It’s a gorgeous spring day here. I’ve got the French doors open, and Emily has dragged her blanket onto the patio step to stretch out on it while she’s sunbathing. The forsythia is a blaze of yellow, and cherry blossom is drifting like snowflakes on the warm breeze. Daffodils and crocus are in bloom everywhere, and there’s a pair of blackbirds rummaging for nesting material underneath the shrubby St John’s wort. Yesterday I was in Liverpool as Kevin Holt , a photographer from The Daily Mail , had arranged to visit Richard’s studio so he could take a few shots of us both which will be used in the forthcoming article about cryonics. These will be used as part of an article about cryonics which will published in that newspaper, probably next week sometime. Afterwards I had a meander round the city centre, and bought a new pair of trousers--plain black, but the material is lovely and soft.

If you walked into a cake shop and said, "Oh, I really love your confectionary, and I appreciate how long it's taken you to learn the craft, and your cakes would be perfect for my dinner party," would you expect to not pay for cakes? Of course not. Even if you then said, "But your cakes would reach appreciative mouths, and we'll want more free cakes every week!" you'd still be expected to pay for the cakes--especially when it's obvious that everyone else involved in staging the dinner party is picking up a nice salary. Why, then, should a writer be expected to hand over a regular supply of "cakes" for free? This lady's saying no.

Plans to tackle some more gardening were halted by today’s incessant soft rain. Instead I finished writing ch. 18 of Bethany Rose then had a book cull. I collect far too many books for the space available. Any non-fiction book that hasn’t been opened for five years might as well be consigned to the category of Outgrown Or Boring. Off to the charity shop with ‘em! We watched a peculiar little film yesterday:   The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes .  Beautifully lit, and very surreal, the film used puppets and/or automatons as well as live actors. Basically, it’s a story of a piano tuner who is taken to an island-based mental asylum to repair a series of automatons. The asylum’s doctor seems to be madder than his patients (or at least that was my impression.) An interesting if rather puzzling film; it’s plot reminded me of something from the Twilight Zone or Tales of the Unexpected. I’ve now finished reading  The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 1)  by Patrick Rothfuss, which

Tune in to 7 Waves Radio on 92.1 FM today (Friday) between 1pm and 2pm (GMT), to hear Tim Hulme, Peter Hurd and myself live on Cath Bore's Lunchtime Forum. Non-Wirral residents can hear the show via the station's website at http://www.7waves.co.uk/ I'll be reading Food , which is the latest in my series of short faerie tales set on Caldy Hill.

Three members of Riverside Writers have become finalists in the Coast to Coast writing competition. Tim Hulme's The Trunk in Granny's Attic came in 6th place in the short story category. Carol Falaki's Water Births came in 8th place in the poetry section, and this poem will also be published shortly in Mothering Magazine. Peter Hurd's Hallowe'en story, A Quiet Night In , came 1st in the comedy story category. All three members have performed their work on 7 Waves Radio 92.1 FM, as guests on Cath Bore's Lunchtime Forum.

Wrote 1,850 words this morning, which takes the total word-count for Bethany Rose up to 23,250 so far. Writing the spooky bits is such fun...! Warm spring sunshine yesterday enabled me to get some weeding done. Today's torrential rain has forced me to postpone further efforts. We have three yellow crocus and a patch of snowdrops in bloom. What happened to the rest of my crocus though? I planted heaps of them four years ago, and there has been less each year. Anyway, yesterday I had no sooner finished weeding a stretch of one border when a cute little robin came to investigate. I was looking out of the kitchen window as I was washing my hands, and saw a wren on the fence. Bathed the dogs yesterday. I managed to capture them in the bathroom by stealth. Otherwise if they hear the 'B' word they hide under the bed and will not come out! I bathed Emily first as she was the cleanest. I'd no sooner towelled her dry than she jumped back in the bath to torment Ygraine. So th

Yesterday I was at Radio City in Liverpool to meet producer Ali McBride . While enjoying the amazing view across the city centre from the top of Radio City Tower, she told me about Roy Basne t t ’s Friday show, Zone Unknown. His guests have included the Most Haunted team, parapsychologists, Bigfoot hunters and a white witch, and he hosts debates on conspiracy theories. Then we stepped into a tiny recording studio and I narrated Spanish Jones (part one), a tale of selkies, smugglers and ghosts. Ali said she will to add a few sound effects, such as the cries of seagulls and the sounds of the ocean. While it’s only part one of a three-part story, it is complete in itself. Parts two and three are set in contemporary times, whereas part one is historical. It will be broadcast on City Talk 105.9 FM tomorrow (Friday 6th) sometime between 10pm and 1am (GMT).