"How did you spend your vacation? Did you even take one?"
The last time I had a proper holiday - by which I mean two weeks away, not working, email auto-responder switched on - was 2012. (I just can't get my head round the workaholic US notion that three of four nights away from home is a vacation.)
But in two weeks' time, after this book is handed in, after Bloody Scotland, after Bouchercon, when I leave the Sisters in Crime board, for the second half of September, I'm doing it again.
I don't know where I'm going (it's a surprise) but I've been amassing the reading pile for months. The reading pile is one of the four pillars of a perfect holiday for me: books, a quiet beach with warm sea, an isolated cottage with no telly, good seafood you don't need to dress up to eat . . . bliss.
What's on my reading pile? Well, it's got books on it that I'm not reviewing, whose authors I'm not interviewing, whose contents are not the basis for a panel I'm moderating. But I can't remember them all because I haven't seen the pile for six weeks. Stephen King, for sure. Curtis Sittenfield, I think. I posted the new Mark Haddon home a couple of days ago to be added to it.
Let me come clean. The sob story about never having a holiday ignores the fact that I've been in Scotland since mid-July (and Yorkshire, and London, and Galloway)
Poor Cinders, eh? Here's a wee selection of some of the hard slog I've put my shoulder to:
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maintaining professional relationships
(aka hanging with Erin Mitchell at Harrogate)
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Investigating book events
(aka hanging at the Edinburgh Festival)
Keeping abreast of major literary happenings
Ummmm - this pub's purple!
A job that's either having a right laugh or sitting making up stories isn't really the sort of job you need a holiday from anyway.
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I'll be glad when you are back on this side of the pond again hope the coming holiday will be long enough for you to let your hair down, figuratively speaking of course. Can't possibly imagine you being any less than a proper lady. (Yeah, right)
ReplyDeleteAnd once September is over, may I look forward to a new stand alone bewk as well as the next Dandy Gilver chapter? I'm in withdrawal here my dear.
Hi, Catriona — Thanks for the post and the pictures here, and for the interesting point about differences in how we view vacations. We're longing for just those three or four days off--and I'm not sure I've EVER taken a two-week vacation, not even on our honeymoon!
ReplyDeleteLook forward to seeing you in New Orleans. :-)
Wow, I would love to go to Scotland - I'm super jealous :)
ReplyDeleteAnn - I am turning in a new Dandy tomorrow. Another standalone is in already and there's a third series about to begin too. Art - I take two weeks off for Christmas too! RMG - it's lovely, but do bring a warm jersey.
ReplyDeleteWhat? It isn't a vacation? Talking Scottish and being understood, eating sheep intestines, being coddled by those wonderful parents? My girl, you don't know a vacation when you've stumbled into the middle of one!
ReplyDeleteGreat post--loved the pics especially. And I hope you all have a fabulous time at Bouchercon!
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