Fairy Tales and Elderflower Fizz

Thanks for visiting the 'start the week' edition of Home Thoughts Weekly. This week I'm starting with something to read and a drink to go with it.

I’m thrilled to bits to share the news that my novella, Only True in Fairy Tales, is available now, a week before the paperback publication of my full length novel, Follow A Star on 7 July. And just look at that cover (another stunner from Berni Stevens)!

My stories, long or short, always begin with an image. For many years now, I’ve been watching a black rescue greyhound, Gracie, in my mind’s eye. Add to this image a house, a Gothic curiosity on the edge of the Downs where I grew up. And another house, a Victorian cottage, the house I really did grow up in, also on the edge of the Downs. Go to the front bedroom, the one I shared with my sister, where I would sit for hours staring out the window, watching the thoroughbred babies in the racing stables opposite being put through their paces. And snuffling round the house somewhere is a very naughty miniature dachshund who hunts and destroys discarded footwear, shoe laces, coat buttons, boxes of Maltesers and an entire dolly family. Allow these images to swirl around until they settle, then add a sleeping beauty – who has a very good reason to believe love is only true in fairy tales and a handsome stranger… but is he a prince or a beast in disguise? And those are the foundations for my novella, Only True in Fairy Tales.

And now some fizz to go with it. You can find lots of recipes for Elderflower champagne but here's how ours went in pictures:

Gather elderflower heads

Lemons, water, sugar, yeast

Add the washed flower heads. Do the steeping and fermentation bit.

Strain (the mixture - not yourself) Then add a little more sugar.

Leave for at least a week.

And enjoy!