If it's September, it must be . . .Christmas?

Some days seem to take on a thme of their own. Themes that can have nothing to do with the actual date, the time of year, the things you have planned for them. But sometimes several things connect up and put a focus on the day that you weren't expecting.

So yesterday's focus became Christmas - sorry, but it did!

I suppose I started it all off. My eldest sister lives in Australia - on the beautiful island of Tasmania - and so I'm used to planning ahead when it comes to buying and sending her presents. And when the presents I'm sending are, as they are this time, big, heavy books, I try to plan ahead enough to be able to send them by sea mail and so save a lot of money. Which is why yesterday morning saw me at the Post Office with two parcels.

I'd started the morning talking with lovely Lee Hyat from My Tote Bag and we were discussin plans for the next few months, so logically we mentioned possible contests coming up - planning ahead. I'll be running my usual Christmas Stocking Stuffed with books contest - the Beach Bag full of books had to be issed this year because the Great Big Blog Party grew so huge! So look out for that.

The morning mail had just arrived before I left the house - and it consisted of nothing but a batch of charity Christmas Catalogues with cards, paper, gifts etc to order. Planning ahead again.

But then I had to go and collect a parcel that the postie had tried to deliver to me - a box of my next book, The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife. I was intrigued to see the cover. I've already had copies of the Presents edition with the great cliff at sunset cover, and I was keen to see how it looked against the blue of the UK Modern Romance design.

It looks great - but what I wasn't expecting was the festive 'gift-wrapped' design on the front and the 'Season's Greetings' message. It's out in November so I suppose once again planning ahead is the point. After all, the Christmas editions of the magazines etc will be out then.

Into town and the theme continued. As I always check out the M&B shelves in WH Smith, this time I spotted the new arrivals - the 2007 - no - sorry 2008 Mills and Boon Annual. On an Indian Summer day, when the temperatures were higher than they were in the rain deluged June, the cover models heavy coats and scarves and the snowflakes whirling around them did make it stand out a bit!

I was actually rather thrilled ot see the Annual because this edition has the first appearance in print in the UK of my internet short story Wife For Real so I was able to see it in the book for the first time. This story was the one that started off the Alcolar Family Trilogy (Twelve Month Mistress, The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife, Bound By Blackmail) so if you collected all three of those - and I know many readers did - and wanted a print version of the very first part - Alex's story -= this is your chance to get a print copy of it.

(If you want an ebook copy of it then it's available on eHarlequin here.)

And when I do run the Christmas Stocking Stuffed With Books contest (come back in late November for that) I'll put a copy of the M&B Annual in with the books I've already collected up as prizes. Again, lots of wonderful friends have contributed to the collection for this.

So yesterday's theme was Christmas - all very nice but I'm a bit a purist and I prefer Christmas to be in December. Sometimes it seems that with all this forward planning, the excitement and glitter of it all is pretty worn by December 25th.

So now to see what today's theme might be - oh no, wait - I already know that - today's theme is work - writing and lots of it.