Hallowe'en and shabby houses

Hallowe’en is lurking just around the corner – this is not something I think religious people should ignore or try to lighten up, because it does remind us of the darker side of things, the threat of evil, and such things should not be airbrushed out (or entirely hidden under plastic Spiderman masks, nylon witch outfits, age 5-6 from your local supermarket, guaranteed to disintegrate before 1^st. November, and a year’s supply of sweets in one night). Anyway, to mark the time of year Out of a Dark Reflection is free from 26^th October for a week, and to accompany it is the novella-length sequel A Dark Night at Midsummer, now available for pre-order on Amazon.

I mentioned recently on Facebook our new chimneysweep who turned out to be a painter, sculptor and writer as well (as a friend remarked, a writer with a third or fourth job? Sounds familiar!). I bought a copy of his book (ah, marketing and distribution idea! Get a job with a van and carry half a dozen copies in the back!) The Concise Field Guide to the Haggis of Scotland by Stephen Bowers, very well illustrated by Katrina McIntosh and altogether a good laugh.

He commented when he arrived, ‘I like your house. It’s a creative house.’ I said, ‘Do you mean messy?’ ‘Yes, that’s right.’ This not entirely unfamiliar analysis of our house (another is ‘It’s like going out to the countryside’ – not quite sure what that means) was endorsed by an article in The Sunday Telegraph the following Sunday, where we were invited to tick boxes to see if we had a shabby home or a ‘fake’ one (shabby chic, I suppose). We ticked every one (to the weeping despair of the younger members of the household) except for the limescale-blocked kettle. Since we don’t live in a limescale area I thought this was an unfair condition – and like Jerome K. Jerome with his housemaid’s knee, or lack of it, I began to defend our miserably bare kettle, and to explain that we used to live in a limescaley area (Sussex) and indeed might well have an old limescaley kettle in the attic if we looked hard enough. Then I relaxed, and allowed those whose shabbiness was not on the same scale as ours to take some comfort in the fact that their kettles are nearly unusable. We can keep the coatrack that requires a degree in physics to hang anything extra on it, and the attic that holds many boxes (possibly containing a limescaley kettle) but only the Christmas decorations are regularly accessible, and the wireless permanently tuned to Radio 4 (why this should be the prerequisite of a shabby home I don’t know, but barring Ken Bruce and forays into Radio Scotland for the Out of Doors programme and local news, that’s our wirelesses).

Oh, editing … Editing A Murderous Game (Hippolyta #3), and Jail Fever is still off with readers. Got to get a move on. Researching a new project, probably a short series (maybe even a trilogy! Oo-er! I’ve never had a trilogy before), which includes a bit of woolwork as well. Any excuse!