Tote Bags day

Today's the 12th of the month - and as always time is rushing away with me.  I have gifts bought - some of them wrapped and the ones that need to be posted  have been taken to the Post Office and are now on their way to  be delivered to the people I chose them for.

Half the cards are done and on their way too - the rest will be in the mail tonight.  So  the Christmas preparations are  fairly well in hand,

Not so much the blog posting  -  I have a book to write as well, so that means that I have very little time left over for writing anything else like blog posts and such.

But today, as I said, is the 12th of December - so it's my day for my regular  posting over on Tote Bags 'N' Blogs, and that's where you'll find me today.

Of course, as this is the 30th anniversary of my  very first publication, that anniversary is very much in my mind . . .

See you there

Another anniversary - Ruby's this time

Ruby at 8 weeks

 Remember this?

This was one of the first photos I shared with you when Ruby the kitten came home to us from the Cats Protection rescue shelter  in December last year.

Exactly a year ago, to be precise.  We had seen her on the Sunday  and fallen in love - and Ruby had flung herself into my arms and  made it clear that she thought I was hers and that was that!

Ruby and Charlie when she first arrived

We had to wait a few days for the formalities and checks to be completed, but it was quite obvious that the rescue organiser  agreed with Ruby, and knew that we had been chosen.  No one really had any choice - apart from one little black and white cat who knew exactly where she wanted to be.

So a year ago today, we went back to the shelter to collect her. She was yelling her head off as we approached but that stopped as soon as I picked her up and she was where she wanted to be.  She came back home with us and settled in straight away, no hesitation, no doubt. She  soon had  Charlie wrapped round her  little paws  - where he's stayed ever since. Though they do occasionally have mad chases all around the house  - it sounds like a major storm  as the result of Charlie's size. And if he catches her and jumps on her, from the hissing and spitting and yelling she puts out, you'd think she was being murdered when the truth is that all he wants to do is to lick her face.

She likes to be up high and in the garden she climbs as high as she can in the apple trees and then stays there. looking down on Charlie who is not a climber, being such a big boy.

Ruby one year on

She's still not a very big cat - but then any normal cat would look small compared with Charlie and his Maine Coon build.  She is affectionately known as 'Keg' by my son and his fiancee  because she  has a little rounded barrel-shaped tummy that comes from being able to persuade the Babe Magnet ( someone else she has wrapped round her paws) that she really is wasting away and needs treats - now.  The only problem with that is that he feeds her some tasty sticks of fish or meat flavours and instead of eating them she has to hunt them  and 'kill' them before they get eaten.  Quite often they get away from her and we have found stashes of  uneaten sticks under chairs of the settee when we move it to clean.

Ruby today

She as real 'lap cat' and spends long happy hours curled up on my lap, or across my knees on a blanket when I'm watching TV or reading.  And then when bedtime arrives, she knows that we go upstairs for 'snuggles' and curls up on my feet for most of the night.  In fact she has quite a good vocabulary  for a cat - knowing  just what outside. teatime, blankie (for the blanket),  treats  and snuggles.

We're so glad she came to live here, helping to fill the large empty hole where poor beautiful Flora had been, and even Charlie is quite  happy to have his adopted 'sister' in his life.  But then, Ruby would say that of course  that's how it was always meant to be - and it's why she chose me to give her her forever home.

Happy anniversary Ruby!

The Other Writer in The Family

As many of you already know, my husband  Stephen  - the Babe Magnet -  is also a writer.

Most of the time he is a writer of facts, of history, local history, the history of crime, but just lately he has branched out into fiction and has had a couple of historical crime novels published - A Thief in the Night and A Killer Between the Lines.

He's also recently had a book called The Girl Who Lived on Air published (if you remember that's why we headed for Wales for him  to  talk about this book at the Penfro book festival,   And this week there is his biography of George Grossmith  - who wrote The Diary of a Nobody, but was also a friend of and a star in Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy Operas - A Victorian Somebody.

People often ask me - as they ask me, too - where he gets his ideas from.  Well, last week was a perfect example.

  He was teaching at the university where he lectures part time,   and talking about writing from primary sources - letters, notebooks etc - one of his students said a friend of her was looking  for some one who might be able to use a  collection that she had.  This lady had helped  to an old lady  for years and when old lady had died there was all this stuff - photographs,  postcards, reports,  personal letters  etc etc

DH  said he would love to see what was what - he was thinking that there might be a box or so -  there were boxes and  boxes, and  three suitcases!!  We opened one the first night we brought this home   and ended up  with our minds whirling at what there is - she never destroyed a thing. There are passports dating back to 1930s -  she was in the WRVS and travelled to Singapore, Tobruk - other places I can't recall.  There are letters from  the House of Commons -  she'd  written to MPs  on topics like whaling, Rwanada,  exporting live animals reports of the planning for clubs and societies -  and games nights in the NAFFI. There is even  a small old card and a tiny bit of old, grubby material with HL loves BB  embroidered very roughly on it. There must be a story behind that. 

Now the Babe Magnet can get an idea for a  story that needs investigating from one small newspaper report, a photograph or an old postcard picked up in an antiques shop of a bundle of junk. So how much can he get out of this huge archive?  We have  barely scratched the surface  of what's in there!  I'll have  to wait and see just what he decides on and which stories emerge from this elderly, dusty (and frankly rather smelly)  collection of  papers.  One intriguing  thing - this lady was born on the same date as my own birthday - but  many years before.  

A Special Anniversary

December 2014 marks a very special anniversary for me.    It's  exactly 30 years since my very first book - The Chalk Line  - was published in 1984!  So this is the very first cover of my book I ever saw.

Snow scene - check! Heroine with auburn hair -  There's only one problem with it - my hero - Leon Dane Vincent - was supposed to have jet black hair . . . .

And just yesterday I got the first sighting of my  brand new cover for the Presents edition next book coming up in April. That's Olivero's Outrageous Proposal - so I'm  sharing this   cover with you too. It's a rather better portrayal of my sexy Italian hero.
But no - before you ask -  because people have asked!  - he does not have a  beard!   He is meant to be  rather unconventional and  at the ball where my heroine Alyse meets him he has tugged his bow tie loose  at his throat as if the formal dress is stifling him. This scene is after the ball - so I suppose  heavy stubble is meant to do the same job as bow tugged loose!

As today is my day for blogging over on the Pink  Hearts Society blog  I'm over there today - talking about the past 30 years! How did it ever get to 30 years since that first book!