With all my precious books now packed away ready to be transported to their new home – only a few hundred yards or so from their current one – my thoughts are decidedly switching to where and how they will be displayed on shelves yet to be constructed. And for some of them, in a house built around the times in which they were written. Which got me thinking. My ‘new’ home was, I am reliably informed by a local history book I found in the library, built in 1880. At least I am assuming the information is reliable as...

Anyone who has spoken to me in the past 23 months or so will know that I have become mildly obsessed with moving house. For those who have patiently stayed the course and are still talking to me, watching my anxiety levels escalate as Actual Moving Day begins to seem the stuff of reality rather than dreams, acknowledgement that my obsession has now reached chronic and epic proportions is to be expected. I think, breathe, dream, plan and wake thinking packing cases. Black plastic sacks. Trips to the tip and to numerous charity shops. I even contemplate discarding all possessions...

And so it’s the Autumn Equinox – as unbelievable as it seems to think we’ve reached the point in the year when there are equal hours of light and dark. Another way of looking at it is, of course, that it’s head down now into the tunnel of darkness that comprises winter in the northern hemisphere – until we emerge again come late March … And after ten days or so of blissfully warm, mild and sunny September days, it’s as if the weather itself knows how to play by the equinoctial rules and has thus given us a day...

There are questions that I am frequently asked at author talks and events. What is your writing routine? How many words do you write in a day? Do you plan each chapter? Do you share your writing with a group? And I am sure I am not unique – that all writers are asked these questions and somehow a clear answer is no doubt expected. Perhaps some writers are able to say: Goodness yes! I never leave the house until I’ve polished off 1,420 words – before breakfast, of course! Just as others reliably say: I plan every chapter before...

So summer starts to draw to a close – darker evenings, chill mornings – even if the sun is managing to catch up by mid morning. Returning from an idyllic summer in the Cretan sun where blue skies have been so entirely predictable that after a few weeks they were barely noticeable, the adjustment has been considerable. Yet at the same time couched in a sense that it was time to fit into the groove of home again, of routine. Yet my own home surroundings will soon be changing. Or rather my house will change. For although I am making...

An admission. I have not yet been awake early enough to see the sun rise. In fact, my alarm call as such, here under summer Cretan skies, is indeed the sound of the cicadas starting their day. It’s an idyllic way to wake up. It’s also idyllic to pull on the thinnest of clothes without having to regard the sky or feel the air as warmth is guaranteed to last to sunset and beyond. It takes some adjusting to, trusting in the weather to provide and live up to its name of ‘summer’ especially after the indifferent one we’ve been...

Remember those days when it was possible to return home and find the doormat displaying neat oblong-shaped Basildon Bond or Queen’s Velvet blue envelopes bulging with handwritten pages of missives from friends, far and wide? Equally exciting were those tissue-thin airmail letters that allowed only so much text so the sender compressed handwriting style to make the most of the limited space? Bygone days, naturally. But remember the anticipation? Tearing open such letters to read swiftly the contents whilst still wearing a coat, clinging on to car keys, a pint of milk picked up on the way home, was forbidden...

That sounds like the title of a poem. Or a light summer read novel. In truth, it’s neither. Although I would love to use it sometime … In reality, it’s what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks – amongst other things. For although here in Crete it is now hot – the weather, since my arrival, switching from a gentle early summer warmth through two half days of indifferent cloud and a sudden downpour to this – the full-on heat of a Mediterranean summer. But the cicadas are still absent. We are not woken by their insistent clamour,...