Of Dogs and Graves

You've heard of Fox's Glacier Mints, I suppose? The ones with a polar bear on them? Well, our Bear is a soft-as-butter German Shepherd but he asked me for one of my extra-strong, sugar free mints today. I checked the ingredients (he's gluten-intolerant) and they seemed okay so I offered him one.

He took it, sucked (he's not one to just swallow) and his face changed. I almost felt guilty about laughing at his expression of disgust as he spat it out.

I doubt he'd be pleased about the cartoon, either, but fortunately his feet are too big to use a normal keyboard.



This is Jack. He's not actually growling but begging me not to take his photograph. He's a bit superstitious about having his photograph taken and will often run from the room when he sees a camera. He's got a chewie here. A minute earlier he had collected all three chewies but I'd just given Bear and Trickster's theirs back.

They'd just got back from their morning walk and were having a relax.



Boythorpe cemetery in Chesterfield. This currently plays a large part in our morning walks. Cemeteries in general are delightful places. Without them, many of our towns and cities would be devoid of valuable green spaces.

This is the more modern side of Boythorpe -it's more interesting in the other half where the graves are older and more ornate. This section is a little more regimented. I find character names for the people in my novels here, too, and hope that in some small way the long-dead live again as characters in Laverstone.


I wonder if the Jack picture will be picked up by I Has A Hotdog

Arts and Dafts

My first bright thing of the day is how pleased I was to have a glimpse of Harold, twenty-five years into the future. He ends up, I'm pleased to see, with three daughters and at least two grandchildren, one of whom is this darling girl, Violent.

Isn't she delightful? Five years old and in her best black dress and stripy stockings for a Sunday afternoon visit to grand-dad.


Second today was a request by a publisher for a full manuscript of DEAD LINE

This is one of the Harold and Jasfoup books, as yet unpublished. The publisher requested a printed copy after reading the first two chapters by e-mail so I uploaded it as a 'writer-only' copy to lulu and had it shipped directly to the publisher. It cost me £15 but that was probably cheaper than the ink, paper and postage were I to print it on my printer.



My third thing today was walking with the dogs. We have two Jack Russells and a German Shepherd. They get on surprisingly well.

This was the view as I walked through the cemetery and looked up at the sky.