I imagine everyone has a scene or a sound or maybe even a smell that resonates with them like a homing beacon. For me it’s roughly this: bare winter trees, low sun, a sprinkling of snow and a five bar gate. I have no idea why.

I’m not what you’d call a natural snowbaby nor a country girl. I grew up in the burbs in the kind of English family that got caught off guard by winter year after year. The pipes weren’t lagged and neither were we, huddled over a small coal fire while our toes developed chilblains and our kidneys got deep frozen. I have no Northern blood. I’m a Celt if ever I saw one. And yet this kind of scene causes me a powerful pang of nostalgia. Add a soundtrack of rooks discussing the weather and I’m transported, don’t know where to. It’s someplace, sometime, and I like it there. I wonder where it is? Was? Interesting. But okay, not that interesting.

Perhaps you’d be more interested to hear that my editor really likes my new book. Yes! It has an amber light about to go green.  So, after a bit of essential titivating, there will be a new novel out next June. But first, a little holiday, if you don’t mind. Back on the 28th, titivating engine tuned up and ready for work.