Thanks for taking the time to read this. You know, I really should do that more often, give you a big thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my little blog. You see, to me, a lifelong avid reader, I find reading one of the most valuable thing that human beings can do.

And here’s where this weeks blog post comes in.

I’ve been harbouring a thought for some time now and it’s basically this. Why do people watch the same films over and over again but don’t read the same books repeatedly?

I mean, I’ve seen all the Carry On films multiple times; Camping and Up The Khyber at least a dozen or more each, and the amount of times Ange and I have seen The Naked Gun must be nearing twenty by now. As for Withnail & I, well, I’d say it was unquantifiable.

Compare that with the books that I have re-read.

There are a few I’ve re-read and re-read again – Three Men in a Boat, Catch 22, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Diary of a Nobody, The Woman in White, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Blott on the Landscape and one or two others. And as a child I re-read the Willard Price Adventure series manifold times with such youthful eagerness that the books started to fall apart from over use.

But all of those books fill me with such rapturous joy that I find it such a pleasure to tread such familiar ground over and over again and it never feels boring, dull or samey.

I also know one person who has re-read my first novel Ah Boy! because they found it so wonderful. Wow! What an accolade. That meant so much to me to hear that.

But by and large, people don’t re-read books and I haven’t understood it until now. I haven’t understood why people would spend up to and well beyond a tenner to buy something fabulous like a book only to read it once and then stick on a shelf to gather dust.

The answer, of course, is that books require a fair amount of effort on the part of the reader, whereas watching a film requires very little from the viewer. Unless it’s one of those arty European things that leave you wondering where the hell the last two hours of your life went and damn well wanting them back.

A novel, on average, will take between 6 to 12 hours to complete. It involves visualising the world you are immersing yourself into and picturing the characters that populate it. You have to remember details that happened hundreds of pages ago and it’s rare that you’ll finish a novel in one sitting. Especially those airport blockbusters that double as door stops or foundation stones.

A movie, on the other hand, will take up about two to three hours of your time and everything you need to know to follow it is displayed on screen. They require very little imagination to participate as all the imaginative stuff has been taken care of for you. All you have to do is sit back in comfort and watch it unfold. Just relax with your popcorn or your pick’n’mix and let it all happen.

I’m not decrying movies, I love to watch a good film as much as the next person; I’m just trying to form a contrast here.

Let’s take The Lord of the Rings as a prime example.

Now, I confess, I’ve never actually read the books and am unlikely to in my lifetime (although I have read The Hobbit) as I find all that fantasy stuff just a tad too confusing. I don’t deny Tolkien’s genius for what he created; blimey, I wish I could do something as epic as that if I had half as much talent as he had, but it’s just not a genre I enjoy.

That being said, I take any of my various hats off to anyone who has taken the time to read those books. I imagine it to be a mammoth, nay almost Herculean task of reading. The level of concentration required must be immense but also, I assume, highly enjoyable and ultimately rewarding for fans of Tolkien and indeed the fantasy genre itself.

Of course, The Lord of the Rings, as we all know, was made into a movie franchise earlier this century and I have seen the three films. Each one being about three hours long.

I still couldn’t explain exactly what was going on but I got the gist that Frodo and his chums had to destroy a ring to rid their world of evil and all those pus-filled orcs that were making life thoroughly unpleasant for everyone.

And, I enjoyed the films. They were a marvellous bit of escapism. Likewise, if there was nothing else on the telly (and very often there isn’t) I’ll watch them again. The sheer scale of the scenery and battle scenes are nothing short of breath-taking and demand the viewer pays attention. And of course, I’m not alone in that. Millions of people across the globe have seen those movies multiple times. Well why wouldn’t they? They’re astonishing purely from a cinematic point of view even if, like me, you don’t fully understand what’s going on on screen.

But conversely, I believe there are millions of copies of Tolkien’s Masterpiece sitting on bookshelves all over the world that have either been read once or not even at all. With the success of the film there was a huge global increase in sales of the books, but, how many people actually took the time to plough through them. Especially now they know how it ends from the movies.

Still, they look impressive on the shelf when people visit, don’t they?

As I said at the start, reading is one of the most valuable things that human beings can do. Can you imagine a world without reading? We’d probably still be hitting each other over the head with stone axes and hiding from sabre toothed tigers while grunting ‘Ugg!’ at various intervals.

But reading has advanced humankind further and faster than would otherwise have been possible. Reading helps us to learn, to develop as people, to enlarge our thinking and it provides us with some bloody good entertainment along the way.

