How is it almost Halloween already? Yesterday it was the beginning of the month and now it’s almost time for silly costumes and sitting with the lights off, so the trick-or-treaters think I’m not home. I honestly don’t do Halloween. When Franki was little, I made an effort. Each year she would dress up as a witch or pirate or some such thing. I would drive us to the big housing estate on the outskirts of town which is famed for (a) being where Americans working on the nearby USAF base live and (b) where the local inhabitants go a bit mad at Halloween. We spent a couple of hours knocking at every door with a pumpkin lantern — that tends to be the rule in the UK. If you have Halloween decorations out then you’re up for trick-or-treaters, if not, you are left alone — Franki with her little pumpkin bucket and adorably lisped twick or tweat (I swear that kid practised all year to get it right), and me lurking at the gate with a stout carrier bag to offload her candy haul into.

Over two hours, she would collect enough sweets to last all year. And I mean, all year. The next day, we would tip all the candy into a big pile, I would give her a roll of small plastic bags and she would divide the candy into piles of eight sweets each. These little bags would be stashed into the high cupboard in the kitchen — the one that even I couldn’t reach without a chair — and that was her sweetie haul for taking to the cinema (we found eight sweets was the ideal film running time/feeling sick quota). Back then, our local Cineworld did Movies for Juniors every Saturday morning. The tickets were only £1 each. We would take her water bottle with juice from home and a bag of Halloween candy. Okay, the movies had been out a while, but we hadn’t seen them before, so they were new to us. We went most weekends and for only £2 for both of us, had a fun morning watching a film. Hack #37 in the financially constrained life of a single parent.

Once Franki got old enough not to worry about going trick-or-treating, Halloween was relegated to something not worth worrying about. Friends of mine sometimes have a costume Halloween party, but that’s strictly a grown-up — how much booze can one adult dressed as a zombie slutty nurse consume over one evening — affair? Speaking of, they are holding a party next Saturday and the theme is zombie Saturday Night Fever. Okaaayyy. I have no idea what I’m wearing. I’m having a mooch about the charity shops this afternoon to see if inspiration strikes. Hopefully, cheap inspiration. After all the money I’ve paid out the last couple of weeks on ISBNs, uploading books, cover images, and ordering proof copies, I’m a bit broke.

How is the great book dilemma going? Honestly, I am about ready to tear my hair out. Dealing with the Book Vault is like dealing with a group of politicians in that they seem incapable of giving straightforward yes or no answers. It has taken over a dozen emails back and forth before I think I know what they’re saying. Last time we spoke, I had concluded that I was going to have to publish two versions of the hardback edition of the Blackwood Family Saga. One with no dust jacket and no printed edges on Amazon, and then one on Book Vault with the fancy bits. Well, things have moved on apace. Armed with fresh information tortuously extracted from Book Vault — honestly, guys just put the bloody information on the website and save us all the time and trouble, please — it seems my book with its dust jacket can be distributed worldwide via Amazon and the Great British Bookshop, it just can’t be printed anywhere but in the UK. The upshot of this is that readers outside the UK will have to pay postage costs if they want the fancy pants edition. Okay, so I’m now only publishing one version of the deluxe hardback. This will have a gorgeous red leather cover, with a stunning dust jacket, and printed edges to make it worth the extra pennies. There will also be a plain paperback version for the cheapskates, or the weaklings who moan a hardback is too heavy for their poor little arms. Finally, there will be an eBook version for those who prefer digital.

The Book of Eve, because it doesn’t have a dust jacket, will be available via Amazon worldwide in hardback with a new cover, a stunning-coloured interior title page, and printed edges. There are also the original paperback and eBook versions with the still beautiful, gilded peacock cover.

So much work has gone into these books. I am about to order my proof copies and am praying they are as stunning in real life as they are on the screen. Below are images of the new Eve cover and the wrap-around dust jacket cover for the Blackwood Family Saga. I love them both. Each is individual and unique, and I think each reflects perfectly the genre and vibe of the stories.

I will keep you updated as to when they are available to buy. Certainly, they will be out before Christmas.

I have summarised the struggles in just a few sentences. In reality, it’s been two weeks of endless emails to Book Vault and trying to make sense of their convoluted replies. Long chats with my cover designer and interior formatter (who is also publishing her new book through Book Vault for the first time, so it’s a case of misery loving company). And trying to figure out what to do for the best. On top of working two 40-hour weeks back-to-back. I’m exhausted. Thank heavens my hours are back to normal now.

As I’m writing this on Saturday, we will be changing the clocks tonight here in the UK. I’m already walking home at six in the dusk, so come Monday I will be walking home in the dark and having to remember to switch the porch light on before going back to work after lunch. If I don’t, then it’s as black as Hades and I can’t find my key, let alone the keyhole. Fumbling around trying to find the torch function on my phone, I accidentally put it in aeroplane mode and dropped the contents of my handbag on the floor. I’ve learnt it’s far easier to switch the light on at lunchtime. It will only just be light as I leave for work in the morning as well. Thank heavens for that ten-minute walk to and from home at lunchtime, otherwise, I’d be vitamin D deficient.

There’s no getting away from it, Christmas is coming. The shops are already full of Christmas chocolates and sweets, although who has the willpower to buy them now and still have them all at Christmas? Franki isn’t coming home for Christmas. I had them last year so they will be going to her partner’s mother in Wales for the actual day. They will be coming to me sometime after Boxing Day and staying over New Year and into January. That’s fine. I am used to celebrating Christmas on different days and we will have a nice time whenever they come. I will be going to my parents on Christmas Day. As I could think of nothing grimmer than spending hours helping Mum cook lunch just for the three of us, and then sitting there at the table just the three of us, eating lunch, with paper hats on our heads, I suggested we go to the local pub in the village for Christmas lunch. It’s a lovely menu, very reasonably priced, a ten-minute walk away, and will be packed with all my parents’ friends and neighbours so it should have a jolly festive atmosphere. So, that’s what we’re doing. I’ve already made my selection — smoked salmon, roast beef, and then the cheeseboard for afters — as I don’t like turkey and can never afford a proper joint of beef for myself, and with all the sweet stuff that’s around over Christmas anyway, I would always rather have a cheeseboard than dessert.

We are having a reduced Christmas this year. I have already spoken to the few adults I still buy presents for, and we have agreed not to do presents. It was getting silly. I was wasting money buying them something off their list and they were wasting money buying something off my list. Why didn’t we just keep our money in our pockets and buy what we wanted for ourselves? We see each other over the festive period and have meals and drinks and games evenings, and that is much better than gifts anyway. I will still buy for my parents and Franki and Rys, but we have agreed to set a low budget and go small and thoughtful. I buy for my cousin’s two children who are both still under 18, but apart from that, I don’t have any other people to buy for. I do make cherry vodka for a few special friends who support me and do a lot for me during the year. I like to give them a little something homemade to say thank you, although this year will be the last time I can make cherry vodka using cherries from my tree as it will be coming down because it’s diseased. I’m using the last of the cherries from my mum’s freezer from past harvests. I will be able to make different flavoured vodkas in future though, and maybe some sloe gin again. I’m popping over to my parents on Wednesday to collect the final 12lbs of cherries and then the afternoon is earmarked for making the vodka. I can’t leave it any longer otherwise it won’t have matured enough to be bottled for Christmas plus I am taking a bottle to Franki on the 5^th of November so they can mature it and bottle it to take it to Wales for Christmas.

I’m taking a few bits and bobs to Reading when I go to collect them to then drive to Chester for their graduation, including a 6ft pink Christmas tree called Boris and a box of tree decorations. It was left here because they weren’t sure they’d have room in their new flat to have a tree this year, let alone space to store it. But there’s ample room so they want their tree and it’s coming with me.

