Last Post

The daffodils are in full bloom in Durham and it's a year since I started this blog so I'm going to finish it now. I don't want to repeat myself, I think a year is a good time for some things. John Braine said that a novel should be set within a year. It's a nice idea but most novels cover several years. Mine do.
I'm ending on a high note, after several months I have had my novel accepted for publication. I'm pleased and grateful because times are so hard and I don't want to go on and work at something else. I don't know that I would be offered anything else but having been a writer all my life and published for thirty years it is part of who I am. I know I've been lucky to stay in there during the ups and downs of publishing and of my own life and I'd like to stay published for as long as I can. Hopefully there will be plenty of work to do.
My new novel should be out in the autumn and is called Dragon's Field. It's about a girl who moves away and marries a fisherman and a man who had suffered childhood abuse whom she rescues when they are very young. I hope people like it.

The Perfect Pooch in the Perfect Place

Walking is good exercise for writers. It clears the mind. Mostly I walk around Durham but last weekend I went up to the Lake District to spend a couple of days amongst breathtaking scenery and the joy of my cousin's baking and cooking.This is Fern, my favourite dog in the whole world. She belongs to my cousin or rather my cousin belongs to Fern. Fern is one of the luckiest dogs in the world. She lives a few miles outside Carlisle in the country in a lovely house with several acres, a huge garden and with a person who adores walking. She is standing above Bassenthwaite on Sale Fell last Saturday afternoon when the day got out and the weather was gorgeous. We climbed up, it's a long haul but the views are spectacular.

She likes other people's sandwiches, she isn't particular what type they are as far as I can tell. When you go in the car to the chosen lake for the walk that day she starts to whimper with excitement. My cousin says she doesn't have much road sense but I think Fern is just perfect. There is a saying ' The more I see of man the more I like my dog'.  If the world was full of people like Fern it would be a much happier place.On sunday it was a clear bright sharp day and we went to Castle Rigg, the stone circle beside Ullswater. I had never seen a stone circle before. It has been there for 4,500 years and it's the perfect spot for celebration with the moutains all around and people were picnicking there and children were playing.  We did a circular walk from Castle Rigg, through Keswick by the old railway line which is now a lovely walk and back at the end of the afternoon to Castle Rigg again. When I am rich I shall have a little house in the lakes, possibly in Windermere in that lovely red stone which looks so warm.

Lovely woolly Scottish sheep around Ullswater