Back to normal...

How can September have gone so quickly, yet been such a long month?  Fully back into the swing of things at work, it has been a month of planning, not only for day to day work but also two other major projects: our school production of 'Oliver!' in February, which will be staged just a month before I hand in my final dissertation.  Work on the novel is temporarily suspended, as planned, while these two events take over my life for the next few months. 

Because of the dissertation, I had to investigate the horrors of Skype this weekend - I cannot think of anything worse than being able to see the person I'm phoning but it is the most obvious solution to the problem of being two hundred plus miles away from the university and my supervisor. The web cam is my least-favourite bit of IT kit of all time. I am debating wearing one of my commedia masks when I use it!!

However, it's not all bad.  My favourite new 'toy' is a planning tool called Scapple, which is currently in beta for Windows and is fabulous.  I've always been a spider diagram kind of planner, but I tend to go through several versions of the diagrams until I get it just right, by which time I've wasted so much time I have precious little time left to actually do anything else with the diagram.  With Scapple, you have an infinitely flexible and endlessly editable page - if you want to add or amend your notes it takes only seconds and you don't have to waste time redrawing the diagram because you realised you missed out something vital the first time round.  You can drop in photographs too and the size of the planning sheet is even expandable, way beyond a sheet of A4. It has been an entirely brilliant tool for clarifying my thoughts about first the novel and then the dissertation. 

The programme is incredibly easy to learn to use and at the moment, while it is still in development, it is entirely free of charge.  I will be buying it as soon as it is launched: a month after discovering it, I can't imagine how I ever managed without it!  The same lovely people are behind Scrivener, another favourite bit of writing software I also bought this term.  I think all this software shopping may be the online equivilent of the annual 'back to school' stationery shopping trip!  Except, of course, I did one of those as well...!

Best cake for a good long while was a big slice of Bakewell Tart at the Charles Dickens museum in London.  I was there to pick up on the Oliver vibes and we ended up sitting in the garden (which is little and lovely!) drinking strong black coffee and putting the world to rights!  I was already in 7th heaven, having seen the wonderful Adrian Lester in Othello at the National Theatre the night before - the cake just made me float a little higher!



The G&P road trip

Day three dawned murkily: from my bedroom window Fort William town was lost in mist and it had obviously rained very heavily during the night.  After a second epic breakfast (this one ended up lasting us most of the day!) we set off to retrace our steps through Glen Coe which was looking much more characteristically gloomy.  It was like driving into a Tolkien novel.



Looking back towards Fort William
 

It was much colder than it had been all week - the temperature here was only 9 degrees C and we'd got used to temperatures well up in the twenties this summer.  There were lots of hardy souls setting off into the smirr, but we decided hills looked better from the bottom! Back down to Tyndrum and then off for the final leg of the trip - the part I'd sneakily planned! I'd realised, when we started planning the trip, that we could come back via Loch Earn, which I've wanted to visit for a long time.ages.  As I've said before, Hamish can't live in a real place - it wouldn't feel right - but I did want to ground his made-up glen in reality.  After a bit of research last year, I discovered that Loch Earn seemed to tick the most boxes as a possible inspiration: it is in the right sort of location - on the very edge of the Trossachs - and it has a good mix of landscapes as well as being reasonably small: I needed a loch the characters could see across without too much difficulty!  I've taken lots of liberties with the details and some of the locations I'm using aren't anywhere near Loch Earn at all but the view, generally, would look something like this:

 

It's rather bonnie, isn't it? (The building you can see the roof of in the centre of the picture above is actually the police station and the vehicle parked on the road is a police car!)  It was quite a strange experience visiting somewhere that looks a lot like the place I've spent the summer describing.  I found locations for most of the loch-side events of the story so far and took a lot of pictures for reference - a tip I picked up from Elizabeth George's book.  We only stopped there for about fifteen minutes or so before heading off to Crieff for coffee, but it was enough to soak up the atmosphere - and to seriously envy Partridge and Marmalade their new home!

 

Author pic for my Amazon page. 
If it really existed, you could see P & M's cottage from here!