Not looking forward to the drive to Reading. At least it’s only one way and it will be in daylight, not at the end of a long and physically demanding day, and I won’t be ill (touch wood). As for the journey back, well, there are two plans. Either I will drive all three of us back to Suffolk, they will stay a couple of days, and then catch a train back to Reading. Or Rys’s sister who lives in London will give them a lift home. Nice though it would be to have them stay a couple of days, I hope it’s the second option. One of my oldest friends is arriving in town on the afternoon of the 7^th to stay with me for a couple of days. We have been friends since 1988, but she moved away from Bury in the mid-90s. She now lives near Portsmouth with her husband and although we try to all meet up every year or so, it has been years since it has been just her and me. It will be wonderful to have a couple of days with my old friend, cooking meals together and catching up, without anyone else there. Anyway, no doubt I will be informed by Franki at some point about what is happening.

Speaking of Christmas trees, once again I will be using my little silver artificial tree this year. There seems no point spending £60+ on a real one and having to lug it home by myself in the car, dismantle my desk and store it in my bedroom to make space for it, then take the damn thing down in the New Year, especially as I won’t even be here this Christmas. No, the silver one will be fine. It’s sweet and sparkly and twinkly and fits neatly into the corner with no furniture removal involved. It’s so light that when I’m vacuuming, I can pick it up with one hand and vacuum the carpet underneath. It’s also free. And as the spirit of this Christmas is thriftiness, that’s a huge plus.

I’m also cutting down on Christmas cards, especially those I must post abroad. What with the exorbitant cost of postage these days, if you didn’t send me a card last year, then I’m not sending you one this year. Sorry, but no. Last year I wrapped all my gifts in brown paper, tied them with green garden twine, and made homemade tags from the previous year’s cards using pinking shears, and a hole punch, and you know what, they looked bloody amazing, very artisan, so I’ll be doing it again this year.

It’s just a day, that’s what I keep telling myself, it’s just a day. So why does it cost so much?

The question women ask themselves every year.

Anyway, enough about Christmas. Focus on one goal at a time. My current goals are to get the books published and sort out my Halloween costume. After that, it will be the graduation trip and my friend’s visit. After that, preparing for the various Christmas fairs and markets. I’m busy every weekend from the end of November until the week before Christmas with one event or another. I hope to have copies of the hardback books to sell by then, and I’m even more hopeful they will do well.

I need to be going. It’s now 11.40 and I still need to upload my books and order my copies, update my driving licence, pay my car tax for the year, and then think about costume shopping. Like I said, I have no clue, I will wander and forage in the shops and see if anything jumps out at me. There’s a fancy dress and party shop in town so I’ll look there, maybe for zombie make-up, although I’ve no idea what zombie make-up looks like. White skin, I guess, dark smudged eyes, bloodstained mouth and body parts dropping off. Nice.

Anyway, take care guys, and I’ll try to remember to take pictures of my outfit and the graduation to share next time.

All the best.

Julia Blake

Hello Peeps. Has it really been two weeks since we last chatted? What has happened to me? Well, not a lot. October arrived with a blast of cold wind and our first sharp frost of the season. We also had a spectacular display of the Northern Lights on Wednesday evening which was amazing. I’ve never seen them before. It’s so rare for them to be seen this far south in the UK. I heard some of my neighbours congregating outside my house so popped out to see what was happening and the whole sky was pink. Very lovely.

Last time we spoke I was on my way to NorCon. What an amazing weekend that was, although sales-wise I must be honest, it wasn’t quite as successful as last year. I think this might have been due to a couple of factors. The cost-of-living crisis is biting hard, and people have a lot less money. I noticed that my card sales were down, and my cash sales were up, and several buyers mentioned that they’d left their cards at home and only brought what they could afford to spend in cash with them. Sensible, but not helpful for the traders. Also, I had several people who have bought from me before at either NorCon last year or events since come and find me. I haven’t published anything new since last year so if they’d already bought all my fantasy and sci-fi books, I had nothing new to offer them. This tells me that I really need to publish another book and soon. But more about that later.

Over the weekend I sold 38 books which is pretty good, but I think last year I sold over 45. Is NorCon worth doing? Yes, I think it is, but under strictly controlled conditions. Settle for sharing a table with another author. This brings the pitch fee down from £150 to £75. I would not have made any profit at all if I’d had such a high pitch fee. Take everything you are going to eat and drink with you. Buying lunch, snacks, and drinks at an event is always an expensive affair. I make sure I buy a 2l bottle of water to take with me. I drink it all on the first day, then I top it up at home and put it in the fridge overnight to take the next day. Same with food. I packed a lunch and took snacks with me. And I don’t leave my stall and wander about looking at other stalls. Not only because I might miss sales by leaving my stall unattended, but there’s a danger of being tempted to buy stuff and that will eat into my profit margins.

I took lots of pictures because the cosplay this year was incredible. I am always in awe at the dedication, time, money, and passion people put into their costumes. The pictures are posted throughout the blog for you to enjoy.

The lady I job-share with is on a 28-day cruise in the Mediterranean — I know!! Nice for some! — so I am working double shifts for most of October, which is just as well, because my boss is on holiday for the first time this year so, of course, I had to be on holiday as well. I am off work from the 5^th to the 16^th of October. Normally, this would mean a very light pay packet, but because I am working all the days for the rest of the month my pay will be a little higher than usual, so that’s all right.

Have I done anything exciting during my time off? No, probably nothing anyone else would consider exciting, anyway. On Saturday the 5^th, I was supposed to be doing Laxfield Market again, but I was utterly exhausted after working four 10-hour shifts, plus I still hadn’t shaken the whooping cough that’s been plaguing me since March. I decided on Friday that getting up at the crack of dawn, doing a two-hour round trip to stand in a freezing cold church only to sell four books, was possibly not a great idea. I emailed the organiser and sent my apologies. Laxfield Market will be one of the events I will be dropping next year. It’s too far and I simply don’t sell enough books to make it worth my while. But that’s what this year has been about. Trying every event to see what works and what doesn’t.

When I woke up at nine on Saturday having slept for almost eleven hours, I was relieved I’d made the call. I obviously needed the sleep. The first day of my holiday. I tried to rest. This doesn’t come easy for me. I always feel I should be doing something. But I resisted it. I slept in late. I ate healthily, I drank plenty of fluids, I read a book, I pootled about the house gently tidying, and I even spent a nice hour outside in the sunshine sweeping up leaves. I felt much better for it and woke up on Sunday refreshed and ready to go.

Sunday, I knuckled down to business and set about trying to figure out the hows, whys, and wherefores of publishing the omnibus edition of the first four books of the Blackwood Family Saga as well as The Book of Eve as deluxe hardback editions. My head was in a whirl. There was so much to think about and consider. I was planning to publish them through The Book Vault because they offer a great range of bespoke extras for books. Things like dust jackets, sprayed edges, gilded covers, ribbons, cloth-covered books, etc. I wanted them all, so went through the quote system gradually adding more and more to my book. They gave me a production cost quote for The Blackwood Family Saga. £16 just to produce the book. If I wanted The Book Vault to distribute through Amazon as well, then Amazon slapped a whopping 30% admin fee on each book. Yeah. Not going to happen. I would have to price each book at £25 just to make a pound or so profit. No one is going to pay that for a book by Julia Blake. I’m not Stephen King. No matter how good or pretty the book is, it’s not going to happen.

I needed to think this through.

The issue is the 30% Amazon admin fee.

I have also bought myself a block of ten ISBNs. Up until now, I have been using the free Amazon ISBNs, which are great, and say what you like about Amazon, by offering free ISBNs and a free publishing service, they have opened the market for millions of authors to be published who couldn’t afford to be otherwise. However, the downside of using Amazon ISBNs is that you can only publish through them. I guess that’s fair enough, after all, why should they give you a free ISBN to go and publish elsewhere?

As I don’t plan to try and distribute or sell my paperbacks anywhere other than Amazon, why bother spending money on ISBNs? They are expensive. One is £93. A shocking amount, especially when you consider that if you buy a block of ten the price comes down to £174 (17.40 each). Buy a hundred and it’s only £387 (3.87 each). Need a thousand? Well, then it comes right the way down to 99p each. So, the ISBNs cost nothing to produce, they are just numbers generated and issued by Neilson (the only place you can buy them in the UK). They take seconds to make. They are not labour intensive, so it does seem unfair that the wealthy and powerful big publishing houses get them for 99p each whereas the poor lowly authors must pay such a whopping great mark-up.

