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Hurray! Tom has sold a painting! The lovely Martin, of Apple Gallery in Goldaming, phones with the good news. When we’ve finished dancing around the kitchen, Tom looks slightly crestfallen, ‘I like that painting,’ he says, before cheering up at the thought that he can now buy himself a new a bit of framing kit. I’m thrilled; I always think Tom deserves wider recognition so I love it when someone else acknowledges his talent, though it is an odd feeling when paintings disappear. I always hope they’ve gone to a good home where they’ll be cherished... and admired by the new owners’ friends who will rush out and buy more. The next day we set off in Lester-the Fiesta to rescue The Red Car, our Berlingo, which has been slowly nursed back to health by Dai-the-Garage. Dai can’t bring himself to say the words out loud when we ask how much it’s all cost, he just pushes the bill across the desk at us with a muttered apology. Sheesh! That wipes out the sale of Tom’s painting and another o...

I think I’ve found my mojo again , which is nice, isn’t it? It’s always a worry when you lose it, in case you can’t find it again, like a hamster disappearing under the floorboards. I remember cleaning out my hamster once (and it could only have been the once because normally I’d plead insanity or a year’s supply of homework when the cage got a bit whiffy until Dad caved in and did it), anyway, I thought I’d put the hamster in its playpod thingy, but when I turned round it was crouched next to me, watching me and I had to risk several fingers trying to catch it again. My friend, Susan’s, hamster staged a much more spectacular escape (but then it would because Susan led the technicolour, soundaround version of my life). Whereas my hamster was so dull I can’t even remember what it was called, Susan had a gorgeous, creamy-orange bundle of fluffy loveliness called Peachy. Because Peachy was so cute, Susan couldn’t bear to parted from her and when the family went to Longleat, Peachy wen...

‘Take it easy and writers.... write!’ That was the advice from fellow blogger and Novel Racer, Lisa Ratcliffe in her final blog. Lisa’s posts shone with a zest and a love for life even when she was so terribly ill. I’ve thought about Lisa a lot this week, and the family she left behind. In one of her last posts she wondered how many books she might have written if she’d ‘let it fly rather than immediately believing it to be crap and binning it’. It certainly struck a chord with me. So, I’ve got on with it; FTT is back out in the world and I’ve been getting on with some OU work. Letting fly with poetry has been very hard and I’m still circling warily round my next assignment but here’s a piece I wrote for a tutorial based on a photograph of a mother showing her daughter how to knit. The rules were that only two adjectives were allowed and no more than 30 minutes to be spent writing it (ok, I ran over on that by five minutes as it was so hard to let myself go in the time.) Cast...

A fragile and flickering little flame has been lighting my dark for the best part of ten weeks now. Ever since a real live editor asked to see the full script of ‘Fighting the Tide’ I’ve dared to hope that this time it was really going to happen. FTT’s got pretty close before, considering it hasn’t been spread very widely, so I know it’s got something going for it. And, indeed, the email that popped up on Friday seemed to confirm this; ‘…polished writing…wonderful characters…a talent for dialogue…very real location’ etc, and then ‘not the right time to take this book on.’ What? What seemed to have tipped the balance was the length of the book and one subplot too many ie the additions suggested by an agent to turn a simple love story into something ‘bigger and darker’! Well, that’s what I could tell myself but I suppose the truth is that I’m aiming at an already overcrowded market where being polished isn’t sufficient – you need an ‘X’ factor. And that’s exactly what Girls Aloud ...

Our Citroen is sick and Lester-the-Fiesta, our back-up banger, has also kicked up and demanded new, expensive parts. Just what we needed in January. Fortunately, my last couple of long runs have gone well, which is a blessed relief. Something which is proving an absolute joy , is the poetry component of my OU course. One of my reasons for studying creative writing was to work outside my usual areas and whilst I’ve always dabbled with poetry, it’s a long time since I’ve produced any for outside scrutiny. It’s been great to have the luxury of immersing myself in other people’s work. Tom gave me a brilliant anthology which included DVDs of poets reading their work which has been a wonderful resource (Pamela Robertson-Pearce (film), Neil Astley (ed.), In Person: 30 Poets (2008) Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books). The only problem with soaking up so much verse is that I’m beginning to feel a bit daunted about the next assignment which is to produce 40 lines of poetry. I felt less nervou...

BT , who writes so well about her beautiful part of the world, (do go and visit if you haven't) presented me with a rather daunting tag of revealing twenty-five things about myself. Twenty-five? Too much information, surely? So I've cheated a bit and found twenty-five I made earlier. For anyone who missed them before here are: Six Fixes when I need cheering up. Seven not so secret things about me. And, for those of you who didn't believe it, I really did fall in love with Tom at first sight And Twelve smells that would revive me in my hour of need. If anyone would like to pick this up, consider yourself tagged. In the meantime, here is a rather lovely painting of the old boathouse at Poppit from the very talented Tom Tomos.

'What are you going to wear, then?’ asks my dear friend, Jill. ‘Well, first I’m going to knit some sandals…’ ‘Don’t forget your dirndl skirt!’ ‘Ooh, and a hairy, multi-colour, organic jumper! Our mutual mirth is due to the fact that the Night of Reckoning is here. What seemed a great Christmas present idea has now come home to roost. I’m taking Tom to see the Poozies , an all girl folk band described with words like ‘uplifting’ and ‘traditional’ ie not my bag at all. My disquiet increases on the way to the venue when I ask Tom how long it is since he’s seen them. ‘Seen them? I’ve never seen them.’ Turns out he saw them once on the telly and ‘quite liked them’ so bought a couple of their CDs on the strength on it. One of the drawbacks of getting together a bit later in life, apart from being missing being young and foolish together, is that there’s enough trauma just getting together without delving too much into each other’s young and foolish pasts as well. Sometimes you ...