So, in conclusion, I’d just like to try and encourage you to re-read your books. Take a few hours out of you day and sink gently between the soft, caressing pages and let the words wash over you like waves of blissful familiarity. Take that copy of Dickens off the shelf that’s been there since 1998, blow the dust of the jacket and devour the sumptuous literary feast contained within. Return once again to Mutch Wants Moor because you found it so hysterical the first time and you feel in need of a good laugh.

Ok, ok, so that last example was a poor attempt at subliminal messaging.

But please do hear what I’m saying folks. Books are just the best so show yours some love. Switch off the old goggle box, turn off Netflix, put down that Blu-Ray disc, give the local fleapit a miss and open a book instead. Your mind will thank you for it.

I’ve tried, God knows how I’ve tried. But enough is finally enough. I’ve been using LibreOffice for a couple of years now and I’m afraid it really is time for a parting of the ways. And don’t think for one moment that it’s a decision I’ve rushed into. No, it is one fraught with reluctance.

You see, I like the whole ethos of LibreOffice. I like the idea of sticking it to the man and all that. And, like everyone who uses it, I appreciate a word processing software that doesn’t cost me a bean to use. Yeah, we all like that part, don’t we?

The problem I have with is… well… not to put too fine a point on it…

It’s shite compared to MS Word.

And being a writer by trade I just can’t do with inferior software to keep doing what I’m doing. And yes, I know all about how evil Microsoft are and how they make the world a terrible place and Bill Gates is the baddest man on the planet yadda-yadda-yadda but at the end of the day I can’t keep trying to produce content on software that is slow, clunky, keeps “not responding” and oft times won’t even open.

I’ve produced about over 150 documents on LibreOffice, podcast scripts and blog posts mainly, and I even wrote my entire second novel, The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham, on it. And I did it for all the “right on” reasons that everyone else uses it for. But damn it, my writing deserves the best and the best ain’t LibreOffice.

Oh, you might say, but what do you expect when it’s free? You can’t have everything you know. There has to be a bit of give and take somewhere. And I agree, absolutely, and I’ve taken just about all I can.

You wouldn’t expect Joe Bonamassa to record his next album on an inferior guitar that someone gave him for free online would you? Maybe you would, but I wouldn’t. You want him to use a Gibson Les Paul or a Fender. So why should writers and other creatives use software that isn’t up to the job?

I need to write in what precious time I can between bouts of fibromyalgia flare ups, vertigo and pummelling headaches. Actually write. I don’t need to be sat staring at my screen with my teeth gritted so tightly they may shatter under the pressure at any moment whilst LibreOffice opens its bleary eyes, yawns, scratches it’s hairy arse and takes an eon to wake up. I don’t need to get halfway through a paragraph and then have to wait twenty minutes for it to unfreeze before I can continue. And I don’t need to constantly keep clicking on the desktop icon like a deranged anti-aircraft gunner as it refuses time and time again to even open.

Oooh, it’s so frustrating.

And, I don’t have any of those issues when I use Word. None of them. It works perfectly every time.

So, yeah, it’s all over between me and LibreOffice. I mean, I don’t want to diss it entirely, especially if finances are an issue and you need word processing software. It’s fairly adequate at what it does if you can get over all the other little foibles and problems. But, right now, I’m at a stage in my writing career where I need a bit more than adequate.

Do other self-employed people use inferior equipment in their work? No, they use the best they can.

So in the words of Lord Sugar; LibreOffice, with regret, you’re fired!

(This blog post was created in Microsoft Word)

Right, for a start there will be no mention of illness in this blog post. I don’t know about you but I’m getting heartily sick of talking about my various ailments and it’s time I shifted focus a bit.

So I’m going to talk about the progress of my next novel, whose name I won’t reveal yet.

Well, it’s about half way there; the first draft that is. It’s somewhere in the region of 40,000 words and I’m aiming for around 80,000 for the finished book. When it will be finished is rather hard to say. You see, I have been dragging my heels a bit with this one.

Not in the same way that Vole dragged it’s heels, no, that one was caused by it’s own bizarre and fruity nuances. I’m dragging this one out for other reasons. Which I have identified as thus:

1. Poor planning – yes, I’ve got to admit that there is a fair amount of pantsing going on with this one and I think I need a day or two, or even a week, to put the brakes on, get out the old exercise book and make the plan a damn sight more cohesive. I planned my first four novels to a T and I think the effort shows. But with the other two and this one I seem to have taken on a different approach. I got away with it on Hot Eire and Vole but I’ve hit a bit of an impasse on this one and it is slowing me down considerably.

