Cadi; chinagraph & watercolour pencils. I passed my maths exam!  Thank goodness for that, as this means the final section of my NVQ Level 3 course is now complete, and all I have to do now is wait for my certificates to arrive. I'm glad to see the end of it, as the course took up far more time than was described at the outset - the better part of two years, in fact - and involved a disproportionate amount of writing for a course which was supposed to be largely vocational. Anyway, thanks go to Knowsley Community College tutors Helen Lea-Smith and Paul Byatt, who guided me through the course. That's enough courses, thank you.  I've done one job-related course after another for the last five years, including a previous NVQ Level 3.  Enough is enough. Rapid ink sketch of Canada geese. If you're in Birkenhead Park and see a woman trying to sketch whilst holding onto two Jack Russells who're itching to walk further on, that'll probably be me.  I...

I hope you all enjoy viewing this small collection of my art.

Fabian: An Artisan-Sorcerer Story out 09.09.16 I can now announce that the fourth novel in the Artisan-Sorcerer Series is now available in book shops the world over, in both paperback and ebook formats. I hope you all enjoy Fabian , and will consider writing a review on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble or your blog or social networking site.  We indie authors can always use a bit of help, you know! I'm already developing ideas for the fifth novel.  I already know how it's going to end and who is going to die.  I'm not quite sure how our heroes are going to arrive at that point yet, but it will come.  The process is like daydreaming.  I toy around with an idea and allow my imagination to go anywhere it wants to, sometimes prodding it along a little with 'what if' questions but not trying to force ideas in any specific direction as that tends to limit creativity.  In this way, I end up with a flexible plot outline without having written even ...

Paperback: ISBN - 13:978-1534973329 ISBN - 10:153497332X Ebook: ISBN - 9781370368495 ASIN - B01LLIIVAK (for Kindle)

Left to right: Adele CB, Freddie, Sharon and Adele H. The last time Freddie, Adele, Sharon and I all had lunch together was when we were still in high school, so when Sharon suggested a get-together we readily agreed, and it was a fabulous day.  Here we all are, in the photo, ready to dine at the Oxton Bar & Kitchen. As teenagers, we all lived in Lowton , a small village in Lancashire.  Life revolved around school, Lowton Youth Club, listening to music and the usual teenage preoccupations.  Adele's recently bought the house she grew up in, Freddie lives just outside Nottingham, while Sharon lives in Orange County, America, where she works as an artist. We had great fun catching up on news, of course.  After a good lunch, we meandered round the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum then returned to my house for coffees.  Naturally my dogs joined in the fun, being spoiled for choice by having three extra people to demand cuddles from. Adele didn't parti...

We're still waiting for a bloke to fix our boiler.  It went off and wouldn't relight, which it's done a few times before - something to do with water pressure dropping inside the boiler, which can be fixed by twiddling a button which usually doesn't do a bloomin' thing, (apart from when the bloke twiddles it, when it behaves instantly). So this time he had a proper look at it, and got it working temporarily while he ordered a valve which he said was missing. It worked for a day then conked out again. He put the valve on and it was supposed to be fixed. "But it might leak a bit," he said. I got home from work, went to see what he'd done, and ran for a bucket. So we called him back. "Oh, there're two washers missing," he said, only they come in bags of fifteen, "so you'll have a lot of spares." Ha ha ha. So now we're still waiting for a bag of washers to arrive at his suppliers, (does he mean via eBay?!!), and th...

New covers for four of my ebooks are now available.  Here they are:-   The image on the cover of Dark Tides   comes from one of my photographs of West Kirby beach.  It was a late summer evening and the tide was coming in, which is why there's a snaking rivulet of water over the shadowed sands.  Tides come in fast there as the Dee Estuary is very wide and flat, so there's nothing to slow the flow of water.  When we still lived in West Kirby I'd walk my dogs on the beach regularly, and we often go back with them now we're in Oxton, which isn't very far away. This cover uses one of my photos of the seaward side of Hilbre Island, where the Irish Sea pounds against the red Bunter sandstone rocks.  The rock pools around Hilbre and Middle Eye are always fun to explore.  You have to watch your footing, as the rocks are covered by slippery seaweed plus cockles and barnacles, but it's easily worth the effort.  Take binoculars if you want to...