This evening I was googling the title of my new book to see whether it was on Amazon yet (it is), when I came across a link to a major poetry competition, The Margaret Reid (which is entered by thousands of poets) and into which I had entered six of the poems from my manuscript last year. To my surprise and delight, all six poems had received Commendations! They were:

Reflections on Healing

Messages in Water

Wind Voyager

Eternal Sparrow

Sonnet: Beyond, Behind, Before, Above

The Wonderful Wizard.

I feel very pleased with myself. I wish I had checked months ago. I could have been insufferably smug for soooooo much longer!

One of my clients has a son who regularly visits the States. She is ordering the book and organising him to collect it on his next trip. Friends are telling me that they are forwarding on the press release to their friends, too. I popped in to my local booksellers, Muswell Hill Books, and the lovely manager, Tim Robinson, remembered me from my last book. A Year Of Spirituality: a seasonal guide to new awareness had sold very well, he remembered, and is going to order lots of copies of Eternal Sparrow for the shop.

We are beginning to meet potential students for next year's course of Soul Therapy. Kathryn has met a gynaecologist who sounds very interested in acquiring a nationally accredited qualification in healing, which is what the course centres around. I have met a couple of jewellers and a Feng Shui Consultant who are also very interested and can see the benefit of adding healing and psychotherapy as well as a knowledge of other major subtle energy techniques (which combination defines Soul Therapy) to enrich their work. We are delighted that last year our curriculum and the standard of our tutors were accepted by UK Healers (National Professional body) as having reached the highest level (Stage 4) of national accreditation for professionally qualified spiritual healers.