We drove on through Comrie (where, with hindsight, we probably should have stopped - it has a Macintosh building which we drove past!) and then onto Crieff.  I remember Crieff from my teenage years as a bustling busy market town but the high street recession seems to have hit it hard and there are nowhere near as many independent shops - or interesting shops - as there used to be.  After an embarrassing scrabble for car park change  (we had exactly the right money but the machine didn't like one of our 20ps!) we visited the excellent tourist information and then went to Delivino on King Street for coffee and some scrumptious cake (www.delivino.co.uk):

The aromas of lunch were fabulous but we were still stuffed from breakfast and so cappuchino and carrot cake was all I could manage - huge portions and absolutely delicious!  After a slight detour (caused by a serious lack of road signage!) we headed back south, cutting past Stirling and then Edinburgh, impressed that both iconic castles were clearly visible from the road.  The landscape became much more 'lowland' than 'highland' as we moved onwards, past all the roads that wanted us to head back to Edinburgh (the Botanic Gardens! the festival! the castle! the Royal Yacht! the Zoo!) and on, eventually to Coldstream.

 

Coldstream has never really appealed to me much - I had a bad experience with an unpleasant sausage roll there aged seven which has lingered long in the memory even though the shop that sold it is long gone.  When we arrived there, it seemed just as grey and inhospitable as I remembered it and the local 'jobsworth' official (complete with hi-vis jacket!) was locking up the public toilets for the day - at half past three in the afternoon!  However, we'd passed a sign for a craft and tea shop just on the outskirts of Coldstream, so we retraced our steps and found ourselves in a gorgeous parkland estate - The Hirsel - which belongs to the family of  Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Here the toilets, cafe and little independent craft shops stayed open till five and we were entertained by another family of baby swallows!  It really redeemed Coldstream and we intend to return in rhododendron season!

 

Back on the road again and we slipped over the river and into Northumbria without any fanfare at all.  England seemed somewhat - dull - by comparison and were home within two hours.  A magical three days - we'd covered about 650 miles all told - restorative and soothing.  I love Scotland, quite ridiculously!

 

 

The Great G&P road trip part 2

Of course, the reason for our visit wasn't Grouse or Partridge at all, but this:

 

You can travel on the same line from Fort William to Malaig on the ordinary everyday train and it doesn't cost as much - but it's as much the ride on the steam train as the scenery we go for and anyway, they don't hold a raffle for a bottle of whisky on the ordinary train, or sell you a lovely scenic map showing you where you're going!  Many people on the train were travelling specifically because of this:



The Glenfinnan viaduct actually exists - it wasn't painted or CGId on the films - they didn't need to because it is entirely magical in its own right. You can just see the front of the engine on the far right of the picture as it starts to go round the bend of the track.  The little boy opposite us on the train really believed we were going to go past Hogwarts - although as he said we wouldn't be able to see it because we were all just Muggles!  We nevertheless spent the tunnels worrying about Dementors...

 

At Glenfinnan station we had a fifteen minute stop - autumn colours just starting here but I'd love to go back late September some time and see the real blaze of colour the deciduous woodlands would make. Then on to Malaig where there was time to raid their second hand bookshop and sample the delights of the delicious scones in the Tea Garden tea rooms (we'd had too much breakfast to manage the fish and chips we'd promised ourselves!)  As I'd expected, the sight of Eig, Rhum and Skye almost within touching distance did make me want to leap on a 'bonnie boat':

(I resisted. There are plans afoot for next year already...!)

 

On our return to Fort William we went in search of Neptune's Staircase, a ladder of locks which comes towards the end of the Caledonian canal, designed to enable cargo to travel from the North Sea to the Atlantic ocean without having to 'go round the top bit'!  It was a cool, breezy but fine afternoon and the walk up and down the lock side gave us more of an appetite.  I was particularly impressed with the views of Ben Nevis and the hydroelectric system - the cloud makes it look as if the top of the mountain is missing here:

Day 2 ended in the same fabulous restaurant we'd eaten in the night before - we figured that it had been so good it was pointless looking anywhere else for food!  It was a fabulous experience and something we'd all really enjoyed doing - we've been talking about it for years and it was worth the wait - it has to be one of the most beautiful routes in the country!  However, the excitement caught up with all of us: I retreated to my room at 10pm and had the earliest night I think I've had for thirty years.  Day 3 held the promise of finally seeing Hamish's wee glen 'in the flesh' as it were...

