Another Prize!

I got home from doing the shopping, the usual trawl around the local supermarket to get all the stuff we ran out of during the month, like pasta and rice and lasagne sheets, to find a letter on the front door mat.

The letter was from the Tyrone Guthrie Centre to tell me that I was the recipient of the Annie Deeny Prize for 2008/09. What does this mean?

Well, in their own words: The Annie Deeny Memorial Prize was launched by distinguished poet Fleur Adcock in May 2004. Mrs Annie Deeny was a teacher and mother of six children who, although she wrote, never sought to have her work published. This perpetual prize is in her memory to encourage someone in a similar situation to write and to publish. It provides a two-week residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig.

Ironic, that I too have six children, isn't it? So, I'm now getting a total of four weeks away this year to write: on my ownsome...and no food to worry about... Just as well my husband is taking me out to dinner tonight: now we have more to celebrate!