In reply to those who asked, last weekend’s Circle of Hands gathering was postponed at the last minute. It has been rescheduled for October 29th at the usual time. Tonight, I’ll be running a writers’ workshop on “The Craft of Constructive Criticism”, and so now I’m wondering how many people will turn up. All my notes and the exercises we’ll be doing are ready. If you’re in Wirral, join us at West Kirby Library at 7.30pm. Rain all day here. Richard went out to buy his revolting rice milk, which he uses as a dairy substitute. I think it tastes like watery wallpaper glue—and the one which has been flavoured with hazelnut is vile beyond vile…. Meanwhile, I’ve been pouring over maps of Knoydart and gazing longingly at photos of its forests, craggy glens and mountains. I found the perfect cottage—took one look at it and thought, “Wow! That’s Bethany Rose’s cottage!” Photo prompts are useful to me; so are little sketches. Do you ever get the feeling you’re wasting your breath? Some...

The dogs took us for a two-and-a-half hour walk through the old woodland on Thurstaston Common. This time of the year is one of our favourites for outdoor photography; the skies have character, and the light is sharper than in the height of summer. The woods were full of colour; yellow, gold, rust, emerald and sage green lichens and mosses covered the gnarled, pitted bark of the trees, whose foliage is just starting to show their gradual turn towards autumn. Glossy ivy smothered old farmers' stiles. Mushrooms like ivory-yellow tabletops grew in crabbed tangles of tree roots. Jays and squirrels chattered overhead. And as we walked from the Common onto a public footpath by open farmland around Frankby, we watched the Red Arrows zooming around, drawing red and blue doodles in the sky high above the freshly-ploughed fields. That's not a bad way to spend the August Bank Holiday, if you ask me!

Dark of the Night: An anthology of shadows Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,491,928 in Books Publication Date: October 24, 2006 That's interesting... I was updating my bio details on my Amazon Connect page just now, when I spotted this. Jason, who features in my contribution for Dark of the Night ... also features in Rowan . With The Club you get to learn how Jason first came into David's strange, vicious life - which later has desperate consequences for Rowan. So the short story links to the novel, which is something I enjoy playing around with. Monday's Riverside Writers meeting was well attended, though partly because we were joined by another writing group who are linked to John Moores University. First, Antonia Prescott talked about her ten years experience as a children's book editor, and about the things which agents/publishers look for (originality, flair, marketable product) plus common mistakes which writers make when approaching these (format, addressing...

When hubby’s saucepan of eggs didn’t come to boil, I saw that the cooker’s power-on indicator light was not working. Further investigation showed there was no heat under the pan, or on the other main ring. So, I called out an electrician who we’ve used before. The electrician arrived and he checked the wall socket, the electricity supply and the cooker’s wiring – all were fine. However, the grill, oven, and two rings on the cooker had no heat. He concluded that the elements had burned out. “All at once?” I asked, sceptical. He shrugged and said it happens sometimes. Richard said his mother’s cooker did something similar once. Anyway, the cooker being five or six years old, the electrician said it would be difficult to find parts for it. Meanwhile, the electrician said it was safe to use the two remaining rings for cooking on. So, the very next day, Richard bought a new cooker. It will be delivered on Thursday this week. On Sunday, I was cooking dinner – and noticed the cooker...

Ban dogs from Wirral beaches? Councillors are to discuss this proposal, which would see a total ban on paddling pooches between May and September. Too many people, apparently, have complained about poo. Dogs poo. It’s what they do. You do it, too; it’s part of that whole “being alive” experience. And the majority of dog owners do, in fact, clean up after their four-legged beloveds. This is far more than can be said for children, whose trail of litter across our beaches and promenades provides ample evidence that the purpose of litter bins is beyond their grasp. They can program i-pods, hold entire conversations in gibberish via IM with the buddy sat right next to them, they can earn Grade A at GCSE even though they think pi is something you eat--but the act of putting their own gargantuan mountain of junk food debris in a bin seems beyond their capabilities. At least the little darlings are back in school now. Finally I have the chance to keep the torrent of discarded crisp packet...

Ok, now I know not one of you will believe this - but perhaps that's a good thing, and it's entirely your choice anyway, but.... So, yesterday I decided to clean up the amount of Word files sitting around in My Documents. I carefully transfered them onto a brand new CD-R disc. However, when I came to transfer the last file, all the other files bar one had vanished off the disc. Even the title of the disc had reverted to the default date title. Rats , I thought. Now I'll have to retype all those chapters. Then I remembered that I already had the first six chapters on another disc. My habit is to leave files/chapters in My Documents and then transfer them onto CD disc in batches. (These six chapters had earlier been put back into My Documents from the disc while I edited them.) I lifted down the plastic box that my computer CDs live in, opened up the lid, put the old disc in the computer - and there were all the "missing" files. Now, I know I couldn't ...