Author | Writer | Photographer
simonwhaley 
Here in the Welsh Borders, we’ve had a lot of weather, recently. Well, I say a lot of weather, but, of course, what I really mean is a change in the weather.
Just before I moved to Shropshire from the London suburbs, my urban neighbours would say, “Shropshire? Ooh, you’ll get a lot of weather up there!” And they were right, sort of. We do get a lot of weather up here. But we get just as much as anyone else. It’s merely that ours tends to be a little more varied.
After all the snow we’ve had, a chance to capture some sunshine and green fields!
Decided to stop as I was passing Stokesay Castle today, to take a photo. I thought it looked gorgeous in the early morning sunshine. Turns out it was a good …
It’s a dangerous game coming to the Welsh Borders to give an author talk. If you don’t believe me, ask archaeologist and historian Dr Alex Langlands, who’s a friend of this area thanks to the popular BBC2 Victorian Farm television series.
I love the way some projects take on a life of their own. Today, in St Martin’s in the Bullring (Birmingham) the third edition of the Crossing the Threshold toolkit was launched.
In 2007 I wrote a book entitled [amazon_textlink asin=’1845281748′ text=’Fundraising for a Community Project’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’simonwhaley-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’535df801-c7fd-11e7-9099-bfc6fb5e81ca’], which explains to community groups in a clear and easy-to-understand way, how to apply for grant money from various funding organisations.
Writing may be a solitary occupation at times, but not all of the time. Today, I was part of Wellington Festival’s Meet The Author event. A group of us (what is the collective noun for a group of writers?) gathered in the library and set out our stalls.
Publishing is a numbers game. When a book is published, nobody really knows how many copies it will sell. They might be able to guess a rough figure during its first six months of sales, especially if the author has a track record. (Dan Brown will probably sell one or two copies when his new one comes out next month.)
If there’s one thing that Ludlow does well, it’s food. Local food. Well, food from the immediate environs of Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and the neighbouring Welsh counties (Powys, Monmouthshire, et al).
Our grey skies seemed to be just what Rich Davies was looking for when showing Midland’s Today viewers what sort of weather we’d had today!
