Reticent – an adjective meaning ‘not revealing one’s thoughts or feelings readily.’

Some people call reticence a very British condition. The stiff upper lip and all that. We don’t like to boast unless it’s talking about the Royal Family or two World Wars and one World Cup and only then under the coercion of alcohol.

And for myself I’ve recognised that for the last few weeks I’ve been living under a cloud of reticence regarding my latest (and possibly greatest) novel – Vole. Yes gentle reader, Alan has hidden his fat, bearded, wine-soaked light under a rather large and expansive bushel and shied away from giving his best towards promoting said book.

I’ve mentioned before on this here blog and my (now sadly defunct) podcast about what a tremendous struggle it was to write Vole and how my personal life had been a tumultuous time during the process, and I think in many ways that has led me to suffer from a surfeit of self-doubt and anxiety about the novel.

My fears were largely founded on the idea that this time I’ve gone too far with my subject matter and have trodden where other authors might fear to tread. SPOILER ALERT! Vole is about a pervert who gets his kicks from sniffing ladies bicycle seats but redeems himself under a barrage of opposition to his obscure and anti-social activities. It’s funny but oh so rude, filthy even, and not the kind of book to be read by anyone under the age of 18 (possibly 21) or by old maiden aunts with weak dispositions. As James Herbert once said about his horror novel, The Fog – ‘For God’s sake don’t leave this on the arm of your grandmothers chair.’

That is, unless you’ve got a very broad-minded grandmother.

Speaking as the creator of Vole I can say hand on heart that it is exceedingly well written, sordidly humorous and populated by a cast of superbly drawn characters that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Amsterdam’s more nefarious night spots. But speaking as a decent member of society I would say that it’s up there with John Cleland’s Fanny Hill when it comes to literary smuttiness. And that is the root cause of my recent reticence.

However…

I have now decided to emerge from the self-imposed shadows I’ve been hiding in and am ready to wade back into the grimy, seweresque underworld of social media and start promoting the damn thing for all it’s worth. And why on Earth shouldn’t I?

After all, it took eight difficult, soul-searching months of my life to produce and cost me a lot of physical fibromyalgia pain along the way. I worked hard on this book; bloody hard in fact, and I’m not prepared to just let it slip by unnoticed, forgotten and uncared for.

My outlook has been buoyed by a recent flurry of sales of Vole. Heck! I must be doing something right if people want to spend good money on it and there are three reviews on Amazon so far. Ok, so not exactly viral but all positive and affirming.

So it’s best foot forward now and no looking back. I want to stick my chest out with newly-stiffened resolve and say, ‘I am Alan Stevenson, the author of Vole.’

I think next week, if not sooner, I shall write a blog post detailing the inspiration for Vole and how it came about. You’ll be surprised, I think. Until then, do feel free to purchase this cheeky little wretch of a book, or any of my other ones if you prefer, from Amazon either as a Kindle download (a mere, piffling £2.99) or a paperback (slightly more at £8.99 but worth every penny) and see if I’m right.

One year ago today our nephew Gary was brutally murdered; stabbed to death by his girlfriend. I won’t mention her name; the courts have already dealt with her. No, it is Gary who is in the thoughts and prayers of all who knew that kind-hearted soul, not the psychotic woman who robbed him of his life. Today, Ange and I, and so many others, stand with Gary’s parents Jim and Sandra and his five brothers, to raise awareness of domestic violence against men, which is far more endemic than most people realise.

I’ve written the following piece for Gary and I hope you will take a few minutes to read it; it’s only 300 words long. All I ask is that you read it slowly, mindfully, prayerfully and contemplatively. And if you yourself are a victim of domestic violence it is my profound wish that it encourages you to talk to someone, anyone, about it.

We can’t bring Gary back but we can raise awareness so that other families won’t have to go through the same heart-wrenching grief that his family are still going through.

Thank you.

