Today hasn’t been the best day ever: we’re in the middle of a searing heatwave, and on top of that our government has decided to end all anti-Covid measures even though case rates are soaring, which is a little scary to say the least. So you can imagine what a boost it was to be … More Super review of Trench Warfare
In all the years we’ve lived in the Lake District, we’d never been to the national park visitor centre before. Until yesterday, when we met friends of ours for lunch on the terrace overlooking Windermere, followed by a mooch round an exhibition in the main house. The visitor centre is housed in a large Arts … More Two lunch by the lake
My first trip on a train in over 18 months thanks to the pandemic, lockdowns, and the rules on travelling by public transport. Sadly, it wasn’t on this beauty (above), just an ‘ordinary’ train to Carlisle, but it was still wonderful to have that freedom and it’s an amazingly scenic route over the (approx) 1,000 … More Two get on a train
Just a quick heads-up that I’ll be doing a takeover on the Talking RoMMance with a British Accent facebook group at 5.15 today (Sunday). I’ll be chatting about my new book Trench Warfare, posting an excerpt from it, and giving away one e-book from my m/m romance catalogue to a lucky winner on the day. … More Pride Weekend takeover
On Monday we took the afternoon off and drove over to Morecambe. We’d explored the promenade pretty thoroughly on our last couple of visits, so for a complete change we headed to the northern suburb of Bare and mooched round that. What we found was a real blast from the past, with small, old-fashioned shops … More In praise of parks
What on earth, you might ask, do archaeology show Time Team (above) and a superfluous sword have to do with my latest romance Trench Warfare? Well, quite a bit as it turns out, because they helped inspire part of the book’s plot. To find out more you’ll have to head to fellow lgbt romance writer … More The strange case of the superfluous sword…
Another first – this one our first trip to an exhibition in months. It was showing at Blackwell, a wonderful arts-and-crafts style house not far from us, and centred on the way Japanese art and culture inspired the arts-and-crafts movement in the UK – and vice versa. There were some amazing exhibits including ceramics from … More Two go Japanese
This title doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But actually, it was a lot more special than it sounds – because this was the first event we’d been to in almost two years, thanks to the pandemic. The event was a cut-down, socially responsible and completely outdoor version of CountryFest, a nice “fayre” held on … More Two go to an event
The Roman villa at Chedworth in Gloucestershire is an amazing place to visit with substantial foundations and an array of mosaics, some still in situ within the original house walls. And now it’s even more amazing, because Carbon-14 dating has revealed one of those mosaics, in Room 28, is much later than experts believed possible. … More Roman mosaic surprise
There’s an intriguing report in the Guardian this morning about a new scheme to pay royalties to authors for the sale of their books second-hand (used). This has never happened before; once a book had been sold via a bookstore, publisher, or online, and the author received the royalties, that was that. The print book … More Royalties on pre-loved books?
