Should we start building an Ark?

20 odd years ago, when we first moved to our cottage in Gloucestershire, there was a spring in the garden. We are on the side of a hill. Our neighbours' house is a good five feet higher than ours and there is a retaining side wall (behind our house) on the boundary of the two properties. The spring emerged from under this wall, near our back door, and fed into an old culvert which eventually led to the pond at the bottom of the garden. After a few years the spring dried up, but then later re-emerged from higher up and further along the wall, closer to the road. My husband devised a 'Heath Robinson' device to carry the water into the culvert.

When we had a utility room built on that side of the house, we did away with my husband's contraption and instead had gulleys sunk into the path to catch this and any other water that decided to make its way through or under the wall. It was only ever a rapid trickle but it was just a few feet from the house.  We obviously didn't want a permanent puddle or damp developing in the wall of the house. But then, annoyingly, after making these contingency plans, the spring seemed to dry up again.

After a year or so, water began to emerge through the surface, on the far side of the road outside. When investigations were carried out it was revealed that the spring had been piped under the road,  but the old clay pipes had become broken and blocked; this is what had caused the water to force its way to the surface and our spring to stop flowing.  So modern pipe-work was reinstated beneath the road and - long story short - we got our spring back.

On Friday afternoon water suddenly began POURING through the wall again. When I say pour, I mean gallons of the stuff, every few seconds!   Fortunately the gulleys we'd installed were just about up to the task, but the water was flowing so rapidly and in such quantity, that the pond couldn't cope and the flower bed below it was turned into a bog garden.

Where was it all coming from? How were we to deal with it? Would it eventually bring the retaining wall down?  If there was that much water coming through, what on earth was going on underground next door?  And from past experience, springs can alter course. Where might it emerge next?  Or as well?
We were flummoxed and began to blame a recent delivery lorry, which we think struck the exterior wall. We thought it might have dislodged something within the wall which had somehow re-opened the unused channel, releasing dammed up water. We hoped against hope it would settle down.

On Saturday morning, despite our prayers, water was still pouring through, undiminished. Where on earth was all this water coming from? At a time when water tables are dropping and the flow in rivers reducing and springs drying up, it defied logic that this was a natural event.

For the umpteenth time my husband went round to the neighbours to discuss the situation.  He was gone a long time.  When he returned he was smiling.  Out on the road above us, he'd seen water erupting from the tarmac. We began to see the light. Had a water main burst?  The men from the water company didn't arrive until late afternoon, but....  Hallelujah! They confiirmed our diagnosis.  Water from a burst mains pipe had opportunistically found its way into the old water course.

Now we can expect roadworks and traffic lights and all hell breaking loose on our narrow lane. But am I relieved! Very relieved. Phew!

PS.  In fact, the Trent Water men came first thing on Sunday morning. They didn't need to put in traffic lights.  And the whole thing was done and dusted by Sunday afternoon.  The deluge has ceased! Hooray!
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Hooray. It's February!

At last, thank heaven, February has arrived.

Every year, to a greater or lesser extent, I am afflicted by the January blues. But if SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder - caused by the reduction in natural light) was the only reason I become fed-up and sluggish, why am I cheerful, energetic and happy in November and December? No doubt my mood is influenced by a variety of causes, of which SAD is only one. It seems that if I am happily busy, have plans and projects, feel that my life is on an upward trajectory, I am fine. I still don’t like the grey dismal days, I still get an instant surge of wellbeing if the sun comes out, but I can get along quite well without retreating into a shell.

Before Christmas most of us are very busy. We make endless lists. We have presents to buy and wrap, food to cook, people to see and a home to clean and decorate. And then, after all that work, there’s the reward - a week or two of enforced self-indulgence. Perhaps I’m lucky, but I’ve never understood the people who moan about Christmas, who don’t want to get together and feast with family and friends, who don’t want to give and be given presents, who don’t want to play silly games and pull crackers, who don't want an excuse to be lazy. Yes, it’s artificial and, if you don’t believe in the Christmas Story, it’s meaningless unless you approach it, as we do in our family, as a pagan midwinter festival celebrated simply for the fun of it, to lift the spirits. It’s only once a year!

