I’ve just arrived back from a couple of days in Northumberland…or maybe it was Cumbria (a mixture of both, actually)… Anyway it was Hadrian’s Wall, a part of the country that I have driven through but where I have never quite managed to stop. There seem to be a few people that don’t think I should have done. After all, it rained a fair bit, and we were camping in near zero temperatures, and the general consensus is that I’ve taken leave of my senses. But I’d beg to differ (especially the senses bit). The campsite (named, what else but “Hadrian’s Wall Camping”?) was a gem of a place to pitch our tent – friendly (like everywhere in that area) with excellent facilities, peaceful and with the most wonderful views across to The Wall itself….oh, and I nearly forgot the chaffinches, ducks, cats, dog, woodpecker…and numerous other birds.

As soon as we had set up base camp, there was time for a quick recce and to introduce ourselves to a local resident…

This is the scenery for me! And note the weather, or should I say, nota bene , seeing as we are in historic mode…

Unfortunately, the next day, as we follow the line of the wall, it isn’t quite as kind to us…

Nonetheless, the views are wonderful, and it’s sort of dryish by the time we reach the Roman settlement of Vindolanda…

This is another must-see, including the wonderful museum which displays some amazing writing tablets retrieved from the excavations which provide an astonishing insight into life in Roman times. These ruins, by the way, are only the top layer of up to five metres depth of settlement – seemingly, the Romans built on top of their old forts – their version of highrise?

Next day, we are less ambitious in our planned walking, for which my legs are eternally grateful, and we hike up from Gilsland village (half-Cumbria, half Northumbria) to the “Popping Stone”, where Sir Walter Scott is said to have popped the question. Very beautiful spot it is too…

….but note how bare the trees are still in this neck of the woods! Plenty of wild flowers, though – wood anemones, sorrel, violets, primroses, celandines, wild orchids, marsh marigolds…the list goes on!

It’s shortly after this point that my own beloved, who also happens to be navigator, leads me astray in a different way.

“Over this bridge,” he assures me.

He has decided to depart from the guide book….and we end up only a mile and a quarter from Moscow…

Never mind, we aren’t lost for too many hours, before we arrive back  in Gilsland to a hearty all-day breakfast at Meg’s café. And guess what? It’s so mild and sunny, we eat al fresco!

What better start could you ask for to the Lincoln Jazz Festival than the wonderful Claire Martin performing with the Montpellier Cello Quartet? Slick and professional, the evening was an eclectic mix, which kept almost everyone in the audience purring all night. From Cole Porter and Thelonious Monk to the Beatles, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and newly penned pieces, the arrangements were superlative. It was only the second gig of a tour  which is, she admitted, something of an experiment for Martin. The chemicals are in the tube and fizzing! For me it was a night that will linger in my memory for a long while…

Let’s review  Equilibrium by Evie Woolmore…

If there ever has been a formula to nail the reader’s imagination at the start of a novel then Evie Woolmore achieves this with Equilibrium, as her early twentieth century character, Martha Collett, stands on the wharf steps contemplating throwing herself into the murky Thames.

There follows an unfolding of what I can only describe as a “fine yarn” where spirits, mystery and love waver around the lives of the distressed ex-maid and her sister Epiphany, who now make a living from performing séances at the kindly Mr Bilk’s London theatre. Indeed, the novel’s beginning smacks of Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus with wonderful larger-than-life characters who have the reader rooting for them. The novel departs into the world of the gentry, indeed the household where Martha has served (and become pregnant by the master of the house), and becomes an eclectic mix of mystery, intrigue and social commentary, together with an examination of beliefs with regard to the “other world”.

The novel’s structure is meticulous, but there are times when the mostly beautiful prose trips itself up and becomes clumsy or confuses the reader, and there are some inconsistencies of voice. However, the overall pace is good, and there was never any point where I felt that I couldn’t finish the read, though sometimes it slowed to a point where I thought that some further edits could be beneficial – a few “murdered darlings” to join the spirit world of the publisher’s desk. There are touches of humour too, although the climactic scene lurches dangerously from crisis to flavours of farce.

In Equilibrium, Evie Woolmore has conjured a pot-pourri from the magician’s hat, examining themes ranging from feminism to the Boers in South Africa. I just wonder if she has tried to include a little too much – the book is a long read, and mostly the reader has to work to follow the intrigue, but if you’re prepared to do that, it’s certainly worth the effort.

