Now it's not that I am ignoring you or have abandoned you...but have you had the feeling since New Year as I have, that time is just running away with you? Or is that just me?


Normally I find January such a slow month - things seem to slow to a crawl and nothing much happens. But this January has been very different in many ways and I can't help but wonder why.


Granted I have been incredibly busy. I have pushed Volume IV: A New Epoch into publication and am fast forwarding Volumes V and VI into print and I am also working on two brand new stories, one for ten year olds and one for teens, as well as other books in the pipeline.


Perhaps another reason is that I have been taking a multitude of bookings for school creative writing sessions, library talks and other such events [I will blog a list of these soon].


Added to that, I have decided to stay put in my house for a while, rather than sell up and so have organised a complete change, from the curtains around the house to new furniture...no mean feat let me tell you when you are battling with three children and two dogs just to keep your head above water on a daily basis. 


But I must tell you about my most recent stupid situation. You know my habit of getting lost whenever I go somewhere unfamiliar...


I went to view a house recently. I looked up the directions on google maps and laboriously copied them down [yes I know you can print them out but that involved turning the printer on, waiting ages for it to ready itself, only to discover I had no black ink, paper or something else!] and set off.


What I had failed to realise was that there were two identically names streets within a reasonably short proximity [4 miles apart] and I had looked up the wrong one!


Only on arrival at the wrong place did I realise my mistake and had to then set about finding the other street. As usual I reverted to asking residents for directions. The first man  pulled up to was visiting the area. I drove on.


The second man I pulled up to [for some reason there were no women around like some strange post-apocalyptic land where only the men had survived! -As if - sorry men!!] turned out to be profoundly deaf and mimed back to me that he didn't have a clue what I was on about!


Now since he was sanding at the edge of what I presumed to be his property, with apparently not a care in the world, I had to wonder what he was up to other than hijacking the time of lost strangers.
I apologised profusely as if his deafness was my fault and left in a flurry, probably leaving him even more mystified as to what the harried middle-aged woman was on about.


The third and final man I approached was more helpful.
"My wife was born there," he said with a touch of infinite sadness which made me think that the recollection was painful to him.
"I'm so sorry. Is she dead?" I responded with appropriate sympathy.
"No, she's in Tenerife!" he replied.


He gave me directions and I followed them to the letter only to find myself up a cull-de-sac and lost once more. Luckily he had only gone slightly wrong and the street I was looking for was the next one. Sad to say that after all that, the house was not what I was looking for at all!


So if you are standing on a street corner and a harried looking woman pulls up to you, please be kind, it just might be me!


x