#voiceforgary

Silence

By Alan Stevenson

For Gary Morgan

Silence…

In this increasingly busy and maddening world so many of us crave it. We desire solitude and quiet spaces to think, to breathe and to feel more alive. We seek it out in wild places from seashore to forest to mountain top and when we find it we often find ourselves.

Silence…

Snowfall, blanketing the streets and countryside and even muffling the myriad sounds of nature. Instilling deep and warm feelings of nostalgia and fond memories within us and the promise of well-being.

Silence…

The feeling of eeriness that there’s no-one there but you and your thoughts and the un-nerving fragility of being on your own. Perhaps only temporary and fleeting, perhaps, something more lasting and almost tangible. A fear of the dark maybe.

Silence…

Loneliness, sadness, sorrow and grief. No strength in numbers. No-one to talk to, laugh or cry with; just you and those four walls. A prisoner in your own home. Alone.

Silence…

No-one to turn to, fearing for your own safety, your sanity, your life.

Silence…

You’re a man they say. You need to big it up. Grow a pair. Stand up for yourself. Big boys don’t cry. Real men don’t take crap. So what do you do? You keep schtum and you hope and pray that tomorrow things will change. Maybe tomorrow she won’t hurt me with her words. Maybe tomorrow she won’t hit me with whatever comes to hand. Maybe tomorrow my very life won’t be in danger of unwarranted physical abuse. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll change. If I just stay silent.

Silence…

Death, the grave, the great unknown beyond. Dear friends and loving family left to mourn. Lives destroyed by domestic violence. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. Ever!

Speak out or forever hold your silence…

The phrase ‘End of An Era’ is so overused don’t you think? You hear it every time someone retires or moves home or signs for another football club or changes their underwear. Well, maybe that last one is just me. But you must admit it is beaten soundly to death in this day and age. The phrase I mean, not my underwear.

But…

I’m going to use it right now, for truly, in my own life, an era has drawn to an end.

Yes, I’m talking about my sodding podcast, I just wanted to be a tad verbose about it.

For the Blessham Hall podcast is no more dear reader. I’ve called temps as the French might say and brought down the curtain on that fine old institution. If 96 episodes can indeed be called an institution. Probably not.

What could be the cause of such drastic action? Well, in a word, downloads. They were dwindling rapidly at such an alarming rate that they made the Wall Street Crash look like a child’s broken piggy bank. They went from approximately 40 a week to barely half a dozen, and that’s across three different platforms.

So in the end it wasn’t really a hard or heart wrenching decision to make. We had a good run but let’s leave it at that. Onwards to bigger and brighter things etc etc.

And, if truth be told, I wasn’t enjoying the process any more. It had become stale and something of an irritant to me (and my listeners if stats are anything to go by) and I began to think that my energies (of which I have very little) would be much better spent elsewhere.

That was two weeks ago…

And in between I’ve done bugger all.

No work on the WIP, no blogging, no promo or marketing… heck, I haven’t even sent copies of Vole out to my beta readers yet. Just sat on my expansive, hairy arse for two weeks feeling sorry for myself. I couldn’t even muster the energy to write in my diary for six days on the trot and then spent over two hours trying to catch up with the damn thing until my wrist ached like I’d come last in the World Chinese Burns Finals.

You may recall one of my most recent blog posts before all this stating that I felt like a burnt out wreck. Well, even burnt out wrecks are covered by insurance and the guarantee of some return. I on the other hand have been more like a fallen apple that the wasps have had a right good go at. Neither use nor bloody ornament to anyone. Except the wasps.

I think I did need a break though. Writing Vole, my most challenging book yet, in the midst of a ton of personal upheaval and ill health had left me at self-destruction point and beginning the next (Joe Wilkie) novel so soon after was as foolhardy as it comes.

However…

I’ve had a rest and some recouperation and I now feel ready to pull on the gloves and get back in the literary ring, so to speak. Yes, two weeks of lie-ins, espousal lunches, red wine, reading and couch crashing has left me feeling much better and in a frame of mind where I feel I can now begin again.

