London, ITV, Dundee and the Titanic

It's been one of those weeks. I went to London on Monday for a meeting, followed by the London Book Fair on Tuesday and then some filming for ITV's This Morning on Wednesday. Back home Wednesday evening to pick up one of our dogs from the vet in Berwick-upon-Tweed (she's fine) and then a trip to Dundee on Thursday. The drive north would have been easier had our main car not been at the garage in Edinburgh having a leaky sunroof fixed. This necessitated taking the Landrover the 120 miles to the home of marmalade and cake.

I was in Dundee to meet someone I'm working with on a TV project and in a separate meeting someone on another book project; both meetings were great. The drive home as relatively easy but by the time I got back around 9 p.m. I was knackered. Yesterday it was back to the day job of writing....as it will be all weekend to make up some lost time.

Simon Welfare, who I met with in Dundee, sent me this great little poem.

THE DOG FROM THE TITANIC


They said she would never sink, that great ocean liner,
Titanic in name and ambition, faster and finer
Than all other ships ever built, ever designed for ocean-going glory.

But then, of course, you know that part of the story.

Have you heard more? Of three passengers and a dog,
Each named, when the journey started, in the purser’s log,
Each named again as survivors after the iceberg struck?

What do you think protected them? Fate, cunning, or luck?

What did it think of, that dog, amidst the horror and panic and dark?
Did it smell the fear of its owners, did it break the shocked silence and bark,
Or did it wait, tremulous, trusting, certain that rescue would come,

And wonder why dogs and not humans were the creatures thought of as dumb?