Coming off the boil

Sorry this will be a bit late but I am actually quite surprised that I have managed to find time after all the busyness of moving in. Why is it that there are always a few very important but small items that get lost? Where, as an example, is the spare key to my car that Marcia takes when we are out – and the spare key to hers that I take? Then there are the cooking tongs: two pairs, both lost. May have to buy replacements.

It is lovely to be back. We have met so many people that we knew all those years ago and they have been overwhelmingly pleased to see us. It really has been a great home coming.

Marcia is busy dealing with the editor's notes on the last novel she wrote. These arrived just before we moved and she decided (quite rightly) that it would not be possible to give them the attention they deserved if she tried to do them while there was so much going on. Anyway, she started yesterday and more or less finished them this afternoon. That means that she can now free her mind off and let the next bunch of characters start chatting away and revealing what they have been up to that needs to be written down.

Holne Moor is one of my favourite places and is now just up the road.
It will be odd being up there without a dog. 

She already knows something about some of them and at least one will be a character we met in a previous novel (although I am not allowed to mention who that might be). Now we shall have to start trying to find out where it all happens. Under usual circumstances that is a job for May and June but the weather was so bad that the few trips we did make were not very productive. Then, of course, we decided to move. Somehow we need to find this location before the end of September and – as anyone who has been down here on holiday will testify – there are a lot of people around during August and the first couple of weeks in September. It is lovely to see them but it makes getting around rather slower and Marcia understandably finds it far harder to 'listen' to her characters and feel the vibes of the various places when they are too busy.

Next week we hope to go to Totnes where we shall no doubt meet some more old friends. I shall enjoy taking some more photographs of the old town to share with you.

Transworld produce unproofed copies of the books for reviewers and so on: Marcia's copies arrived the other day and they look wonderful. Next week I will share the cover with you (I have yet to get my scanner up and running so can't do that today).

Ahhh . . . we have just found those keys but still no sign of the cooking tongs.