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These are a few of my favourite web sites I hope you enjoy them too. Just click the link.
My recent U.K. publisher for children's books, and probably the best children's publisher in the U.K. Look up Tony Ross on their website (in the days that I was an editor in publishing, I was the first publisher to take him on as an author and illustrator, and I remain a huge fan).
A useful site - for obvious reasons.
And the church in the beautiful Begijnhof with its extraordinarily mixed congregation meant much to me in the years that I lived there
fourtuneclub.de/camillevanlunen_komponistin Camille van Lunen delighted me by asking if she could make a children's opera of The Rock Boy and a Christmas oratorio of Star Over Amsterdam. Both have been performed with great success.
Another website to look up for Tony Ross.
This is an unusual and satisfying game for two that I love to play. If you like either chess or backgammon (or games in general), you will like this. My husband just happens to have invented it.
Amsterdam was a wonderful city to live in and I always love returning to it. What more can be said? It's famous already. If you haven't been, do go.
Linda Polman is one of those journalists who goes where others fear to go, also in her opinions. Her writing is brilliant.
Moorside Boy partly concerns the childhood of Benjamin Waugh, born and brought up in Settle, who founded the NSPCC. Every penny from the sale of the book is being donated to this good charity.
O'Brien publishes masses of lovely children's books - as well as two of mine, The Rock Boy and Just Joshua.
Camille is the composer of my children's opera of The Rock Boy, performed to sell-out audiences, in Cologne and Bonn in Germany; she also composed an oratorio of my retelling of the nativity, Star Over Amsterdam, performed in The Netherlands, in Amsterdam, and also in Kassel in Germany (highlights in December 2014; the full oratorio later in 2014)
Settle in the Yorkshire Dales is a great place to live. It looks rather like a town in Provence, huddled and hilly and stone. The roads are narrow and winding and so the cars are fewer and there are more cyclists and pedestrians which adds to its charm, so do the large variety of small shops, locally owned (some of which have been in the same family for generations) and all excellent value. When we moved to Settle we were able, and still are, to buy everything we need here. It has a good theatre, library, all the sports you could imagine, the Dales around it, the prettiest launderette in the country and a terrific community spirit. What more could anyone want?
And Settle has the best small station in the U.K. (officially). The famous railway line from Leeds to Carlisle, and from Leeds to Lancaster and Morecambe means that you can go anywhere in the world from Settle without needing a car.
Not only that, but if you want to hire a bicycle in Settle, you can. In the Netherlands we didn't need gears but you do in the Yorkshire Dales. This is a great place to hire one, and the minor roads are wonderful to cycle along.
A community of refugee, cyclists, mechanics and volunteers. Second hand bicycles are fixed up and given to refugees. Read about them, it's a great organisation.
Don't go to Malta if you want a beach holiday. Do go if you like swimming off rocks, eating fresh fish and homemade wine, Baroque churches and villages, prehistoric temples, Renaissance fortifications and general quirkiness. The Rock Boy was both writtem and set in Malta.
A wonderful new independent bookshop in the Shambles in Settle. No need for anyone who lives here to use Amazon for their books as Limestone Books will get them to you just as quickly, and the money goes into the local economy. Besides, they stock my books!
A charity working with disadvantaged children giving them the literacy skills to succeed in life and, of course, enjoy reading. I am supporting the Bradford branch with sales of Star over Amsterdam. | ||
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