Julie and I arrived in Menton on the Cote d'Azur on Thursday night at 6pm, after spending 5 days in Paris. We hadn't organised anywhere to stay and didn't even really know where the conference was being held so bought a map at the train station and tried to work out what to do! We had a tent with us because we have little to no money left and thought that camping would be the best thing. In the end a taxi driver told us about the cheapest hotel in town, which happened to be right near the venue, and even though it was officially full they let us stay in a room they don't usually rent (it didn't have a number on the door or anything) for a reduced rate. That night we feverishly went over our lines and had the usual pre-show panics etc. We walked to Italy (!) to calm ourselves down and looked out on the beautiful sparkling sea and the breathtaking town of Menton, clinging onto the cliff face! Amazing.

The conference was held in the Villa Maria Serena, right near the Italian border, a very large and beautiful house with large rooms, French doors, high ceilings, ornate staircase, etc etc. The first few sessions included a reading of a short story by Kirsty Gunn (Kirsty read it herself which was a real treat) and some academics reading papers, including one on Mansfield and Austen - "A Decorous Elderly Dullard?" - and one on Mansfield and Chaucer and their shared use of the caged bird (Chaucer's crow and Mansfield's canary). Vincent O'Sullivan, the most highly respected Mansfield scholar, made a keynote address which was also quite special to be present for.

We performed straight after lunch. I gave a quick 'address' about the Theatre of the Winged Unicorn, the Studio, the three performances of Something Childish in June, Alard, etc. We performed in front of the long conference panel table in a space about 2m deep and 4m long. I opened with the "There is truly nothing worse..." bit and then did the "It is a hopelessly insipid doctrine that love is the only thing in the world...", then Julie did her wonderful 'Taking the Veil', then I did 'The Thistle Hotel' (Alard performed that at home), then Julie did 'Love and Mushrooms' and I ended with 'one must keep ever present a sense of humour'. Allup it took about 20 minutes or so and was very well received. Someone called for an encore!! Gerri Kimber, the organiser of the conference, suggested to the delegates that they take a collection considering we'd paid our own way - we were rather embarrassed but grateful for the 140 euros they donated to us!!! Almost $300 in Australian money.... very helpful as it paid for the hotel, dinner and a bottle of wine to celebrate, and more left over for our train tickets out of Menton.

They laughed in all the right places and clapped at the end of our two monologues and really seemed to hang on to every word.

The comments we had were that the academics see people perform as Katherine and Katherine's works very often but usually find it pretentious. They said we had an honesty, joy and wit about us that they haven't seen before. I think they found it refreshing that young people are so interested in her. Overall we were very relieved and pleased that they seemed to enjoy it so much. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, that's for sure - I felt so very close to Katherine there, it was very emotional and mind-blowing!!

Afterwards we walked up to the Villa Isola Bella with Janine Renshaw-Beauchamp, Katherine's great-niece. The Isola Bella is where Katherine lived in Menton and there are plaques and photographs of her outside. It was quite special to be there with one of Katherine's relatives too.

That night we flung ourselves into the sparkling sea and ate pizza and drank rose and ordered dinner in French and icecream in Italian!!