London, short story comp success and bloody Shakespeare

Today I'll be mostly wearing soft slippers and drinking camomile tea (regards to the Fast Show).  Yesterday was a magical day in London attending a couple of exciting events with my better half and the boys and included hours of walking, as it always does, but this time  in ill-suited shoes. 
The two events kicked off with my luncheon date at the Ruth Rendell Short Story Awards in Kensington where I was awarded runner-up for my short story 'Race to the Shiny Trees'.  The competition is organised by a brilliant charity called Interact Reading (have a look at their website here), and the judging of the stories is done by the Baroness herself.  We got to meet her and lots of other interesting people from the charity and the literary world (only about 40 people in all but big and grand enough for me).  As well as winning the runner-up prize two other lovely things happened - firstly all three of the short-listed stories were read out loud by professional actors (you'll see why if you have a look at Interact's website) which was great to listen to, and secondly I met Nell Dunn, writer of the famous 'Up the Junction' back in the 1960s.  What a wonderfully gracious lady she is.
The afternoon was spent by the four of us walking our way around London, with stops for cream tea, and dinner later on, to eventually end up at the Globe Theatre to watch Titus Andronicus courtesy of our eldest who'd bought us standing tickets.  What an experience!  The Globe Theatre is amazing, you get a real feel of what it may have been like back in The Bard's day.  The actors were on a raised stage plus bits of the action took place among the standing audience which was great.  I'm not a fan of Shakespeare (I'm ready for the abuse - don't worry, lots of people over the years have tried to convince me of its cleverness), but I can admire the splendour of it all, and do enjoy reading and listening to selected passages. The story of Titus is full of murder and treachery, typical Shakespeare, but this one has lots, and I mean lots of murder.  The 'blood' was everywhere.  Well done Will, a great little short story!
Thanks family for a lovely and exhausting day out.  And thanks Ruth for liking my story.