The day of my Salt Day readings yesterday dawned well. Okay, so I wasn't actually up that early but it was a sunny start and got even better when the post thudded through the letter box and I found two of my poems in the new writer.

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If I'm honest, the real confidence boost about reading on Salt Day (this was my third year) is being asked. It's very flattering. Most people at the festival though are passers by. It's not an arts festival. There's a lot of stuff for the kids, lots of stalls, lots of food. Music works great for people to stop and listen to. The poetry is okay. Obviously, it's not everyone's cup of tea and you are competing against the noise of a busy moving crowd, but I try to choose my simpler, more humorous, rhyming etc poems and people will stop for a bit then move on. Reading from my short story Monday from Remarkable Everyday proved to be more difficult, as it's hard to grasp hold of a short story read aloud if you haven't heard it right from the start. Still, it's all good practice.

The highlight of the day for me though was when my son asked the night before if I would read a poem for him. This is my son who as a young toddler used to say things like: "Mummy, stop writing!" and "Mummy, I hate poems." I thought I'd put him off poetry and writing for life! It was great to see him enjoying both some of my poems inspired by him and the one silly children's poem I wrote for him. This also seemed to go down well with some of other children, which was nice, as knowing there would be children I'd also carefully weeded out some of my sadder and more grown-up subject matter poems!

Anyway, official part of the day over, we enjoyed the weather, chocolate waffles, Roman soldiers and bouncy slide before heading back to drop the kids off while we headed out for a meal at Browns in Worcester. Delicious!