Booktique event in Camberley, UK

I will be dressing up as an 'eccentric author' for the day and giving out information about my books whilst talking to people about fitting in writing novels when holding down a full time job.  As you can see in the poster, The Belgae Torc has become 'The Belgae Torch'!  Never mind, I can live with that.

Whitstable, my home town.

Whitstable Harbour is a small fishing harbour a few minutes walk from the town.

When my Dad was a boy he used to swim in the harbour.  He and his mates would tie a bicycle to a piece of rope and ride it over the edge, they could then pull it up and have another go.

The oldest railway in the world used to run from Canterbury, (about 10 miles away), into the harbour and there was a station there, but not much remains of that today.

This is part of a selection of sheds, small retail units that form Whitstable Harbour Village.  Live music is played here at the quayside bar which is really popular with visitors.  I have been known to buy hats from the shed that is partially hidden in the background. :-)

A view of the beach showing 'the street', a spit of land that appears at low tide, it runs out into the bay for about a mile.  The Isle of Sheppey can be seen in the background.

Whitstable beach is stony but the water sport and swimming is good.

There are windmills about eight miles off shore.  The Greta, and old Thames Barge, offers boat trips from the harbour in the summer, you can go out to see the windmills and World War Two forts in the estuary.  Seals can often be found basking on the sandbanks.  

Whitstable, (Tankerton), Castle where you can have your wedding ceremony, party or just take tea in the orangery.

My grandfather told me some stories about this place but they are for another time.

These pictures were taken on Saturday 25th January.  The weather as you can see is lovely, the temperature is about ten degrees C.  One of my favourite sayings is 'The sun always shines in Whitstable'.  :-)

First blog of the year

I can't believe how quickly the year is going already. Before Christmas was busy enough with book signing events and trying desperately to hit my deadline and finish the sequel to The Belgae Torc. The sequel is almost done; I have about 120,000 words in their raw state which desperately need editing. I still have to write a suitable ending which leads nicely into the third and final book in the series. This is proving to be the problem. I have the ending in mind but my characters keep on prolonging the last few chapters, it’s as if they don't want this book to end. Anyway, apart from that, I'm back on the road attending book signing events. The first was in Ramsgate, England on the south eastern coast near to where I live. It was a good day with loads of people attending a craft fair and looking in on what my colleague Carol, another author, and I were all about. We did sell a few books between us but I ran out of literature and bookmarks, I completely underestimated the number of people who would be about this soon after Christmas.

Carol and I at The Custom House, Ramsgate, Kent UK 18th January 2014

Margaret, one of my fans!, at The Canterbury Library September 2013