So why bother? Why not simply keep on using the free Amazon ISBNs? It’s because I’m trying to up my game as an author. I’ve stagnated the last year or so because my life has been one massive upheaval after another. What with changing jobs twice, changing lodgers, decorating five rooms in my house, taking on a massive garden renovation project, and having two summers taken up with having Franki and Rys live with me, there hasn’t been enough time for me to focus on my author career, so I’ve let it slide. I want to do better.

I plan to work my way through my books, one at a time, painstakingly checking they are as perfect as they possibly can be. Produce them as gorgeous hardback copies to sell at live events. Get my eBooks out there wide so all my eggs aren’t in Amazon’s basket. Source beautiful new bookmarks, cards, gift bags and stickers for when I sell at events. Sort out all my keywords and categories on Amazon to maximise my book’s impact. Finally, when every book is the best, it can be, look at audio.

It’s going to take a long time. A year, maybe more. Alongside this, I will need to write more books. Try to increase my presence on social media and work harder at live events. I’m exhausted just thinking about it and if I try to think about the amount of work doing this with all 16 books is going to create my head will implode. So, I am going to focus on one book at a time. Tunnel vision on that book. Work my way through the checklist on each book until the job is done.

Hardbacks are the trend right now. Pretty books that people want to collect and display on their shelves. They sell for more than paperbacks and a lot more than eBooks, but there is a fine line between affordable luxury and pricing myself out of a sale.

Yes, it would be amazing to have sprayed edges and ribbons and all the other frilly bits, but not if it makes the books so expensive I can’t sell them. A compromise must be reached.

If I publish a beautiful hardback through the Book Vault and try to distribute it to Amazon through them, the hefty 30% admin fee Amazon greedily demands on each book will either leave me with no profit at all or having to overprice the book.

What is to be done?

The solution is to publish the book twice. I can produce it as a hardback via Amazon using one of their free ISBNs and not be charged 30%. It will still be a lovely book. Then, alongside this, I can also publish it through the Book Vault using one of my own ISBNs and have dust jackets, cloth covers, even ribbons and sprayed edges if I want. I can order as many author copies as I want at cost to sell at live events. The Book Vault also distribute through their own online bookshop the Great British Bookshop which anyone, anywhere in the world, can buy from. Yes, they charge a fee, but it’s minimal compared to Amazon. This is maximising the buyer’s choice. They can buy it from Amazon or pay a few pennies more and get the deluxe version via the Great British Bookshop.

It’s a lot of hard work and faff, but if I only think about it in terms of one book at a time, it doesn’t seem too bad, and I want to get it right from the start. And before you ask. No, I can’t use my ISBN on a book published through Amazon and the Book Vault. Once an ISBN has been used on a book published through Amazon, it cannot then be used with any other publishing company.

Another advantage to having my own ISBNs on my books is that it creates the possibility of being able to sell through independent bookshops. All bookshops, be they large chains like Waterstones, or small individual bookstores, hate Amazon with a passion. If your book has an Amazon ISBN and barcode, then forget about any bookshop stocking it. Or let’s put it this way, it reduces the chance by 90% of any bookshop being interested in your books.

Some bookstore owners and managers can be incredibly snobby and cruel about it. I was at an indie book fair in the summer and the owner of a local bookstore was there. She worked her way around the room, picking up books, looking for the ISBN and barcode, and then tossing them back as if they were contaminated if she spotted an Amazon-published book. Now, I’m an experienced author and a big girl. I’m used to this attitude so shrugged my shoulders, and beyond thinking how tactless and rude she was, didn’t pay much attention to it. However, another author who was young and newly published was almost in tears at how horrible the bookstore owner was to her. There’s no need for it. You hate Amazon, fine, we get it. But blaming the poor penniless author and telling them they shouldn’t publish through Amazon when most authors are so financially constrained, they have no other option, isn’t helpful.

So, having my own ISBN and therefore my own barcode which can be positioned wherever I please on my book — traditionally published books have it on the back in the middle, whereas Amazon puts their barcodes to one side — alongside my Sele Books publishing company logo on the spine and no mention of Amazon inside, will reassure bookshops that I am a “proper” author. That’s if I want to try and get my books into shops. Most of them take such a huge cut that it’s not financially viable, but some don’t, and by having my own ISBNs I leave that option open for future investigation.

Being published elsewhere also means if Amazon ever deletes my account or stops me selling through them for some reason, I will have another distribution outlet already set up. It can only be a good thing not to have all my eggs in Amazon’s basket.

So, the first two books to be produced in hardback are going to be the omnibus edition of the first four books in the Blackwood Family Saga and The Book of Eve. They are going to be beautiful and hopefully will sell very well at live events, even if they don’t sell so well online. The Book of Eve will even have an extra 17,000 words of bonus material not available anywhere other than in the hardback book.

Editing the books, trying to pick my way through the minefield of ISBNs, and disappearing down rabbit holes researching the various extras and images for new covers have taken days of my holiday. I did have a day off to spend with a friend and have lunch with them, and I have another friend calling around for the evening tonight, so I am having some fun as well.

In other news, Franki and Rys are very happy and settled in their new flat and loving the course they’re on. It’s great that they’re enjoying university. I will be seeing them again soon as their graduation ceremony for their bachelor’s will be taking place back in Chester at the beginning of November. We have booked an Airbnb that sleeps six because as well me, Franki and Rys, Rys’s two sisters and a boyfriend will be going, and it was cheaper to book an Airbnb between us all than stay in a hotel. Rys’s mum will be attending the ceremony but going home the same day.

It’s a lot of driving for me though and at the thought of doing that bloody awful Reading to home drive again on my own, my heart sank. When it was originally booked, I had no idea how long it takes to get to Reading, nor how nasty a drive it is. Not great with geography I’d naively assumed that Reading was on the way to Chester. After the journey from hell the day we moved them into Reading, I checked on Google Maps just how long it was going to take to drive from home to Reading to collect them, then from Reading to Chester. Depending on traffic it could be a seven-to-nine-hour drive! Not tempting. Even less tempting was going to be the drive from Chester to Reading to drop them off and then the three-hour drive home alone.

I have suggested a compromise. I have to drive to Reading, there is no getting out of that. I need to pick them up and I will be taking up stuff for Christmas and other things from here that they need. It will be in the daylight though, I won’t be so ill and tired, so hopefully, it won’t be so bad. Then the drive from Reading to Chester, at least they will be with me, so I won’t be alone. After the visit and the graduation, I will drive all three of us back to Suffolk, they will stay a couple of days, and then get the train back to Reading. It’s still a hell of a lot of driving for me, but there’s not a lot I can do about that. Let’s hope the weather isn’t too bad.

It’s now Saturday afternoon and I’ve just got back from a quick shopping trip in the pouring rain. Why is it that everything runs out at the same time? Looking through the cupboards this morning, I realised I needed shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, body lotion, hand soap, cleanser, and paracetamol. Everything was either finished or down to a dribble.

I think I’m just about out of my news so it’s back to editing I go. I have four days left of my holiday. Tomorrow will be nonstop editing. On Monday my cousin is coming for coffee in the afternoon. On Tuesday I must go to work to phone all the appointment reminders, check the answerphone, and the post, and then on Wednesday my boiler is being serviced in the morning and my old boss is calling round for a cup of tea. I have a haircut at two and then I’m back to work on Thursday and that will be the end of my holiday. Gosh, it’s gone by fast.

All my love.

Julia Blake

Good morning from a breathlessly busy Julia. I know I always comment on how fast time goes by, but seriously, doesn’t it just? Someone once explained to me why it feels that time passes more quickly as an adult than it did as a child. When you’re young, he said, a year is a bigger percentage of your life. So, if you’re only five, then a year is one-fifth of your life. But, when you’re 55 it’s only one-fifty-fifth, so it’s a much smaller percentage hence it passes quicker. I guess that makes sense, but it is alarming how my life is galloping by with so much still left undone.

So, how is it going? Well, the weather has taken a turn for the worse. My hopes of a warm September and maybe even October have already been dashed. Over the last couple of days, the temperature has plummeted, and I’ve been forced to put the heating on, already. If it stays this chilly, it will mean we’ve only been able to turn the heating off for two months of the year. Great for the utility companies, but not so great for everyone else.