2. My amazing wife and greatest supporter, Ange, had a heart attack at the end of January this year and has been off work for five months. That has given us the opportunity to spend a great deal more time together and therefore less time at the laptop for me. I’m not complaining, believe me, there’s nothing like a cardiac event to make you appreciate your loved ones more and we’ve appreciated the time that we’ve had. I think anyone who is in love will agree that it is time well spent. Thankfully, Ange is fully recovered and is returning to work this week on a part-time basis. Ergo, when she is working, I’ll be working and progress on the next novel will, hopefully, gather pace.

3. Ok, yes, my health has got in the way. Damn! I didn’t want to mention that.

4. Other irons in the fire – For example this here blog and the podcast eat into my time, but we live in an age where a good online presence is vital to the independent artiste and so I find myself having to spend a fair portion of my week working on those things.

But pushing the negatives aside what I can say is that despite all of that the novel so far promises to be a corker.

It’s a Joe Wilkie/Blessham novel and I know from the feedback that I receive just how much love there is out there for that quirky little character. And, as you’d expect, he gets himself into all sorts of scrapes and adventures in the book. There’s the usual outpouring of unbridled wrath from Lady Stark-Raven, a host of zany characters both old and new, tons of Wilkie wordplay and an antagonist like you haven’t seen before – he’s a far more subtle opponent for our Joe is this one.

And this novel is played purely for laughs, a bit like The Pheasants Revolt, although there was a touch of schmaltz in that one. This time there is no love interest for Joe and no emotional heartstrings played anywhere. It’s a straight ahead, riotous, ribald, countryside comedy with no punches pulled. Actually, there are a few punches thrown here and there but that’s by the by, you’ll have to read it to find out. And in any case, it wouldn’t be a Blessham book without at least one rollicking good punch-up, would it?

Now, regarding a publication date. Well, I don’t really want to commit to one at this stage. I’d rather focus on getting that first draft done and dusted and then take it from there. The last thing I’d want to do is make any rash promises and then break them. So all I will say on the matter is that I sincerely hope it will be out before Christmas. If it isn’t then I will say some very harsh words to myself, the likes of which you will not see between the pages of scripture.

So bear with me all you Wilkie fans. It’ll be worth the wait of that I’m sure and when it does finally appear don’t forget that a well worded review on either Amazon or Goodreads is all I ask in return for about seven and a half hours worth of well-written entertainment that has taken me an eon to produce.

Oh but I’m a greedy little so and so. It seems I always want the lion’s share. Well, when it comes to being poorly that is. Not content with having fibromyalgia, depressive anxiety disorder and sleep apnoea my body has decided that it wants more and this week it’s request was granted when I was diagnosed with vertigo!

Yes vertigo.

As the song goes – I’m so dizzy my head is spinning.

I’ve been having some serious headaches and dizziness for some time now but I put it all down to the phenomenal heat we’ve had this last month and the idea that maybe I’m a bit dehydrated. That notion turned out to be complete and utter balderdash as this last Sunday I blacked out and Ange found me on the bedroom floor.

A trip to A&E (is it still called that?) resulted in the doctor there suggesting it was vertigo and a visit to my own GP confirmed it. I’ve been feeling rather shit all week to be honest and nothing has been achieved other than recording the second episode of The Curmudgeon, which required a monumental effort on my part to read the script without throwing up. No work on the novel though, which is starting to drag its heels a bit now.

The actual diagnosis is something called BPPV which stands for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, which is a bit of a mouthful; isn’t it? The medication is also a mouthful, called Prochlorperazine, although, I think it is helping, albeit early days still.

My head feels like it’s full of unprocessed timber and I find it hard to concentrate on anything much for very long. In fact, you won’t believe how long it’s taking me to type this. Absolutely ages.

This is all, of course, a bit of a bugger.

And I’m as frustrated as a compulsive masturbator in a straight-jacket.

I really want to crack on with so many things you see, not just the novel but half a dozen other little ideas I have. And being a one-man-band means that everything is now on the back boiler and I’m feeling about as much use as a fishnet condom in a harem.

The amount of time I have wasted this week just lying down with my eyes closed in an attempt to stop the whole world spinning would have been enough time to write about twenty thousand words alone. That’s time I’ll never get back and it boils my piss to even think about it. I’m so bloody annoyed that I feel I could fight a Pitbull. Only, that would end very, very badly for me so I won’t try it.

So that’s what’s happening right now. Hopefully the meds will soon start to work and, as a result, so will I.

I’ll have to stop now as I need to lie down again.

Sorry to keep badgering you all with my various ailments but I did promise the other week to try and look on the humorous side of things and I hope this post has made you chuckle, or maybe even just smile. It will have made my day if it has.

