Diary
This diary works the other way from most - newest entries are at the bottom. I have deleted many old entries, so it starts rather abruptly, as I delete old entries.
29th October 2010
Just home after two wonderful weeks in America. I planned an ambitious itinerary, starting at Bouchercon in San Francisco, and ending in Philadelphia, having used planes, trains, buses and cars to cross the intervening miles. Everything went extremely smoothly, and I caught up with old friends as well as making one or two new ones. I drove across New York State with a friend, surrounded by fabulous natural scenery in glorious autumn colours.
The animals survived my absence without mishap. It is a fantastic autumn for free food, and the pigs are permanently full of acorns and apples. They have also enjoyed a lot of plums this year.
The three reissued paperbacks are due out early next year. We now have covers for them, to match the Rebecca Tope brand, and I will be posting 'author's notes' about them on this site shortly.
22nd November 2010
I'm into a brief Cotswolds-free period, in which I'm hoping to strenuously tackle the Baring-Gould biography and finally get it into shape for submitting to publishers. My work table is piled high with papers, newspaper cuttings, booklets, jottings - all needing to be threaded into the text. And there are an awful lot of queries to resolve. In the process of writing it, I've become immersed in Victorian life and history, reading everything from Trollope to Beatrice Webb, via Charles Kingsley and George Gissing. Plus many others. It's endless, but highly enjoyable.
The livestock has expanded, with two new pigs. Polly and Molly are saddlebacks, three months old, and very self-assured. Charlotte and Horace are acting as surrogate parents, all cuddled up together in the ark at night. There is a second ark, but they don't like it much.
I'm still promoting 'Dartmoor...the Saving' with copies distributed to friends and family. Moorhen Publishing has its own excellent website, which I recommend. Do buy the book - there's nothing like it.
Earlier this year I acquired a bird feeding station and put it close to the house. Instantly there were flocks of bluetits and great tits performing all kinds of entertainments and distractions. Plus a few other species - chaffinch, robin, woodpecker. Now I've put a second table on the other side of the house. Every time I go shopping I have to buy fatballs and sunflower seeds and dried mealworms.
February 3rd 2011
DECEPTION IN THE COTSWOLDS is due in April. It's a slower, more thoughtful book than most of the series - which I hope won't annoy too many readers!
The winter weather has abated, at least for the moment. Although the news is full of extreme conditions in various parts of the world, we seem to have a respite, except for the gales. Since I planted dozens of fast-growing willow trees to the west and north of my house, strong winds are less of an ordeal than they used to be. They toss the trees instead of rattling my roof and windows.
There are four or five ewes looking ready to lamb. In fact, I thought they were imminent a week ago. They've coped very well with the weather, up to now, so I hope the next month or so will be kind to them.
Not too long now before I have to give a talk to the Westcountry Writers' Association in Plymouth. The subject is 'The Spirit of Place' which I'm slowly trying to examine. I'll include quite a lot about Baring-Gould, as well as the wonderful Dartmoor book by B.J.Burton. The day before is my elder son's Graduation, in Brighton. He finally got his degree, in his 30s, with the wonderful Open University. The whole family is massively proud of him.
Right - back to the Baring-Gould biography. More and more people are clamouring to see it - but I still haven't persuaded anybody to publish it. I spent a delightful day this week in the Exeter archives reading letters from his many different publishers, written at the peak of his fame in the early 1890s. Most of them were pleading with him for new stories.
19th February 2011
Every year I am freshly amazed at how deep and all-pervading mud can be. All my gateways are virtually impassable, and yesterday I had to rescue a new lamb, who hadn't the strength to pull her feet out of the clinging mud. Her mother was no use at all, of course. There are eight lambs so far, with no losses (fingers crossed). This morning some of them are very miserable indeed after a night of heavy rain. My oldest ewe, Zenobia, produced twin daughters the week of her tenth birthday. One of the lambs is just about the prettiest I've ever seen.
