Well, it seems like forever since my last blog post doesn’t it? It has, in fact, only been twenty days and not as long as you thought. So, I decided that today, being a Monday and with it torrentially pis— I mean ‘pouring’ with rain outside, I would give you all a thorough round up of what’s been happening these last (almost) three weeks.

Don’t think for one moment that yours truly has been sat idle. Well, now and then perhaps when the fibromyalgia has had it’s snaggled, plaque encrusted teeth into me but in-between all that I have been a busy little beaver.

For one thing there has been a plethora of medical appointments for both Ange and myself over that time. Ange, as you will recall, is currently in an ongoing tussle with breast cancer and we’ve been to St James’ Hospital in Leeds to have a consultancy regarding the radiotherapy which starts this week.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I would rather have my underwear infested with the fleas of a thousand goats than have to drive through that particular city and this time proved to be no exception to any of the other hellish excursions I have made there.

I don’t know who exactly designed the Leeds ring road. He (or of course she, we can’t be sexist now can we?) was either a sociopath or a psychopath; I can’t decide which. Whoever it was clearly has a deep-rooted hatred of the rest of mankind.

Then again, let us assume, perhaps, that it wasn’t just one person. Perhaps it was a committee, culled from the very utmost brainless and sick-minded of council employees, none of whom could agree on a single issue regarding the efficient movement of traffic around Yorkshire’s largest city. Honestly, it’s as if some monstrous giant has just lumbered around that area of the North of England dropping bits of road here and there willy-nilly. None of it makes any sense and even the most experienced and cautious of drivers takes his life, and indeed those of his passengers, into his own hands as he attempts to navigate the sheer unmitigated hell that is Leeds City Centre.

However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel as we’re going to be staying in Leeds for a few days whilst Ange has her treatment so as to cut down the amount of travelling we need to do.

One thing I will say about Leeds though is that its hospitals are fantastic. I mean compared to Bradford Royal Infirmary; St James’ is like the Ritz compared to BRI being some one-star B&B in Streatham High Street. Believe me, I know, I once stayed in one for a week in 1991 and still have nightmares about it..

Bexley Wing, where Ange is having her radiotherapy, is a sumptuous, almost luxurious building. There are delightful works of local art adorning the walls as you wander through, the lights are soft and easy on the eye, the seating is more than adequately comfortable and the lifts (scrupulously clean) actually take you to the floor you want to go to at the first time of asking. Bliss!

Also (and this was the best bit) there was a well-dressed gentleman playing relaxing classical music on a grand piano in the expansive foyer area. Beautiful it was.

The only music I’ve ever heard at BRI is when a busker playing a badly out of tune guitar asked me for money for the one-chord version of Lean On Me he was performing for the general public by the entrance. I felt I had to give the fellow a pound purely for his bare-faced temerity.

So that was Leeds but even worse was to come the day after. For it was then that I had to negotiate my weary way through the unadulterated driving war zone that is Bradford.

An 82-year-old neighbour of ours had been to St Luke’s for tests and, having been there all day with the promise of transport back to Settle, was told at the eleventh hour that it wouldn’t be happening and that he would have to find his own way home. So he rang me and I did what any decent Christian minded person would do; I drove over and brought him back.

If Leeds traffic system was designed by a psychotic sociopath then Bradford was designed by his evil mentor; for there is surely no other city in the whole world (nay, universe – known and unknown) as vile as Bradford for driving through. I include Birmingham, Leicester and London in there as well. Bradford is worse than any of them.

And, of course, I timed the return journey perfectly to coincide with the rush hour, didn’t I.

My knuckles were white on the steering wheel and a large vein had appeared and was throbbing violently on my forehead by the time I’d got even as far as Bingley and I still had thirty plus miles to go from there.

But, despite a near head-on collision with an idiotic van driver between Hellifield and Long Preston, I made it home again unscathed. Shaken and badly stirred, but thankfully unscathed.

Now then, on to jollier matters.

