Dans Maison Cosgrove-Bray...

Torrential rain gives me the perfect excuse to stay close to the computer and write more of Fabian, which is coming along smoothly. With this novel, I'm aiming for a little less dialogue and more direct action. The feel of the novel is more tense than with the others, but just as dark - but there's little point in my blogging too much about this yet.

Meanwhile, in Maison Cosgrove-Bray, we've had some antique furniture delivered. This meant our downstairs rooms looked akin to a stage set for Steptoe & Son. Our cats had a marvelous time mountaineering, and seemed convinced that the temporary chaos had been created for their benefit.

Now order has been imposed, some of my pottery collection, which has been in storage for years, is on display where it can be viewed and enjoyed. Beauty serves no purpose when buried in the back of a cupboard under spare computer cables, incompatible (or more-trouble-than-they're-worth) PC programs, clay modelling tools and an extraordinary assortment of arts and crafts supplies.

I have recently added some new products to Spooky Cute Designs. These include necklaces and cases for iPods/iPhones. As ever, more will follow in time. Discover them for yourself at http://www.zazzle.com/AdeleCB or scroll down to the end of this page and view the slideshow for a brief taster of what's available. The 'For Writers' range is proving popular.

Mum and my sister Evelyn visited on Sunday. We enjoyed a traditional roast chicken dinner, followed by cherry pie and/or chocolate gateau while catching up on each other's news about gardening, pets, work, outings, books we'd read, films we'd seen and similar. My brother Eric phoned while they were here.

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Remembering Richie Tattoo Artist's Studio

Richard in the street entrance to his tattoo studio in Liverpool. The vertical sign next to Richard is now in the Liverpool Tattoo Museum. Yesterday, my sister Evelyn, Richard and myself stood outside Richard's old tattoo studio and looked up at the few remaining signs, whose paint has now mostly flacked away to reveal bare wood. On the studio's window are stick-on letters which read, "Art", where once it boldly announced his presence as the city's only "Tattoo Artist". I can remember him buying that simple plastic lettering from an old-fashioned printer's shop. This was in 1993, not long after he'd opened the studio and before he could afford better signs. After he'd patiently stuck them onto the glass we realised that from the outside the sign read "Artist Tattoo", so we had to carefully peel the letters off the window and have another go, laughing over having made such an obvious error yet worried in case we spoiled the letteri...

A Cure for Aging?

"All that we profess to do is but this, - to find out the secrets of the human frame; to know why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply continual preventatives to the effort of time. This is not magic; it is the art of medicine rightly understood. In our order we hold most noble -, first, that knowledge which elevates the intellect; secondly, that which preserves the body. But the mere art (extracted from the juices and simples) which recruits the animal vigour and arrests the progress of decay, or that more noble secret which I will only hint to thee at present, by which heat or calorific, as ye call it, being, as Heraclitus wisely taught, the primordial principle of life, can be made its perpectual renovator...." Zanoni, book IV, chapter II, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, first published in 1842. Oroboros keyring - Spooky Cute Designs The idea of being able to achieve an immortal life is probably as old as human life itself. Folklore and myt...

Dear Diary...

Do you keep a diary? Why did you start it, and, if you started one then stopped, why was that? What sort of things do (or did) you write about? I ask as, as a long-time diarist myself, there is an interesting piece in The Guardian today which talks about one woman's diary habit, which she began at the age of fourteen. I started a diary around that age too, but destroyed it after my mother accused me of using cocaine. A stern scene followed, with both parents perched ram-rod straight in their armchairs, while I was subjected to a heated inquisition. Where had I bought it, and who from? Didn't I know such things led to death and doom? I struggled to decipher their bewildering accusations, until Mum blurted out, "I read it in your diary!" To find my diary, Mum would first have had to rummage through my dressing table, obviously when I wasn't around to protest. Her intrusion on my privacy was assumed by both parents to be acceptable, and now, with this handwritten c...

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