 

(By the way, we didn't win the raffle! Maybe next time...)



As promised - The Great Grouse and Partridge Road trip 2013 Day one

Tomorrow, life goes back to being real and earnest and I have to start working for my living again.  However, it's been a fabulous summer and we rounded it off it true style last week with a three day drive-fest around Scotland, which somehow managed to combine taking my father away for his 70th birthday and a quick reconnaisance of Grouse and Partridge related places!

The original plan was to travel up to Fort William to ride on the Jacobite Steam Train over the incredible Glenfinnan viaduct (as seen in Harry Potter!).  It's something we've talked about doing for a long time.  However, Fort William is quite a distance from home so we split up the journey into stages, many of which happened to have G&P significance.  I'll deal with the three days in three separate posts, if I may.  That way I can share more photos!

Our first stop on the way up (for a late breakfast!) was Gretna Green, (which you may remember holds some romantic significance for Grouse!)

Gretna is just over the border into Scotland and it gained fame as the place that eloping couples from London would gallop off by coach to get beyond the English marriage laws. Nowadays it has become a coach stopping off point of a different kind - large white buses full of tourists  - but it retains much if its twee charm charm as well as a number of canny outlets selling everything Scottish from Shortbread biscuits to Harris tweed jackets!  We weren't the only family there refuelling before a long journey: this lot were waiting for their mum to come back with food!

 

From Gretna we headed west towards Glasgow, resisting the lure of Mackintosh Country - although we did see Scotland Street School from the Motorway as we passed!  (We also went past Uddingston - famed home of the Tunnock's factory - and as you know, Tunnock's Caramel Wafers have long been my writing fuel of choice!)  From there, it's just a short drive into the 'Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park' and a stop at Loch Lomond shores at Balloch - where we sampled some very fine Apple Tart after a walk around the bottom of the Loch.

 

Going to Loch Lomond was a 'love at first sight' moment when I first visited it and it still gives me goosepimples.  There's something about standing at the end of the loch and looking up towards the Highlands that just makes me weak at the knees.  It is beautiful, but it also feels like a gateway to adventure, crammed with the promise of good things just along the road.  And on Tuesday lunchtime it was looking at its atmospheric best:

 

Shortly after we'd taken this, the sun came out and it became incredibly warm - and it also rained!  That's Scottish weather for you - it can change in seconds!  Much as I could have lingered all afternoon and explored the footpaths (and the antique sellers!) in the area, we had, in the words of Robert Frost, miles to go before we slept so we set off again, heading north right up the side of the Loch, past Luss (see my post on Grouse and Partridge Country for the significance of Luss!) and on past Tarbet and Ardlui, driving through bright sunshine. Last time we'd ventured up here, we ended up in Killin - and I ended up with the entire plot of Scotch Pine - so this road always feels like a lucky road. 

Up past Crainlarich, we resisted the call of Killin and headed up to Tyndrum and the fabulously named Green Welly Stop - a chance to top up with petrol and admire some of the fantastic motorbikes which tour this route.  I'd love to be able to tell you we saw a vintage Tangerine Dream Bonnie - but we didn't: mainly modern Harleys, looking much more comfortable to ride than Grouse's bike!

 

 



I'd never been further north than this - from here on, I was on uncharted territory as we realised that what we'd considered to be mountains were really quite insignificant in comparison with what was ahead of us.  Glen Coe is awe inspiring - and we were lucky to see it first in glorious late afternoon sunshine.  (Photos of it on Day 3 to follow - a very different look!) Around each bend of the road, the landscape seemed to change, from the glittering waters of Loch Tulla and Loch Ba to the wild and bleakly desolate Rannock Moor and then finally climbing up into the Glen itself, past the 'Three Sisters', crossing the place where Loch Leven meets Loch Linnhe.  Photographs cannot do it justice...

Finally, we reached Fort William, found our lovely guest house and I discovered that this was the view from the bedroom window:

All in all, a pretty spectacular day, rounded off by a fabulous meal at the Alexandra Hotel in the town centre and a local pipe band who entertained us royally in the front street for over half an hour!  There's something about being in Scotland which makes me want to write about it, so there were several pages of scribblings in my notebook before I finally admitted defeat and crashed into sleep.  (And only one nibble by a midge!)

