Brief absence (again)

Sorry for absence - still reeling, and I might be AWOL for a few days yet. Check out the post below for useful contacts and donation sites for the Christchurch earthquake. Every little helps. Give your loved ones and pets an extra hug tonight.

Earthquake help

Before and after. Somehow one of the hardest things is seeing the ChristChurch Cathedral spire destroyed. It is a symbol of our city, and it seems to sum up everything that has happened over the last few days.

'Solid ground;' 'feet on the ground;' 'grounded.' These expressions don't seem to mean a hell of a lot anymore. LOML and I heard about the Christchurch earthquake when a colleague of his called him at 1am (our time; we were in Ireland) shortly after it happened. We stayed up till 4am desperately trying to track down all our family members and friends and feeling very helpless.

We were really, really lucky.

All our loved ones are safe. A staggering amount of Christchurch people are not in the same position, however. As of this morning, 102 people are confirmed dead and 228 are missing.

My mum was meant to go into work in the central city on the day of the quake. She stayed home because she wasn't feeling well. The building she works in was flattened. I'm trying not to play the 'what-if' game, but it's hard.

Everyone in Christchurch is pulling together, providing support, rescue, medical services, necessities and consolation where possible. The rest of the country - and the world - has rallied around also. People are injured; distressed; tired; and, in many cases, have no food, power, petrol or clean water. My best friend Caroline has been working around the clock in a triage station dealing with the severely injured. My stepfather is working with the Civil Defence. My sister is part of the army of students cleaning up the streets and damaged houses. There's not much we can do from over here, apart from lending emotional support - and money. If you want to donate anything towards the rescue and relief efforts, there are many ways you can do so. The always-lovely Anita from Wellington has put together a fantastic list of important contacts and donation sites which I will reproduce here (thanks, Anita!).

USEFUL CONTACTS

• New Zealand Red Cross Person Enquiry Line: 0800 REDCROSS (0800 733 276)
• For people enquiring about family from outside New Zealand: +64 7 850 2199
• International Visitors in Christchurch who need assistance should call 0800 779 997 (the official earthquake hotline!)
• New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management website: www.mcdem.govt.nz or http://www.civildefence.govt.nz/.
• Environment Canterbury's earthquake site: http://canterburyearthquake.org.nz/.
• Christchurch Airport: http://www.christchurchairport.co.nz/.

If you want to help, here's what you can do:

DONATIONS

Go online and donate to the Salvation Army from anywhere in the world here.

ASB, ANZ and the National Bank are also taking donations:
1. ASB Bank: Account number: 12-3205-0146808-00. BIC/SWIFT code: ASBBNZ2A
2. ANZ Bank: Account number 01-1839-0188939-00. BIC/SWIFT code: ANZBAU3M
3. National Bank: Account number 06-0869-0548507-00. BIC/SWIFT code: ANZBNZ22

I haven't been able to go to the website of the New Zealand Red Cross. It seemed to be momentarily overloaded. But please do try it yourself.

You can also donate to Women's Refuge here.

You can also donate via GrabOne and 1-dayout.

Whatever charity or organisation you want to go through to make a donation, research them before you make contact to avoid the spammers that are already surfacing!

DONATIONS VIA TEXT MESSAGE

An easy thing to do if you are a Vodafone customer: text 'QUAKE' to 333 ($3) or 555 ($5) to DONATE to RED CROSS for Christchurch Emergency Appeal. 100% of funds go to the Red Cross. A $10 and $20 text donation will be launched on ALL networks later today. Check with your provider!

DONATING BLOOD

Before you go out to donate blood, contact your local blood bank or Red Cross office to make an appointment. Lots of people have already donated, so the blood banks are looking good. Give them a call first to make sure your blood is needed and that they have the resources to take it.

TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION

If you are in the Wellington region and have a spare bed or even a couch for Cantabrians being evacuated, please get in touch with the Wellington City Council at (04) 801 4205 or email CD.Welfare@wcc.govt.nz with your details.

If you are in the Auckland region please do the same by calling 0800 Auckland (0800 282 552).

Also, check out these Facebook pages here and here if you are looking for accomodation yourself or know someone who is.

MUCKING IN

If you're in Christchurch, check out the amazing work being done by the UCSA Student Volunteer Army here and join in!

Thank you for all your kind messages.

Kia kaha.

