Hedgehogs 2

And he (she?) is back again.


 Obviously likes an early supper and doesn't wait until dusk. 

Charlie is quite happy to share some cat meat and crunchies with him/her and they spent a long time just sitting together on the lawn.

A fine sunny day - though not as warm as tomorrow is predicted to be! - meant that we had an early evening visitor to the garden in the form of a young hedgehog who came wandering across the lawn in search of food.

 Although he was really out and about in daylight and that's usually a warning sign for a hedgehog's health, we had a good look at him and could find no signs of injury or ill health, So we offered a plate of cat meat and crunchies which he attacked with a lot of obvious enjoyment - ditto the bowl of fresh water which he slurped enthusiastically - so he was probably just hungry/thirsty and determined to get to the food before the bigger hedgies w

ho have been wandering about in the dusk most evenings this week. He didn't leave much for them !

Charlie the Maine Coon followed him on his way from the hedgehog houses and sat watching with interest as the youngster chomped his way through the meat on off. Charlie obviously thought it wasn't suitable for him as he didn't even try to share it with him!

Hedgehogs

Foreign Parts

Well, yet more foreign editions arrived in the mail today but  I think we've seen enough of them.  Instead, people have been asking about our trip away and where we've been  - so here's a brief travel

report   now that I've woken from the jet lag and unpacking/washing.

We flew to America-  to Montana to be exact. There we met up with and stayed with the wonderful Anne McAllister. Book discussions galore - I don;t think you've seen anyone really talk until you've seen a couple of writers get together and discuss books.

Anne and I of course talked romance and looked into the prospect of possibly working together - or working with another publisher  perhaps in the future. The Babe Magnet meanwhile did lots of research into the wild west and its history. (Did I ever mention that he has a second identity as a writer of Westerns - and he's embarking on a bigger, deeper story right now. )  So he thrilled to explore the town of Cody Wyoming.  The town is  named for its legendary founder, Buffalo Bill Cody, that  remains as full of Old West adventure as it was during the days when Bill himself roamed Wyoming.

The Fountain Paint Pot is a mud pot located in
 Lower Geyser basin in Yellowstone National Park.

We drove from Montana to Cody, going through Yellowstone Park on the way and it was a real thrill to come face to face (almost literally) with the huge buffaloes that roam through there.  Encountering one right in the middle of the road  mean we decided the wisest course was to stop and wait for him to move on – which he did, eventually.  A huge animal.

In Cody we stayed in the historic Irma Hotel which was built by Buffalo Bill himself and named for his younger daughter Irma. The rooms are decorated in ‘historic’ style so you can imagine what it would have been like to stay there in the past. And there’s even a dramatized. ‘gun fight ‘ out in the street one evening.

  The Buffalo Bill Centre provides huge amounts of research information and displays so DH spent an age in there. I loved the Plains Indians displays

there - so many beautiful things. And as anyone who knows me knows that I’m partial to a pair of fancy shoes, there were several pairs of embroidered and beaded moccasins  I would have liked to bring home with me.

Montana is one of those places where the weather can change several times from sunrise to sunset. Driving through Yellowstone, in  68+degrees,  it was a shock to see snow still piled up by the roadside – in June. We ever stopped to have a game of snowballs at one point!

And there was a special delight in waking every morning to see the mountains away in the distance – that is, when the rain and the snow (yes there was a brief snowstorm!) had cleared away. So many memories - and I'm sure that so much of what we saw will end up in one book or another at some point.

Foreign Editions - all over the world.

It's a good week for foreign editions - the Norwegian and Danish ones yesterday, and I found myself in a 3 in 1 collection with none other than Nora Roberts!  That's quite something.


 There were some German editions before that - and now today these great Manga editions.

I love the Manga versions of my stories and there's a special delight in seeing one of the graphic editions translated into English so I can read the words as well as delight in the illustrations.


So there's the Manga version of The Devil and Miss Jones with the runaway bride and her biker hero. 




 Then this fabulous collection of different stories with Miranda Lee, Sharon

Josephine Kendrick, and Chantelle Shaw has The Sicilian's Wife included, and finally the English-translation of the Japanese-translation of the Manga The Antonakos Marriage. 



 The covers are just amazing and you can really get the atmosphere and emotions of the books through the graphic novels inside. I  love them.

Back home

I've been away - travelling, researching, discussing writing, books and heroes (it's a hard job but someone has to do it!) with the wonderful Anne McAllister but now I'm back.

Have slept away jet lag (I hope), done six tonnes of washing which is proving impossible to get dry in the torrential downpours we're experiencing. But today I went to one of my favourite events of the year.

I was at the local library, handing out the certificates to the successful students who have completed The Reading Agency's Reading Ahead 6 book challenge. It was wonderful to meet all the students who have struggled with their reading but have managed to complete the 6 books through the year and were celebrating getting their 'Completer' certificates. This is the third year I've done this and this time there was the largest numbers of successful students - 45 in total. It's always such a happy occasion as they show their enthusiasm and sense of achievement.

I was asked to give a short talk as well (not an easy thing when I'm still feeling as if my brain is left in America where I was till the beginning of the week . But I talked about my personal 6 books - books that meant a lot to me and everyone seems to have enjoyed it.

Thank you again to North Lincolnshire Libraries for inviting me to join them and present the certificates. I had a great afternoon and it was a fantastic way to encourage these students to read and enjoy books.

Now I have to go and add some extra feed to the run-down supplies for the hedgehogs who have been well looked after while we were away, but are snuffling about in the garden, demanding to know when supper will be served. I have a suspicion that there are more of them than when we went away!!