Stanfords here we come.

Life has been even more frantic than usual, with (among other things) our eldest daughter's wedding (marquee and other delights in the garden), involving days of preparation and celebration, not to mention monumental clearing up afterwards. Iestyn then immediately disappeared to Kenya to deal with his charity Challenge Aid, leaving me to deal with a houseful of bed and breakfast guests.

As a result, I have not blogged about the Welsh launch of the book which was held at the Confucius Centre in the University of Wales, Lampeter - very apt, as it was where I took my first classes in Mandarin Chinese in preparation for the ride.
 A big thank you to my cousin Sir David Lewis, coincidentally Lord Mayor of London at the time I started the ride, for giving such an eloquent introduction.

He particularly referred to the tradition of travel and book writing in our Welsh family. My father Dr GED Lewis was a geography text book author and wrote a well received autobiography, and David has written several books on local history. Also thank you to friends, relatives and others for turning up and even forking out for a copy. Meirion Davies, head of Gomer publishing pointed out that both David and I had a mention in another book (Wales - China: 250 years of history) available for purchase at the same time!  

Thank you to Branwen and Krystyna for organising the event, and to Krystyna for her informed questions during the Q&A session.

We are now gearing up for the London launch of the book at Stanfords bookshop in Convent Garden at 7-8.15pm on Wednesday 22nd May.  Hope to see you there!

http://www.stanfords.co.uk/event-the-great-wall-of-china-on-horseback-58861408056

I am now a published author!

It has been a long time since I last posted on my blog, mainly because I have been using my The Long Horse Ride facebook page for keeping everyone up to date. So for those of you who are not avid followers of my facebook page, here is the latest news.

Over the last couple of years, quite apart from catching up with life at home, I have been writing up my travels, or at least the first leg.  Having sat down in front of my computer to bang the keys when I got the chance, I found that 55,000 words down the line I had not even reached the end of the Great Wall of China. Well it did take around five months to cover the 1,500 miles distance from end to end of the wall, not including time out for planning and injury, and this was quite a feat in itself.  The upshot is that my first book is an account of tackling this leg with all its setbacks and excitements, and it is unsurprisingly called, wait for it, 'In the Shadow of the Great Wall'.

As both my cameras were out of action at the time and I had to rely on my mobile phone, here is a rather hazy photo of the proud author with her first copy of the book hot off the press ..


...and a close-up I took on the way home to show my family....

It has been published by local printing and publishing company Gomer Press, and I am very grateful to my talented editor Rebecca John for helping me mould it into some sort of shape.  It is not a literary masterpiece, but hopefully will be entertaining for those who enjoy reading about unique adventures of this kind.

It is currently available on Amazon UK, but also via the Welsh Books Council who do not insist on the same mark up as Amazon.  The book launch is on Tuesday April 9th, and it should be available via good book shops after that.  It will be stocked in the premier travel bookshop Stanfords, and there will be another book launch and signing there on Wednesday May 22nd 7-8.15.