Romantic Novel of the Year Award. Not the Grand National. Because books don't jump.

In a little more than ten days...yes, all right, eleven days if you must be pedantic, but somehow 'a little more than ten' sounds more.. I dunno, picturesque and writerly, maybe because it's got more words in it, just like a novel is more writerly than, say, a pamphlet. Where was I?  Oh yes.  In a few days I shall be back off to London again.  This time it is to attend the RNA Summer Party - where glamour is the order of the day.  At least, it's one of the orders of the day, several of the other orders include 'shut up and sit down', 'put that young man back where you found him' and 'do NOT run down the road with a stolen traffic cone on your head'.

And I shall be obeying all these orders (well, maybe some of them, others are less 'orders' and more 'guidelines'..) in a nice dress and heels.  For, attendant with the Summer Party, comes The Awards.

Those of you nice people who follow my blog, and me around the supermarket, know that my book 'Please Don't Stop the Music' is one of those in the running for the Romantic Novel of the Year award.  Which is lovely, but I have to say that my book doesn't jump well, isn't keen on soft going, and may well fall at Beechers, although I have cantered it up and down a few times and popped it over some low fences...oh.  Hang on a minute, I think I may have got confused here.

My book.

A horse.  Not the same thing.  Although similar in the 'beeeeyyyyooooootiful' stakes.

This has necessitated a certain degree of rummage.  Since my budget has squeaked rather alarmingly at the cost of travelling down to what, since the advent of the new anti-cigarette laws, can no longer be called The Big Smoke and must instead be described as the The Big Outside, for the second time (and since I shall be travelling down again in June for the Melissa Nathan Award) I will not be buying a new dress.  Instead, I shall be wearing just one of the many, many designer creations which adorn my Ikea wardrobe, hanging in its slightly wonky chipboard interior like diamonds in an outside toilet.

You will have to wait eleven days to find out which one I have chosen.  And also which shoes are to be the pair that tread the hallowed carpets of the Royal Over-Seas League which isn't, despite the name, actually overseas, it's in St James' Park.  Well, not actually in the park, obviously, because then the whole party would be one long search for the toilets and pigeon-bunfight and there wouldn't be any carpets to worry about, but it's in the environs.  At least, I hope there are carpets.  Knowing that I am to be attending may be enough for them to strip out all the moveable fixtures and spread the floor with sawdust.

Maybe I should wear my wellingtons again?