Peacock King Jigsaw Puzzle While you're waiting for Fabian, the fourth novel in the Artisan-Sorcerer series, to become available - and it is coming soon! - have a play with this on-line jigsaw puzzle of the Peacock King, who features in the forthcoming book.  (The image is in much better focus on the jigsaw site). One year ago, we moved to this house.  It's incredible to realise that this little anniversary has arrived already.  Moving here was one of the best decisions we've ever made.  We're both still in love with the place. Last Saturday we scraped off old wallpaper in the dining room, up to the level of the picture rail.  Recently we had some repairs carried out on one of the walls in that room, and now the new plaster has had plenty of time to dry out properly.  Sunday saw me unravelling the mysteries of how to hang 7ft strips of patterned wallpaper without getting it in a glorious knot, tangled round the stepladder or stuck to the wrong bit...

Front row, left to right: Joanna McIlhatton, Mary Cary, Peter Hurd, Adele Cosgrove-Bray, Peter Caton,(audience member), and Tim Hulme. In the second row, between Mary and Peter Hurd, you can just about see Carol Falaki and Dave Hughes. Here's me, reading Seagull Inn from the Ruins Terra anthology

It looks sunny but it's freezing out there. Emily has dragged her increasingly tattered fleece blanket to the patio windows where she's made herself a nest. Ygraine is reclining on my patchwork cushions in the other room, while pretending to be asleep. I hate to disturb them but tough. They are about to help me continue beaking in my new purple walking boots. My trusty old ones (once blue and grey, now merely grey-ish and grey) are deliciously comfortable but have sprung a leak. They've lasted for something like seven years, and as they regularly get partially dunked in sea water that is no mean feat. The new ones are nowhere near as comfy. At the moment it feels like walking on springy bricks. Still, they are my favourite colour - and we all know how earth shatteringly important that is. Ahem. Cross-posted from:- http://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/blogs/booksblog/adelecosgrovebray/display.var.2183659.0.wonderful_words_of_wirral.php Monday saw me putting in a guest ap...

A "Squirrel" Otherkin Trilogy ?!! *chuckles* The article makes it sound like I'm the sole author of Ruins Terra , Ruins Metropolis and Barren Worlds , rather than being merely a contributor to each. Oh dear.... Not my doing. So, yes, yesterday saw me back at Golborne High School by invitation of Sylvia Taylor , gelertandbess, actor, playwright and filmmaker, who also works to promote and develop the arts within the school. We’ve known each other since we were aged eleven, and used to sit next to each other in English and Computer classes at Golborne High – or Golborne Comprehensive School, as it was then named. Certainly it was interesting to see my old school again. Some things haven’t changed at all, while some are entirely new to me – such as the digital photography suite and the banks of computers in the school library. Back in our day, there was one computer for the entire school! And even that wasn’t a PC as we think of them now, but a monitor and keyboard w...

The administrative team of this year’s Preditors & Editors Readers Poll have alerted me to the fact that my short story, Seagull Inn has been nominated! I am totally surprised by this! People have until midnight tonight (Jan 15th) to cast their votes. To vote for my story, visit:- http://www.critters.org/predpoll/shortstorysf.shtml where the entries are listed by alphabetical order of title. To vote for me as an author, visit:- http://www.critters.org/predpoll/author.shtml As you may recall, Seagull Inn featured in an anthology titled Ruins Terra , edited by Eric T Reynolds and published last year by Hadley Rille Books.

The vet has just phoned me to say Emily's operation went well, and I can collect her at 4pm. This house feels so empty without "Little Mouse" leaping all over the place! (We nicknamed her that when she was a very young puppy, because she wasn't much bigger than a mouse - well, a hamster, perhaps). I can recite all the phrases about responsible pet owners and unwanted puppy litters bla bla bla, but I still feel like a total meanie, booking her in to be spade by the vet. I know she'll be frightened and in pain, and wondering why I've "abandoned" her... Poor little mite. ***   "I don't like Wuthering Heights," Cat said. "It's soppy." Then we coaxed her to watch Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Bi noche in the lead roles. She likes it now. "Isn't he the one who played Voldemort ?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "He looks different with a nose."   ***   4.20pm, and finally I get to re...

At Riverside Writers , we set a monthly writing challenge which encourages participants to create a new poem or short story to a set theme. This theme might be inspired by a curious photograph, (such as a recent one which depicted a woodland tree with a large collection of ladies' shoes nailed to it). Or the theme might be generated by each participant writing a random word, (such as piano, marshmallow, axe, tutu, gorilla), on a scrap of paper, and the resulting group of words all have to be used within the new piece of writing. You could do something similar by yourself, just by opening a dictionary or a child’s alphabet book at random and using the first word your finger lands on, then repeating this process several times. Another method is to present the group with a sentence which must be used to start or finish the new piece. The results of these exercises can be fun to hear, certainly. Everyone always comes up with something which is unique. Also, imagination and innovation...

I’ve been busy (noooooo!), as my niece came to stay with us for four days. The dogs did so enjoy taking her for walks. In fact, Ygraine was so eager to show her the ponds beside the boardwalk along West Kirby beach that the poor girl narrowly missed being dragged face-first into the water. Having strolled the length of Meols Drive, my niece decided that being a multi-millionaire offers certain advantages when it comes to house-buying. We have chosen the ones we want, once we’ve made our fortunes. Forward planning is always advisable, don’t you think?!! And we discovered that Wirral has totem poles. Well, one, anyway. This was within the enclosed Walled Garden at Royden Hall. (If you wish to read about that, scoot over to my spot on the Wirral Globe.) There were numerous other sculptures too, and if you wish to see more photos just click on one of the images here and view the Wirral photo set on my Flickr site which you’ll be automatically taken to. Oh, and we watched a few fil...

Our two dogs took us for an enjoyable woodland walk around Frankby at the weekend. (Yes, I know it’s now nearly next weekend but I’ve been busy, ok?!!) There were carpets of snowdrops under the trees. A friendly pony came to say hello when we trudged along the muddy path beside his field. Emily was terrified of the bewildered creature, and hid behind Richard’s feet. Emily is still learning to walk on the lead properly. She’s got the general idea but is distracted by scents very easily, and noisy traffic unnerves her. She has a habit of stopping dead, which consequently means that whoever’s walking her has to be ready to do likewise or else nearly fall over her. We called in to The Farmer’s Arms , but escaped to the garden rather than struggle to talk over the exuberant crowd of football enthusiasts who were happily yelping and yowling at the big TV screen. (Fear not, I’ll resist the temptation to launch into one of my diatribes about boring sport!) I’ve now finished the first dra...