Enough buggering about Stevenson, I’ve told myself, it’s time to get on with the one and only thing you’re half good at and that’s writing. So on Monday the current WIP (work in progress, remember?) will be reopened and yours truly will pick up from where he left off with renewed vigour.

I do like that word – vigour! Sounds so dynamic.

But in order to avoid such a catastrophic crash and burn again I’ve set myself a target. 1,350 words a day for 60 days. If I manage to do more per day then all well and good but I’m going to do my damnedest to not do less. That will leave me time for other things such as blogging, marketing and so forth. It’ll also mean that I won’t tax my rubbish health too much either.

As for the podcast, well, never say never is my motto so I’d like to think that I’ll return to the microphone soon with something fresh and innovative. Until then, you can still buy any of my books from Amazon and give yourself the chortle you deserve.

A love a good statistic, don’t you? No? Oh well, please yourselves. But I do; always have. Not in any kind of obsessive way you understand, Lord no, not like those people who can tell you the exact time of the winning goal from every FA Cup final ever and who scored it and with what part of their anatomy, or who can tell you every number one UK chart record since time immemorial and which record it knocked off the top spot and how many weeks it remained there. No, I’m not quite that anal, although, if you saw how I arrange my CD collection you might disagree with that.

The statistics I’m mostly interested in are my own. I check my stats on the KDP, Podbean and Anchor dashboards every single day; sometimes several times a day. Often, this makes for depressing and lonely reading when I see the number zero, but at other times gives me a bit of a frisson when I see those sales and downloads.

Just recently, I don’t know why, I thought about another statistic. What, I wondered, is the total word count for all six of my independently-published novels (I prefer that phrase to self-published, so much more refined).

So, this very morning I tallied them up and it reads like this.

Ah Boy – 94788 words

The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham – 80253 words

The Pheasants Revolt – 93834 words

Mutch Wants Moor – 75695 words

Hot Eire – 91060 words

Vole – 74189 words

That makes a grand total of…

509799 words!!!

Yes, I said WOW as well when I added it all up. 509,799 words in four years. That’s just over half a million. Half-a-bloody-million!!! My mind is blown just at the sheer scale of that figure. I mean, mathematics was never my bag as my erstwhile and skilful self-esteem lowering maths teachers would no doubt happily testify, but we’ve all got calculators on our computers and I’ve no reason to suppose that mine is lying.

To think, that I have sat at this tired and knackered old budget laptop, that cost less than £200 nine years ago, and four-finger tapped out half a million words just doesn’t seem credible. And yet here we are with the statistics to prove it. It’s amazing that I have any fingerprints left.

This also means that by the time I reach book number twelve (God willing) I could actually have written over a million words. I tell you it blows my mind. And that’s not even including all the blog posts I’ve written.

So I’m going to indulge myself now and call myself a “Prolific Author” and why not.

Call it burnout. Call it writers fatigue. Call it brain fog. Call it being absolutely knackered. Call it whatever you will but I think I’ve got it. Basically, I’m mess gentle reader.

I’ll elaborate.

My current state of anguish came to light really, last Wednesday. It had been a quiet day as neither Ange nor myself were feeling at our best and the morning was spent in happy and carefree chatter between ourselves. Later on, in the early evening, I decided that I really ought to stir myself and get some writing done. After all that next novel won’t write itself.

So I positioned myself at the laptop with a pint glass of water at hand and my writing hat perched on my head at a jaunty angle and I set to it. I soon found that the process was becoming somewhat laborious and I was finding myself easily distracted. Nonetheless I wrote 850 words in just under and hour.

Then I read it back to myself.

I’m trying to think of just one single word that adequately describes those 850 words and the only one that readily springs to mind is…

Shite!!!

Yes, I’d written pure and unadulterated shite. A load of old rubbish that I never want to see in print as long as I live.

