Waterstones have been doing Meet the Authors evenings for their loyalty cardholders, with mulled wine and mince pies, which I think is a great idea. There was one last week in Belfast and Lisburn are doing one on Wednesday. Anyway, before the Belfast one I e-mailed Geoff Hill, whose highly entertaining book The Road To Gobblers Knob, about his journey by motorbike from Chile to Alaska, came out shortly after The Blue Cabin, to ask if he was going along and there followed this short literary exchange between two serious writers (I should explain that Rabbie is our West Highland terrier):-

MF: ‘Hello Geoff,Long time no speak…Watersones…Blackstaff…blah blah…Lynn says Hi – couldn't make out what Rabbie said but I think it was something similar.
Mike’

GH: ‘Mike. Good to hear from you man…What time does it start? Say hi to Lynn and snurflewurfle to Rabbie, since it's important to talk to dogs in a language they understand.
G’

MF: ‘It’s 6.00 – 8.00pm Geoff. See you then.Mike
PS: I said snurflewurfle to Rabbie and he said, 'Yeah, then what happened?'’

GH: ‘That dog's a genius. Tell him the rabbit turned out to be a double agent, so the cat was innocent after all, hard though that may be to believe for a dog.
G’