Christchurch earthquake

Snatching a quick moment in the airport to say thank you for all your kind messages - we managed to get in touch with most of our family and friends in Christchurch and, so far, they are all safe. I know not everyone has been as lucky. I'm traveling for the next couple of days - more when I get home.

Christchurch, we're thinking of you.

A nice, relaxing Bath

LOML and I are staying with family in Northern Ireland, and enjoying the rest, home-cooking and general coddling! We spent Thursday and Friday nights in Bath - on the Thursday was a reading at Topping and Company, a really gorgeous independent bookstore. They are so supportive of authors, new and established, and made me feel so welcome (the wine definitely helped). Thank you, Mark and Robert! And thanks also to everyone who came along that night - I met some lovely people. One lady had lived in Gweru in Zimbabwe (back when it was Gwelo in Rhodesia) and brought along a flame lily brooch from her time there to show me. It turned out to be an exact replica of a flame lily brooch that my great-grandmother bought while living in Rhodesia (which I inherited)! It was quite an amazing feeling seeing its doppelganger in a bookstore in Bath.




We went a bit crazy with our multiple photos of the books, but it was really exciting to see them piled high like this.

Bath was just beautiful, as always. I had been before but LOML hadn't, so I was able to show him about a bit. We went to the Baths, of course, and the Assembly Rooms, as well as local bookstores, charity stores and vintage shops. I bought a biography of Georgette Heyer from Topping and Co - I have loved her books since I was little, and I read and re-read them to soak up the language, high spirits and delicious comedy (I highly recommend them when you're feeling low!). Many of her Regency novels were set in Bath, or had a Bath excursion included somewhere in the plot, and although Jane Austen's spirit certainly still possesses the place, to me it always brings Georgette Heyer's strutting beaux and elegant ladies to mind.



Bath!

LOML being a Roman.

The classic arm's-length photo.

In the Costume Museum beside the Assembly Rooms. I liked the Miss-Havisham creepiness of all these wedding dresses together. Wouldn't want to be there at midnight.

I'm pretty sure this place was called Jack and Danny's - packed (literally) to the rafters! The Yellow Shop was my favourite Bath vintage store, though.

Just a couple more days in the UK, and then we're off home! I'm looking forward to having some time to reflect and process everything that has happened - and to seeing Mink, of course.

Stopping by

Snatching a quick moment in a Bath cafe to say that I'm sorry for the lack of blogging, emails and responses over the last few days - my Internet access is intermittent at best, and it has been a crazy week! I'll catch up with all technology-related things over the weekend when I get to Northern Ireland. Thank you for all your messages and comments, and I'll talk to you soon!

Andrea x

My beautiful great-grandmother

Wasn't she lovely?

First week in England!

Phew. So I'm staying with my grandparents down in Dorset, and LOML and I have a chance to relax and catch up on the sleep we lost during our crazy (but good) week in London. We had a few interviews lined up, and then a reading at Earlsfield Library on Thursday, the day of The Cry of the Go-Away Bird's release. We're here in Dorset for a few days, and then we head back to London for more events before travelling to Bath for Thursday's reading at Topping & Co. We finish our trip in Northern Ireland, visiting LOML's family. For now, though, I'm happy to eat home-cooked meals and shamelessly monopolise my grandparents' washing machine while catching up on some much-needed rest (why are beds always so much more comfortable in a parent's or grandparent's house than anywhere else in the world?).

I kept my BBC pass. I'm a geek.

Signing books in the Random House office.

A sign at the entrance to the library.

The lovely Robert saying a few words before I read.

Trying not to fall off my chair from sheer nerves.

A celebratory drink on the day of the launch!

Thank you so much to everyone at Earlsfield Library who was so warm and welcoming - and who made the reading much less terrifying than it could have been! They took such good care of me. Thanks also to everyone who came along: particularly Vikki, Jayne and Daniela, bloggy friends; Chibundu (whose own book, The Spider King's Daughter, is coming out next year); and my cousin Louise. The Harvill Secker team and my lovely agent Vivien were also there beaming calming thoughts at me from the front row and making sure that I didn't fall over.

Before catching our coach to Dorset, LOML and I wandered around Brick Lane for a while. There are dozens of wonderful vintage stores around the area, but my favourite was The Vintage Emporium on Bacon Street.


Gorgeous decor at The Vintage Emporium.


A pub lunch, and pea soup.

