A Literary Legend and one big twit!

I now have proof that London isn’t the centre of the universe and that many exciting things happen elsewhere.

For this example I will pick the city of Durham at 9am on Tuesday 3rd March 2009. That would be when I met Bill Bryson.

For the promotion of the Bill Bryson Bag, Bill himself popped in to the uni library to do a few publicity shots. It was his first glimpse of the bag and he likes it. He is a wonderful lovely man (to quote one friend “the man has the soul of santa claus”) and was happy to sign a few bags and books.



As he was leaving I was made up to hear him say something along the lines of “Great to meet you Helen. Of course with you working in the library I’ll see you around again soon” (Bill comes to the library on occasion to do research). Lo and behold today when I was off on my lunchtime jaunt who should I bump into but Mr Bryson. I said hello and had a brief chat with him. I wonder how many times you have to talk to someone before you can officially classify them as a friend?

I’m getting a bit of a kick out of the whole bag thing – it’s lovely to be able to do creative stuff and get paid for it. And also is fantastic to see people reading things I’ve written. Or looking at the Waterstone’s window display Lisa put together. I could on occasion be described as ever so slightly over excited about the whole thing!



My week has not only been about the thrill of meeting a literary legend. It has also involved a new addiction. Twitter. As a result of my injury and spending Friday sat on the sofa watching endless episodes of Gilmore Girls (another addiction) I decided to give the Twitter thing another go. My first attempt had been as a result of Chris Moyles (ChrisDJMoyles) and to be honest I just didn’t get it. But with time on my hands and a very well timed ‘followfriday’ by Phillip Schofield (Schofe) I made a few friends with tweeple and now I’m one big twit!

Now I have lots of new Twitter friends. I’ve met fellow Thornber’s. There are a few Liverpool supporters to chat to during matches (and a few Man U supporters to give us abuse). Four of us have even started a Twitter Book Club!

Anyway it’s time for me to go and make cakes for the infamous ‘Cake Friday’ at in Library Land. I will be Twitpic-ing my progress. My very own Twookery show! Follow me if you dare twitter.com/helenthornber.

No excuses!

There is no excuse! I have taken a three-month break from a blog I started four and half months ago. Even worse the thing that has finally got me blogging again is that I have an unplanned free weekend after I had a rather spectacular engagement with a pavement (there was blood, now there is pain).

I am now living in Durham. I have a lovely job working with lovely people and every Friday is ‘Cake Day’… next Friday it’s my turn to make cakes!

My favourite thing about Durham is the scenery and getting to walk to work through the countryside and along the river. It looks so pretty in the snow!







As for the three months you missed…

The first month was hectic. Travelling round the UK and Christmas.

The second month was hectic. Moving to Durham and starting a new job.

The third month was hectic. My sister and her family moving to Durham and lots of babysitting.

The fourth month is looking a bit calmer. So blogging and getting on with other writing projects is on the cards! As well as the fact that hopefully something very very exciting is happening on Tuesday and if it does (fingers and toes crossed!) I want to tell everyone about it!!!

p.s. I've also discovered twitter twitter.com/helenthornber

What a week!

Tuesday night was my leaving do with my team and it was so much fun. We did a quiz at a wine bar and came 4th. Not bad eh?! Well it is when there are only four teams. But we enjoyed the wine, and the competition. The snow started whilst we were in a pub down the road, which turned Joann and I into a pair of kids for a couple of minutes whilst we ran outside, made snowballs and threw them at people (we knew) inside the pub.


On Friday I was in Durham for an interview at the University Library. I obviously impressed them as I got offered the job! I’ll start in January so I have a couple of months to get myself sorted with a place to live and to move up there. I am very excited indeed about this adventure. I just need to find some new friends up there!

Back to London on Saturday, the train journey flew by thanks to the wonders of technology, talking to a friend in China on Skype from a train somewhere between Durham and London. It’s amazing that it’s so easy to keep in touch these days. Another perk to the journey was that my general buzz from having a new job was added to by a compliment from one of the train staff who said that my smile had made his day!

Saturday night was Danielle’s Halloween party. Despite minimal effort and cost (£1.50 for a witch’s hat) I was quite impressed with my outfit. It was a fantastic party with many friends. However on Sunday I wasn’t feeling quite so great (two hangovers in one week is not something that has happened for a LONG time). Sunday was spent catching up on Gilmore Girls followed by The Omen. We were planning to watch all four, but after the second we weren’t convinced it was going to get that much better so we gave up on movie watching and ordered Chinese!


It’s only 9 days until New York, which means only 8 days until I need to move out of my house. As Thursday and Friday will be spent on yet more leaving parties I better get myself into gear and start packing tonight!