In less than one hour I had made Joe out to be some kind of rural chemist and had turned the fierce-some Lady Stark-Raven into some kind of prissy schoolmistress. As you know, Joe is a slow learner and Her Ladyship has a temper like a Bengal tiger with a port hangover and inflamed piles. However, none of their natural traits came through at all in the pathetic garbage I’d written.

Only one solution to the problem – Delete!

So what went wrong? I mean, I’ve made a pretty good start on the next novel, writing 11700 words that were incredibly good and I was enjoying it too. And then wallop. Just like that. Crash and burn.

Oh it’s just a blip, I hear you say. Well I’m not so sure.

It’s been five days now and I haven’t touched the novel since and I’ve no immediate intention to do so. I honestly believe I’ve lost my novel writing mojo, just when I was on a roll. And I think I know the reason why.

I’m a burnt out wreck. That’s what I am. It’s all been too much the last nine months and I think I’ve fried my brain to a dwindled crisp. Of course, rushing headlong into another novel when I’ve only just released the last one was a big mistake.

I should have given it time. A month at least I reckon, if not more. I should have just focussed on promoting Vole but oh no, I had to start another one straight away didn’t I and now I’m thinking that it could be a month before I even attempt to return to it.

Allow me, if you will for a minute, to expound on why I believe this has happened.

If you recall, I published Hot Eire in the latter days of June last year. I was delighted with that little book and the reaction and feedback I received towards it. So what did I do next?

1. I started work on Vole almost immediately.

2. I began work on the second series of Stevenson Speaks.

3. I moved home.

4. Buggered off to Scotland for a week in the midst of it all.

5. Contracted Bell’s Palsy.

Actually, the list could go on and on. Life has been an absolute blur of chaotic occurrence and over-exertion that I’ve foolishly ignored and kept ploughing on with the most challenging book I’ve written yet.

In fact, the whole time has been a challenge. My wife has had gout and a heart attack in that time, my own mental and physical health has been urine poor, we’ve had two good friends die from cancer, we’ve had politics, pressure and personal clashes with other people, a flood at Blessham Hall and that’s not forgetting Christmas and all the stress and financial burdens it brings.

And there’s more, believe me there’s more.

And through all of it I’ve somehow kept blogging, podcasting and working on that beastly little wretch of a novel. And now I think I’ve reached the end of my tether. What a fool I was to imagine that I could begin another novel so soon. There’s a word for that kind of person – Berk!

As I type this my shoulders, arms and neck muscles are making me want to cry with the agony they’re in and I have a nasty pain in my right hand side which is worrying me a bit. Why am I putting myself through the wringer even more by attempting to write another novel so soon?

We watched the film about Enid Blyton last week, starring the wonderful Helena Bonham Carter, and I was astonished at how prolific that lady was when it came to the old typewriter. She wrote hundreds of books that are still enthralling children all over the world today. I also think about Dickens, Collins and the Brontës who wrote those great epic classics without the aid of a laptop and word processing software. They used a pen dipped in ink for crying out loud.

I suppose I shouldn’t compare myself to such genii but I would love to reach their incredible level of output. But hey, that ain’t gonna happen.

So what’s next?

Well, I’ve taken wise council from two of the people I trust most in this world; my gorgeous wife Ange and my excellent friend and confidante Kenny (Mac magician) Scotland, and I’m stepping away from it for a while.

We’ve got another good friend visiting us from across the Channel this week for a few days and then a long weekend in the charming town of Glossop where I shall be resting my ass off.

When we come back I’m just going to put what little energy I have into promoting Vole, recording the weekly podcast and keeping this here blog updated. And in between, a whole lot more rest. Hopefully then, around the middle of April maybe, after Easter is out of the way, I’ll make a tentative return to that novel and hopefully do two of my most well loved characters the justice that I had denied them in that awful shash that I wrote last Wednesday.

Watch this space.

Ahem!

Fanfare Please!!!

Stand back and gasp in amazement. It’s finally arrived!!!

My brand new novel – VOLE!

