Sometimes you just need a little push...

Enjoying my week of relaxation this week, I finally got round to doing a job I'd been putting off for a while: putting all six of the G&P Christmas stories into one Omnibus edition for both print and Kindle.  It's a handsome volume and a definite money-saver as its price is a fraction of buying the six Christmas books separately. I'm only sorry that I didn't manage to get it done before the Christmas holidays. 

Now for the other job I've been putting off for a while - finishing 'Scotch on the Rocks'!

While you wait, one of Mary's simplest recipes.  (Actually, I have reason to suspect she appropriated this from my sister in law!)  This recipe is simple enough for even Hamish to make without a major disaster in the kitchen.  Perfect for lovers of salted caramel.

Ingredients

·         a bag of small salted pretzels (Sainsbury’s do a star shaped one which is lovely for Christmas!)

·         1 family size bag of Rolos

·         1 small packet pecan halves

Instructions

·         Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4
·         Put parchment paper on a baking sheet.
·         Lay pretzels down on the parchment paper.
·         Place a Rolo on each pretzel (you get around 25 in a bag)
·         Bake for 3 minutes watching for them to soften but not melt.
·         Take out of the oven and press 1 pecan half into each rolo.
·         Let cool completely.
·         Share... if you can bare to give any away!

For a more sophisticated flavour, try a bag of dark rolos if you can find them in the shops!

HYGGE!

My new favourite word, thanks to my inspirational brother.  It is a Danish word which has no literal translation, but which is kind of a soul - hug.  And I have been indulging in it all week since Christmas, with fabulous food, soft socks, nice wine, good books and no need to DO anything.

The extras for the Christmas story are available now - pour yourself a glass of something nice,click on the tab above ...and enjoy the hygge!

Christmas Countdown!

Well, it's almost here - just ten more sleeps till the new Grouse and Partridge story becomes available on Kindle!  I've worked like a mad thing this week to get it finished and this evening it made its way to Amazon to wait for the big day!  I'm delighted to have finally managed to finish it.  Just Scotch on the Rocks to sort out now...! Pre ordering is available here!  The lovely reindeer photo is © Moori | Dreamstime.com - Reindeer Photo

It's beginning to look a lot like...

There's a bit of a Christmas Grouse and Partridge countdown going on over on Facebook this month.  I personally am as totally unprepared for the Christmas season as usual, but as the pictures from Loch Fairin's favourite tea rooms show, Nancy is - also as usual - well ahead of the game. Over the next few weeks I intend taking you into the new Slap and Tickle and even Partridge's own home...Steady, girls!
Hopefully, we are counting down to something else as well as Christmas, but much depends on today's events.  If I can get a really good run at something, there might be a little extra stuffing for your festive stocking!  Better get on with it then...

Flatlining...

After a lot of activity on line earlier in the year, G & P have had a very slow autumn and, sad;y, we appear to have totally flatlined on Amazon :(

No one is buying.  Much worse, no one is reading.  Maybe it is time to inject a bit of life into the old birds. After all, 2015 is our tenth birthday... Seriously...!

Don't give up on them: they will be back!

Hint?

Getting back to the typeface...

... is taking some doing. I honestly cannot believe this book has been such a slow one to write. I've added  to the word count, but I just don't seem to be able to get a long, concerted run at it at all.  Since Christmas I've only managed to steal a couple of Saturdays for writing.  The Easter holidays were a dead loss - after several days in work and two trips away, the holiday had gone. I also took on extra work - marking exam papers this summer - because I'm aware that my on-going dental repairs could potentially put quite a hole in my finances, so that was the half term holiday accounted for...And then there was the school show, all the Summer term stuff, a choir trip to Paris...

And now the holidays, so longed for, are speeding past me at a ridiculous pace.  I've managed a couple of good writing days but it is very slow going: writing makes the time speed up so much. There's a big chunk of middle I haven't tackled yet - mainly because I can't decide how to do it - and I think I just need to dive in and get on with it.

Meanwhile, on the cake-eating front, I have been much more successful and there are lots of good things to report.  Having toured around over the last couple of months I would like to single out a few fabulous cake emporia for special mentions. Velvet Elvis - a vintage shop in Durham - do lovely cakes in their first floor cafe which has stunning views across to Durham Cathedral.  In the same town the wonderful Tealicious serves fabulous cakes and light lunches on lovely vintage crockery.  If you are in the Lake District and spoilt for choice, you might want to sample the coffee shop at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick - proper Victoria sponge!  Or the fabulous chocolate brownies at the stunning Blackwell - an Arts and Crafts House near Bowness.  Visitors to Stratford upon Avon are spoiled for choice, but if you can get a table, the Fourteas Tea shop is a lovely experience - all 1940s decor and music.  I heartily recommend their £5 clotted cream and jam scone with a pot of tea combo'!  But the best cake of the summer so far has to be the Bakewell Tart at Newby Hall near Ripon, North Yorkshire - the best Bakewell I've ever tasted!  (and that includes ones from Bakewell!)

