Mount Grace Priory

Sisters, treehugger and determined Madonna

Being a hermit
In recent months I’ve felt like a bit of a hermit working on Rhenium Tales. So it was interesting to learn that some medieval hermits had reasonably comfortable existences. Mount Grace Priory is the best-preserved of the few Carthusian monasteries in England. It lasted from 1398 to 1539 and a reconstructed cell reveals that the monks had quite a bit of space for their withdrawal from the world. The ruins are impossibly romantic but the cell – with its enclosed garden space – gives a sense of what a contemplative life might have looked like.

A monk's life for me....

Priory meets an Arts and Crafts house meets renovated Garden
English Heritage has done a good job employing Chris Beardshaw to redesign some of the borders of the dell-like gardens with their charming rivulets and lakes. And the Arts and Crafts house has intriguing features reminiscent of an earlier elegant age. Good site to visit. 

Rhenium Tales

Into the blue

The above sub-heading (Into the blue) is the title of Chapter 1 of Book 2 of Rhenium Tales which I now have to concentrate on, since I’ve edited Book 1 (Raydan Wakes) to within an inch of its life. Day one after the August Bank Holiday I will start the submissions to the (27?) agents I’ve currently bookmarked…. surely one will….? Anyway in the meantime, the website to flavour the back story and reveal some of the world-building has gone live, thanks to Nick Shelton for his images and Darren Spinks of Design 2b for his expertise and creative solutions. Thanks for the detailed feedback from my beta readers…. if a publisher “bites” I’ll try and get you all in the acknowledgements…. click here for the website

Exciting times

July memories with Harriet, Chris, Emily, Alex from Badby, Sally and random daleks

That was July and this is August
Yes, another brief blog, but, then again, loved ones tell me some people only look at the pictures anyway…. which is fine. So, yes, the 2018 summer heatwave continues (gorgeous weather or the beginning of our planet’s final descent into a cosmic inferno of global warming? Who knows? Time will tell.) My eldest daughter celebrated her July birthday in fine style in beautiful places and doing cool things and is plotting the next stage of her life (what will happen? Who knows? Time will tell.) I’ve been revisiting my past notes on Merry Wives of Windsor and Marlowe’s Tamburlaine plays in anticipation of this year’s Royal Shakespeare Company Summer School (my manly vice.) And I’ve been receiving feedback from my beta readers (thank you, all) on the (6th ? draft) of Raydan Wakes, the first book in the trilogy Rhenium Tales on which I’m doing my final feedback-fuelled revisions. Plots for all three books are sewn up, the website is almost ready to be released to the world, so that’s one item on the bucket list that can be ticked off. (Will an agent champion it? Who knows? Time will tell.) Exciting times.

top page of the soon-to-be-released website about my trilogy....