Eight months in the making and what an almighty slog it’s been. I can’t remember such a time when I’ve been so beset with ailments and stressful situations and yet through it all I’ve plodded stoically along working on this fabulous little novel. And now I can breathe a colossal sigh of relief with the announcement that the damn thing is finally published.

You see, despite all the personal challenges of the last eight months I’ve struggled with Vole because I’ve felt totally out of my depth with the subject matter. I’ve had to research so much more than usual and if anyone ever takes a look at my Google search history they’ll wonder what on Earth I’ve been doing all this time and might even start asking questions as to my own personal moral code.

I’ll talk a bit about the central character though and that may help you understand.

The main protagonist, if he can indeed be called one, is Vole himself. And in a word he is a ‘pervert.’ Not a very likeable character at all but, he does redeem himself in the story so you may grow to like him. Hey! Even roses grow on manure.

Vole is a loner, an outcast, a pariah even, with nary a friend in this world, and his “unusual” habits in Meltry Park have caused him to become something of a local notoriety in the town of Ingleby. But even outcasts can have their time to shine, and when Vole gets his moment he finds his insular little world turned base over apex in a fight between good and evil with him in the middle.

I won’t go into too much detail as you’ll want to find that out yourself when you read the book.

Just be reassured, that despite my own battles with writing it, it is a thumping good read and I think it’s quite a clever one as well. Even if I do say so myself.

I mean, what’s not to like about a comedic story of a perv, a vicar, a therapist and a nasty Tory councillor. Oops, I’ve said too much.

As with all my novels, Vole is available on Amazon either as a Kindle download for £2.99 or a paperback for £8.99 and, can I just ask you this question? Where are you going to find a bargain like that? Some people spent more than that last week on a Valentines card with about twenty five words in the form of some schmaltzy poem in it that will end up in the recycling when they break up with the person they sent it to.

Actually, I am a bit of an old romantic at heart but you know what I mean.

Vole is value for money, me thinks, at 74,000 words. And every one of them in exactly the right place.

I’ll sign off here but will leave you with a pic of the book cover so you can find it easily on said Amazon or if you prefer here’s a link to my website where you’ll find all of my books in one easy to find place.

Enjoy the book and don’t forget to leave me that all important review.

Cheers!

Gosh! Where to begin? Well, I can say with all honesty that last week was quite possibly the very worst one of my entire life. And I’ve had some bad ones over the years let me tell you. You see, I was desperately worried that I would lose my beloved wife following a heart attack that she suffered on Sunday the 29^th of January.

Thanks and praise be to God almighty that she didn’t die but both of us were very scared at the time and it’s a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It was also the loneliest I’ve ever felt in my life. A king-sized bed is just a huge echoing void when it’s only yourself and your fears lying awake at two o’clock in the morning. Well, myself and a one-eyed black and white cat, but he snores like a tranquillized rhinoceros and isn’t exactly a great help.

I realised long ago that I don’t do so good when Ange is away, usually with work visits where she stays on Becky’s boat overnight. I get listless and aimless when she’s not around. But that was magnified a hundredfold last week with her being in Airedale hospital waiting to have a stent fitted in one of her arteries.

But, let us focus on the bright side.

She’s home now and doing well. She’s following doctors orders and I’m doing my level best to keep her from overdoing it with anything, which believe me is harder than you might imagine. I’ve caught her several times cleaning the cat litter trays out or washing up in the early hours of the morning as sleep is difficult for us both at this time.

At the end of it all though I’m just overjoyed to have her home. Ange is in good spirits and has a positive outlook for the future. We’re planning a little long weekend getaway in March to the Peak District and the break will do us both the world of good I’m certain.

I just want to take a few lines to thank everyone who has sent such kind words and wishes via Facebook, Text, Whatsapp and by phone, plus all the flowers and cards she’s had this week. You have all truly touched her heart and made her smile.

