I woke up the other morning – and saw a few leaves falling from the tree in my back garden. It was also a tad chilly. Not cold – just chilly. A harbinger of things to come. As George R R Martin wrote : Winter is Coming. I was born and raised in a hot…
Rat (Ratty to his friends) was so right … There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats … I read the Wind In The Willows as a child – living in Queensland. The nearest significant water was the Myall Creek – some 17 miles…
I love museums – they’re fascinating places full of really really old and interesting things. They house ancient statues and primitive tools – the riches of long dead Kings – that sort of stuff. Imagine then, the double take I did when I saw something all too familiar in a museum… something I had…
It’s really strange to suddenly find yourself in the midst of one of your old school text books. Even in Australia we were taught about Sutton Hoo – the burial mounds in Suffolk that contained an Anglo-Saxon ship and a vast treasure. I now know we were taught just a tiny part of a…
It’s that time of the year again… and the other day I found myself humming the theme song from Summer Holiday – you know – the old film starring Cliff Richard… I stopped myself – a bit embarrassed. But then I thought, why should I be embarrassed? It’s an old film that now seems…
I love a ghost story. And a legend. And music. So it was inevitable that while in the American south on holidays, I should go in search of the ghost of Robert Johnson. We found his grave – all three of them .. and the crossroads where he sold his soul to the devil.…
My TBR (to be read) pile is growing – it has expanded to a second shelf in the bookcase – that’s a bit strange for someone who buys most of her books as e-books. The reason for the explosion is conference – in the past few weeks, I have been to the RNA conference…
I was at the fabulous RNA conference last weekend – where I delivered a workshop on how to use settings more effectively in a book. My workshop was at 9 AM the morning after the Gala Dinner – but despite the late night party, a large number of hearty souls were up and about…
This week, I had the absolute pleasure of spending some time at the Wellington Library , near Telford in Shropshire. The event was a readers and writers day held in conjunction with the Romantic Novelists Association conference. There was storytelling for kids and discussion about books and writing. Thanks to the library staff and…