We also discovered a boutique, Lik & Neon, on Sclater Street that was populated by no less than four cats. I only managed to get a decent shot of two of them, but I think four shop cats is a terrific idea. One certainly isn't enough.


Sleeping by the cash register.

Thank you for all your comments and kind wishes while I've been away! (And apologies to anyone waiting for an email or for a reply to a comment - I'll probably only be able to respond when I get back to Texas.) There are an awful lot of thank-yous in this post, but here comes another one - thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of The Cry of the Go-Away Bird. I am planning a cunning and nefarious plan for all blog readers who have bought the book: stay tuned!

I'm off!

To London! See you on the other side of the Atlantic.

P.S. I'd love to see you at one of my readings if you can make it.

Snow! In Austin!

In. Sane.

Memories of church

We start going to a new church in Harare, and I start going to Sunday School.
“It’s good to go to church,” says Mum. She is zipping me into a pinafore dress. I hate wearing dresses. “It’s good for her,” she nods at me, “to go to church and get some idea of what’s right and what’s wrong.”
“Ja, well, I suppose it’s only an hour out of the day,” says Dad.
“Can I take a book to church?” I ask Mum.
“No.”
“Can I take a My Little Pony?”
“No.”
“Can I take ..”
“Agh, come on, man!” says Dad. “Just get in the bloody car and zip it.”
I consider snivelling, but decide against it. Dad’s face is red, which means it’s not a good idea to push him. We pile into the car with our Bibles and set off.

The church is old and its spire is not quite straight. I stare at it for a while, and when I look back down it seems like everything is slightly off-centre. There are lots of people parking their cars, walking to the church and chatting. I feel shy.
“Come on.”
Mum grabs my hand. She takes me to the church hall, where the Sunday school is. There are already lots of other kids there, all looking well-scrubbed and brushed, like me. I stand feeling stupid while Mum talks to the teacher, and then she goes away to the main church. She waggles her fingers at me and gives me a smile.
“Be good.”
I look at all the faces turned up to me.
“Sit down,” says the teacher, pointing to a spot on the carpet. I sit. The carpet smells like old people’s clothes.
The teacher sticks felt sheep onto a fuzzy board. She is telling us the parable of the Lost Sheep. We all have paper, coloured pencils and glue. When she finishes telling us the story, we can draw our own sheep to show to everyone back in the church. I want my sheep to have glitter in his wool, and after a brief argument the teacher opens the cupboard and gets out the glitter. Of course, after that everyone else wants glitter on their sheep as well, so the pot is in demand.
There is a poster of Jesus on the wall. He is wearing a white robe and has a soppy expression, and kids are climbing all over his knees. I have seen this picture before, and it means that Jesus likes kids. That is good to know. I colour my sheep in black, and scatter the glitter all around its edges. When I have finished, it is sparkling. I have drawn its eye at a funny angle, so it has a knowing expression.
“That’s a good sheep,” says the teacher. “Why did you make it black?”
“Because Jesus loves black sheep and white sheep equally,” I say. That is not really why. No one else was using the black crayon, so I didn’t have to fight for it. I know the teacher will like this answer, though.
“That is marvelous,” she says. She holds it up to show the others. “Would you tell everyone that in the church?”
“Okay.” I am regretting this now.
We troop into the church. All the adults look at us with aren’t-they-cute expressions. The old ladies make kissing faces. When we are standing right in the front, where the singers stood earlier, the teacher lowers the microphone down to my face and asks me to tell the congregation why I drew a black sheep. I tell them what I told her earlier, and everyone claps and smiles big white toothy smiles, and I go to join Mum and Dad in their pew. When I look behind us from our pew, which I am not meant to do, I can see all sorts of faces looking forwards. The church is an old stone one with big stained-glass windows. The sun shines through the windows and throws coloured patterns onto the floor and the people in the pews. If I move my hand a little to the left I can turn it green.

We sing a few hymns which I have heard before. I find it difficult to sing the hymns, because the words are strange and old and fit into the tunes in odd ways. Heaven becomes heav’n. Every becomes ev’ry. There are words like doth and whilst. The tunes are always too low or too high. An old woman sitting behind us sings in a thin, wobbly voice that is painful on the high notes. I start to giggle.
“Shhhh.” Mum is fierce. I try to hold the giggles in. If only the old lady would stop singing.

