Time travelling again

Today (Monday) is a cold day with a North North Easterly Wind, but it was dry and there was a neap tide, which means it’s extra low, so it was the ideal day to go time travelling as I like to think of it. I also wanted to collect some shells to put into my little succulent tubs when I plant those on because the ones I bought in January are all rooted and pretty much ready to pot on.

We saw 21 different sorts of birds, the old bathing pool that was once heated by steam from the gas works (let no one say I’m not romantic at heart!) and chatted to a metal detectorist as people do stop to talk down here. He was from Oxford and showed me pictures of some amazing finds and his enthusiasm was fun. So here's a picture of the bathing pool. It's clearer than I've ever seen it before and it was wear the people who lived in the slums washed. Something else to make me grateful that I live today!

I collected my shells, after checking they weren’t occupied, and we saw a sea urchin and all of it reminded me that it looked very different 60 years ago. It’s a post-industrial landscape where the sea has rounded the edges of the glass and the bricks and you can still see bits of the buildings that were demolished in old Poole and then used to reclaim the land. These days it’s also a site of special scientific interest because of the variety of birds which gives me massive hope whenever I hear the doom mongers telling me we're destroying life. I'm giving odds on the crows taking over if we wipe out the human race, because they're bright little beasties. Either them or starlings.

Now I am home and very relieved because it was COLD. I should have put my thermal leggings under my jeans but yesterday I wasn’t wearing a coat. Welcome to an English spring…

It makes brilliant reading weather, so here are this week's special offers.

There are 3 books from my Shadows series which I write as Eleanor Neville, and which feature medic and hostage negotiator Simon Jones who’s popping up in my Amy Hammond world more and more. These are To be the best, Professional hero and Enemy Within and at this stage he’s an idealistic young medic who thinks he wants to be a spy. Then he has to rescue feisty it girl Mel and then investigate her and her family.

For something completely different there’s Bloody Murder, Devil to Pay and the Missing Maiden which is the start of my Christians Cross series. This is a lovely Dorset village that’s said on an intersection point between universes. The village calls people as it needs them to keep the world safe, and it’s now decided it needs werecat Handsome and what he’d call his pet human, the vampire Keturah Conway. She thinks the ownership goes the other way round, but she doesn’t like finding dead bodies or being suspected by a handsome Detective Inspector who hasn’t worked out that he’s a witch hunter. Add to that the pub, which is run by a not too homicidal river spirit and it’s an interesting place. Think of it as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Midsomer murders…

Most of all have a good week till we catch up on Sunday.