I have to confess to being a little disappointed that the first few comments on The White Road up on NewScientist.com berated me for my lack of adequate grammar. It seemed as though they had confused writer with character; perhaps because they are unused to reading fiction, or at least fiction in any unfamiliar setting, a popular science magazine, they didn't grasp that this is a story in the first person, and the voice, the grammatical quirks, belong to my main character, Mags. That's how she speaks. .....

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This is the entire email sent by an old girlfriend-of-sorts from university eleven years ago. We haven’t communicated for seven years. On that occasion, in a trough of heartbroken despair, I sent her a sprawling, drunken email, not in an effort to get back together, just for confirmation that she was unhappier than me. She wasn’t.

I met my wife shortly afterwards.

After reading this sparse information several times I realise that this girl, Linda (blonde), appears to be under the illusion that one of the characters in my novel is a thinly disguised version of her. This is slightly unnerving because the only character she can possibly be thinking of was modelled on Myra Hindley.

Nevertheless I reply out of courtesy and somehow end up with a lunch date at some Italian restaurant in Piccadilly. Mostly I am flattered because she is the only person not paid to do so who has intimated that she has read the book.

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A lazy day today, hurrah. Lord H and I wandered around Winkworth in the rain for a while and admired the autumn colours. Which are lovely but not, I think, as spectacular as last year's display. We also spotted a couple of wrens, a great tit, long-tailed tits, jackdaws and a robin or two. Honestly, robins have no fear. And they'll always turn up and parade themselves in front of your nose if they think you're paying too much attention to another type of bird. They are indeed the supermodels of the bird world. The rain was also good as I could try out my new Country Innovation Ladies' rainwear coat, which is great and comes complete with a hood, so I am snug and dry whilst all around me people are cold and wet. Aha! Lord H is slightly envious and I suspect will get one of his own before too long. Then we'll have (sadly) matching jackets and can rename ourselves Howard & Hilda. Though I think I will stop at sewing on name tags ...


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Rosy has invented a new tag based on the Spread the Word idea as mentioned in my last post. The idea is to create some word-of-mouth buzz for books that aren’t likely to hit the review pages or get a ton of hype.

Here are the rules...


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Lord H and I have spent a truly wonderful day today with the Egypt Group, to whom Maloney's Law is dedicated. In fact I couldn't have written the scenes where Paul stays in the Cairo hotel without Mike & Miriam, as they'd stayed in the particular hotel I wanted to use, and Lord H & I hadn't so I needed to pick their brains. For which, thank you, both! We met Mike & Miriam, and Chris & Mike when we were on our Nile cruise about five years ago and we just clicked instantly. They're fantastic people and, even if we haven't seen them for a while, we just click back into instant ease the moment we meet. It's fabulous ...


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Goodness me - the sleepy town of Godalming has this week woken up and joined the modern age. Well, as much as we in the shires can, of course. We've had our first murder since ... well, probably somewhere around 1853 or some such year (which is probably nearly supper-time in this digital age). Which is horrific news for the victim and loved ones, of course, but great news for the Godalming edition of the Surrey Advertiser, who are obviously hugely excited about it. BIG front-page spread, and all that jazz. The poor victim was killed at home, but at least they've arrested somebody for it. Anyway, it's the first time the local Surrey Ad have had any decent news since the infamous Rabbit Woman of Godalming (see full post for link) episode, Gawd bless 'er. Naturally they are making the most of it ...


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Just had an email from New Scientist, they are putting The White Road short story up in their online edition TODAY, possibly the audio and the text version! Ok, all a little too exciting, things move so fast. Will link when I get the link...Aaaargh!

Also: I am interviewed today in one of Israel's national newspapers, Haaretz, which has an English edition and a section where they focus on English speakers in Israel....

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Spent this morning researching sleep apnoea for a short story. According to the The British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association, sleep apnoea is defined as the ‘cessation of airflow during sleep preventing air from entering the lungs caused by an obstruction’. My research turned up the story of Philip Skeates, sleep apnoea sufferer (Guardian, A Breath of Fresh Air) as well as a feature in the Independent, Brahms made an awfully big noise in bed ... [more]

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Was thrilled to see a lovely mention of Maloney's Law on the Writing and All That site today, which you can see here (see full post for all links). (It's the second book down in the Spread The Word list). Many thanks indeed, Caro - so glad you liked Maloney. And thank you for the mention of The Bones of Summer too! I particularly enjoyed her comment on Paul's taste in whisky and men - very true indeed. Though I must admit to having a soft spot for Dominic nonetheless ...




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My dead friend’s daughter has started blogging, and is posting her childhood diaries; she’s just reminded me of a scene between me and Roseanne in Manchester. We were both pregnant; I was six weeks ahead of her, relaxing after a bath one evening, when her husband came panicking at my door.
‘She needs you. You have to come right now.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘She’s locked herself in the bathroom. I don't know what's wrong with her.’ For all the rush to get me up there he didn't seem really worried. She was standing up, moving around and not in any pain.

So I got dressed and followed him up the road, and it was quite a walk. When I arrived she dragged me into the bathroom and pulled out a breast.

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