Every morning, if it’s dry, I still attempt to hang the washing out in the hopes of saving some money on using the dryer. I usually finish it off in the drier because it’s coming in cold and slightly damp. This morning, there were spiderwebs draped over everything, glistening in the morning dew. Very pretty, but cold. Talking of spiders, good lord we’ve had some monsters in the house this past week or so. A simply enormous one crawled over my foot one evening making me jump. It then sat on the edge of the sofa and looked at me.

I went and got Rys — despite planning on studying entomology, Franki is petrified of arachnids — and together we got a pint glass (yes, it was that big) and managed to catch the scary thing and put it outside. The next morning when I left to go to work, it was crouched on the doorstep dead. I guess house spiders don’t do well outdoors. I messaged Rys to surreptitiously scoop it up and put it in the bin before Franki saw it and freaked out.

Last weekend, Franki and I were sitting in the lounge one evening chatting. I watched without allowing a flicker of emotion to cross my face as a simply mahoosive spider crawled across the carpet by her foot. It was late. I didn’t want the drama.

Rys joined their family for their narrowboat holiday last week. Well, they’re calling it a holiday but honestly the thought of being cramped on a canal boat with all my family, sleeping on beds that become other items of furniture during the day, and with one chemical toilet between us fills me with horror. Especially as the weather has been even worse up North than it has here. Hail, driving rain, everything damp and cold, and to top it all, Rys managed to fall in the canal and had to drag themselves out — sopping wet, muddy, and cold — whilst their heartless siblings laughed like drains, took pictures, and then sent them to everyone they know, including Franki. Oh, my heart went out to Rys, but it was funny.

Rys is back Sunday (today) and then we’re onto the final countdown of the last week before the next adventure of their lives begins — Reading University. A van has been booked and plans made. It’s all a bit daunting, to be honest. Reading has been sending information stressing how if you can’t fit all your belongings in one car, then you won’t be able to fit them in your room. They’ve even been suggesting travelling there by train and carrying all your belongings in a backpack. Are you mad, Reading University? The thought of carrying all your clothes, toiletries, bedding, cookware, and books in a backpack, on a train … nope, just nope.

We are taking a van and a car because there are two of them and they are not moving into a single room but have managed to secure a whole flat so will need more stuff. That is another stress. They were not able to go on the university tour because Franki was at work and there are no pictures of the flats available so they’re moving in blind. It might be lovely and spacious enough to comfortably live in. It might be a poky shoebox not big enough to swing a hamster in, let alone a cat. Oh well, we will find out next Saturday and by the time I talk to you again it will all be done and dusted.

I will miss them, I think, but it will be nice to have my house back tidy and the way I like it. It’s been fun having them here, but there’s been no time to relax let alone write or do much in the way of author business. I have been snatching odd moments to work on converting the first four books of the Blackwood Family Saga into a hardback omnibus, plus I am hoping to release The Book of Eve as a gorgeous deluxe hardback edition before all the Christmas live events happen. I think it will sell very well on my stall. I am even thinking of publishing through the Book Vault who offer dust jackets, gilded covers, and sprayed edges. I know, fancy, right.

In terms of events, the last one I did was on the 7^th when I made the two-hour round trip to Laxfield Market. I’ve not done particularly well at this event and this time was the worst yet with only four books sold. That is not enough to cover the pitch fee, the cost of books, bookmarks, bags, and diesel, let alone cover my time and provide any kind of profit. Reluctantly, I think this is one event I will have to drop. I have another one booked for the first weekend in October and then I’m doing the Christmas evening fair in December, but then I won’t do any more. It simply isn’t financially viable. If it were closer, it might be worth doing for the exposure, but it’s a long drive. Most of it is over horrendous country lanes and I had £100 worth of pothole damage to pay for earlier in the year which I’m sure was caused by those roads.

Oh, I do have a funny story to tell you about cucumbers. I think I may have mentioned that every Friday during the summer months we have Happy Hour up my street. From 5:30 onwards, anyone who is around and is so inclined wanders out onto the street with a drink to have a chat and catch up with the neighbours. We’ve been doing it since lockdown, and I think it’s lovely that my street has such a nice community spirit. Anyway, I went out a couple of Fridays ago with a drink to find one of my neighbours standing there with a bag of home-grown cucumbers.

I’ve had a glut, he said. No one is to leave without taking a cucumber.

Duly, we all reached into the bag and took out a cucumber. Being home-grown they were a variety of shapes and sizes, but mostly short and girthy. Anyway, we’re all standing there, drink in one hand and clutching our cucumbers in the other, when a large party wander down our road all dressed up and clearly heading for the Italian restaurant at the bottom. They look at us. We look back. We grin sheepishly at them. Their faces are a picture. I want to laugh madly at what they must be thinking. Who are these strange people all gathered on the pavement with a mix of alcoholic drinks and all clutching a cucumber. Some kind of weird cult? The cucumber club? They look as if they want to ask, then exchange glances and hurry on by. I can only imagine the conversation at the dinner table.

Another funny thing happened last time I went to Waitrose. I’m standing in the queue at the till and notice the guy in front of me is buying tins of sardines. A lot of tins of sardines. In fact, he is purchasing so many that he’s simply taken the entire display box off the shelf. I count them. 24 tins of sardines in all. As he is packing them all into his bag, I exchange a look with the cashier, and we share a moment. Her mouth quirks as she suppresses a smile. Once he is safely away and she’s putting my few items through, she comments mildly:

He must like sardines.

He must, I reply. I’ve been trying to think of any dish that would need that many sardines, but I can’t. They’re tinned, so he can’t even put them on the barbecue.

I’m writing this on Friday morning because I’m not going to have a spare moment between now and Sunday. We’ll be heading out soon to the care home where Franki’s grandmother lives to visit with her, shopping on the way home, then I must get everything ready for the YA Literature Festival taking place in Stowmarket Library tomorrow. As it’s YA, I can only take Erinsmore, Mage Quest, and Black Ice so will need to repack my boxes. I must ensure I have plenty of matching bookmarks to go in goody bags. I might need to print more labels for bags. I’ve sorted out which passage I’m reading in the Battle of the Baddies — it’s the bit in Erinsmore when the evil mage Lorcan has kidnapped Ruby and is telling her of his evil plans in a thoroughly dastardly way — and I need to print it out in big print so I can read it without resorting to glasses.

Yesterday, I found out I’m on one of the panels. Surprise! Who was? Me. I was surprised. Hadn’t been told, let alone asked if I wanted to be on a panel, was just sent an itinerary for the day and there was my name on the first panel of the day. Apparently, we’re all to recommend a YA book and give a little talk about it. Okaaay. Bit of frantic scurrying around and I came up with The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean which is an extraordinary read. Highly recommend it.

Then there will be the Battle of the Baddies in which we all read a short extract from one of our books featuring our baddies and then the audience vote on who is the baddest of them all. Alongside these fun activities, I will have a stall where I’ll be selling and signing books. Franki is coming along for the ride and has been allocated volunteer status. This means they can attend panels and talks and when I’m on a panel, they can mind my stall for me.

I really hope it’s a success. I know the organizer has worked her little socks off to make it the best it can be, but I also know trying to get teenagers to attend anything is always problematic.

We will be back at about five on Saturday when I will have to repack my boxes for the Leiston Craft Market the next day. Not great planning, having two events back-to-back, but it is what it is and I’m sure I’ll manage. I did very well at the last Leiston Market — do you remember, I sold 18 books and won all the fruit on the raffle — so I’m hopeful this one will be as good, if not better. I think Leiston is one event I will keep doing as I do okay at it.

Although Rys left for their canal trip a week ago on Friday, Franki had two long shifts at Wetherspoons that weekend and then I worked Monday and Friday. I think Franki quite enjoyed having two days to themselves and they read about a hundred books. The Kindle they received for their birthday is certainly earning its keep. So, what with events all this weekend, Franki and I have ended up only having three days together.