The three reissued paperbacks are available now. A vaguely logical development of this is that I've been looking back at the substantial stack of unpublished novels (and a detailed memoir of the year 2001) that are kicking about here. They cover several genres, and are of varying quality, but at least two or three look reasonable to me. Readers' tastes and sensitivities change, which can be good in some cases. One title that I have always been extremely fond of is my retelling of the life of St Cuthman, who pushed his mother across the south of England in a handcart, until they got to Steyning in Sussex - which was known as St Cuthman's Port for a long time. He would have been mortified that it was changed back to 'the people of the stone' - which is the meaning of Steyning. Cuthman performed some very appealing miracles, and I've given him and his mother all kinds of adventures. I got most of the story from Baring-Gould's Lives of the Saints. Perhaps foolishly, I entitled the novel Rune Crow Acorn Church. My son tells me that's guaranteed to deter anyone from publishing it!
15th March 2011
With the next new title due out soon (11th April) there are some invitations to do talks and signings coming along, in recent days. The diary is being put to good use, especially as I've been organising some holidays for myself, as well.
I have been reading 'In Search of Lost Time' by Marcel Proust for the past few months, which takes up a lot of time. It's impossible to hurry. I can't quite decide whether I like it - I suspect I'll have to reach the end (at this rate around September) before I can work out my response. I've managed other books as well - most notably 'In a Strange Room' by Damon Galgut, which I think is utterly superb. As a traveller myself, there is a great deal to identify with.
Here on the smallholding, the gradual arrival of spring is very welcome. The sheep especially are tired of scratching about for some grass. Some of them have sore feet, and they're all looking a bit scruffy. I'm assessing the effects of all the snow and ice and finding quite a lot of plants in the garden that have given up the ghost, leaving dead sticks where new shoots should be. Survivors include the bamboo and an apricot tree that has been indoors for years, but which I planted out last autumn.
The awful events in Japan leave one feeling sad and helpless. My daughter was there last year, and is very distressed for the people, who she found quite wonderful.
21st April 2011
The premature heatwave is a wonderful bonus, with blossom and spring flowers galore. I like to think it's compensation for a hard winter, and not a pessimistic harbinger of a cold wet summer.
I had a week in New York earlier this month, which was as delightful as ever. The main reason for going was to deliver to the New York State Library a large quantity of letters dating back to 1983. They were written by a group of women comprising a 'correspondence magazine'. They live in England and America, roughly half and half, and wrote every month since the mid-60s. My friend Martha, who died last year, had kept an archive of the letters from when she took over as 'editor' in America. The State Archives were eager to obtain such a comprehensive picture of the lives of intelligent (we are all in Mensa) and varied women through the latter part of the twentieth century and up to the present day. We drove up to Albany on a sunny day, thinking of Martha and how well we were fulfilling her wish that the archive be preserved by professionals. Yesterday, it was announced that Wendy Cope has sold her papers to the British Library. I have huge quantities of letters, diaries, manuscripts, notebooks here, and maybe one day will be famous enough to actually get money for them!
Meanwhile, Allison & Busby have decided to reissue all my remaining out-of-print books, including A Dirty Death which many people have been asking for. It was my first, back in 1999.
My friend Paula's novel The Witch's Daughter is published by Thomas Dunne Books in America now - it is A Book of Shadows under another guise, and is selling very well. She is working on a second book in the same genre. Highly recommended.
Finally, the shearing man has said he will come as usual, probably in early June. Always a great relief to know I have someone standing by. It's the most traumatic event of my year.
11th June 2011
Everything has suddenly become very busy, after rather a lazy winter. The four paperback reissues scheduled for next year have to be checked and prepared for printing, which is a lot of fun, but very time-consuming. Also I'm getting into SHADOWS IN THE COTSWOLDS, at last. I'm doing talks and signings at four branches of Waterstones this month. Cheltenham last weekend was a really enjoyable event, with some very enthusiastic readers. I'm due in Witney later today, and will go via Winchcombe for a bit of 'research'.
The livestock are much as usual, with a new batch of fleece just bagged and stacked, ready for dyeing and spinning. The weather is rather dreary - I had hoped to take the laptop outside every day, but it's not very enticing, with a chilly breeze.