I guess it’s not very professional to defend your writing following a review, but let’s say I’m just joining the debate. Evie Woolmore’s review on the Awesome Indies site is a welcome addition, and this site is a great help to promoting the better reads in independent publishing.

But what I was getting round to saying was, that the ambiguity of the name Simeon reflects the ambiguity of sexuality, just as the statue El Beso suggests. As for homosexual equals bad, well it’s got to be how this particular reader reads it, because this could not be further from my intent, or what I feel that I am saying, nor indeed how other reviewers have construed it. Just highlights for me how every reader comes to literature with their own agenda, hey, including me, and we all interpret the word and the world differently, whether we are reader, writer, or both.

It might be a bit like mentioning the war or Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, and maybe I  shouldn’t mention it…but there seems to be a certain sniffiness on the part of some mainstream publishers about self-publishing your e-book in this fiercely competitive world. Thank goodness, therefore, for the community of writers across the globe who continue to support each other, who, yes, actually do write quality fiction and quality reviews, and try to raise the profile of writers who don’t deserve to be labelled as part of the so-called “digital slush-pile”. Evie Woolmore is one of those writers and reviewers, Awesome Indies is a site that strives to promote the quality independents…and thanks this week to allonymbooks for reviewing The Kiss in the latest blog…http://wp.me/p2phbU-8U

I am thrilled that the wonderful independent publishing website Awesome Indies has agreed to list  my novel “The Kiss” on their site. It’s a tough world and “every little helps” to use that well-known marketing cliché. Awesome Indies prides itself on ensuring that its authors really are coming up with the goods, so I’m proud to have reached a certain standard. There’s further to go, but hey, at least there’s a watering hole along a dry and sometimes barren landscape…

Yesterday we suffered a sad loss. Our dear friend, Van, has gone. I’m afraid we didn’t liberate him to that heavenly scrap heap in the sky but instead, sold him into further slavery…I’m just hoping that his new owners will take as much care of him and love him as much as we have done. Just look at him, a couple of years ago…in the mountains in Springtime near Sospel, France….

…the sun shining, Almond blossom on the trees…

I’m not sure that it’s altogether healthy to endow an inanimate, mostly metal object with personality or gender, but either way the van did us proud and a picnic in a Ford Fiesta doesn’t quite have the same ring to it somehow. Nevertheless, it’s onwards and upwards as they say, and a change in the wind always does somebody some good…and so the adventure continues…without Van.

Hooray! At last I have available some copies of The Fibonacci Sequence.  I know that some of you have asked for a copy…and well, yes, I admit I have been somewhat tardy. For those of you who don’t know anything about this little sequence of poems, I was first inspired by Don Paterson’s excellent introduction to 101 Sonnets from Shakespeare to Heaney and the relation the sonnet has to the Golden Section and the Golden Ratio. Far too complicated to explain here if you haven’t heard of these, but Wikipedia is a fine friend… Anyway, to cut a long story short, I ended up following an entire thread of thought, obsession, madness (call it what you will) and produced these words, as a kind of reflection on homecoming, light and dark and possibilities. If you would like a copy please feel free to press the Paypal button below!

Yesterday the postman brought me a letter addressed to 6562g. Feeling in something of a robotic state after a particularly virulent bout of flu, and feeling that sometimes we are little more than a number in this gigantic societal machine, I tore open the envelope. I was rewarded by a letterhead and a mugshot of Sir Ian Botham endorsing an estate agency wishing to sell my house for me. Of course, the information had been grabbed from the internet, but, unhappily, they hadn’t managed to grab my name…unless my name is indeed 6562g and has been changed by deed-poll by some kind of App of which I am thus far blissfully unaware. I had a call from an insurance company recently, too, asking if I would like to use their conveyancing service. Did I mind them asking what stage the sale was at, they said. Yes, I did, I said. My phone number is protected by the telephone preference service. Well, almost.

Great night at Lincolnshire Performing Arts Centre last night, beginning with a conversation with Mark Ravenhill – he was meant to be there in person, but hey, the snow got in the way, so the audience had to make do with a skype conversation. The wonders of technology! Privilege to hear what the guy had to say though, and then to watch a performance of Shopping and F***ing (as was so genteelly printed on the tickets). Post Thatcher, anti-individualism, gay rights, getting to grips with what really matters, this is a play that hit all the right spots then and still does sadly (as Ravenhill himself said) . Pacy, shocking and not a comfortable watch, but certainly did last night what theatre at its best is meant to do – sent the audience away discussing, reflecting, asking questions and inspired….