The Great Grouse and Partridge Road Trip 2013

coming to this page very soon!  Arrived back late last night from the best three days ever - photos and gossip and some fabulous cake recommendations here by the end of the weekend!

Travelling light (on the way up, at least!)

Research as promised

Tomorrow (strictly speaking, today as it is after midnight) is GCSE results day.  I hate it with a passion for all sorts of reasons to do with not having any control and kids being used like political footballs kicked into constantly moving goal posts just to prove how rubbish their teachers are...

Oooh, never get me started on Education and Politics.  Let's discuss something much nicer.  Like research.

 

Research is the best thing ever.  Research means you get to read loads of random books and google all sorts of bizarre topics and you can pretend there's a valid reason for doing it! When I first started to write G&P, my idea of research was to watch a couple of episodes of Inspector Morse (which reminds me about the time I saw the wonderful Colin Dexter give a talk and admit he'd never really done much research himself, but nicked the technical stuff from P.D. James because he knew she was the sort of person who would have researched properly!!)  However, as time went on and I got more ambitious, I realised that this could be the excuse I needed to buy more books!
 

I've worked my way through books on fleas to fortune telling as well as more obvious topics like forensics.   There are some books which are my constant writing companions :



 

 

 

Blackstone's Police Handbooks are invaluable too, especially the ones covering police proceedure.

 

 In addition, web sites have furnished me with details about police dog training, goat rearing, modern art, library shelving, fire extinguishers, motor boats and of course, the Bonnie herself.  (For a while Hamish was actually a member of an internet forum of Bonneville owners which was, of course, completely fraudlent of him, as he's never actually owned a motorbike at all!)



Current research!  Tried to hide the spoilers!

For the new book (42,000 words and counting!) this is a bit of my research.  I also have a file of photographs on my laptop (and some have made it to my pinterest board too!) which I use for inspiration and specific details. Music is usually pretty important in helping me establish mood and I have play lists for specific elements of the story.  At the moment, I'm listening to quite a lot of Mike Oldfield some of which has the right sort of folky feel, and Aqualung, whose angst often mirrors my hero's at the moment.  I don't want to give too much away but there've been some specialist books, especially on some aspects of Scots law, which have been necessary reading. 

 

But the absolute must-have book I couldn't write without is this one:

 

I bought it in Dumfries, on a Robert Burns jaunt back in 2005 when I'd only written six chapters of Scotch Mist and I can honestly say it has had the biggest impact on my writing of anything I've read.  I can sit, open it at random and after ten minutes it has given me so many ideas I don't know where to begin!

 

I mean, who knew there was a word for 'indulging in intimate courtship in the corner of a farmyard'!  (it's 'corrieneukin' should you ever need it!)

 

To GCSE students and their teachers everywhere: good luck in the morning!

 

 

Plotting and planning...

Lovely deckchairs in Charlotte Square
where the Book Festival happens!

In Edinburgh this week, for my (almost) annual Ian Rankin/Edinburgh Book Festival fix and a meet up with an old school friend afterwards.   Lots of interesting things happened -  and we went and drank in the Oxford (Rebus's pub!) where I resisted the temptation to drink Famous Grouse and had a Gin and Tonic instead. 

 

And it was while sitting on one of those famed 'buffets' that I realised that although I've never really thought of myself as either a plotter or a planner, I do have my own writing routine.  It isn't as regimented or ordered as some 'real' authors (Elizabeth George, for example who is entirely exhaustive in her approach) but I've realised I am not just writing in the dark.  Every writer I've read on the subject does say that you have to develop your own method and I've realised that I do have some methods which work effectively for me and really help me to stay on track when I'm in the midst of a book.

 

SO... I thought I'd share a few with you over the next couple of posts, if that isn't too self indulgent!  (And if it is then please feel free to ignore me!  Once I've got it out of my system, I'll go back to writing about cake!)