On Wednesday, despite the dodgy weather forecast, we went to our local coast Felixstowe for the day. Well, I say day. I’d promised my boss we’d call round hers and sort her new TV out as she’s a complete technophobe, so by the time we’d done that and driven to Felixstowe it was midday. We parked up and strolled along the prom. A brisk, chill wind was blowing right into our faces from the steel-grey North Sea. Large seagulls huddled and eyed us up, probably wondering if we had any food. We hit the amusement arcade and fed an obscene amount of money into the tuppeny shove — why are those things so addictive? — walked a bit more, then decided we were hungry and went for whitebait and chips in the café on the pier. As we ate, dark clouds loomed far out to sea and by the time we’d finished they had reached land, and it was spattering with rain. It was almost three, so we decided we’d had enough and headed for home.

We hit traffic just before the Orwell Bridge. Something was clearly occurring up ahead. We crawled along, our speed varying between dead slow and stop, and then the two lanes began merging into one. We inched onto the bridge in the right-hand lane, the left lane, a sign informed us, has been closed for safety reasons. Right, safety reasons. What safety reasons? I scanned the left lane; it was all coned off but apart from that it was completely empty. Nothing. Not even a lone wheelbarrow with a spade in it. We crawled over the bridge and there wasn’t a whiff of a hi-vis jacket anywhere. Bizarre. Why? Just why? Beside me, Franki had been asleep since leaving the coast. Head lolling about like a bladder on a stick, they remained fast asleep until we hit Bury St Edmunds, when I accidentally knocked their knee when it encroached onto the gear stick, and they awoke with an annoyed grunt.

Home. We turned the heating on because it was so cold, lit candles in the kitchen, made cocktails, and then Franki perched on the worktop and chatted away with me as I made chilli prawns and noodles for dinner. It was nice, and that is one thing I will miss, although when Rys is here as well they both tend to vanish somewhere whilst I’m cooking and only emerge when I yell that food is being dished up. I do love company when I’m cooking.

Thursday. We were meeting a friend for coffee and cake and on the way, I needed to buy new socks. Lord only knows what has happened, but I’ve suffered from a sock apocalypse. We dashed into Marks & Spencer — if you’re British I would argue it’s the only place to buy socks and undies from — where I grabbed a pack of soft knit ankle socks in shades of grey for £10, and we rushed out the back door. We reached the café with seconds to spare, found a table in the gathering late morning rush, and waited, and waited. She eventually rocked up 15 minutes late. I had a piece of coffee cake the size of my head to compensate.

Then we squeezed in a visit to Franki’s paternal grandfather before going home.

At the beginning of the summer, I’d airily said that we’d go to the storage locker at some point, get their mattress topper, duvet, and pillows out, and take them to the local launderette and wash them because they were too big to fit into the washing machine at home.

That was at the beginning of the summer though, when we were young and naïve and thought we had plenty of time. Now we’re older and wiser and there’s no more time left. Still, we had to try, so we jumped into the car and zoomed across town to the storage locker. There was a sticky moment when Franki couldn’t remember the code and we had to enquire in the office, but then we were in and found the bags with the bedding in and dashed across to where I remembered the launderette was.

It looked extremely shabby and a bit shanty town. The sign on the door said it would cost £5 to use the large machine which I knew we’d need for the topper. That didn’t seem too bad, but, once we got in, we found a row of washing machines with drums smaller than the one at home, facing a row of dilapidated-looking tumble driers, with one slightly larger washing machine at the end. We surveyed it. Honestly, it didn’t look man enough for the job. Furthermore, there was a sticker on it stating that it would be £13 to use it. £13! To do one wash cycle. I think not. We came home again. I squashed the duvet into the washing machine and got that washed and out on the line. The pillows will be washed this weekend. As for the mattress topper, well, it’s been used under a mattress protector so it can’t be that dirty.

It’s disgraceful that they charge so much for people to use the washing machines. After all, it’s people who can’t afford to have a machine at home that primarily use it.

Anyway, today we went to see Franki’s paternal grandmother in her care home, bought lunch ready to take with us tomorrow, and I’m now writing this blog. This evening, we have my niece coming for dinner and then we’re all off to the theatre to see an improv group doing Murder She Didn’t Write. It’s a bit like a game of Cluedo that’s made up as they go along using suggestions from the audience. Franki has been before and says it’s very funny.

We have an early start in the morning so mustn’t drink too much or have a late night, and I will need to dash off soon and start sorting and packing up the car ready for a speedy departure in the morning. Wish us luck. And of course, as soon as we get home tomorrow afternoon, I will need to repack all my boxes and reload the car ready for an early start Sunday as I’m doing Leiston Market. That will take most of the day. Frank isn’t coming as it’s not really her thing plus Rys will be coming back on Sunday.

By the time I get home from the market, unload the car and put everything away, I will be ready for dinner. Luckily, Franki is cooking a pasta dish for us all.

I’m at work on Monday and Tuesday, and then there are just three days left most of which will be taken up with sorting and packing.

Not looking forward to the move, I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve never driven to Reading before, so that will be stressful. Unlike when Franki went to their previous university we’ve not toured the campus so have no idea where to go or what the parking situation is. We don’t know how clean the flat will be or if we will have to roll up our sleeves and break out the bleach when we get there. I have a feeling I might be bringing stuff back with me that simply won’t fit.

However it pans out, Saturday is going to be a looooong day, at the end of which I will have to drive home, unload the car of anything I’ve brought back, and repack it ready for an early start Sunday morning because I’m off to do the Stonham Barns Autumn Craft Fair. I know, it is pure madness doing so much in one weekend, but when I booked and paid for Stonham at the beginning of the year, I had no idea when or even if, Franki would be going to Reading. I am supposed to be at Stonham on Saturday as well, but of course I can’t be. I have said if someone else wants my place they are welcome to use it, but I think it was such short notice that they couldn’t find anyone, so the other authors are going to spread out on Saturday to use up the space.

And that’s you up to date on everything. Busy is not the word for it. I only hope by the time we next talk my life will have calmed down, but as I’m doing a live event every weekend in September, I don’t suppose it will have done. Roll on October when I have two whole weeks off work. I won’t know what to do with myself.

Bye for now.

Julia Blake

Hello there from a still gloriously sunny and warm Suffolk. Although this summer got off to a shaky start with a shockingly bad May, June, and the beginning of July, the weather improved for my birthday in mid-July and has stayed nice ever since. Hopefully, it will last all through September and maybe even into October. Let’s face it, every day we don’t have to put the heating on and can dry laundry outside is a bonus.

The last time we spoke, I was preparing for a Comic-Con at Norwich University. So, how did it go? Well, there were meant to be six of us, but one had to cancel at the last minute due to a work commitment (I think) and then someone else cancelled the day before due to Covid so then there were four. Thanks to my Google Maps lady I managed to find the university — absolutely would not have managed it without her as it was down twisty country lanes and through small villages and nowhere near the city of Norwich itself — but hit a snag once I was on campus. I could not find the venue where the event was being held. Norwich University is reasonably large and sprawling and there were zero posters or signs pointing the way to the event. Driving around and around, I wondered how punters were going to find it if I couldn’t. I parked up and phoned another author. She was already there and tried to guide me in but none of the landmarks she told me to look for were immediately visible. She sent her husband out to look for me. I couldn’t find him. I ended up in a turning circle at the end of a track facing a no-entry bridlepath and startling a bunch of dog-walkers as I tried to do a three-point turn and failed miserably.

I phoned her husband. He advised that I clear Google Maps and start again putting the sports hall as my destination. It told me it was under a mile away and would take me 2 minutes to get there. I eased my way back up the track and finally spotted the obliging husband waving like mad from an entrance to a back car park that looked so full up and forbidding, I had dismissed it as my destination the first time around. He helped me unload and offered to take in my trolley whilst I went and parked in the official car park round the corner. (I had previously found this car park but didn’t think it was the one because the barrier was down, and I almost had heart failure when I looked at the eye-wateringly expensive parking charges.) Apparently, it would give me a token which I could then validate inside the university and get out of the car park for free at the end of the day.