Guess who’s got heat stroke. Go on, I’ll give you three guesses. Aah, you got it in one, yes, it’s me. Old ghostly skin has had too much of the UV rays again and looks decidedly baked and lobster-ish.

At least we didn’t get lost on our way to the Lake District, which, if you recall, I was a bit worried about last time. Thanks to the loan of a friends OS Explorer map of the Northern Lakes we were able to navigate our way there without a hiccup and arrived at the house late afternoon.

I then proceeded to get a little bit plastered on the Californian vin rouge. But that was ok, I was sat in the shade and as the Sun set gorgeously over the majestic mountains and bathed the valley with an almost heavenly glow I felt quite a sense of tipsy serenity.

It was the next day when I exposed myself to the glare and the heat like the berk I am.

It was a blazing, terrifically hot day on Saturday, as most of you will know, and my plan was to enjoy the sunshine in short bursts. Ten or fifteen minutes at a time and then go back in for half an hour or more before venturing out again and repeating the process. And that’s pretty much what I did. I figured I’d be alright in a vest top and even had my Amazonas Tarp Hat on all day to protect my lumpen and misshapen noggin.

Oh what a fool I was. By six o’clock my arms were the colour of Lollo Rossa and my bonce was as light and fuzzy as candy floss, only not so sweet.

Thankfully, Becky had remembered to pack after sun (we hadn’t) and I liberally applied it to the affected areas. I also drank 3 bottles of that Swedish mixed fruit flavoured cider that you see everywhere but whose name I can’t remember. Kottonballs or something like that. Wouldn’t normally touch the stuff with a barge pole but I was so thirsty and it was delightfully chilled having spent 24 hours in the fridge.

Anyway, I lasted the evening until gone midnight when I turned in and left the die-hards to it. I slept extremely soundly and woke at ten the next morning. My arms were still crimson and my head felt sluggish and dopey and I had difficulty concentrating on anything.

We set off for home at quarter past two and arrived back in Settle at four. And I haven’t felt right since. My days are spent drifting in and out of consciousness and lambasting myself for my own gross stupidity.

You’ld think someone of my age would know better, wouldn’t you?

But despite the heat stroke I still had an important thing to do. Namely, the new podcast.

And in case you’re wondering, it is now live and available to listen to here – Podbean and here – Spotify.

The trouble I have is that the launch was something of a miserable, damp squib and I don’t think many people know it’s out there yet. You see, apart from a post on this here blog and a few social media references to it, I haven’t done a lot of promo work at all. This is for three reasons:

1. I’ve got the aforementioned heat stroke.

2. The recent hot weather has badly affected my fibromyalgia and the laptop hasn’t seen much action lately.

3. I am absolutely rubbish at marketing. No, honestly, I really am.

So I’ll give it another plug now, if you’ll permit me. It’s called The Curmudgeon and it’s basically me having a grouse at stupidity in whatever shape or form it takes. In the first episode I take a swipe at the idiots who don’t understand invisible illnesses, which I thought was a good place to start seeing as how I’ve got two of them – Depressive Anxiety Disorder and Fibromyalgia, and I get so fed up to the point of exasperation at some people’s attitude towards them.

I think it’s funny and entertaining; the podcast I mean, not invisible illnesses, and it’s not overly long in the way that the old Blessham Hall podcast had become, weighing in at just over 14 minutes. And, to make life easier for myself and the listener, it’s going out fortnightly on Wednesdays which will give me more time to prepare and work on the new novel.

So, that has been my week so far. I did manage to do an online shop from Asda today before succumbing to fatigue once more and sleeping through the afternoon. It was Ange’s idea and a pretty good one if you ask me. It’s far too hot to go traipsing off in the car and shuffle around a supermarket whilst wreathed in sweat and smelling like last night’s donner kebab. Let someone else do the lifting, that’s what I say.

It did really hit home though just how bad this whole cost of living crisis is. Seven days worth of shopping for two people came to over £95 and that’s without any alcohol or luxury items. And Ange and I do not live ostentatiously by any stretch of the imagination. Our usual Aldi bill comes to much, much less than that. There’s only the two of us for goodness sake.

I was flabbergasted gentle reader, quite flabbergasted. I began to think I’d made a mistake with the order but on checking through it I found that no, all was as it should be. Just very expensive.

Still, it’s arriving tomorrow between 6pm and 8pm so I’ve got until then to brace myself for putting it all away in our stifling hot kitchen.