26th June 2011
On 14th June I had dear old Charlotte slaughtered. Not sure of the precise word, under the circumstances. It was done here, by a man with a rifle, and she went for incineration afterwards. She showed every sign of knowing exactly what was happening, and being more than willing to go along with it. She positioned herself as close to the road as she could, sleeping outside on a mild night. Very sad, but she had become suddenly old and thin and depressed, and was needing a lot of work just to keep her going.
Disappointing weather up to this weekend - though I don't know why we persist in expecting sunny warm days. Today is fabulously hot, but apparently won't last.
27th July 2011
I'm recently back from a fabulous three-week trip to Australia. I travelled from Perth to Broome, up the west coast, calling at the extraordinary iron mines in the Pilbara region. The newly-created mining town we stayed at in order to see the mines is called Tom Price. In Broome I became aware of a proposal to establish a massive gas and oil drilling project, just off the coast. The resulting devastation for the sleepy little town would be appalling, and I hope very much that the idea is abandoned. When I left there were encouraging signs that the whole thing would be shifted to Port Hedland, which is already very industrialised. I learned a lot about the Australian economy, as well as politics and race relations. The weather in Broome was glorious. My optimal temperature is around 30 degrees, and that's what I got while there. I seem to function better in all respects when I'm nice and hot.
As for writing, I have just finished revising the last of the reissues due out next year. 'Death of a Friend' was my third book, published in 2000, and I had not read it since then. I must admit I was very pleasantly surprised. I think it is possibly the most fully realised of all my books. There are certainly some strong characters in it.
I have made a start, at last, on 'Shadows in the Cotswolds' which I am more and more excited about. We meet Thea's mother at closer quarters, along with an intriguing former boyfriend from fifty-five years before...
Life carries on without Charlotte, but Horace has been quite unwell since she went. He went off his food while I was away, but is recovering now, I think. My pigs are very spoilt.
27th August 2011
A very busy month, with a lot of very enjoyable excursions and holidays. After the three weeks in Australia in July, I went to Scotland for a week, with two daughters and a grandson. We had a wonderful time exploring the banks of the River Tweed and numerous little towns on the Borders. There's a great bookshop in Selkirk, stocking all the books I would if I ran a bookshop. Except the owner doesn't like crime fiction, which is quite inexplicable, of course.
Shadows in the Cotswolds is half written now, going at a great pace. The action only covers about four days, which is a change from the usual pattern. It's set in Winchcombe - another very beautiful ancient settlement, with a lot of history.
There are only two pigs here now. Poor Horace died earlier this month. I've been trying to locate a boar for Polly and Molly, hoping for piglets at Christmas.
There's a signing coming up soon in Moreton-in-March - the 17th. After that, it's the annual gathering of the Baring-Gould Appreciation Society, at which I'm delivering a learned paper written by an American PhD student. I'll have to confess to still not finishing the Biography, although the end really is quite close now.
18th September 2011
Yesterday was a book signing at the Cotswold Bookstore in Moreton-in-Marsh, which was a brilliant party. The atmosphere in that shop is pure magic. I don't know how they do it. I met two of my greatest fans - one of whom took me to lunch. It was the first time we'd met, and she was full of questions about the books, which I was delighted to answer.
As summer disappears (what there was of it) the autumn traditions take hold. New school year for the grandchildren; cutting up logs for firewood; planting swathes of daffodils; collecting windfall apples for the pigs - and planning trips for next year. The big adventure for 2012 will be a coast-to-coast drive across America, taking in the states I have yet to see - the Carolinas, Kentucky, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas - a somewhat crooked route, admittedly. Any hints or suggestions very welcome!
I have almost finished Shadows in the Cotswolds. I've enjoyed it very much. If it has a theme, it must be 'memory'. How accurately can we recall long-ago events? Does it matter? Thea's mother is not sure that it does...
I have at least two more titles in mind for Thea. I fancy Trouble in the Cotswolds might be centred around Christmas, and a nasty dose of winter flu...watch this space!
October 16th 2011
Busy days, just now. I have just had a wonderful little holiday in the south of France, near Avignon, despite the best efforts of the appalling new railway station in Newport. They rebuilt it so it is now impossible for anyone other than an Olympic sprinter to cross platforms in under two minutes. I found myself clinging to the door of the London train, pleading to be let in, to no avail. I came close to missing the Eurostar in London - all very stressful. But the Gard region in France is breathtakingly gorgeous, in every way. Rivers, ancient hilltop villages, caves, absence of traffic, and delightfully civilised people - it was all extremely refreshing.