By the way, our living room looks like a branch of Interflora at the moment and we’ve had to borrow extra vases. Honestly, we’ve even had to resort to using pint glasses.

I’d particularly like to thank the following people for their support. They know why.

Paul Horrocks

Becky Cardwell

Erin Cardwell

Debbie and Barry Gibson

Shannon Landers

Peter and Jeanette Peacock

Helen Austin

Sandra Morgan

Kenny Scotland

Ann-Marie Bruder

The Whole Landers Clan

Gerry Carter

Terry and Jerry Pierce

Tona Gill

Naz Kozar

The Stevenson Family

Ah heck, I could be here all day. Thank you all, from my heart to yours.

So, I’ll just finish with these words of wisdom – Look after your heart, your health and your loved ones. Take nothing for granted and live your life well; you only get one.

I’ll be back to normality with a funny blog next week.

Take care everyone x

And so, once again, we enter the endgame. No I’m not talking about some online video shoot-em-up where countless digitized characters are annihilated in a gory and blood-thirsty assortment of ways. Or even a more relaxing game of chess. No, I’m talking about my upcoming new novel. Yes! Hurrah! I’ve finally reached that stage of the proceedings.

And oh my word what a slog it’s been. What with fibromyalgia, a virus, Bell’s Palsy, a house move and a whole host of other distractions great and small its a wonder I am where I am with it at all. And that’s before we get on to the difficulties I’ve had writing the wretched thing.

This one has not been easy, gentle reader. Not easy in any way, shape or form.

But let’s look on the bright side now shall we?

The first draft is done, weighing in at just over 72,500 words and the editing process has already begun with a sense of urgency already adding another 500. This really has been my hardest novel to write yet and I just want the damned book finished and out there.

I don’t say that from a point of view of it’s not a great book; I believe it is, one of my best. It’s just that, to use a midwifery metaphor, compared to the other five this one has been a breach birth where the others all came out like shelling peas.

I quite like editing though. I compare it to washing up after a big meal and seeing all the pots and pans all clean and sparkling on the sink drainer. Mind you, I think I’m going to need a lot of literary Fairy Liquid and a full pack of Brillo pads for this one.

Of course, after editing, spell check and proof-reading we get to that narky old nemesis of mine – Formatting.

Putting a book out every six months or so is considered quite prolific by anyone’s standards and I’m quite swollen of head with my output, but for some reason I have to refer to my copious hand-written notes every time I publish a new one to remember what to do. My short term memory ain’t so good you see; encephalitis and all that jazz.

So it’s always a bit of a challenge and of course no two books are the same length and I can’t just duplicate files, however tempting that sounds. No, it’s a painstaking and laborious process of precise measurements, paragraph layouts, font sizes and muttered profanities (and I really don’t like being profane).

But, do you know what? I think I’m going to enjoy that process more this time. I feel something akin to that Churchillian spirit of, “We shall never surrender!” I’m not going to be bested by my shortest novel yet. It’s older, and bigger, brothers all did what they were told and this one is going to as well.

Publication date for this naughty little wretch? To be announced, hopefully, in the very near future.

For now, just be assured that the end is near.

Have you ever stepped on the brakes so hard that the tyres smoked? Or started a fire using the friction method? If you have then you’ll understand why I’ve named this post ‘Smoking Fingers.’

Last Thursday my stubby little digits worked so hard and for so long that it felt as if they might spark into combustion at any given moment. In fact, I went for it with so much gusto that I haven’t fully recovered yet.

My goal on that Thursday morning was to basically make myself sit down and write for a whole day. Something I haven’t been able to do for quite some time. I think the last full writing day I had was probably last July and since then I’ve been a mere shell of a man who manages the odd 1000 to 1500 words here and then when he can.

Ok, ok, maybe not quite as bad as all that but not far off.

But, hey! I finally did it. I actually achieved what I set out to achieve. I started at nine and finished at five and somewhere in between I wrote 6800 words. No, I couldn’t believe it either.

