A Brit Abroad…The Provincetown Episode

A little over a week ago we got back from Provincetown after taking a flight from Boston to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Norwich. The luggage decided to stay in Amsterdam for the day before finally coming home at around ten pm. Man were we jet lagged waiting for those bags to arrive. But I’m starting at the back end when I should start at the beginning. So, let me take you back to the start of the week…

Landing at Logan airport we were a little tired but excited about the trip, everything went smoothly, even though the wait to get through customs felt like an entire day taken out of our trip. We claimed our baggage, found the car rental desk and Louise asked for a stick shift car. The lady behind the counter looked like she wanted to laugh when she told us they didn’t have any. Louise said she didn’t mind waiting, then looked like she was going to cry when the woman said that as a company…they didn’t have any.

It wasn’t a great start.

When we got to the car park with all the cars in there were none available of the kind she’d ordered so they offered us a free upgrade. Really nice, excellent customer service, except it was a minivan and Louise was…we’ll call it apprehensive…about driving such a large vehicle, with no gear stick, on the wrong side of the road, in the dark, when she didn’t know where she was going. So we waited for them to find something else. Then something else. Then she cried and they found something else until eventually we ended up with a Kia something or other and set off out of the airport.

The route on the map we printed off looked simple enough, and the lady behind the rental desk offered us some advice too. But…have you ever watched The Amazing Race? You know how they all come tearing out of the car park and jump in cars and no one ever seems to know what they’re really doing, and then they have a great big argument because one person says go right and the other says go left, and what you really need to do is just go straight? Well, that was us. And there was the near collision with a tunnel wall…minor detail really. Oh and the traffic was not, erm, very forgiving. I offered to drive at one point and was told not to be stupid, I’d just end up in agony with my shoulder again. Which is true enough, but it led to another round of Amazing race like arguments. We did however survive the journey out of Boston–just–and thought we were doing really well until we came upon a ‘rotary’. We call them roundabouts over here and boy did that thing jump out of the dark on us. I swear anyone watching us would have died laughing when we almost went round it the wrong way.

We finally made it to Provincetown and The Crowne Pointe Historic Inn. It was lovely. But it was even more lovely to be out of the car. We unpacked in five minutes flat, and went out for pizza slices at Spiritus. Mmmmm, Spiritus. *drooling.

Wednesday morning we had a little wander around and started scouting shops with especially nice looking items in. Many of which seemed to follow me home, funny that. 😀 Before we eventually arrived at Gabriels for my first reading for Women’s Week. The one and only Carsen Taite was put in charge of herding this particular event…I mean Carsen was the moderator on the panel called OMG That’s So You! And on the panel was D. Jackson Leigh, I. Beacham, Jamie Maddox, and Shelley Thrasher.

Thursday was a really busy day. Starting with a reading for the Golden Crown Literary Society at The Sage Inn. RJ Samuels and Kate Maclachlan were on the panel with me, and Mercedes Lewis hosted a wonderful event.

A quick jog over to Gabriel’s followed for the panel that had been making me nervous for weeks. Radclyffe, D. Jackson Leigh, Vk Powell, Rachel Spangler, Melissa Brayden and myself were captained by Justine Saracen on the good ship Erotic Mind. My hands shook, my knees trembled, and I. Beacham hid in the other room out of sheer embarrassment. Thanks for the support ‘mate’. Lol. It was a very well attended and hilariously funny panel. Below we have a picture of our motley crew at the signing at Recovering Hearts.

All told this was the funniest panel to be involved with and I have to thank Sandy for dropping me in the shit…I mean inviting me to be a part of this one.

Later we had a meet and greet at the Harbour Lounge with a lovely spread. I gave the strangest music lesson of my life out on the pier to a lady called Shannon when I headed out to take some pictures of the sunset. Shannon, if you read this, I hope your son appreciates your hardwork. And don’t forget FACE and Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit.

Now we come to Friday. Friday I didn’t have any readings or signings so Louise and I had decided we wanted to go and spend the day in Boston. The driving though had put Louise off a little, so we drove part way and jumped on the first tram we could. We left before eight in the morning and didn’t get back until after eleven, I had blisters on my feet we did so much walking, but it was fantastic. I took about 600 pictures of Harvard, MIT, Quincy Market hall, The Science Museum, Tram stops (research for Swordfish, not a fetish), the sailboats and rowers on the Charles River, and some of the famous sights of the city (yes, I do include the Cheers bar in that). We also may have done a little bit of shopping here and there. The Harvard store, the MIT store, The apple store, The Oakley store at the Prudential Mall, and a few other places. I think I've increased my wardrobe size substantially. So much so that Louise has issued me a challenge. If I wear a different piece of clothing everyday…how long does it take before I have to do laundry. I think I may actually be at around six to eight weeks now. That's not too bad, right? Oh, and she's taking bets, contact her for more information and odds. 😉

Saturday was the last day of readings and signings. We were in the Provincetown Library and Vk Powell went into full cop mode trying to coral us all on the When Sparks Fly panel. Shelley Thrasher drafted in the considerable theatrical talents of Melissa Brayden and Carsen Taite to play characters in her reading. Carsen was meant to be playing a French woman but she had a decidedly German accent. It was hilarious. Truly, I have never seen anything like it in my life and everyone was almost falling off their chairs laughing. I was up next and read from my upcoming novel Nightingale. At the end of the reading you could hear a pin drop. Tense. Also on the panel was Rachel Spangler, and YA authors Nora Olsen, Jen Lavoie, and Elizabeth Wheeler. Really funny and interesting readings. There’s some great YA material coming through, I was really impressed.

Then it was time for my BSB hazing apparently. http://goo.gl/8efbA0 Carsen and Vk dragged me away from the library. This is the result. Lol. Thank you, ladies, it was actually a really good interview. And I only felt a teeny tiny bit cross examined.

That night we joined Rachel and her family for dinner along with Jen and Melissa at The Pig. Oh my word that chicken was good. I felt like I was going to pop.

It was amazing to finally be able to meet some of the wonderful writers, editors, proof readers, and behind the scenes people who help make Bold Strokes Books the company it is turning out some of the best LGBTQ fiction in the world. I still have to pinch myself when I think that I’m a small part of that.

Sunday I got up for the sunrise, I wanted to get pictures from the broken pier as the sun came up. It was pretty magical, then we toured around the cape before going on a Whale watching trip. Sum total of the whales we saw…0. Apparently that puts us in the 1% club. They did give us free tickets to go again. So, in a few years time when we go back, we’ll try again.

Yep, that’s me saying we will go again in a few years time. Don’t want you getting to used to the accent–it’ll lose it’s appeal then. 😉

A very busy week and I’m sure over the next few days I’ll think about some of the specific conversations I had there and tell you a little about them as I get to it. Right now I have the last twenty pages of Swordfish to do the final check on before I turn it over to my lovely editor.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you later.

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