But what goes up must come down. A cliché I know, but it springs from the truth, as all clichés do. The aftermath of Christmas is inescapably dreary. The presents are put away, the decorations come down, the tree is consigned to the garden for disposal (or in our case - skinflints that we are - for nurturing through the year, in the hope we can use it again next December) and the house looks bare and dusty. We’ve eaten and drunk too much and we need to go back on a diet; it’s not surprising that a low-level depression kicks in. I sometimes I wish I was a dormouse and could just hide away, somewhere snug and comfortable, and sleep from January 6th till February 1st. When this mood hits me and I become aware that even when the opportunity arises, I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything, that I am beginning to get slightly agoraphobic, even about going to the supermarket, that I am only wearing my most shapeless and scruffy clothes, I know I must start taking St John’s Wort!

Some Januarys I don’t need to self-medicate. If my life is going with a swing, if I’m busy on a project or have outings to plan and events to look forward to, I can survive the awful, grey, dreary, dragging weeks. And 2012 should have had one of those positive, upbeat beginnings. This year I did have something to look forward to - the imminent publication of my book, LIFE CLASS, by the epublisher who launched in the Autumn of last year, Lysandra Press. But in the second week of January I received the news that its chief had suffered a convergence of personal and domestic problems which threatened to overwhelm her if she didn’t simplify her life. Her new enterprise was the casualty. Lysandra Press has folded.

There was almost a sense of the inevitable about it. Why wouldn’t they fold? This is what always happens to me. It would be nice if for once, in this cosmic game of Snakes and Ladders which I appear to be playing, I could climb more than one ladder before slithering down a snake back to square one.

'Torn' is anything but your standard romance with predictable conflicts and stereotypical characters. It’s much more, and a thoroughly enjoyable read

says Sanda White Nachlinger, in her fabulous 5 star review.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pdp/profile/AJ7YSXO03UGMH/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

There's a big gap in the market for intelligent, thought-provoking novels for women who aren't still in their twenties and who aren't obsessed with clothes, one night stands and city living.

says Lally, in her amazing 5 star review for TORN.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pdp/profile/AYMF754XCSYDW/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

"I love this novel! It's warm and witty and sharp and clever and it made me think"

...says multi published author, Margaret James, about TORN.  Margaret's most recent book, due out any time now, is 'The Penny Bangle.'

Happy New Year

New Year is a time for reflection and new resolutions. To try to live your life better, more responsibly, more selflessly. But first there's that party to go to....


In TORN, the New Year party is when all the plans and good intentions of my heroine, go awry.

Jess didn't really want to go to the party and has been persuaded against her better judgement. After all, she is a mother now; she needs to put her child first, to make his life safe and secure.

And yet it’s a long time since she's had any fun.

The event is a turning point. Her good intentions are subverted. Her conscience is thrown into turmoil. And her life will never be the same again.

What on earth has she done.....?

Christmas

Everyone loves Christmas don’t they? I certainly do. It’s a serious event in our house. We are not religious, but I love the Christmas story, as well as all the traditions  ̶  sparkle, snow, carols, fairy-lights and gifts piled beside the decorated trees  ̶  which have grown up around the celebration of Christmas. We enjoy it as the mid-winter pagan festival it once was in these islands.

The perpetuation of tradition happens on a smaller scale, within families. I am well aware that the things I insist upon  ̶  the foil wrapped nugget of coal, alongside the nuts, chocolate money and Satsuma, in the toe of the stocking  ̶  is not necessarily what anyone else does, it is simply a repetition of what happened in my family when I was a child. So there is a lot of sentiment wrapped-up in the attempt to recreate the Christmases of your own childhood  ̶  a need to sink back into that remembered warmth, excitement and security.

My book, TORN, starts just before Christmas. Jessica has escaped London with her young son, and is making a fresh start in the country. Here she believes life will be simple, straightforward and peaceful. As she leaves a pub on her first evening out, she breaths in the chill air with a sense of relief and optimism.

I could have made the opening chapter of TORN a warm and cosy evocation of this time of year. But I write unconventional, unpredictable, unsentimental stories. So, what do you think happens?