I had a fantastic weekend. Bright and early Saturday morning I set off for the capital. After fighting my way through the packed tube and throwing my bag down in my hotel room I went off to explore for a while as I had some hours to kill before the main event off my visit.

So, trotting around the British Library I found the first item in my title, yes, the TARDIS, sadly, the Doctor wasn’t home though!

Also I read this poem by Mervyn Peake which I found very apt.

So, I freshened up, hit the tube for a mercifully short journey and soon saw familiar faces at the bar across the road from SH! Hoxton.

I’m sure you recognise my face on the left of the photo, then we have KD Grace, Kay JayBee, Jacqueline Applebee, Lexie Bay, Justine Elyot & husband and Janine Ashbless. Some I’ve met before and a couple were new friends who’s company I thoroughly enjoyed.

So as time ticked on we headed over the road the the light, bright pink of SH! Inside waited the lovely Lucy Felthouse (a listener for the evening just like me) with Rebecca Bond and the phototastic Parv Roopray. I met yet more new people. A lovely reader named Liz as well as Rubyyy Jones, a vision in red and Suzanne Portnoy and many more. It was certainly a hot a steamy night down those SH! stairs…

And then there was the hot weather too. ;)

Rachel Kramer Bussel kicked off her evening with a racy reading of one of her own stories and then the assembled readers read stories or excerpts from stories found in Rachel’s anthologies like Gotta Have it, Orgasmic and Smooth.

All the readings were brilliant and apart from the odd chuckle (Sex can be funny and funny is definitely sexy!) the room was silent as each proud author took to the stage, well it was a pink sofa actually but you know what I mean.

It was a brilliant night and I heartily thank the SH! girls for all their hospitality, they have big hearts and easy laughs. I can see I will have to find an excuse to visit them again very soon!

I had further fun with a group of lovely smut writers over at Pizza express just up the road from SH! Hoxton. Great service by the way! As I munched yummy pizza and decadent cheesecake the conversation flowed and as several people remarked it was lovely to feel somewhat normal for a change! I could talk sex and writing and these wonderful people understood me and often had felt the same things too. A glorious thing to experience I can tell you.

And we covered some interesting topics of conversation. How to make bath bombs, the ‘joy’ of visiting a cinema full of rowdy kids, hot male bods, Erotica London (the event), childhood sweets and, somewhat randomly, turtles. The time flew by and I just didn’t want to say goodbye at the end of it all. I had to though. I needed sleep and then to get home the next day…another 5 hour coach journey. Yep, I am mad.

So love and thanks goes out to every person who made this past weekend such fun. I can’t wait for the next time!