Update 9th April

Hello everyone. Once again, it’s been a little while since I did an update but here I am again. Strangely, last time I wrote a personal blog, I was watching sport and this time I’m watching the Commonwealth Games, namely Wales winning a medal in the gymnastics.

Some real-life stuff first. We are still waiting on completing on the bungalow. All the surveys and searches have been done, but now we wait on a few questions about the leasehold. We have a little work to do on the place – mostly converting the bathroom to a wet room to make life easier for me. It will be lovely to have access to the garden without the steps I have here, even though we are going to have to get someone in to take care of it. We have one of our university friends coming to stay in a few weeks and she may get caught up with us moving. All the sorting has more or less been done now. We have bags of stuff for charity to collect. The British Heart Foundation has been very useful. They collect bags and we’ll let them clear the house when we’ve moved.

We had to rush our girl cat to the vets on Good Friday as she couldn’t urinate and was in distress. Vet a bit grumpy being called out, but we couldn’t wait for them to open. Thankfully, it was cystitis, not anything more worrying, and after antibiotics and painkillers she is fine. As we lost cat the elder before Christmas, we were worried, but she’s running around much as usual now. It’s hard to believe she’s six this month. I still think of her as a kitten because she’s so tiny.

On the writing front, I’m happy to say there has been some writing. I have several ideas and a couple of incomplete stories, so unsurprisingly, I’ve started writing the story of a couple of characters from My Highland Cowboy. If you’ve read that book, this one will feature Cormac, the bad boy brother of Craig, the groom, and Lachie, one of the twins who work on the ranch. Unusually, it starts with them splitting up. So far, I’ve written around 8000 words. It’s slow as I can’t sit comfortably for long, but at least it’s something.

In other news, I’ve just signed a contract for Two for the Road with Pride Publishing. It won’t be out until early next year but could be earlier if they have a gap come up. This is my first May/Dec story, although it’s more like Feb/Aug. The MCs are Dylan, a young man on a mission, and Riley, who was Dylan’s father’s childhood friend, and is trying to move on from his past. It’s set in Lancashire, near where I live. Oh, and there are pets.

I’ve read quite a few books since my last blog. In Throwing Stones, Avery Cockburn did her usual great job. I also enjoyed Pretty in Pink by Jay Northcote, one of my favourites in this series, The Apothecary’s Garden by Julie Bozza, Taxes and Tardis by N. R. Walker, Arrows Through Archer by Nash Summers, and The Way You Are by L. J. Mile. Living on Air by Susan Mac Nicol was a tough but rewarding read. Other reads were Untouchable by Kay Simone and Ruthie Luhnow and Casting Lacey by Elle Spencer. Both of these suffered from the same problem for me. I liked the characters to begin with, but the stories went on for too long with too many misunderstandings and failures to talk to each other. I also read and enjoyed the first part of C. F. White’s District Line series. Looking forward to reading the rest when they come out as I love football—see below. There were a couple of other reads which didn’t work for me.

Box set watching continues. We’re now up to Buffy season 4 which we are combining with Angel season 1. Hard to believe it's twenty years since it started. We’ve also watched The White Princess, an adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s book about Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII. Henry was far too pretty and, as usual, the story annoyed me. I know authors can interpret history, but I get irritated watching. We’ve also started film night on Saturdays. Watches include the highly recommended God’s Own Country. Call me by Your Name, which I enjoyed but it didn’t feel real enough to me. Paddington II was wonderful, Dunkirk impressive, though I think I enjoyed the John Mills version more, and the poignant, Film Stars don’t die in Liverpool. I’m excited to have downloaded The Last Jedi. I know I’m probably the last to watch, but as I can’t get to the cinema, I have to wait. I’m looking forward to it after all the controversy.

That’s enough for now. I continue watching football. I may have no nails left as Cardiff City are worryingly being pressurised for a promotion place. On the positive side, it looks like my local team, the wonderfully named, Accrington Stanley, may go up for the first time in their history to the third tier in the English Football League. This would be an awesome achievement for them.

Just a couple of extras. Please read the posts on R. JScott’s autism awareness blog hop, including mine, link. There are giveaways on every post. There’s also a giveaway on a post from last week, you can find here. This is a Q&A I did. If you follow Totally Entwined romantic deals, I’ll have a couple of books coming out there one for free and one at 99p. Keep an eye out for them.

I hope everyone is well and looking forward to some summer sunshine.