The Box File

Here goes then : EXHIBIT A: THE BOX FILE!  Each book gets a box file at the start of the process and the first thing I do is to choose a title and then 'mock up' a front cover.  I did this for 'Scotch Mist' and the habit has sort of stuck.  The picture is just cut out of a travel brochure usually (taken from Grouse's collection!) and initially may not have much bearing on the plot. However, it is there are inspiration as and when needed and in the case of Pine, I actually used the idea of the faint rainbow and got my cover designer to replicate it on one of my own photos of Scotland - compare it with the final cover design!  The box file colour feels important too: Mist was Purple, Broth was Orange and the new one is Red and I try to find pictures which compliment the colour.

 

Into this goes EVERYTHING from the start: research, notes, ideas, pictures, motorcycle magazines, tourist guides, maps, beermats...everything.  By the end it is full:  The CD is a copy of the full finished text, the covers, blurb, publicity, Kindle formatting and research - anything I've used but taken off my lap top.  Having the box file is liberating: I can use it to tidy everything away and it is reasonably easy to transport, for example, on holiday and it means I don't lose anything - scraps of paper with ideas on etc. I usually write the 1st draft start date, the finish date and the publication on the inside of the lid and I put the title on the spine.  They all currently live under my desk with one or two other things which have yet to see the light of day.   

 

However, the most vital thing in the box file is EXHIBIT B : THE CHRONOLOGY!



two of the chronology sheets for SP:
hopefully no spoilers in view!

I write this up as I'm going along: it looks pretty neat here but it can get very messy.  This isn't actually planning as such, just recording what has happened so far and it makes it really easy to check back to events without having to trawl through the text.  I can check how many days have passed in the plot and when things happened. It also helps me see which chapters are a bit 'thin' - I try to aim for 10 pages of A4, 11 point, 1.5 spaced writing per chapter (and I always type in Goudy Old Style.  Don't ask why - because I don't know!  It just looks right for G&P!) so if I'm a little bit short, I know I can add a scene into that chapter. 

 

Sometimes I know I need a scene but haven't written it and it helps to record where it was intended to go.However, once something is on the chronology it doesn't mean it is set in stone: I'm just as likely to combine or delete scenes as add them.

 

I got this idea from Halle Ephron - much more of whom next time - although lots of other writers suggest it too. I tend to leave starting this until I've got a few chapters under my belt.  I started the Chronology for the new book yesterday, recording the events of the first eight chapters.  It's like an extra commitment to finishing!  Sometimes, if I'm stuck, going back to the chronology can help remind me where I was initally heading. 

 

NEXT TIME: research (the fun bit!)

Back from my hols...

Want lots of this in my garden!
Sea Holly rather than Thistles, but you get the idea!

...having spent a glorious week in Oxfordshire and the surrounding area, reading, eating much good cake, admiring lovely gardens with fabulous spiky plants in them (see right) and writing.  I even managed to squeeze in a sneaky trip to Stratford on Avon: no theatre, sadly as we were on our way home, but a fabulous costume exhibition.

 

As usual, the holiday proved fruitful in that I've managed to smash the dreaded 30,000 word barrier and at the moment things are flowing smoothly! I've got Partridge into an awkward spot and things are unravelling around him quite nicely and there have been a few interesting twists of plot on the way.  Having the map has really helped: somehow the geography has become lessy soupy and I can accurately work out distances, timings etc. Mentally, I keep adding bits to it as well.  

 

I've given myself the deadline of August 2014 and I'm determined to get as much writing under my belt before I go back to work because I'll also be working on my university dissertation this academic year and I'm not entirely sure how well the two will sit together with a full time job. (I think I probably do know the answer to that but I'm in denial!) However, the summer is not yet over: tomorrow I get my annual Ian Rankin fix in Edinburgh and then towards the end of the holiday there's a little road trip planned... I'm not going into details yet but it will be very helpful from a G&P point of view!!!

 

Yesterday found myself stranded in a bookshop during a thunderstorm (convenient, no?) and, browsing, found a children's book by Dan Smith which has just been published by Chickenshed called 'My Friend the Enemy.'  Had to purchase it as Dan was on the same MA writing course as I was and once said some nice things about something I'd written.  He's doing very well in the world of 'real' publishing and I'm really looking forward to reading it.  (And yes, I did feel a twinge of envy!! But only a teensy one - he's worked really hard for the success and deserves it!).