Of course, I stopped every now and then for lunch, rooibos tea, glasses of water, toilet breaks and the desperate need to stand up and stretch my poor aching muscles from time to time. But that notwithstanding I still feel something akin to pride for what I was able to do.

Well, maybe not pride because that always comes before a fall, and nobody wants one of those, but perhaps a warm glow of self-satisfaction. The kind of feeling you get when you have to pee outside on a cold day. Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, the thing is, the old fingers don’t work so good these days, with fibromyalgia blighting the living daylights out of them, and reaching any kind of typing goal is something of a rarity, even on a good day. I must admit that my hands were in a bad way the day after and I didn’t type one single word on the Friday.

The next novel, or WIP (Work In Progress) as we authors like to call it, is reaching completion of the first draft and it’s a tremendously exciting time again here at Blessham Hall. It’s only a mere few weeks I reckon before I’ll be wrestling with the dreaded KDP formatting again. So with that stimulating thought planted firmly at the back of my foggy mind I’m hoping to recreate the success of last Thursday this week, only I’m hoping to do it twice. Tuesday and Thursday to be exact, with a day off in between. If I can hit somewhere near the 7000 word mark on those two days then yes, maybe I will finally have that first draft finished.

This current WIP (Work In Progress, remember) has been a real challenge. Probably my shortest novel to date and yet definitely the most difficult to write. That’s partly due to the subject of the book, where I find myself in strange, bizarre and unusual surroundings, but also to the exceptionally poor physical state of Yours Truly this last six months.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that any more days like the glorious one I had last week are extremely welcome.

Fingers at the ready.

Type on!

Well first off I suppose I ought to wish you all a somewhat belated Happy New Year. Belated due to my lovely, lady wife having the first week and a half of 2023 on leave and there having been quite a large amount of high drama over the past ten days.

Drama? I hear you say. Pray, tell us more. We’re dying to know.

Yes, drama indeed, and plenty of it. I won’t go into all the gory details but it’s been a testing time. Not least in the culmination of it yesterday when our car conked out after travelling just a few yards from our home here at Blessham Towers. We managed to block the road, forcing other vehicles onto the footpath to get around us. Something or other to do with the fuel pump in the end and to cut a horribly long story short the whole sorry episode lasted well over three hours and left us feeling extremely red-faced in front of our neighbours.

Thankfully, we’re mobile again now.

Anyway, 2023 has begun and we’ve all got that New Year, New Me feeling haven’t we? Oh, right, just me then. Yeah, I suppose 2022 was a bit of a downer, all things considered. But I’m feeling hopeful for this one despite a bit of a rocky start so far.

Plans for this year include the publication of three (yes you read that correctly) books this year. The current ball-ache of a work-in-progress by February, the next Joe Wilkie book by Summer and the welcome return of dear old Archie and Aggie Stone by Christmas. Well, that’s what I’m aiming for at least. Watch this space.

To help me focus more in my endeavours I’ve treated myself to another new hat. I do so love a nice hat. I’m a sucker for them. You see, I received a lot of Amazon vouchers at Christmas and have dabbled a bit on the old online shopping and when I saw it I just couldn’t resist.

How will a new hat help you? You might say.

Well, because it’s my designated writing, blogging, podcasting, Youtubing hat. That’s why.

Actually, it’s what’s known as a Nepalese thinking hat and if you want to know what it looks like then watch Michael Gambon as Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films and you’ll be getting there. But in case you haven’t seen any of the films, and kudos to you if you haven’t, then there is a photo of my good self wearing said hat at the bottom of this post.

And I think it’s rather natty. Plus my beautiful Ange likes it too so that’s approval enough for me.

I want to wish you all a bright, healthy, happy 2023 and I hope I can make it a bit more fun for you with my novels/blog/podcast/videos etc. I haven’t really made any resolutions as such, other than to shift a ton of weight, but I am determined to be a lot busier and have a greater online presence than last year. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.

Anyway, here’s the hat…