I parked and took the rest of my stuff into the sports hall and found our pitch. It was chaos in there. No one seemed to know what was happening. We were supposed to be issued wristbands and be assigned our tables. No wristbands materialised, and no one came anywhere near us to check we were meant to be there. Originally it was supposed to take up the whole of the sports hall but for some reason that was never made very clear to us, the event was now only allowed to occupy half the hall, so a massive curtain cut the space in half. It didn’t matter as there weren’t that many of us and it would have looked odd and sparse if we’d tried to fill the whole space.

I quickly set out my stall. I had more space than I thought I would have, so was able to spread out, which was nice. To be honest, I wasn’t hopeful about the day. Given the lack of advertising and signage, the general haphazard organisation of the event, and the low number of traders, I wondered if we’d even cover our costs.

The event started. People began to trickle in. Some in costumes, most not. To begin with, trading was sluggish. But then we had a flurry and began to sell. A few came to our stall who had seen us at other events and even bought books from us, which was nice. We were next door to the doughnut stall and that’s always a strong motivation for people to come to our side of the hall. The doughnuts looked good, but they were expensive. At least, I think £4 for a doughnut is pricey. I had brought some food with me but as we were so busy I got hungry. I wasn’t paying £4 for sugar and empty calories though.

During the lunchtime lull, I popped into the sports hall cafeteria to see what I could forage. There was a vending machine. For £4 I bought a large all-day breakfast sandwich stuffed with sausage, bacon, egg, and tomato, together with a packet of crisps. The sandwich was delicious. It was freshly made, and the bread was nutty and brown and satisfying. I felt it would stick a lot more than a doughnut. (PS. At the end of the day when he was selling off doughnuts cheap, I got one reduced because I was a trader and paid £2 for a large, salted caramel one.)

Overall, I sold almost 20 books which was better than I thought I’d do and more than paid expenses and left a profit.

During the coming month, I have five events:

7 September                    Laxfield Market

14 September                  YA Event at Stowmarket Library

15 September                  Leiston Market

22 September                  Stonham Barns Autumn Craft Fair

28 & 29 September       NorCon (Norwich Comic-Con)

As you can see, busy. Add to that moving Franki and Rys to their new university in Reading on the 21^st of September, working my normal days, plus a couple of authors meet-ups, a birthday lunch with a friend, and trying to grab a few days out with Franki, September is looking full-on.

I cannot believe how fast this summer has flown by. I thought we would have so much more time to go out for days and spend some quality time together. That simply hasn’t happened. What with me working double overtime all through July, Franki working thirty hours a week at Wetherspoons, Rys working at a charity shop in town, my birthday celebrations, Franki’s birthday celebrations, and a couple of friends birthday celebrations, there has not been a day we have all been off at the same time.

On my advice, Franki has given her notice at Wetherspoons. She is exhausted and stressed from working too hard. Bearing in mind that they worked until two days before moving out of their previous university and then started working at Wetherspoons two days after arriving home and have worked ever since I suggested that they give themselves some time before the chaos and stress of moving to a new university and commencing their Masters. Consequently, Franki’s last day working will be on the 8^th. Rys is travelling to join their family for a holiday on the 6^th, so Franki and I will have over a week together, which will be nice. I am hopeful we can at least get a day out at the seaside. The nearest resort to us is Felixstowe. It’s not the nicest of beaches as it’s very pebbly, but it has a long prom with various amusement arcades. A day spent by the sea, eating chips, and playing on the tuppeny shove sounds wonderful.

As I told you last time we chatted, for my birthday I bought several plants for my newly painted garden. Below are photos of them. Many of them don’t look very impressive yet but hopefully, by next year they will be maturing nicely and give me a summer-long showing of white flowers. Yes, there is a theme to my garden now. Drawing inspiration from the famous all-white garden at Sissinghurst, I chose summer-long flowering shrubs and plants that have white flowers. I also tried to choose only bee, butterfly, and insect-friendly plants.

I vowed not to buy a rose, yet somehow, I did. This is a type of rambling rose called Rambling Rector. It produces summer-long small white roses, and I have been told by a few people that it’s rampant. As in, today the garden and tomorrow the world. It’s already grown a good couple of feet in the two weeks it’s been in so I know I will need to keep an eye on it. It does have the whole pergola to cover though.

On the other side of the pergola is a sweet-smelling white jasmine. It did have flowers that smelt like vanilla, but they died away, which is worrying, although there is quite a bit of fresh growth which is encouraging. Hopefully next year it will give me flowers — although there is the danger the rose will throttle it to death because it’s such a thug.

Next is a beautiful shrub with tiny white flowers all over it. I did have the info card that came with the plant but in the confusion of generally throwing away pots and rubbish all the info cards went into the bin never to be seen again.

The purple foliage on this one was what attracted me, plus it says it will produce white flowers next year. We shall see.

I think this was called lamb ears or rabbit ears, or something like that. It won’t flower but look at that gorgeous silver foliage. It’s very soft and silky and has already grown, so obviously it’s happy.

I don’t know the proper name for this one, but its common name is a snowball plant and as the name suggests, it produces beautiful snowballs of flowers all summer. It too can be a bit of a thug, but I can prune it hard and have flowers for the house all summer.

This one is a type of long flowering white daisy — when I planted it, it was covered in white chrysanthemum-type flowers which have since died — hmm, a bit worrying. Hopefully, it will flower next year.

I can’t remember the name or indeed much about this plant, other than it is low-growing and has white flowers all summer long.

White buddleia. I want to attract butterflies to my garden, and I know they love this plant. Again, it grows large so I will be pruning it hard every year and gathering blooms for the house all summer.

Another giant daisy but a low-growing one to give different heights and textures to the garden.

A mock orange plant. It will grow quite large and should produce pretty white flowers that smell lovely.

Again, can’t remember the name of this one. I know it will grow quite large and will produce small white flowers on foliage arches.

An anemone. I do remember that, and it’s already producing lovely flowers and is covered in buds, so that’s heartening.

Finally, a tall white hydrangea will fill the gap behind the barbecue and look amazing against the dark grey fence.

Oh, and a pot of cat mint for Miss Skittles to lie in. She loves it. Goes completely fruit loop for it.

Once the cherry tree comes out this winter and the silver birch has a severe haircut, it will let more light into the garden and will allow me more choice of which plants will do well in what was previously a woodland garden.

I am thrilled with how the garden is looking now. Considering the hours and days and weeks and months of nonstop painting, it was worth it. Getting rid of the large sofa was also the right call; by replacing it with the small two-seater wicker sofa and putting two armchairs there, I have more seating in a smaller area. The garden feels more spacious as well.

I’m also pleased that I got rid of the small table and chairs outside the back door — the table was rotted so was skipped, and the chairs relocated with the new sofa in the actual garden — as we never sat outside the back door. It makes so much sense to put a waterproof storage box there to hold all the garden cushions. Before, they were stored under beds and in the blanket box at the foot of my bed, but that was such an inconvenient pain in the bum. Now, as you wander into the garden you grab yourself a cushion from the box, and as you wander back in you replace it. Much better.

The roof of the pergola still needs to be done but I think that will be an autumn job once Franki and Rys have left for university. I will need help with that and am hoping my dad and my brother will lend a hand.

The cherry tree needs to be taken out and more plants put in its place, but other than that, the garden is complete. Now all I must do is take care of the plants and wait to see the results next year.

Like most Victorian houses we have a long return down the side leading into the garden. All too often this is wasted space and it’s true there’s not a lot that can be done with it. It’s the business part of the garden, in that the cushion storage box, the coal bunker, the kindling bunker, and the log storage bay are all located here. But I have tried to make it attractive with paint and plenty of ferns and ivy that do well in shade.

There is a rather ugly 1950s-bathroom extension slapped onto the back of the kitchen, with an unattractive brick wall. But I painted it a deep lavender shade and picked out the drainage pipes in anthracite so I’ve done the best I can. I am also going to get some vintage tin posters and put them up to make it a fun and welcoming place to sit. There are coloured lights overhead and once the rose and the jasmine grow over the top it will be lovely. It’s a very sociable space and can seat up to ten people around the table — although I am thinking of buying a large Lazy Susan as it’s a big table to reach over — which will make dining easier.