We’ve had two very special birthdays in the last couple of weeks. Firstly, my mum turned 92 years of age and we made the 150-mile (each way) journey to go and visit her. 150 miles might sound like a lot but not when you’ve driven through Bradford and Leeds beforehand. The motorway was a welcome reprieve.

It’s hard to know what to buy a 92-year-old as a gift so we bought a lovely potted plant for her and treated her to her favourite meal of fish and chips. I’ve never known anyone with such a fondness for that particular dish as my mother.

But it was a lovely day.

The very next day our unbelievably beautiful and talented granddaughter, Erin, turned 18 and reached adulthood. We just cannot believe that she’s all grown up. It’s only yesterday I’m sure of it that I was pushing her on the swings and playing practical jokes on her Mum and Nana with her.

Erin herself was very excited of course leading up to the event and as expected she was spoilt rotten; not least by us. We’re paying for her driving lessons as part of her present and I look forward to the day when she gives me a lift to the post office to collect my pension.

There were several events planned over the course of the week (why do birthdays last so long now?) and on the Tuesday evening we all convened in Skipton for a Turkish meal at the Efendy restaurant. I don’t usually go in for restaurant plugs but, seriously, if you’re ever in Skipton and you want a good feed of beautifully cooked food then that’s the place to go. We had a smashing time.

What else has been going on then?

Well, those who remember my last post will know that I have been working on cleaning up and re-jigging my novels. Starting with the four Blessham Books.

“Cut to the chase Stevenson,” I hear you cry, “what’s the state of play?”

Pretty good actually. Ah Boy! and Medicine Show are damn near finished to perfection. In fact I’m hoping to have the latter back online in all it’s newfound glory tomorrow or Wednesday. The only sticking point with Ah Boy! is whether or not to give it a new front cover. I mean, I like the previous two but I still don’t feel it’s got the right one yet. So a few days of work may still be required on it.

You might be asking yourself why I did it in that order. Surely it would have made more sense to do Ah Boy! and The Pheasants Revolt first. Wouldn’t it?

Au contraire mon ami, as they say in Burkina Faso (Google it), I chose to do it in that order for a reason and that reason being thus: Obviously Ah Boy! needed to be attended to first seeing as how that is the very beginning of the Joe Wilkie saga and therefore I wanted new readers to have the very best experience of that wonderful book as possible. Then Medicine Show, being the latest installment, needed to be in tandem with it’s forebear so that anyone who has read the other three can have the very best experience of that also.

Do you see where I’m coming from?

Well it’s done now anyway so there.

As I mentioned earlier, this Thursday sees the start of the radiotherapy which is going to last until next Wednesday and so it won’t be until then that I turn my guns onto The Pheasants Revolt and Hot Eire but I’ve got the hang of this rewriting thing now so it shouldn’t take too long.

I’m hoping then to return to the current WIP whilst working on the three Ingleby novels at the same time but to be honest Mutch Wants Moor requires very little adjustment and Vole just needs a big reduction in the swear word count. The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham may take a little while longer so I’ll leave that until last.

Ooh! One other thing before I go. I’ve signed up for something called Substack. And, whilst I’m still in the sussing out phase of it as there seems to be an awful lot to learn, you can subscribe to my page/site or whatever they call it, for free, HERE.

Like I say, I’m still sussing out how the thing works but basically it’s a way of writers getting paid for their writing (which is only right and proper) by way of subscriptions. My plan is to serialise a novel through it (separate from Ingleby and Blessham) and I believe that in doing so it ought to sharpen me up as a writer and help me maintain focus. Getting paid has that effect on me.

Phew! There you go then; it’s been a busy time here at Blessham Hall and we’re not out of the woods yet but the future is looking decidedly better than it was at the start of the year when Ange was first diagnosed.

Right, time for a Guinness Zero and a session of psyching myself up for Leeds again. Come to think about it, I may need something a lot stronger than that when it’s all over.