Respecting one’s elders does work in the adult world too as a general rule, with the exception on some occasions of the workplace where the elders in question are behaving with all the logic of a hormone-crazed baboon set loose from a winter of solitary confinement into a compound of fecund and spring-ready fellow primates.

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Ah, wouldn't it be lovely to go on a writing retreat? A week alone in a wilderness-y location, free to tap away on my laptop, scribble in a pretty notebook or spread out the pages of my work in progress across the crisp, non-dog-haired linen of a comfy bed. I'd go out for solitary, silent walks in the sunshine, and return inspired by the sea breeze hushing through the grasses and the lonely cries of eagles in the cerulean sky.

Not for me one of those writers' retreats in a venue shared with Other People. Yuk! For a start, I'm a nutter-magnet, so judging by past experience I'd probably get someone following me around saying my surname was making them channel visions of the Norman Conquest or something ...


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Rooted in a pagan tradition that has been all but eradicated by Christianity, the idea of dancing at Lughnasa is the dramatic equivalent of Chekhov's sisters' yearning for Moscow, i.e. it ain't gonna happen.

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Okay, so here I am tattoo free. Yup you guessed it, I buckled to peer pressure and bottled it. Still I don't have to hide it from Dad now so that is a plus. Anyway I have a little puzzle that seems to be consuming ten minutes of my life every morning. My kids like to eat Ready-Brek for their breakfast - has anyone actually made this without spilling the escaping flakes over the work top? No matter how hard I try they seem to have a will of their own.

My very short story, The Boy Who Wished He Was a Cloud is now live over at Lit Up.

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Advertising and propaganda – two words to describe the same thing? Yes and no.


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I’m not usually given to tantrums, but I almost threw a novel across the room the other night. I even had a brief fantasy involving the temperature 451 degrees Fahrenheit, until I got a grip of myself and remembered the Nazis. The book was a highly acclaimed novel by the recently deceased author John Updike. It was littered with reviews from Important Literary Figures and there were as many uses of the word ‘genius’ on the cover as there are glittery stars on a Katie Price.

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The new issue of Prick of the Spindle is up and I'm proud to be a part of it with my flash, Flood Plain. This was a difficult piece for me to write because my village was one of those affected by recent flooding. I subbed the piece and then withdrew it. I sat and looked at it, wondering what to do about it. I put it in a dump file, but I kept thinking about it, seeing the original image around which the whole piece was constructed.

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Yay, I finally have a place to write in, a room with a door I can (almost) shut! Yup, I'm in our cellar. (The shed idea didn't pan out, many boring reasons why not. Mainly because Israel ain't really a shed culture.)

Here is the illustrious entrance to my domain:


Bend your head a little, it's a low space...

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I can’t be doing with Mother’s Day. I find it at best corny and at worst painful.



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