Sadly, I'm not getting up to Scotland at all this summer, except in my head.  Maybe this time next year...

Back in Business...

Heading towards 100,000 words when inspiration struck last week.  Determined to get first draft complete although the plot has more holes in it at the moment than a stack of colanders...

Terry Pratchett R I P

Sir Terry Pratchett was a comic genius.  Like Douglas Adams he had a huge effect on my writing.  I will miss him.

Trailer

Last year I created a rather low tech trailer for my book and I thought you might like to have a sneeky peak!  Every book is different and some just take more writing than others.  Because I've been plodding away at this one for so long, I knew I needed some way of keeping the mood and impetus going.  Whenever I get stuck, I play this through a couple of times and it helps to remind me of what I'm  supposed to be doing!  As a writing tool, I'm really rather pleased with it. As a piece of media, it's hardly going to win any Oscars.  Still, it was fun to make!  Obviously, I was being rather ambitious, thinking it might be August 14! Fingers crossed for 15 though!

Self-indulgence...

...has been the name of the game this week.  Half term and I've indulged in good food, excellent company, serious but not excessive drinking and even a trip to the cinema to see Casablanca on the big screen.  I've also spent a rather large amount of money on a ticket to see Sting in concert at Gateshead's Sage.  Because, as a lovely friend of mine is fond of telling me, you only regret the things you don't do!  Working on the same principle, there's another 4000+ words added to G&P 4.  Who knows?  It might yet get finished!  

2014 review

January 4^th already.  I’m back to the chalk-face in the morning and I am NOT looking forward to it.  I’m far too chilled out and Christmassy to contemplate having to cope with it being the start of a new term.  So instead of printing out the work for tomorrow’s classes, I thought I’d try and sum up my year – the year I didn’t actually blog much in!!  I actually didn’t feel sad to see 2014 go.  Maybe I’m just toughening up...or maybe it was something to do with all the accidents I seemed to have! 

BEST BOOK READ: I didn’t read much fiction this year, but ‘Life After Life’ by Kate Atkinson gripped me from beginning to end... and then the next end and the next.  Clever lady!

BEST FILM: I can’t actually remember going to the cinema at all this year.  It’s a new year’s resolution...  On DVD, it would have to be a Buster – probably ‘The Cameraman’.
BEST SONG: No – don’t have one of those either.  What have I been doing with my life this year??  Maybe something from ‘Into the Woods’ – probably ‘Agony’.

BEST THEATRE MOMENT: Can manage this one – either David Tennant and Michael Pennington in Richard II at the Barbican last January or Richard Armitage in The Crucible. And then there was Jersey Boys at the Sunderland Empire.  Rather loved Propeller at the Theatre Royal too.  And Warhorse.  Oh and Antony Sher as Falstaff.  And...
BEST BALLET MOMENT(S): Jamie Bond in ‘La Fille mal Gardee’.  No contest.  (Apart from Iain MacKay in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at the Empire!)

BEST TV MOMENT: Again, nothing specific comes to mind, although I did really enjoy a very old Victoria Wood Christmas special over the holidays. 

BEST SILLY MOMENT(S): Buying a cowbell in Austria!  Staying up all night for the Scottish Independence Referendum, going to a Gin Festival with my lovely mad friend Pam.
MOST EMOTIONAL MOMENT: Jamie Bond, as above.  (I wept audibly.  And it’s got such a happy ending!) 
BEST PURCHASE(S): British Library Newspaper Archive subscription.  I am now addicted.
BEST CAKE: Mozart cake in Salzburg.
BEST NIGHT'S SLEEP: still Jury's Inn, Birmingham!!!  Best beds in the world!
BEST PLACE(S) VISITED: Salzburg, Venice, Stratford for the archives, Glasgow.
BEST CONCERT(S): Eddi Reader, on my birthday.  Love the woman!
BEST DECISION: My choice of dissertation topic!!!! Still!!!!
BEST DISCOVERIES: Carlucchio’s breakfasts, caramel waffles, intellectual ‘retreats’, Newcastle City Library.

BEST MOMENT(S): Oliver!, getting the feedback for my dissertation and knowing I’d proved something to myself, finally riding on the London Eye, arriving in Venice at sunset.

Happy New Year!