Home Thoughts Weekly

Tom’s reassured me that we can turn back at any point, but as we head out to sea for the first time in a couple of years, I take deep, calming breaths and try not to think about being sick. Goodness knows, I’ve coped with long passages of offshore sailing - albeit with my head in a bucket - but as we’ve spent the last few summers pleasantly pottering up and down Milford Haven it’s been a while since my stomach’s been put to the test of rolling waves. We’re heading for Skokholm, a tiny island just off the Pembrokeshire coast, a Site of Special Scientific Interest which is a haven for seabirds. If all goes well, we’re planning to circumnavigate the island and negotiate the worryingly named Wild Goose Race tidal stream. So far, so good. It’s a glorious day and to crown it all I spot … ‘A puffin! A puffin!’. Actually, they’re dotting the waves everywhere we look; little splashes of colour with beaks full of sand eels to feed their chicks. But can I capture a photo of one? Nope, they mu...

Are you in the mood for love? I’m optimistically hoping that you are and that the power of love which brought everyone together for Meghan and Harry’s big day might send one or two of you in the direction of my new novella, Moonbeams in a Jar which is released tomorrow, 22 May. The premise for this story is that love arrives unexpectedly, often inconveniently and rarely according to plan... rather like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. I’m a very visual writer in the sense that ideas often come to me like still pictures from a film and this a story I’ve wanted to write since I ‘saw’ Chloe, the heroine, sitting at the end of a wooden pontoon with Wilma, her dachshund, beside her. How, I wondered, could I make her and the handsome bearded man heading towards her with his dog, Fred, see that they were right for each other? As regular readers of this blog will know, I also love writing about places; I’ve been lucky enough to visit Hong Kong so some of our experiences there ma...

Snowdrops at Llanerchaeron No winter lasts forever … and nor, thank goodness, does every lurgy. After ten weeks of wondering if I’ll stop coughing, the infection loses its grip and I’m well enough to tackle my first Park Run with Helen in the beautiful grounds at Llanerchaeron . Park Run, of course, is not a race but it doesn’t stop Helen and I blatting along each week in pursuit of new PBs. Tom and I have both been busy at work. One week there’s a strange juxtaposition when I proofread my novella and then check Tom’s draft thesis! I begin ‘ Cyborg Music:A Future Musicotechnographic Aesthetic’ with some trepidation about how I’ll cope with the deep philosophical concepts but by the end I’m fully on board and bursting with pride. Tom makes his final amendments and takes three copies to the post office where he pays a whopping £15 to send it on its way. Now ‘all’ he has to do is sit back and wait for the date of his Viva Voce… Lily’s second baby is due… ooh… tomorrow, so exc...