Mae still remembers the post box incident. I think this serves as a warning to the dangers of being with Nana! Just wait til I am back on two legs.