 

Cake of the month?  My very own cherry and almond cake, taken away with us, which got incrementally better as it got slowly eaten!  Must be a moral there somewhere.

A sad sort of post

I probably need to preface this rather maudlin ramble with the information that I am actually having a wonderful holiday this year.  I spent the start of it in London, soaking up the heat and wallowing in theatre.  I then spent three days being creative for my book binding group, and since Monday, there've been sparks coming off my finger ends - I've totalled 6,000 words in 3 days which is a pretty good total and the 'muse' is (touch wood) being very kind to me.  And I think part of the reason why I'm enjoying it so much is because I'm not having to 'recover' from the day job the way I used to do for the first five weeks of the holidays.  The difference this year has made is unbelievable: I feel younger, fitter, so much happier, more confident in myself and my abilities.  It's been a really tough year - I haven't worked this hard since I was a newly qualified teacher - but I've really -with hindsight - enjoyed it.  I know I've been incredibly lucky to get this second chance and I'm so grateful for it.

However, today, I'm allowing myself to feel a just a little sad.  Being back at the school where I was a pupil, I've inevitably spent the year feeling deeply nostalgic.  And the year I've remembered most is the year I turned thirteen.

When I was thirteen, you see, I fell in 'love', as thirteen years olds are wont to do, with an actor.  Being me, of course, I didn't go for someone anyone really famous:  no movie star or pop idol for me - no, my heart was 'stolen' by an English actor with the bluest of eyes, the sweetest of smiles and a voice, which even now I have no trouble recalling in my head.  He would turn up, now and then, in TV programmes or films and my world would stop as I drank in every detail of his performance: no videos then, let alone internet to keep tabs on him so I had to make the most of every opportunity.  I even wrote to him - a probably very silly, breathless letter - and he answered with a signed photograph which became my most treasured possession.  And then, he just seemed to disappear.  I caught glimpses of him in adverts; he did the occasional voice over.  I grew up, passed exams, discovered 'real' theatre and 'proper' acting, (as well as 'real' life and 'proper' love) and although I never forgot him (you never do forget the ones you loved at 13, do you?) he was no longer the first thing in my head when I woke and the last thing in my head when I slept.

And then, one day in 1993 I discovered he had died.  He was still young  and something about the obituary I read told me that there was more to the story than the bare facts of his death.  It was later I read that he had killed himself, hopeless, helpless, feeling unloved and surrounded by what he considered to be a disappointment of a life.  I wept for him, the night I found out, and I've wept for him since and I know I will again.  A few years ago, idly googling, I found a facebook page in his memory and made contact with a group of lovely people who had also loved, also lost and also remembered him  As one lady there once said, he was our Elvis equivilent and I think that probably says it all. Today we've marked the 20th anniversary of his death with a kind of virtual get-together in lieu of a real meeting.

It's been a good day and a sad day, a day I'd prefer not to have to mark, but one I'll still raise a glass to while I'm here.  To 'my' Gerry - he touched more lives than he could ever have imagined, and I'm proud to say one of them was mine.  Cheers.

I told you I hadn't really gone away!

I know!  I know!  That was a long six months.  But I'm back now and normal service is about to be resumed.  I say 'I'm back' but in truth I've been here all the time, just submerged in university writing and the day job (including a nice little visit from OFSTED) to the extent that for the last few months there has hardly been enough brain power left to get me through to the end of the day.  However, in recent weeks the light at the end of the tunnel has proved to be daylight and not an on-coming express train and so I'm facing the last seven weeks of this school year with something akin to optimism.

Actually, mentally at least, I have been away: visiting the sites I've chosen to use in the story through the wonders of Google Earth.  As I mentioned last summer, I want to give Partridge and Marmalade an entirely imaginary place to live in, but as it is set in a real National Park, I feel I ought to at least try and make it sound like a plausible place: I do have several geography teachers among my readers!  

Several Ordinance Survey maps and  a bit of cutting and pasting later, I'd managed to create a credible space which  a) realistically works as a Scottish glaciated valley and b) combines lots of details of real places but is actually like nowhere real at all!  

