Bumped into Victoria Hislop the other day (as one does!)

Oh did I nearly forget to mention that I bumped into Victoria Hislop out doing her Christmas shopping in Tunbridge Wells with husband Ian last Sunday, just like any other regular couple? It must have completely slipped my mind! There I was in the i-Store about to be given a demonstration of the Bose Companion 2 computer (and i-pod) speakers when who should walk in but Victoria, closely followed by Mr. Hislop.  I'd already committed myself to saying hello before noticing, in the corner of my eye, that Ian was there so I didn't get the chance to be introduced as he was gone again in a flash. How the heck would the nearly famous Tonbridge-educated author have known Tonbridge Blog anyway? I sense you all wondering. Well she was kind enough to do a book signing in Mr. Books shop about 18 months ago and she spent a couple of hours talking to me on and off as she signed away. On Sunday she probably thought, at first, who's this nutter staring at her (and to be honest it took me a couple of minutes for me to get past the "Where do I know her from?" stage before it clicked.) We're not quite on media luvvy kiss of each cheek (moiw moiw)  terms but I did shake her hand and have a brief chat. More importantly I also managed to get a little nugget of information out of her regarding her third novel that she's been writing for the past year or so (you can't rush the creative mind you know!) It is pretty much finished and should be published in the middle of next year all being well. Victoria had rave reviews of her debut novel The Island and pretty good ones for the follow up The Return so she must be feeling the pressure somewhat for the third one (title??) I asked her if she'd do another signing maybe at next year's Tonbridge book fair or arts fest but she wasn't making any commitments. Still it was nice to see her again....