Ups and downs

The days are getting shorter, but not too cold yet, so it should have been a joy to walk down to the Harbour to watch them towing an inflatable boom across that’ll catch oil spills if, God forbid, they ever happen again. If I may get onto my soapbox for a minute or two, then I’ll say that I wish that the protestors who are planning to march through Poole next weekend, some of them nattily clad in their pink decorators overalls like so many Teletubbies, would come and see how hard people work to stop spills. It strikes me that they’re doing far more good than they ever will. You only have to see the litter the so-called environmental campaigners leave behind to know that they’re part of the problem, but that’s a whole other story that’ll find its way into a Lucy Williams book next year.

More to the point right now, it was a lovely day and I should have enjoyed watching the exercise and the birds and chatting to the dog walkers and generally being part of a community that not only cares but does something useful. There’s a litter pick up next week that we’ll join in, and we’re feeding the red and amber list birds who now look out for us. And yes, I did think that it’d be a good way to find a body in the water or recover some drugs that have been dropped overboard to be recovered later, exactly as smuggled goods once were.

Speaking of writing, there’s a new book out on Thursday in the Windy Bay series, which is called “Weddings in the Village.’ And before you say ‘things like that couldn’t happen’, then as always, I can assure you that something like it did, and the Reverend Karen owes a fair bit to a dear friend of mine. Windy Bay is an oasis in a sometimes dark world, but the Teletubby Protesters aren’t capable of seeing how many places like that there are and I feel sorry for them.

Also on special offer this week are two standalone novels that I wrote as my alter ego of Eleanor Neville. They’re a little bit darker, but still hopeful because I believe in happy beginnings for people who are prepared to do the hard work of going looking for them. They are the Omega Project, which is set just after Christmas and is about 3 people who had a worse Christmas than I hope any of you ever do and aren’t expecting to have to become unlikely superheroes any more than any of us ever expect to have to step up. Twice Shy is set by the sea as a damp, bleak winter falls and the ominous mists come rolling in…

As well as that, there’s ‘Picking Up the Pieces’ which is a nice gentle contrast and the first of the Harbourside series and ‘A Christmas Sampler’ which is short stories and might be worth collecting for closer to the time. There’ll be another of those out soon, and I’ve almost finished writing next summer’s short stories because so many people have said nice things. I’m also just beginning a new project, again by request, which’ll be a year of short stories focusing on the people at Swansmere, with Amy and Peter and the gang taking background roles. It’s going to be called ‘A Year at Swansmere’ and I’m planning to write them in real time and get the book out in January 2027, which seems both a long way away and scarily close.

That reminds me that it’s important to make the most of each day, so I’ll end with a picture of the boom being towed. Here’s hoping it’s never needed and you have a great week till we meet again on Sunday.

PS - Sorry there's no picutre yet. I'm hoping that I can update it around lunchtime, but you don’t want to hear about the fun I didn’t have with my supermarket order on Tuesday that meant that I didn’t get to go there. Instead, I spent hours on the phone and with a good contender for the least helpful chatbot and customer service reps ever. Don’t be too surprised if one of my next books involves a serial killer taking hideous revenge on the management of a supermarket chain because I had plenty of time to plan it! I didn't have any groceries though and they didn't care that I'd lost money because of it.

Please, wish me luck for today, because so far it hasn't been the sort of week where I can stay positive.