Maybe next time we’ll save a few quid by braving the heat and head off to Skipton Aldi armed with copious bottles of water, a decorative hand held fan and a full can of Right Guard. Either that or pray for rain.

Please don’t think I’m complaining about all the lovely weather we’ve been having. I mean, I like to see the sunshine and blue skies, it makes me feel happy. It’s just that I’m a bit of a lightweight when it comes to the searing heat. Mind you, I think I’ve learned my lesson this time.

I can feel my head starting to go rather woozy again now so I’ll sign off and go flop onto the unquilted bed with the electric tower fan blowing directly in my face at full bore. The forecast is for more of the same tomorrow. Oh blimey!!!

The moral of the story, I tell myself, is: keep out of the direct sunlight, promote your podcast properly and learn how to market better and for goodness sake shop wisely. That’s what I’m telling myself at any rate.

See you soon when I hope to be a little more compos mentis and a whole lot cooler.

PS: Here’s the web image for The Curmudgeon. I think it’s a good likeness.

On Friday, my wonderful wife and I are venturing forth to the Lake District. Sounds delightful doesn’t it? Well, yes it is, we’re looking forward to it very much. It’s a birthday treat for Becky’s partner (I won’t reveal his age, it’s a sensitive subject) and there are quite a few of us going. Should be a great occasion.

Except…

Except, that we don’t have a clue as to where the damn place is.

Oh, we have an address and a postcode, but the problem is that, for the first time I can remember, Google Maps has drawn a complete blank. All it will give me is some vague geographical location to the west of Keswick. A sort of blind guide. An “It’s over there in that direction” kind of thing.

Not to worry, though, for the owner of the fabulous AirB&B we’re all staying in has sent some directions for us to follow. So that’s all right then isn’t it?

Well no, not exactly.

I can’t remember the exact directions we’ve been given off the top of my head but they go something like this…

Go through Keswick and turn left at the gate with three crows perched on top of it. If there are more than three crows turn right. Then proceed in a slightly South/Westerly direction until you come to an oak tree with Jezza Loves Susie carved on the trunk. Turn right at the tree and drive past a field full of sheep or possibly Friesian cows, maybe both, until you come to a cattle grid made from toffee and drive carefully over it. Then, using a compass (or the stars if it’s dark) to find true North, go straight ahead until you see the Aurora Borealis in the distance and head towards it. If you come to a sign that says Atlantis 32 Miles, you’ve gone too far and need to do a U-turn at the next available place which is 5 kilometres west to the perpendicular of the shortest side of an isosceles triangle, having first worked out what x – (y + 9) =. If your algebra is poor (and let’s face it for most of us it is) simply retrace your steps until you get back to the cattle grid. When you get back to the cattle grid stop and get your thermos flask out and have a coffee and one of those egg sandwiches you packed which are by now starting to whiff a bit sulphurously and maybe swallow a valium or two as well. At this point, if your phone is capable of receiving a signal, call the AA, RAC, Green Flag or whichever rescue service you belong to and beseech them to come and find you and deliver you safely to Newlands House. If you can’t get a signal then I’m afraid you’re doomed my friend. Doomed forever. Dooooooommmmmeeeeeeddddd!!!

I mean, it wasn’t exactly like that but it was pretty close.

I keep having nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat with vivid images in my mind of Ange and I spending the entire weekend in a state of dishevelment, driving up hill and down dale in third gear with tears in our eyes and hunger in our bellies as we console each other with the hope that “It’ll be just over the next mountain, you’ll see.”

Who knows, maybe we’ll stumble across a shepherd and his flock of hardy Lakeland sheep and beg him to take us there and he’ll reply with, ‘Youm townies are allus comin’ round ere and gittin lost. Why don’t youm bugger off back where youm came from.” At which point we’ll vow that if God should deliver us from this hellish expedition then we will never set foot in this vast and inhospitable wilderness ever again.

Finally out of desperation, we’ll follow the setting Sun and drive until we reach the sea whereupon we’ll follow the coast Northwards until we arrive at the nearest ferry port which will probably be Glasgow or somewhere and then catch the first available boat back to civilisation.

Following a lengthy sea voyage, we’ll get home about three weeks after we left and people we know will ask us if we had a nice time which will cause us to sob and gibber and shake and rock back and forth in our seats whilst someone makes us a nice hot cup of sweet tea and rings for an ambulance.

That’s what keeps playing out in my mind.

Of course, I’m exaggerating. We’ll be ok and find the place first time and it won’t really be as bad as I’ve made out.

Will it?

WILL IT???

This is actually the second blog post I’ve written today. I was awake at four this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up and wrote a 1200 word rant about this Tik-Tok chappy who’s been in the news lately. Missy or Pissy or Cissy or something like that.

