Last weekend saw 150 writers from all over Scotland converge on the Westerwood hotel in Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, for a weekend of talks, competitions and workshops, good food, good company and a hell of a good time.
I was thrilled to be awarded second prize in the self-published book category for A Last Journey, my memoir of my husband’s struggles with dementia. Not only was it judged on content, but cover, blurb, layout, author bio and website.
It was great meeting up with many writing friends and catching up on news from around the country but now it’s back to ordinary life, if it can be classed as that. I completed my adjudication of Ayr Writers Club’s Scottish article competition and am preparing for my talk next month to carers in Dunbar.
As to Chatbots – I hate them. I’m trying to arrange car insurance, TV and broadband and heating providers and I can never talk to a human. Nuff said.
I found Bill’s old train set when clearing out recently. He’d had it from the early 50″s and like everything else he had, took very good care of it. So the trucks were in their original boxes and the engines wrapped in tissue paper. Other engines and coaches looked more modern and apparently had belonged to my son.
It made me think of some of the train journeys Bill and I had taken over the years. One of the longest, and straightest, was the Indian-Pacific across Australia in 1975. We joined it at Port Pirie and spent almost three days travelling across the Nullabor in South Australia and West Australia until we reached the Pacific Ocean at Perth. The Nullabor is a vast empty desert where there are few people bar the railway workers and their families living in cottages beside the track and who rely on the train for supplies and company. It’s a tough life; the children learn through the School of the Air which delivers their lessons through originally radio but which now has video links. If they need medical help, then the Flying Doctor will come to them if necessary or the train will deliver medicines to them.
In complete contrast is the Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train, which can travel at up to 320kph (about 200 mph). We travelled on them when touring Japan in 2015. Very comfortable, extremely punctual and even stopping at the designated carriage markings at the station so you queued at the part where you knew you were seated. And the bento box meals were fascinating and delicious!
One of the most recent trains I travelled on was without Bill, at a new stage of my life. It was a funicular railway in Budapest in 2023 where I had met up with old friends from our Canadian days. Short and very steep but which saved a long climb up the hills above the city with spectacular views from the top.
It’s lovely to look back at some the journeys we made and the places we visited and all because I was doing some clearing out!
ann burnett 