A group of people get up from the congregation and go to the front of the church. They stand in front of microphones, and a couple of them sling guitars across their chests. Someone sits down at a drum kit. There are a few strokes on the drum, the guitars start strumming and words are projected onto a big screen. Then the people at the front start singing, and after a moment the rest of us join in.
Jabulani, jabulani, Africa!
Sing for joy, oh Africa!
Perfect, throbbing harmonies that swell and carry the rest of the voices – the ones that are out of tune, the quavery old-lady voices, and the squeaky ones like mine. Every Jabulani echoes off the walls and back. I can feel my heart beating quickly in my throat, and I try to raise my voice up and up, above the roof, up to the sky where God must be looking down at all of us. I have never heard anything like this before.
When that song is finished, we start another.
Tinofamba kudzira dzashe!
Tinofamba kudzira dzashe!
We are marching in the light of God!
We are marching in the light of God!
I sing loudly and enthusiastically. Lots of people have started to clap. Some of them have started to raise up both their hands as if they are carrying invisible trays. Some of them have their eyes closed.
Someone in the congregation starts to ululate. It is a thrilling noise, like a war cry and a shout for joy and a song all at once. When she has finished, others start. I did not know that being a Christian could be this much fun.

After the singing, it is time to Offer One Another The Sign of Peace. This is where people have to clasp hands and say “Peace be with you.” In our old church Mum and Dad would shake hands with the people directly to the left and right of them, and that would be it. I wouldn’t have to do anything at all. But this church is different. People actually get up from their seats and start walking up and down the aisles shaking hands and talking to people. Some of them even hug. Dad has started pretending to adjust his watch. I know he is pretending because he has his watch set to perfect time and he won’t let anyone touch it, ever, in case it changes the time by a second or two.

I have never been so enthusiastic about God before. If we can dance and sing like this every week, I will not mind coming to church.

Where I write (and where you write)

I wrote a piece for Book Trust here describing my writing space. I always pictured a 'proper' writer's room as being lined with leather-bound books and rich mahogany (thanks, Ron Burgundy), perhaps with a hunting dog snoozing in front of the fire. And a tray of port and sherry. I might be confusing writers' rooms with stately homes circa 1900. Anyway. I like my little orange room and the unhealthy amounts of coffee I consume there. The only thing missing from the picture is Mink, who would usually be sitting next to me writing his memoirs.

Where do you write? Do you have a defined space? When I'm not here, I'm at coffee shops annoying waiters by ordering one cup of coffee and sitting there for two hours. Do you like to work at home, or do you prefer to go somewhere else?

Here comes February!

"So what are we to do with our dispositions? How are we to protect ourselves, our shivering, naked selves from our sensitivity to all that is? I think the only answer, if there is one, is this: we wrap ourselves in the writing. The work itself is our cloak and our shield. It's all we've got. And the rest of it is none of our business." - Dani Shapiro, taken from here.

Phew. It has been a crazy couple of weeks. And it's just going to get crazier. I'm saying goodbye to Gran-nan and saying hello to my book as it appears on shelves (just over a week away, now). These are the last few days of relative calm before we fly out into a flurry of events, interviews and time spent wedged under someone's armpit on the London Tube. I have mentioned this before on the blog, but I have had panic attacks and anxiety disorder for a really long time now, and I can get myself tied up in macrame-like knots in stressful, busy situations if I'm not careful (which I try to be). The book will be out next week. I'm excited, but nervous too. People will read it. Some will like it, some will love it, some will be indifferent, some will absolutely hate it and many of them will want to tell me so. I will meet people who have read or want to read my book (I am really looking forward to this). I will also meet other writers, who understand this particular brand of crazy better than anyone (I am really looking forward to that too). LOML and I will spend time with our families, as well, and try to find quiet moments in all the busy-ness to remember someone who just departed.

Here's my plan for maintaining sanity: take naps whenever possible (even when wedged in the aforesaid Tube armpit). Keep my sense of humour. And, most importantly, keep writing. My laptop is coming with me, and I know that, in order to stay sane, I'll need to disappear into it now and then.

(And you guys help too).

P.S. Thank you so much to those who commented on yesterday's post - I'm replying to all the comments gradually. I can't tell you how interesting and how much fun it is to find out about you all. If you haven't said hello yet, the post is here - and it's worth reading through all the comments, because there are some really amazing people in there.