Pairs of Linked Columns

Recently I experienced what I seem to remember we used to call a "day off". In case you've never had cause to encounter one of these, it seems to involve getting up very late, sitting on a sofa watching old Doctor Who videos with a cat on your lap, and drinking beer occasionally.

That was last... Thursday, I think.

This indicates that things are beginning to get back to normal after the manic rush to finish Nobody's Children, but still very slowly. I keep being terribly busy, both at work and at home. My aspiration is that things will hopefully calm down a bit next week.

I might even be able to start blogging properly again. Let it be noted that I owe the assembled company mini-reviews of The Steep Approach to Garbadale and Margaret Atwood's rather excellent The Penelopiad. I really should read more Atwood. In the meantime I'm so tired I can barely type, so you'll have to bear with me.

That said... this month's column is up at Surefish, and follows on rather nicely from last month's. And I've sent off a revised proposal for the next long-term writing project, which is looking very hopeful now, and which I may say more about shortly.

Meanwhile, I've had a backlog of photos which I've just uploaded to Flickr.

I'm gonna spend my Easter with a Dalek:


Look! There are spiders!


And a couple of weeks ago now B. and I and all the members of B.'s extended family visited a very decent pub in Worcestershire...

...and a ruined abbey in nearby Gloucestershire.

View the whole set here.