How quickly the days go…

I noticed that yesterday in the park when I saw the Not-so-little Master and was happily aware that, as you can see, no crow is going to get him now. He’s got wings that he can flap and a neck that he can arch, and, and I’ll murmur this oh so quietly, he’s not quite as cute as he was. He's the one standing at the back as if to say 'I'm independent, I am' and you can hardly see the mark on his chest now his adult feathers are coming through.

The little ducklings who wizzed along like those toys you made from pompoms are now getting their grown-up feathers. So are the moorhens, who look so graceful on water and ungainly on land with their wide feet and long legs. The cygnets are still fluffy, but it won’t be long before the magic of new life passes along with the spring, so it seems to me like a reminder to make the most of every single day that I am lucky to have because things are always changing. And here are fluffy cygnets because they just make things better, don't they?

I’m having another birthday in less than three weeks, and how did that happen? I like to think that the answer is that time flies when you’re having fun. Not great big dramatic fun, just enjoying every single day and taking the simple pleasures. Like this morning, putting the recycling bin outside the gate ready to be collected in the early morning light when it wasn’t half past five yet and then putting the first load of washing out while the swans flew overhead on their way from Holes Bay to the Park, where I shall hear them later. I also heard the call of a peregrine falcon being answered by some very annoyed seagulls, so I can guess what he’s up to.

Like puttering round and watering and looking at the gaps in the garden and wondering why a plant hasn’t come through and thinking ahead to the RNLI plant sale on Saturday and what I might come back with. There will be cake. How could there not be, and how can I not buy cake in aid of a charity that’s so dear to my heart? So I shall eat well in a good cause.

Like setting the table prettily and making a ragu to go into the slow cooker so that all I have to do when I get back from the Harbour is cook the pasta nd the vegetables. Like looking up at the trail an aeroplane has left behind in a pale blue sky and thinking about how beautiful this world is. Briefly, I’m feeling cross with all the stupid people who mess it up because they think causes matter more than children and kittens and all the beauty and are so convinced that they’re so right and everyone else is utterly wrong.

Only briefly, because I don’t want to feel cross today. Today, I intend to enjoy it all, so in a moment I shall put the second load of washing out and enjoy the garden again and see the cherries and apples growing. Tomorrow it is forecast to rain for the first time in ages, and I’m looking forward to that too, because I’m working on the Christmas anthology which is called ‘Home for the Holidays’ and the Christmas Windy Bay which is called ‘The Christmas Escape.’


Till then, I’ll just mention the books that are on offer this week at 99p in the UK and 99c in the US.

There’s quite a contrast this week. I’ll start with the three from my Oldcastle series, which are unashamed gentle romances set in a small Dorset town where the river runs sleepily. They’re The Toddler and the Tough Guy, Buried Trouble and Where There’s a Will, and I like them for different reasons. I always enjoy taking a tough guy hero who’s used to being in charge of everything and putting him in a situation where he’s not, so the Toddler and the Tough Guy was fun to write. Buried Trouble drew on my love of Time Team as a young woman, and then watching it with my children. Where There’s a Will is about an auction house, and I loved going to our local one before Covid turned the world upside down for the immunosuppressed and made mine smaller but still wonderful.

Then there are the three from the Shadows series, which I write as Eleanor Neville because it’s a darker world, with a little more sex and violence. I like these because I like to think that there is a shadowy department of spies out there stopping the horrible things from happening. Those three are Accidental Hero, Strange Harvest and Kisschase.

Accidental Hero throws a romantic suspense writer into the world she writes about and leaves her swearing to stop doing it if she survives and take up writing knitting patterns instead, even though she can’t knit. Strange Harvest is about an establishment-hating environmental protester who is having to accept that sometimes the government might be right and friends may not be on her side. Finally, there’s Kisschase, which starts out down on the beach at Sandbanks and has a beautiful sailing boat in it. So again, please don’t ask me which are my favourites because I enjoyed writing all of them.

I hope you enjoy some simple pleasures this week, and I’ll see you on Sunday and let you know what I bought at the plant sale. It will undoubtedly be more than I planned, but it is for a good cause…