The discovery that many place names in Scotland are entirely descriptive - 'The lumpy mountain in the middle covered with heather' etc -  added to the fun of the job. By Saturday, I had a rough sketch and a whole list of place names (which I then googled to make sure that they weren't actually the names of real places!) created with the help of my bible of a Scots language dictionary.

But has there been any movement on the writing front?  Well, yes.  I went back to my first 14,000 words, added 6,000 more, cut about 3,000 out and finally got my head round some of the problems of the plot - and had one sudden flash of inspiration which made me slap my forehead in astonishment that I'd never considered it before! It never ceases to amaze me that when you feel as if you are really floundering, that's when the best ideas pop up!

Finally, I'm reclaiming my Saturdays as G&P writing days and am determined to be well into the first draught once the holidays begin.  I'm also detemined not to abandon you for another six months!  I therefore promise to update this page at least once a fortnight and to use it to introduce you to the places where Partridge and co are gathering to solve this  particularly bizarre set of crimes...

,,, oh, and to provide cake updates of course.  Made a fabulous lemon drizzle cake last week, almost worthy of Mary!

I am still here, honestly...

....news soon!!

Happy New Year!

Can it really be a year since I did this last??  I've loved 2012 and am rather sad to see it go - it's been quite unique!  So here, sitting at 2am on New Year's Day with a mug of tea beside me, are this year's awards!!

BEST BOOK READ: Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
BEST FILM: Chariots of Fire and Lawrence of Arabia both re-released, both astounding.
BEST SONG:  ‘We could be Heroes’  - David Bowie.  Will now always be a very specific place and time.  (And hearing Matt Cammelle finally sing ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ at the Empire – waited twenty three years for that one!!)
BEST THEATRE MOMENT: Tough choice this year – but probably Ben Chaplin bringing Harley Granville Barker to life perfectly at Hampstead Theatre (and glaring at a woman in the front row who was using her mobile as he did so!) Ties with finally seeing Paterson Joseph on stage in Julius Caesar with Ray Fearon as Antony.  I was cheering both sides... and the RSC in general!
BEST BALLET MOMENT(S): The Two Pigeons and then Hobson’s Choice in Birmingham, two March weekends in a row; interviewing Cesar Moralis for BRB Friends (ahhh! Cesar!); Faster in London (matinee perf!)
BEST TV MOMENT: Elbow singing at the Olympics Closing ceremony! Even if the stupid commentators did talk all over it!
BEST SILLY MOMENT(S): dashing to Birmingham on a train in May after work, missing the thing I’d really wanted to see – and oddly, not even minding! 
MOST EMOTIONAL MOMENT: watching Robert Parker dance the two ballets aforementioned : in tears every time.  (In tears thinking about it now!)
BEST PURCHASE: A lovely 1916 'Complete Works' of Shakespeare:  last thing I probably needed but...
BEST CAKE: Probably the Mincemeat Bakewell from Cafe Maison in Norton last week, partly for the cake but mostly for the company!
BEST NIGHT'S SLEEP: still Jury's Inn, Birmingham though the Hilton in Islington gave it a run for its money...
BEST PLACE(S) VISITED:  Eltham Palace and Gardens – Art Deco delight!  Walberswick, Snape Maltings, Suffolk in general!
BEST CONCERT(S): Eddi Reader at the Gala in Durham - totally restorative - and West End Men at the Sage – despite the odd staging!
BEST DECISION: Applying for my new job!!!! Joining the choir! Putting Grouse and Partridge onto Kindle!
BEST DISCOVERY: Louis Smith (before the Olympics!): gymnastics in general!  
BEST MOMENT(S): Getting the phone call (in Tesco’s car park!) offering me my new job! Walking back to Piccadilly Circus station on air, having been whisked into the star dressing room at the Garrick theatre for bubbly and told I was wonderful!

What more does a girl need...!
Happy New Year!

Jan 3rd update:  My second hand (sorry - I meant 'vintage'obviously!) Harris tweed jacket from Glasgow Vintage is sulking.  It thought it was my best purchase of the year - a sartorial bargain at a mere £22.  I am apologising to it unreservedly.  It's just become so much a part of my life I can't imagine I was ever without it!!