We're often told that writing can be a lonely business and it is: I can spend hours sitting in front of my computer in the tiny space I call a study, plotting, scribbling or typing on my latest work. Sometimes the only contact I have all day is chatting to people online, so it made [...]
Saturday found me in Derby, at my first ever EdgeLit sci-fi/fantasy book convention. This is an annual event, staged at The Quad in Derby city centre by the talented Alex Davies and his crew. I'd heard lots about it in previous years, but had always been double-booked somewhere else. This year, with my publisher Fox [...]
The local rugby lions run a charity classic car rally at Grasmere every year. Every year since we've been here, we've managed to miss it. But yesterday, in spite of grey clouds and spitting rain, we made it. We arrived in the village far too early so had a mooch round first, followed by coffee [...]
Well, march might be pushing it, but we certainly took part in a protest on Saturday against the current state of Northern trains. When we first moved to Windermere, one reason for choosing the town was the fact that it had a rail station, with reasonable links to the outside world. Trains ran roughly every [...]
Like many rural areas, Cumbria loves its country shows. Every year in September there's the big Westmorland County Show, filled to the brim with cows, sheep, horses, tractors, stalls selling farming equipment and displays of combine harvesters. It's wonderful for the local farming community but a little too countrified for us - and very expensive [...]
The title refers to the pet name for our local newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette. It's based in Kendal and has just reached a rather impressive milestone - it's 200 years old this year! The paper was first set up in 1818 by William Wordsworth and a crony, to counter what they saw as the Whig [...]
We had a rare (genuinely rare) treat at the weekend - a trip to Abbot Hall art gallery in Kendal to see a painting by Claude Monet. The gallery is a lovely place to visit anyway, with a regular exhibition of local artist George Romney's works, links to local notables such as Lady Anne Clifford, [...]