The day after I came back, I went to Adderbury, near Banbury, for their adventurous Crime Festival. Five crime writers went along, and we talked about our books and lives. The audience was highly responsive, and we were given a lovely lunch. I owe Gail, the organiser, a public apology for being a total fool about the timings. I don't really know what happened, but it was entirely my fault.
I am obsessively monitoring the tummies of my two pigs, Polly and Molly, hoping for signs of pregnancy. Nothing conclusive yet.
Malice in the Cotswolds is well on its way to the printer now. Set in Snowshill, we see more of DS Sonia Gladwin, and Thea gets very upset when there's another murder on her watch.
Shadows in the Cotswolds is awaiting a reaction from my editor.
I recently visited Stanton and Stanway, and found them the perfect setting for Trouble in the Cotswolds. I especially noted the elaborate thatch on some of the houses, with birds and animals on the ridge.
The start of the month saw the 2011 Annual Gathering of the Sabine Baring-Gould Appreciation Society, in Mersea (Essex). BG's most famous novel, Mehalah is set there, and continues to be very well known and influential. I met a woman who said she knew people who avoided Mersea because the book makes it sound so sinister! We are actively recruiting new members - see www.SBGAS.org for details. We're very welcoming! And Baring-Gould is completely fascinating, I promise.
30th October 2011
Having finished 'Shadows in the Cotswolds' there's time to try to finish off the Baring-Gould biography at last. If I had a publisher for it, I would work on it with more dedication, but I have very much enjoyed the process, and have gleaned a lot about the Victorian period. They really were much less prudish than we think.
I have just joined Twitter, and can see how it might become addictive. But there is no Broadband where I live, which is a major handicap. I suppose there has to be some sort of satellite facility I could use, but nobody locally seems to have found any satisfactory system. The MP has been lobbied, and various pronouncements have been made, but there's no sign at all of actual progress.
The clocks went back today, bringing all the usual mixed feelings. I very much relish the lighter mornings, while the scramble to get home before dark to feed the animals (they all live outside) is annoying. But tinkering with clocks makes no real difference - we get the same amount of light regardless - and I am against the proposal to move them forward permanently. Seems daft to me.
25th November 2011
Everybody's talking about this time last year, when the first big snow arrived. Everything seems different this year, thank goodness. I've hardly started to use any heating, so far.
I'm enjoying a nice balance of work and play at the moment. Writing something new, checking a long succession of proofs for next year's titles, getting winter fuel and fodder together, flitting off to New York for some unusual Christmas presents. One or two parties in the diary, and visits to and from family.
Since the Council cancelled the Mobile Library, there's been a decision to launch our own Community Library instead. We're determined to give a better service than was in place before. It should be up and running from February. Rather slow progress, but a good moment to start, probably. Hasn't everybody dreamed, at some point, of running their own library?
Chichester Festival next summer has asked for a panel of crime writers, so I've gathered a foursome for them. Me, Cassandra Clark, Priscilla Masters and Amy Myers. We haven't worked together before, so it ought to be stimulating.
20th December 2011
The big news is that I now have Broadband - at last!! It isn't very fast, but better than dial-up. I had a week in New York recently, which was pure delight, as usual. Every day was packed with culture and good eating.
Lots of requests for appearances coming in. Devon is the top venue at the moment, it seems. Literary groups and clubs, libraries and festivals - it's all happening!
The new book is coming along quite nicely. All rather secretive at the moment, until I get a response from my editor...
4th January 2012
Happy New Year to all readers and fellow writers. It started magically for me, with the arrival of nine baby pigs. They are all doing well. Another lot is due next week. Anybody wanting one or two for their smallholding, just say! They will be fairly small and very hardy.
The lambs will start in about 3 weeks, I think. I hope the mud will have dried up a bit by then. It's all quite difficult at the moment. The dogs are permanently filthy.
Making satisfying if unspectacular progress on the new book.