Home Thoughts Weekly

... I am up to them today. In view of author blog nomination thingy should probably be jumping up and down doing the 'oooh, look at me!' bit, but not v.comfortable doing that sort of thing anyway. However, I have joined my fellow Choc Lit authors for a blog on how we got started. There are photos too. Sigh.

... can be seen at Choc Lit's Book Club this month.

I’ve been a right old Grotbags this week. After the excitement of an imminent offer on our house at the end of last week which failed to materialise after our prospective buyer’s sale fell through, it was back to the trauma of showing folks round. ‘Oh, we’re cool about the social housing opposite,’ say the latest couple. I point out that the ‘social’ houses are affordable homes for key workers namely one teacher, one deputy head and a local government officer, but I can see they’re not convinced. A little later the estate agent phones to tell me that the couple like the house but ‘can’t say’ why it’s not for them. Well, I can. People, do your homework first and get real! The fact is that even in this part of the world you will not get a house this size and six acres of land in the middle of nowhere unless you have a much bigger budget or a time machine. Grrr! Key worker homes are out then . But what about chickens? Surely it’s nice to have a few chickens in the garden? Well, y...

The way things have been this week I’m going to consult the wise and witty Little Brown Dog in her astrology mode to see if pesky planet Mercury is misbehaving again. Now one of the ‘rules’ of story-telling is the rule of three, you know the one. The eldest princess sets out to save the people and comes to grief in the deep, dark woods. The middle princess sets off and has such a good time she forgets about the people. And so it’s left to the plucky youngest princess to do the decent thing, complete the trial and save the people. (As the member of the family most likely to come to grief, I used to get rather fed up on behalf of the eldest princess). Lately, life has been a fairy tale in many ways, but it’s also true to say this week has thrown up its share of frustrations. Monday saw me slaving over hot edits only to find that some naughty hand in cyberspace had performed some evil trickery which meant that I was busily editing the wrong version. Eeek! At the same time I was also t...

‘Well,’ said a friend, recently. ‘I suppose you’re just sitting round waiting for the book to come out now.’ Hmm, not quite. To be fair to her, I didn’t quite realise that having a novel accepted is just the first part of the process. Although you have to allow yourself a little time to enjoy that lovely warm glow, there’s plenty to get on with like cover designs, copy edits and (blush) PR stuff. There’s also the next book to write and, in my case, the final pieces of OU work to complete. I do feel as if someone just pressed the Busy Button, but, having ached for this for so long, I’m enjoying every moment. And talking of buttons , Jenson Button features in the Choc Lit Author's Corner today. I’m still flying the flag for rugby but Christina and Sue are trying to persuade me that there’s magic in Formula 1. I don’t know about fast men (or if I do I’m not saying here) but my 76 year-old Ma won a supermarket sweep which took place this morning. ‘Oh,’ said Ma on being inform...

If you've been wondering where all the good men come from, wander over to Choc Lit Author's Corner where we've been writing about where we find ours... Hmm, some of those good men are a tad naughty though.

Look! Wasn’t it lovely of Debs and JJ to send this to me? Thank you! There are a few rules that come attached to it: 1. Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers. 2. Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award. 3. Every Prolific Blogger must link back to This Post , which explains the origins and motivation for the award. 4. Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky so that we all can get to know the other. I'm passing it on to: Mountainear for her high spots of life from the top of a low mountain. gaelikaa for her diary of east/west life. Fennie for a 'rag bag of odds and ends' where you'll always find something interesting. Preseli Mags for her writings about life in the Preseli Hills... and because I can almost wave to her. Cottage Garden for poetry on a Monday and for a blog that's visually stunn...

First of all, I’d like to say a very big thank you to those of you who have so kindly pre-ordered Turning The Tide . I especially appreciate that vote of confidence because the book’s not even due out until June. It means a lot because I really enjoyed writing the novel so it feels lovely to have that support. Also, I became very attached to the characters and very much hope that you will enjoy meeting them too. I understand that at some point yesterday the system had a Funny Five Minutes and the pre-orders got thrown around a bit. The problem’s been identified and my Amazon entry should be back to normal soon. But, just so you know, Turning The Tide is also available for pre-order at W H Smith's , Tesco and The Book Depository (free postage). And talking of funny five minutes ,Tom and I went to his uncle’s 80th birthday party last weekend. We had a lovely time, but, rather like those lost tribes, we don’t mix with many large groups of people now and have both gone down wit...