Partying

During the launch week for His Darling Nurse I popped to London to have lunch with my agent and to attend the launch party for the fabulous Loves Me, Loves Me Not anthology. This all sounds very lovely and authorly doesn't it? and when I used to read things like this on other people's blogs I used to sigh and think how nice. I don't go to London often - I think that was probably only the nineth time I've ever gone there so tootling around the capital on my own was quite an adventure. I think my agent was a bit concerned when she realised I didn't have any clue where anywhere was and just intended to amble my way around. In practice it was fine, I mooched around Covent Garden looking at the overpriced and pretty merchandise. I had coffee and cookies in a nice cafe and ambled along to Neals Yard, Leicester Square and the Strand before flagging down a cab to take me to the launch party at the Guards and Cavalry club in Piccadilly. My knowledge of the Monopoly board wasn't really much good as an aid to navigation but it did make it more fun!
The club was very olde colonial with lots of silverware, portraits of moustachioed persons in uniform and stuffed heads of long dead animals. Unfortunately for me it also had lots of stairs and no lift so I was really suffering by this point so probably wasn't as chatty and in the flow of things as usual.
The pic is of all the authors on the stairs. I'm tucked in the corner on the left carrying my bag a la Mrs T because I was trying to balance my wine glass.