Sitting in my hotel room at 10.24am in Bolton, waiting for the boys to get ready for checking out at eleven, then off to dad’s for breakfast, then the long drive home. Thought I’d take these free fifteen minutes to blog as I haven’t done so in such a long time.

We had the traditional Boxing Day family gathering last night and it was lovely to see my brothers and sister; aunties and uncles, nephews and nieces. Grumpy husband phoned earlier to say that its snowing at home and I saw on the news that the A14 is shut due to lorries stuck in the snow. He reckons it will be better to set off later rather than earlier so we’re going to go to dads for brekkie and a weather check.

Writing wise I’ve not done any submissions as I’ve been studying hard and doing my Tutor Marked Assessments (TMAs) for my Master’s course. I had my best ever mark for TMA01 which I was really pleased with. It was for a short story written ‘in flash’ i.e. four resolved flashes linked by subject matter into a ‘bigger’ narrative arc that tells a more global story. Its about migraine, on one level and self-delusion on another. My tutor also gave me really helpful feedback for a final edit, which I’ll do when TMA02 is done dusted and submitted on 23rd January.

Started my teaching at the Community Education Centre in St Ives, just after my last blog, and it went really well. I got five star feedback and one of my learners had a story published at Ad Hoc fiction which was totally brilliant. I get a new set of learners in the third week of January and so it starts all over again.

Here’s the cover of Ellipses ‘One’ in which I had a wee tale. There really are some wonderful stories in here and I felt so proud to be amongst some of my  favourite writers of tiny tales.. Right better go and check out.