And I had such good intentions...

I'm an abject failure as a blogger!  Only four posts in a year!  Why on earth are you still reading?  I'd have given up long ago...Maybe you have...

Autumn news in brief, then. I've been to Austria with the school choir - cake capital of Europe! - and Venice with my mum - a special treat for her 'significant' birthday.  Both were amazing in totally different ways. I've had my teeth repaired - twice.  My lovely dentist says I'm not allowed to bite anything ever again.  I still have a bit of a black eye and a bad shoulder.  My new glasses cost about the same as a trip to Venice.  I've been to Birmingham a few times for ballet. I really miss being a Shakespeare Institute scholar. I'm trying to direct a production of 'Into the Woods'.  I discovered the joys of Gin Festivals.

See?  You haven't missed much.  Somehow it seems to be almost Christmas again.  The last G&P Christmas story was a staggering four years ago.  In frustration and grumpiness, I managed to scrawl over 4000 words of a new Christmas story on Saturday. I'm not promising anything will come of it, mind you.  But it's more than I've written in one go for a long time.

I have no time AT ALL between now and December 19th.  But... Don't give up on us just yet: who knows?  There might be a Christmas miracle!

Summer Time

Five weeks in to the holiday already.  I know you don't really want to know where I've been, or how my injuries have healed since the last post, or even what cakes I'm sampled.  You only really want to know if I've been writing...

Not where I am but where I'd like to be: 

can't manage to load any new pictures on to the blog for 

some reason so this lovely one from last year's Road Trip 

will have to suffice!  

I have.  23,000 words since July 30th  taking me to a total of about 73,000 words of the first draft.  It's all over the place at the moment though:  I've left out a big section in the middle and gone to the final third, which is really unusual for me because I usually write more or less chronologically.  However, no two books are the same - techniques which worked for one, refuse to work for others and this one, because of the amount of time I've taken to write it (it's been simmering for two whole years!), has been especially awkward.  I've spent so long in the past three years writing academic essays that fiction feels really strange. However, we're on a bit of a roll at the moment so I'm pressing on while I can to try and get at least 80, 000 done by the time I return to work in a little over ten days time.  Hamish is currently in a rather tight spot at present but I think he'll probably have to stay there until at least Saturday as the 'day job' needs attending to for the rest of this week.  Good job he's the understanding type...

In between writing, I've managed my annual trip up to the Edinburgh Book Festival, a fabulous visit to London to see The Crucible and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (strange bedfellows but both magnificent) and a stunning week in Suffolk where the weather was lovely and the cake was seriously good.  On the injury front, I'm almost back to normal - three of the four teeth have been repaired, I have new glasses and apart from some continuing  pain issues with my left shoulder and wrist, I'm otherwise fine.  (One alarming side effect, though, is that I've started to look at other people's teeth with a kind of macabre fascination.  In the case of Davina McCall, for example, I'm starting to suspect that I actually have celebrity tooth envy! )

Cake?  Well, it'll have to be a Betty's of York 'Fat Rascal' - they are utterly unique and wonderful served buttered with hot tea.  (I had to cut mine up into small bits of course, because I still can't bite!  Ah well.)  To sample them yourself by post (but regretfully only if you live in the UK)  visit http://www.bettys.co.uk/product/Yorkshire-Fat-Rascal-Scones-Box-of-4,19172,255.aspx

Pride goes before a fall...

It was the best of weeks, it was the worst of weeks... It started well: the mark for my dissertation and the overall grading of my MA came back and I was delighted (and not a little astounded) with the result.  I hadn't been at all sure that what I'd written was good enough, although I'd enjoyed every minute of writing it.  I now officially have two more letters to add to my name and, what's far more significant, the satisfaction of knowing that I was able to come up to the standard I'd wanted to reach.  There was a modest celebration - some wine, some chocolate, the reward of a couple of new books.  That was last Saturday.

Won't be using this one as
my new author picture!

By Wednesday, however, things took a dramatic change when, as a precursor to our sports day, I did the health and safety triple event  - the Trip, Slip and Fall.  To cut a long story short, I had a very nasty fall at work resulting in four broken front teeth, several stitches to my top lip, an impressive range of cuts and bruises on my face and some nasty whiplash.  Oh, and the second pair of glasses I've written-off since starting this job two years ago! 

