Stapledon Woods, West Kirby, Wirral  Gilroy Nature Park, West Kirby, Wirral.      It's snowing.  It's winter, so that's not so unusual.  From the media fuss, however, a person might imagine that the wintry weather had come unexpectedly despite this being January, and despite January often being the coldest month of any year here in England.  It's not that cold really - the pond in Gilroy Nature Park isn't even frozen at the edges.   I've made a start on a new cross-stitch, using 24-count black Aida.  It's ages since I've done any cross-stitch!  I got thoroughly fed up with counted cross-stitch as it's tedious constantly having to count the coded squares on the chart then count the holes on the Aida to know where to stitch.  Fiddle to that!  Never again.  This time I wanted to create a cross-stitch peacock, so I bought some Aida off eBay, took a few photos of peacocks from Google Images, then used a loose running stitch in a con

I opened the pantry door and selected two dog-chew hats, one each for Emily and Poppi.  Emily pounced on hers immediately, but Poppi hadn't seen one before - so far as I know - and so she was more cautious.  She soon got the idea, though, as can be seen in this very short video.  For some reason, all the shadows have an unfortunate yellow-ochre cast which makes both Poppi and duvet look grubby.  Maybe this was caused by me filming under an electric light?  Both the dog and duvet are very clean, in actuality.  Anyway, apart from that technical glitch, I hope the video makes you smile. The year has got off to a promising start for Spooky Cute Designs , as my online store has just been awarded Pro-Seller status.  Yay for me!  So, thank you to all those people who've treated themselves to a little something from Spooky Cute Designs!  And I've recently added a new product range, so if you're fond of jigsaw puzzles then feel free to discover what is available so far. R

Submissions are invited for Riverside Writers' 3rd anthology of short stories and poems which will be published as a free ebook in 2013. This will be edited by Adele Cosgrove-Bray. Poetry and short stories of any genre, set in a fictional apartment building in Liverpool's Ropewalks area. Rich characters, plenty of action and drama, romance and humour against the realism of Liverpool life are all welcome.  No 1960's clichés, please. For full details, visit Riverside Writers blog  here .

Announcing the ten lucky winner of the recent competition to win a free ebook copy of Rowan:  An Artisan-Sorcerer Story! The winners were: Karen Molyneux Morgan Eckstein Susan Hughes Lesley Howard JG Browne Marie Partington Nerys Evans Colin Seaton A Fernandez Janice McDonald Each winner has already received their copy.  Thank you for taking part, and I hope you enjoy the novel. Watch this pace for future competitions!

In this post from last year, I presented a list of goals which  I aimed to achieve in 2012.  These were: Publish 2nd poetry collection - DONE! Publish 2nd short story collection - DONE! Publish Rowan - DONE! Plus the next in the Artisan-Sorcerer series, Bethany Rose , was published. Write one short story per month (minimum) - I wrote shorts during only 6 months. Write one poem per month (minimum) - I wrote poems during only 8 months. Publish a free ebook (possibly with Riverside Writers) - DONE!  Complete 1st draft of Fabian - No, still underway. Add one new design to Spooky Cute Designs per month (minimum) - 8 months saw new designs, but there were more than one new design for some months. In addition to the above, I re-released two ebook collections which had previously been published by Amazon Shorts; published a collection of short Artisan-Sorcerer stories, Intimations , and changed all the covers on the Artisan-Sorcerer novels.  I also undertook three job-related co