Anyway, it took me two and a half hours to write it and when I read it back I felt it was just a tad too volatile to publish. In retrospect, it was just me venting to myself about this odious, weaselly, little runt and to be perfectly honest, I did feel a lot better once I’d gotten it all off my chest. Will it ever see the light of day? Probably not, but it did me a lot of good to write it.

So, on to more pressing matters a la Stevenson. What’s occurring then?

Well, I’m working on a new podcast, that’s what.

Not too sure yet when it will appear but I’ve started to put a lot of the elements into place. I have the logo and the theme tune ready to go and I’ve decided on the format, which is a complete shift from the Blessham Hall Podcast but still retaining one vital part of it, namely My Four Penneth Worth.

Unlike Blessham Hall this new one will be fully scripted as I feel that I don’t ad lib particularly well and I want it to be a darned sight more professional this time around. Ooh, listen to me, using big words like ‘professional’. Anyone who has seen my Stevenson Speaks videos on Youtube will readily testify to the amateurish nature of them and the slovenly delivery of yours truly. That notwithstanding, I would like the new podcast to be so much better. Call it progression if you must. I do!

I’m toying with the idea of telling you the name of the new podcast but I can’t make my mind up on that. What I will say though is that I fully intend to make it a lot funnier than Blessham Hall but also a lot more deadpan in delivery.

And there won’t be a djembe this time, although I do still treat myself to the odd little drumming session now and again. The only thing I can’t fully guarantee is that there won’t be any background noise as there sometimes was during the recording of Blessham Hall. The perils of using the bedroom as a studio I guess. So please bear with me.

Regular listeners of Blessham Hall, and there were some, would tell you that I had all the good intentions when I started out of producing each episode every Monday. That lasted for about nine weeks and after that it got a bit erratic. Sometimes Monday, more often than not Tuesday, the occasional Wednesday and even Thursday one week when I was in a poor state and beside myself with anxiety.

I haven’t yet decided what day of the week the new podcast will appear but what I can tell you is that owing to a wide variety of reasons, such as my bad health and other commitments such as writing those pesky novels and so forth, I will only be podcasting once a fortnight.

I earnestly believe than this will keep it fresh and something that people may look forward to.

There’ll be no Joke of the Week, no quizzes and no news. If that’s got you curious then I see that as a good thing and I sincerely hope you’ll log on and listen when the day comes.

As for hosting platforms, it’s going to be on Spotify and Anchor this time, to begin with, before adding it to Google, Amazon and iTunes (maybe) at a later date. Apologies to all my old listeners on Podbean but it just wasn’t economically viable any more. By which I mean, it cost me a lot of money to host it there. So sorry Podbean users, but hey, give Spotify a try and I’m sure you’ll like it.

Finally, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, thank you so much to everyone that took the time to listen to Blessham Hall. I’ve often been told that I have a ‘face for radio’ but that people like my voice and find it soothing even. So I hope I can do you all justice.

Watch this space…

PS – Oh go on then, I’ll tell you the name of it. It’s going to be called The Curmudgeon. Now, has that made you curious?

Ok, this isn’t going to be easy at all. I’m literally shaking all over gentle reader and my fingers are missing more keys than they’re hitting as I type. Oooh, I do feel odd.

Got a virus you see. Can’t think why; maybe my body isn’t satisfied with just fibromyalgia, Depressive Anxiety Disorder and sleep apnoea and wants something else to play with as well. Spoilt brat that it is.

Right now, apart from every muscle in my body screaming blue-bloody-murder at me, I’ve got a chest full of what feels like slow-moving treacle, my breathing is powerfully difficult to the point of being almost non-existent, my nose is running like Usain Bolt in his prime and my head has somehow been filled with hot Tarmac. Added to which there appears to be some gross and terrifying ape-like creature behind my eyes who is determinedly intent on pushing them out of their sockets with his gnarled and misshapen thumbs. In short, I’m a trembling, dishevelled wreck of a man who is longing for succour in what ever shape or form it may take.

Sleep is no longer a pleasure as my nights are filled with constant waking, coughing and battling for every breath. When the Sun finally rises above the horizon I feel about as refreshed as a man who has been eating dry-roasted chili peanuts all night but forgot to take a cold drink with him.

I always look forward to that first, aromatic cup of rooibos in the morning but not at the moment, as every swallow I take feels like I’m ingesting a large handful of carpet tacks which sear and rake at my parched throat with brutal intensity and make me curse the very name of the beverage I’m attempting to drink.