And that’s about it for now. I’m looking forward to having a weekend off with no plans other than relaxing and spending time with Franki and Rys, and you never know, I might even sneak in some writing.

Take care and I look forward to chatting with you next time.

Julia Blake

Good morning, everyone. I’m not sure but hope that summer has finally arrived in these rain-sodden lands. It has stopped raining, the temperatures have crept up to the early 20s, and there is even … gasp … a hint of sunshine. Do I trust it to stick around? No, probably not, but I have made the most of it and every moment I wasn’t at work I was outside in the garden, painting.

Have I finished? Yes. Well, almost. As you read this, I will be in the garden putting the final coat on four of the fence panels and one trellis panel. Then that will be it. Almost. There is still the new covering over the pergola to arrange and paint but I haven’t yet sourced the wood for that so there is nothing I can do about that.

The garden is looking amazing. I am beyond happy and incredibly proud of what I have achieved. The colour works so well and once I get my new plants in, I will be ready to show my garden at Chelsea Flower Show. And I finished it before my deadline. The girls come home next Thursday so I’ve finished with a day to spare, which is good because I will need Wednesday to sort their room and the rest of the house out.

I have asked for garden centre vouchers or cold hard cash for my birthday. Plants don’t come cheap and as I want to buy reasonably established shrubs it’s going to cost more pennies than I currently have.

What has happened since we last chatted?

Well, last time I mentioned that I would be at the Leiston Summer Fair the next day. I was so tired I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it but had booked and paid the pitch fee so felt I really should make the effort. I sorted everything out and packed the car up the night before. It was about an hour’s drive, and I needed to be there by 9:30 at the absolute latest so I decided to leave about eight-ish to allow time for traffic.

I overslept the next morning and could not get my stiff and aching bag of bones to move very fast, so it was almost 8:30 by the time I was on the road. I plugged my destination into Google Maps and set off, but the Map Lady took me out of town in a direction I didn’t think was right. I wondered if something was amiss, and she was taking me to Laxfield where I’d been the previous week. I pulled up in the entryway to the recycling yard — that hour on a Sunday morning it was closed — put my glasses on and looked at the route planner. Yep, for some reason it had put Laxfield as my destination, not Leiston. Operator error? Possibly. I was still half asleep.

I started again and this time made sure that Leiston was my destination. I got onto the A14 and headed east, glad the road was clear so I could try and make up for lost time. All was going well until I turned off the motorway and headed cross country. Another road closure. This time the barrier was right across the road so there was no squeezing around it. I put my faith in Google Maps Lady and off we went into deepest, darkest Suffolk again. The roads grew narrower and twistier. The verges were so overgrown from all the rain that I couldn’t see what was coming the other way. The lane was barely wide enough for my car, so I crawled along terrified I’d meet something coming the other way.

I turned a corner, and my worst nightmare was there. A cyclist. Right in the middle of the lane. Now, there was space for him to pull over to the side of the road and let me by. That would have been the courteous thing to do. Did he? Did he feck. Nope, he wobbled along ahead of me smack bang in the centre of the lane for fifteen minutes!

Fifteen long and tedious minutes during which I crawled along at 5 miles an hour and watched his Lycra-clad buttocks clench and unclench ahead of me. I ground my teeth with frustration and swore out loud. In my head, I ran him over and left his still-twitching corpse in my dust. In real life, there was nothing I could do but pray he would either remember his manners or turn off onto another road.

Finally, the road widened and straightened enough for me to rev up, get out of first, and roar past him. In my mirror, I saw his face screwed up with exertion under his bunch-of-bananas-shaped helmet.

Now seriously late I tried to go as fast as the law and the road would allow me, but it was still 9:50 when I finally arrived. Men in high-vis jackets descended on my car.

We thought you weren’t coming!

Road closure, country lanes, bloody selfish cyclist.

Say no more. Let’s get you unpacked so you can go and park your car.

I was all discombobulated by being so late and the stress of a drive through the wilderness. I parked the car and ran back to the hall. The fair was due to open at ten and it was only a few minutes before then. I threw my table up and hastily chucked together a book display. Luckily, I have now done so many events I’m quick at putting my stand together.

We waited for punters. Although it was dry and sunny, there was a rather brisk wind blowing in through the open doors. Again, I wondered if I would do well enough to make it worth the cost of the pitch fee, diesel, and the strain on my blood pressure. A couple of fellow authors from my local group were doing a Comic-Con in Ipswich that day. I had been asked to join them but had already booked and paid for Leiston. It would be typical if they had a stellar day, and I barely scraped enough sales to cover my expenses.

The morning crawled by. I had a couple of sales but nothing to shout about and I was beginning to suspect the day was going to be a flop. Then suddenly, there was a flurry of people and then another and another and I began to sell. I began to sell A LOT. Several didn’t buy just one book, but two, three, or even four each. I munched my way through four blueberry cereal bars and was constantly glugging water. I treated myself to a cup of coffee to boost my flagging energy. I bought a raffle ticket. It was only a pound, and the proceeds were going to the venue.

I kept selling. As I sold out of a particular book, I had to rearrange my stall to cover the gaps. At the end of the fair, I had only four books left. I had sold a total of 18 paperbacks and 4 eBooks. An incredible result for such a small event. In comparison, the authors who did the Ipswich Comic-Con didn’t do anywhere near as well.

Then they called the raffle. To my stunned surprise, I won first prize.

Very excited — I never win anything — I went to collect my prize. It was the biggest box of fruit I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, this thing was huge. It took a burly man to carry it out to my car. Driving home with a greengrocer shop on the back seat, I wondered what on earth to do with it. After all, there’s only so much fruit one girl can eat!

Dreading the thought of the trip home and all those lanes and the possibility Mr Cyclist might be lying in wait, I was very relieved when Google Maps Lady took me another route. To my surprise, I was suddenly westbound crossing the Orwell Bridge on the A14. Not a country lane in sight, I drove home very happy that I knew where I was and that it was a proper road.

Reaching home at gone four, the last thing I felt like doing was dealing with a hundredweight of fruit. But I was at work the next two days, so it had to be sorted that evening. I unpacked the car, put away my show stuff, put the radio on and set to.

I picked out all the apples and pears, peeled and diced them, and threw them into a big pot on the stove with a dash of water, sugar, and a generous helping of mixed spice. I then found all the plums, peaches, and nectarines. I washed, cored, and diced them and threw them into the pot as well. I planned to stew them, then cool and portion them up to freeze to use in crumbles, pies and tarts over the summer.

The pineapples, melons and kiwi, I peeled, cored, and chunked. I then put baking parchment on four flat trays, placed all the fruit on so they didn’t touch and slid them into the freezer. Once frozen, I scooped them off into bags and put them in the freezer.

There were two bunches of grapes, one green and one red. I eat a lot of red grapes, so I just washed and dried them and placed them in the fridge, then crossed red grapes off my shopping list. The green ones I washed and dried, then picked them off the stalk and placed them in a bag. This went into the freezer.

There was a pallet of strawberries and one of raspberries. I washed and dried them ready for dessert that evening and breakfast in the morning.

There were eight large oranges. Two I sliced up and froze and bagged ready to go in drinks over the summer. The rest I juiced and then portioned and froze the juice.

I looked at what I had left.

A bunch of bananas, a pomegranate, and a handful of tangerines.

I’m allergic to bananas and I’m not keen on tangerines … well, I like them, but can’t be bothered with the sheer faff of peeling them and picking all the disgusting pith bits off the segments. I put a couple of bananas in a bag with four tangerines. My boss always has bananas and tangerines with her lunch, so I planned to take them to her the next day. One of the bananas had split and gone to the dark side, so that was binned. The rest I put in a basket on the table for the lodger to have along with the remaining tangerines.

That left the pomegranate. Again, I don’t mind it as a fruit but it’s an even bigger pain in the arse to eat than tangerines.

I added salad and goat’s cheese to my shopping list. I’ve had pomegranate seeds in a salad before and it was quite nice.

By six that evening there wasn’t a scrap of fruit wasted. I wasn’t sure how well my home freezing of fruit would go but as I spend a lot of money on buying ready frozen fruit, I figured it was worth a try.

