Candles and Christmas Trees

Christmas is almost here – racing up on me – every time I blink it’s a little bit closer. The school holidays are about to start. Let the festivities begin!


Looking back over my recent blog posts I see I haven’t been telling you very much about my writing. That’s probably because I don’t have anything big or exciting to report. I’ve spent the year rewriting, and rewriting. And between the rewriting I’ve been working on the WIP.

I have to have something on the boil in the background. Whenever I’m waiting to hear back about the first novel I can open the file and vanish into a different world, re-acquaint myself with a new set of characters, and stop worrying about what happens next.

And now here I am, as the year draws to a close, and I’ve just written those wonderful words – ‘The End’.

It’s a first draft – very rough I admit and I need to give it a thorough working over. But everything I’ve learned over the past year has gone into it – and you know what? I’m really quite excited about it.

Will it fly? Who knows? Will 2012 be the year? I hope so.

But for now I must mull wine and bake mince pies. I’d just like to wish all my blog readers a Merry Christmas and wish you all publishing success in 2012. Thank you for joining me on my journey.

The Rocks Beneath our Feet.

Everything tells a story, if you just know how to look.

I remember my very first Geology field trip, standing in an old quarry staring at a wall of rock – but what a story that ancient rock face told.

I saw an ancient beach. I saw the ebb and flow of the tides and the ripples that the waters left in the sand, now frozen in stone.

I saw how the seas receded and the vegetation flourished, plants taking root alongside a river channel – I saw millions of years pass by – and then…

Somewhere, not very far off a volcano erupted. One short cataclysm. The lava flooded my lush valley. Only the roots of the plants remained in their scorched soil, everything above ground destroyed by the molten flood.

There are stories all around us, in everything we see and hear, in the rocks beneath our feet and the landscape all around. We only have to know how to look.

The Mars Mission....

I couldn't resist posting this, having seen the launch pad in preparation less than a month ago. It would have been something to be there and watch the actual launch!

I've always been fascinated by Mars... by the intriguing possibility that there may once have been life there...

So what will they find I wonder?

A Tale of Two Cats

I have a pink begonia on my kitchen windowsill. It’s starting to fade now but it has been beautiful all autumn. Lots of people have admired it, and when they do I tell them its story.

Back at the end of the summer, as I was waving my husband off to work, I spotted a badly injured cat dragging itself along on the opposite side of the road.

Well I couldn’t just leave it could I? But I did recognise it. This was a cat my children often saw, lying in the sunshine outside a row of houses in the lane opposite, who they would stop to pet.

So off I went knocking on doors.

Now it seems that everyone around here owns a black and white cat. (myself included). The people from the first door I knocked on went sprinting down the road in a panic – it wasn’t their beloved Skunky but they thought they knew which house it came from.

So I found his owner. He was called ‘Little’ (probably because he wasn’t) and we rushed back to where he lay being comforted by my kids. I fetched my cat basket and a blanket and we carefully lifted him in. And off she took him to the vets.

Later that afternoon her sons called round to return my basket. Inside she had put this lovely begonia to say thanks. Sadly Little had been put down. But every time I look at those lovely pink flowers I think of him.

And now Skunky has gone missing. His owners are putting up posters all round the village. I really hope he comes home soon.

Mimsy is curled up on my knee as I type. Today she will be getting extra big cuddles.

After the Call...

A while ago I linked to this fabulous 'After the call' series that Caroline Tung Richmond has been running over on her blog.

Well this fascinating post has just gone up over at the Greenhouse blog which tells the same story only from a Agent's perspective. Check it out!

Hell Bottom

In the hills behind my house is a network of footpaths and on one a sign saying ‘Hell Bottom’. So I decided to follow it and see where it led, and I came to this place.



It’s been a fine house in its day but I can’t help wondering – Who lived here? What happened? Why did they leave?

What a brilliant hideout it would make for one of my characters!

And why on Earth is it called ‘Hell Bottom’?

Rocket Science

I’ve been rather quiet in the cyber world recently – you may not have noticed since I left a couple of posts programmed in to appear while I was away – but I’ve been in Florida, doing the Disney thing with the husband and kids.

For me the highlight was this place – the Kennedy Space Centre - just look at all those lovely rockets!


It’s incredible, isn’t it, to think that we sent men to the moon with 1960s technology in space craft with less computing power than I have on my mobile phone! It just goes to show what we can achieve if only we put our minds to it.

So here I am back to October rain and falling leaves. But there was a nice surprise waiting for me – my contributor’s copy of the September issue of Aoife’s Kiss which contains one of my short stories ‘Down to the Sea’. This story was accepted over a year ago and I’d quite forgotten about it.