My days are spent shuffling around the flat from bed to chair to couch and back again. I derive no pleasure from music or literature, both great loves of my life, and I can’t even bring myself to focus on the television as the colours hurt my eyes and it requires far too much concentration.

On the plus side though, I’ve done a test and it isn’t Covid-19. I was relieved about that because I really was starting to wonder. Also, compared to the last virus I had, I’m able this time to break wind with surety which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is always a boon. So there are some positives to be had from all this.

I do hope this doesn’t come across as moaning though. I’m really not moaning. I mean, these things happen, don’t they? You can’t go a full 24 hour day any more without somebody saying something like, ‘there’s a bug going around’ or ‘there’s a lot of it about at the moment’ or some other sagely faux wisdom yet again regurgitated to try and make us feel better. No, I’ve just got to ride the damn thing out.

Pointless seeking medical help either. I’ll be told to stay in bed and take plenty of fluids and that’s not really revelatory advice, is it? If I drink any more water than I already am then I fear the lavatory ballcock may break from over use.

Anyway, I’ve been awake since half past five this morning and it’s now nearly nine o’clock. Wow, been out of bed a princely three and a half hours, a new record! Time to get back under the quilt I think. I’m exhausted now from typing and screen glare.

Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal very soon and just have my regular set of ailments to contend with. See you all on the other side for fun and giggles again in the very near future.

I know I know, it’s been a while. Over two weeks to be precise, but were you really counting? I hope not.

Yes, I’ve been rather quiet and sort of gone to ground a bit. The reason? Well, if you’re a regular visitor to this little blog then you’re probably sick to your back teeth of hearing the word fibromyalgia, and who could blame you.

But the truth of the matter is that the F word is a constant factor in my life and again, yet again, it has hampered any attempt at living in any kind of normality for the last fortnight. Ergo, no blogging and virtually no work on the current WIP (Work In Progress). As for my social media activity, that’s been about as lively as an ageing, three-legged sloth on morphine.

However…

I’ve come to a decision!

No longer am I going to moan about how this condition effects me, which, just to remind you, is chronic, constant violent pain, absolute helpless fatigue, cognitive impairment, digestive problems and sensitivity to light to name but a few of the issues I have. Instead, I’m going to make a joke of it as a means to, well, fight back I suppose.

There’s the old saying that laughter is the best medicine (although for the common cold I think hot lemon and honey with a couple of paracetamol is far more effective) and if I can poke fun at my condition a bit more then it may just give me the feeling of taking back control a little bit.

Of course, being a comedy writer means that it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge to take the Mickey out of fibromyalgia, or so it might seem.

The thing is you see, this past couple of weeks have been exceptionally bad as far as the Fibro goes and it is so hard to exercise one’s sensayooma when feeling like that.

But, I’m going to have a quick bash at it now just to prove to myself that it can be done.

Here goes…

Fibromyalgia is a lot like an irritating teenager that just won’t give up moaning and grousing at you. You want to get on with life and enjoy it, but all the time there’s this acne-faced, greasy-haired, bad-of-breath, know-it-all little shit that keeps nibbling away at you and giving you the urge to scream “F*****g well leave me alone!”

It stops you short of doing anything.

You want to work but Fibromyalgia keeps interrupting you because it wants your undivided attention. You want to go shopping but Fibromyalgia just wants to sit indoors and be introverted. You’d like to do a bit of exercise but Fibromyalgia says ‘My legs hurt’ and so you just have to lie on the couch and listen to it bitching at you like a constant dripping tap. You want to go out for the evening but Fibromyalgia won’t let you have any enjoyment because it means that it has to entertain itself which it isn’t capable of doing without making your life a bloody misery.

You see the similarities between the two?

So what do you do? You let it have it’s selfish, snotty, spiteful little way just to keep the peace. And at the end of the day, I believe that’s what each and every one of us really craves – peace and quiet. Or is it just me?

And yes, before you say anything, I was a teenager once myself and I am speaking from personal experience of being one of the aforementioned little turds and I’m sure my parents would concur. We’ve all been there people, we’ve all been there.

So apologies for the silence of the last however many days it’s been. I’ve had a word with myself about doing better and even cleaned the laptop in anticipation of using it more and taking better care of the old girl.

It is hard to try and be funny when your body is wracked with physical pain and you’re hooked up to a TENS machine with your muscles liberally coated in CBD cream and your bowels are a solid immoveable object from all the painkillers you’ve taken, but I promise you I’m going to try a lot harder. Just see if I don’t.