I consider myself very lucky not to have been more seriously injured.  However, I'm facing a rather large dentistry bill, the huge expense of a new pair of glasses and the problematic issue of trying to eat without my four front teeth! 

The wonderful ladies I work with sent me the gorgeous flowers in the top photo. They couldn't have chosen better : there were roses and sea holly in the bouquet which was predominantly mauve and green: I like to think it's rather the way Marmalade's flowers were at the end of Scotch Pine.  They also sent me a rather good Jodi Picoult novel, which has kept me reading, even when my head was hurting!

Scotch on the Rocks progresses - it's grown about seven thousand words since May and hopefully, with the summer holiday on the horizon, it should double in size by September.  Just three weeks left to go till I can devote myself to the writing a bit more.  Let's hope the back and neck are recovered by then even if I'm still having to chop up food into 3cm pieces!

And we're back again!

Well, that was a mad five months.  But it's behind me now and so - this Saturday - the summer of writing starts.  I'd hoped for an August release for Scotch on the Rocks, but it will probably be January now.  However, with 42,000 words in the bag, it should be an interesting  couple of months: hald onteyer bonnets!

It’s now – somehow – already the early hours of January 3^rd and I’m sitting here, beside my Christmas tree, customary mug of tea to hand, trying to summarise 2013 as is my usual wont in January.  It has had highs and lows, swings and roundabouts, ups and downs.  On the whole, though, rather good...

BEST BOOK READ: Er... best move on swiftly here – sadly, nothing to declare except tons of stuff for my course!

BEST FILM: Napoleon par vu Abel Gance. I’d waited thirty years to see it.  The General on the big screen restarted a dormant obsession.
BEST SONG: ‘The Snow’ by Edward Elgar – Christmas choir choice.  Gorgeous to sing and lovely to listen to.
BEST THEATRE MOMENT: Difficult choice – but it would probably have to be NT’s Othello with Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear.  Ties with seeing Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem  Dafoe in Manchester and the experience of Macbeth at the Globe.
BEST BALLET MOMENT(S): Unpredictably, Sleeping Beauty in Birmingham with Momoko and Joe.  As near to perfection as makes no difference.
BEST TV MOMENT: All ‘Whovian’ I’m afraid: David Bradley in ‘Adventures in Time and Space’ – heartbreakingly good. David Tennant and Matt Smith in the Dr Who 50^th anniversary special.  (Worst TV moment would have to be the Christmas episode though...DIRE!)
BEST SILLY MOMENT(S): Eating pie and mash and gravy out of a cardboard box on Napoleon day; going to school dressed as a French revolutionary for Europe Day – and winning a bottle of wine for my efforts!
MOST EMOTIONAL MOMENT: Watching the RSC’s 1984/5 Hamlet on video at the Shakespeare Birthplace Library - just as wonderful as I remembered it.
BEST PURCHASE(S): My William Shakespeare glove puppet; my subscription to the Stage Archive; my lovely green corduroy jacket; my posh black ‘choir’ frock.
BEST CAKE: My sister in law’s Christmas cake; those French pastries in ‘Paul’ in Covent Garden.
BEST NIGHT'S SLEEP: still Jury's Inn, Birmingham!!!
BEST PLACE(S) VISITED: Oxford; Stratford; all the stops on the Road Trip to Scotland (except maybe Crieff...); the new Birmingham Library.
BEST CONCERT(S): Travis at the Sage – after all this time; Scottish Jazz Orchestra at the Gala – the wonderful Tommy Smith.
BEST DECISION: My choice of dissertation topic; going to see Napoleon.
BEST DISCOVERIES: !!!BUSTER KEATON!!!; The Slug and Lettuce breakfasts; Ginger Grouse alcoholic ginger beer; Scapple.
BEST MOMENT(S): Feeling I finally belonged in the new place; everything about Napoleon from the first notes to the standing ovation at the end; bumping into Ray Fearon on the South Bank after Othello; meeting Baryshinikov; auditioning the cast for OLIVER! and starting the A level drama group.

Happy New Year!