I almost got my ducks in a row,

They moved just as I was taking the picture, which is pretty much life for you, isn’t it! What I definitely got, in between weather warnings, was a walk around the park to see snowdrops and daffodils and swans who were happy to see us and the grain we carry.

I could feel spring getting closer, because of the gradually warming sun on my back and the sense that winter is being driven back. I know that it’ll fight back because it always does at this time of year, but I have three purple crocuses in bloom in the garden and plenty of daffodils that are close to flowering and getting closer and closer every time I look at them (as long as I don’t look at them too often.) My three new solar fountains with their separate panels give me the gentle sound of burbling water for eight hours even on a grey day, and it’s only February, so of course my personal forecast is good now with better to come.

I started the pruning this morning because the plants are budding, so they’re ready to be trimmed just below a bud that’s close to the height I want to keep. I do a lot of pruning because it’s a small garden with a lot of plants in it, and I enjoy it. If it isn’t normal to give plants a name just before I chop bits of them off, then it’s probably best not to tell me, and a great deal better than chopping off bits of the people who’ve annoyed me, don’t you think? For, one thing my garden isn't anything like big enough to bury them.

I came home, windblown and well aware that there’ll be more rain tto come, bu I’ve been outdoors and it was so wonderful that I wanted to share it with you.

I also want to share the books that are on special offer this week.

First there’s the first four in the Shadows series, which I write as Eleaonr Neville because they’re darker, sexier and can be more violent. Not desperately so, but happy endings mean something different there, and they usually involve people getting sucked into situations where they don’t have a clue what they’re doing. That sums up my life all too often, but at least no one’s shooting at me. Those are Fallen Angel, Haunted Angel, Running Home and Running Scared

The second set couldn’t be more different if I tried, and I write them as Tia Brown, which makes it more interesting that the characters from both series are now starting to visit each other’s worlds. Lucy Williams is a widow who used to work from home and has a bright, stubborn daughter called Gracie. She wasn’t always Lucy, though. Once, she was someone else who was married and living a very different life as a spy. Then an operation went so badly wrong that she and her husband had to live under a new identity in a place that she thought had been chosen because nothing ever happened there. was a man she loved very much. Her husband died from cancer when Gracie was two, and her former friends think she’s dead, so her friend Sally is very precious to her. She’s not as precious as Gracie, so when her daughter was hurt at school, and the head teacher won’t take it seriously, she decided to use her old skills and then… well, it’s best you read it because life gets messy very fast. The ones on offer are Child’s Play, A Fete Worse than Death and Snakes and Ladders.

Have a good week till we meet again on Sunday, and with any luck, I’ll finish my pruning without ending up bleeding all over the place! I’ll be more careful about how I prune, or at least wear gloves

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