Let me make it quite clear right from the off. There is nothing even remotely auto-biographical about my latest novel, Vole. This one came right out of left field and if reading it makes you feel uneasy then just imagine what it did to me writing the damn thing.

You see, the central character and main protagonist, Vole himself, is obsessed with ladies bottoms and bicycle seats. I’ll explain why in a minute. The point is that I’m the total opposite. I really don’t like bottoms.

Don’t get me wrong, all of us men like to admire a nice callipygous female (Google it) when we see one but it stops there for me. The thought of actually touching one, apart from my lovely wife’s, fills me with utter dread. The mere sight of poo makes me want to cry, I loathe other peoples farts to the point of wanting to retch and I don’t even like sitting in recently vacated chairs that are still warm. Gives me the creeps it does.

I don’t know what the word is for a phobia of bottoms but whatever it is, I’ve got it.

So why then did I write a whole 84,000 word novel about a man who is in absolute raptures at the mere thought of sniffing ladies bicycle seats?

Well believe me, it wasn’t easy.

So to set the record straight, I’d like to explain where this peculiar little book originated.

Some years ago, I forget exactly when, I was in a waiting room, I forget exactly where and I was starting to get bored. The room was hot and stuffy and my phone battery was on its last legs. So in an act of desperation I picked up a copy of a newspaper that was on the small occasional table next to me.

It was one of those dreadful red-top tabloids. I mean the truly dreadful ones, The Star or The Sunday Sport. Awful, tawdry things that have no place in decent society but like I say, I was desperate by that point.

Thumbing through this diabolical rag I happened on an article that made me both sick to my stomach but also curious about the person it was written about.

I don’t recall the man’s name but I do recall what he looked like and what he’d been up to; which was basically this.

Kate Middleton’s sister, Pippa, had done a charity bicycle ride in Africa and had raised an awful lot of money doing so. As a further altruistic gesture, Pippa decided to auction her bike on eBay and raise even more cash for the worthy cause she was supporting.

Enter the man in question.

This “individual” had managed to raise ten thousand pounds himself in order to be able to bid for the bicycle so that he could…

…sniff the seat whenever he liked.

Yes, you heard that correctly. This man was a serial seat-sniffer. And proud of it too.

As I read through the article it became aware to me that this curious chap had absolutely no qualms about being in the newspaper and having his seedy little tale splashed about for the whole world to see. It really was apparent that he was even boastful about what he did. And as a writer, Something began to stir within me.

That happens a lot to us writers, things stir within us all the time.

The man’s appearance was most unusual as well. He looked as if some raving mad scientist had managed to cross a human being with a rat and he was the end result. I’ve never seen a person look so much like a rodent in my entire life. At first I suspected it may have been Photoshopped but I know Photoshopping when I see it and this was most definitely for real.

I began to conjure up a scenario in my mind of this man being a character in one of my books. The more I stared at his physiognomy on the page the more I thought about the idea of the ultimate anti-hero; a pervert.

Nobody likes perverts do they? And yet, I began to think, what would we all think of a pervert, like this fellow, who actually did a good thing for once in his life? How would people react? Would he go from pariah to hero? Or would his misdemeanours forever condemn him to a life of shame?

At that moment I was called in to my appointment and I let the paper flop back onto the table where it probably stayed until it wound up in the recycling bin. But, for the rest of the day, I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. I mean, I found this creepy little man repellent yet also strangely fascinating and I squirrelled away my idea for him as a character into one of the dusty recesses of my brain for future reference.

When I started to write the Ingleby series of novels, beginning with The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham, I really got into the idea of misfits being the central characters. So when it came to the time that I needed a character for the third in the series I looked no further than the memory of my rodent-featured friend in the tabloid and hey presto! Vole was born and the rest, as they say, is history (although I’ve never quite worked out who ‘they’ are).

Having that, aforementioned, aversion to all things bottom, it wasn’t an easy book to write. Quite possibly the hardest one yet. But in hindsight (no pun intended) it is also perhaps the best written of all my books.

It was written during a time of great personal upheaval and poor health and at times I came close to scrapping it and starting all over again with something completely different. I’m glad now that I didn’t. I think Vole is a corking little book. It’s funny, rude, sad and poignant all at the same time and I’m really rather chuffed with it.

Will the character of Vole ever make a comeback? Never say never is my motto, but it won’t be for a while as I’ve got many other Ingleby ideas simmering away and also a raft of Joe Wilkie/Blessham books on my To Write list.

If you want to check out what Vole is all about then you can do so here: Vole on Amazon

It really is worth the asking price and your valuable time to have a read, especially after all the shuddering and soul-searching I went through to produce the bloody thing.