PS. It worked brilliantly, and I’ve been having big bowls of fruit cocktail for breakfast most mornings. I take out a selection of fruit, put it in a bowl, and then blitz it for two minutes in the microwave. Add Greek yoghurt and honey. Delicious.

So, I took the fruit to my boss the next day and told her all about the mahoosive stash of fruit and the remaining pomegranate.

Cut it in half, she told me, then whack it firmly with a metal spoon. It’s a Jamie Oliver tip. All the seeds will fall out.

Hmm. Tried it. I cut the fruit in half and placed the cut side down on the chopping board. I whacked it with a metal spoon. Juice splattered everywhere. The kitchen was covered. I had it on my eyelids. Thanks for nothing, Jamie Oliver.

On Wednesday I painted, cleaned the house, and went shopping.

I have a large wicker sofa in the garden which I’ve had for a while. It’s too big for my tiny garden and I should never have bought it, but Franki pestered and pleaded to have it and said she’d use it all the time. I bought it. Did she ever use it? No, not really. It is just too big and being a deep half-moon shape I don’t find it particularly comfortable. I offered it to a friend because she has a large garden where it could comfortably get lost. She contacted me on Wednesday and said she and her husband could collect it Thursday evening, so I supposed I needed to do something about replacing it. I have been looking on eBay and local marketplaces, but I only wanted a little, two-seater sofa and everything I saw was either too big or came with chairs and tables or was simply too far away to make it viable to go and get it.

I looked on Amazon. Found exactly what I wanted for £80 delivered for free on Friday. Brilliant. I bought it. I also wanted a storage box to put all the garden cushions in. Currently, they are stored in my bedroom or under the spare bed, which is very impractical and a real pain. I wanted to put the box in the return outside the back door so if anyone wanted to sit outside then the cushions were readily available without having to go upstairs and poke about the bedrooms. Likewise, if it began to rain it was easy to put the cushions away.

I looked on Argos. There was one exactly the right shape, size, and colour, in the sale for £30. I bought and paid for it. It’s ready to be collected first thing Thursday from your local store, I was told. Finally, I had a few bits of garden rubbish I needed to get rid of — the old tortoise box, some scrap metal, and old bamboo canes. I booked a slot at the local recycling yard for nine o’clock, Thursday morning.

Thursday morning, I was up bright and early and at Waitrose by eight. I needed a few bits of shopping for dinner and wanted to get some more of that delicious three-cheese bread that we’d had the week before. Scanning the fresh bread display I couldn’t see it anywhere. I asked an assistant.

Oh sorry, the assistant said. We did have some, but it was sold first thing.

First thing? It’s only just gone eight. The store opened at eight. How much more first thing could it be?

We open at 7:30 now, she told me. I had a few loaves, but they all sold out.

Please Waitrose, cook more three-cheese bread so there’s enough to go around after the greedy early birds buy the lot.

I rushed home, put away the shopping, and threw the garden rubbish in the car. I zipped around to the recycling yard and joined the queue to get in. It’s all very modern and trendy now, not like the old days when you just rocked up whenever and found a space. Now, you must book and give your registration number. There’s numberplate recognition software on the barrier so it scans your numberplate, checks its list, and lifts the barrier when it finds you. But that was okay because I’d booked and had the confirmation email.

I drove up to the barrier and waited. It didn’t open. I reversed and drove up again. It still wouldn’t open.

Your name’s not on the list. You’re not coming in.

 I got out and looked for someone in a high-vis jacket. I eventually found a gaggle of them in a portacabin drinking tea.

I’ve booked, I bleated. I’ve got the email, but the barrier won’t lift.

They all looked at me with bored indifference.

There’s a button.

A button?

Yeah, on the barrier. Press the button, love, you’ve got to press the button.

Oh, right.

I went back to the barrier. Sure enough, there was a button. I pressed it. It rang and rang and then was answered.

Welcome to Vodafone’s answering service. Please leave your name and number after the tone and someone will get back to you within 24 hours.

Wait. What? 24 hours? I wasn’t going to stand there for 24 hours. Besides, there was a quite sizeable queue forming behind my car.

Suddenly, the barrier rose. Elated, I jumped into my car and started the engine. I slammed my door shut and drove forward as the barrier swung down with force. I stood on the brakes. What the actual …? I got out of the car. I swear I could hear that fecking barrier sniggering.

Too slow, Susan!!

I pressed the button again. Nothing happened. It didn’t even ring that time. I pressed it again. And again. And Again. AND AGAIN!

Eventually, a man in a high-vis jacket wandered over.

Press the button.

I DID press the button. It told me to leave a message, and someone would call me tomorrow. And then when the barrier did go up it didn’t stay up long enough for me to get through.

Try again, was his sterling advice.

Gritting my teeth, I tried again. The barrier went up.

Quick! he yelled.

People in the cars behind were also yelling words of encouragement out of their windows as I sprinted to the car, hurled myself in, gunned the engine and shot forward to loud applause.

I was in. Blimey. It’s never been that hard to recycle rubbish before. It was like some kind of Mad Max scenario. Man against the Machine.

I tossed away my few bits of rubbish and then saw a young man wandering around clutching a few tatty and very sun-bleached orange plastic pots.

Are you throwing those away? I asked.

He looked at me and then at the pots, clearly a bit taken aback.

Umm, yes.

Cool. Can I have them?

Umm, yeah.

He handed them to me. High-vis man who had witnessed the handover beamed at me.

I approve of this, he said.

Oh good, I’m so glad you do. Maybe next time you could have words with the barrier and tell it that my name IS on the list and that I AM allowed in.

I then shot across town to the garden centre and bought two potted ferns and another tin of the incredible Rust-Oleum universal paint. I wanted to do the coal bunkers and downpipes in it. I then charged to Argos and picked up my new storage box and was home before ten.

It had been Mum’s birthday on Wednesday. As she was already doing something else on Wednesday, I invited my parents to lunch on Thursday. After all my shenanigans at the recycling yard and Argos, I quickly laid the table and then trundled out to collect them. My brother was going to pick them up on his way home from work. I kept lunch simple. Cheesy garlic bread for starters eaten in the garden with a Bucks Fizz each. Then we moved indoors because it grew chilly. The main course was homemade lasagne (which I’d made the day before) with salad, then I’d made individual crumbles with some of the stewed fruit, and ice cream. Followed by a small cheeseboard.

The weather perked up for the weekend. It was dry and reasonably sunny, so I spent both days in the garden painting. The end was in sight. I was so close and felt confident that I would finish before my deadline for the girls’ return. Oh, and those old pots I rescued. Well, I cleaned them and applied a single coat of the magical Rust-Oleum paint, and they came out looking like a million dollars.

And now it’s late Saturday afternoon. The sun has been shining and the white legs, shorts, and sleeveless shirts are out in force. I wasn’t sure it was warm enough to justify such a display of pasty flesh and I was right when the sky clouded over and cold rain bucketed down for half an hour or so, making everyone shriek and dive into shops. But it’s now sunny again and the forecast is for a dry day tomorrow with temps of 23 degrees centigrade. I hope it’s right. I need one more day in that garden to finish.

One last funny thing to share with you. I dashed to Tesco yesterday morning to pick up a few bits and pieces. Neil Diamond came on the store radio, and I hummed along to Sweet Caroline, even breaking into song at one point.

Sweet Caroline, I softly sang.

Wah wah wah, sang the lady beside me.

Good times never seemed so good, chimed in a man on the other side of the aisle.

A member of staff stood there with a broad grin on their face.

I like this aisle; everyone is happy and singing and not getting annoyed with me that they can’t find what they want.

Well, it was Neil Diamond …

And on that note, I must leave you. This is a simply huge blog. I didn’t realise I had so much to tell you. Oh, and lastly, my book sale this week is for Sugar & Spice, book three of the Blackwood Family Saga. The eBook is available for just 99p and the paperback has been reduced to £6.99 (or local currency equivalent). There’s a universal link on the books page and the sale lasts until midnight on Friday the 28^th of June.

Take care of yourselves. The next time we chat it will be July and the girls will be home.

Julia Blake