Last Christmas I Gave you My Heart (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

In answer to your unasked question: Little G's Nativity Play went down a storm. No baby was dropped. Small waved copiously and Grandma was so glowing with pride, you could have run the lights off her.

And so to Christmas. Excitement is building in You Must Be Mad's house. The tree is up. Small has not, so far, removed any of the decorations, as he did last year when he took a great fancy to a small felt dinosaur, which kept getting rescued, returned, and re-stolen.

This year, we are hosting the family, and I have decided to go for ecologically sound decorations of a 'growing in the garden' variety, so there is trailing ivy up the stairs, and holly, bay and rosemary festooning the dresser and pictures.

Christmas lunch will be a feast. Due to Small's veg phobia, diplomatic negotiations will take place beforehand over the number of peas deemed acceptable. L-Plate Granddad will set light to the Christmas Pudding, despite Health & Safety warnings, and everybody will don paper hats and tell cracker jokes that Small won't get.

However. There is a spectre at the feast. Next year, Little G & Small will be moving with You Must Be Mad, to New York to live. Six years of sharing our lives and having adventures together is going to come to an end. And under the jollity and rejoicing, the greenery, the presents, the food and fun, there will be two very broken adult hearts at the table.

But the show must go on. And it will. Because it has to.

Happy Christmas, everyone ....

Christmas Capers (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

It has been some time since I wrote about Little G and Small. Much has happened since then. For Little G and Small, growing up has happened. Small is 3 and fighting a rear-guard action against all attempts to make him eat vegetables. Little G is 5 and at her local primary school.

Reception whizzed by in a flash for Little G, and now here she is in Year 1 ~ or 'Key Stage 1' as it is called. She reads exceptionally well, but thanks to the *wonderful* National Curriculum, has no literary appreciation of what she is reading. 'What did you like about that story?' I ask after we've shared a wonderful Michael Morpurgo book about a robin. Pause. 'I saw some digraphs and trigraphs,' she says.

I will be undermining the curriculum at every stage, believe me! But that is for later on. Right now, Christmas approaches and it is time to prepare for the school Nativity Play. Last year, Little G was one of 30 innkeepers, with the rest of Reception. They wore an assortment of tunics, the ubiquitous striped tea towel head-dress and sang a jolly song about there being 'No room' at the inn, bad luck!'

This Christmas however, Little G has been selected to be Mary and we are all at peak pride. In the week, her costume arrived from school: a long pale blue dress with sparkly bits, a head-dress and a cape. If you discard the head-dress and cape, the costume can double hat as Elsa's costume from Frozen.

The ensemble was also accompanied by a Baby Jesus doll. Little G has practised holding it in such a way as not to worry any new mums in the audience. When she isn't practising, Small, who has taken rather a shine to the doll, likes to shove it down his jumper and pretend to give birth to it. That's how we roll.

We have tickets for the first performance. So next Tuesday, L-Plate Granddad and I will take our place in the school hall with other parents, grandparents and family members to watch Little G's second Nativity Play. And it will be funny and brilliant and heart-stoppingly wonderful, all at the same time. Because it always is.

Nativity 2 ~ believe your journey.

It's Party Time!

What is Christmas without a P*A*R*T*Y? So step inside the writing garret, gentle reader, and help yourself to a party hat, a handful of poppers and a tinsel wreath. This party is for all of you - 2017 has been a momentous year for many reasons, and it is time to celebrate!

BANG!!

Ah, you found the box of crackers. No, I don't know what Vampires sing on New Year's Eve..... ''Auld Fang's Syne''. Haha - love it. OK, while you're attacking the sausage rolls, grabbing a drink and introducing yourself to the other guests, I'll just run through some of the events that made this year so special for me. Please share your special events later.

In May I started minding Little G and Small when my daughter returned to work. We have had a lot of fun and adventures and in honour of their dual presence, I re-started The Adventures of L-Plate Gran to tell you all about them.  Here's the first *new* post

The PINK SOFA has played host to some lovely writing guests over the year, including: Jonathon Fletcher, Jan Ruth, Kelly Florentia, Shelley Wilson, Ian Wilfred, Amanda James and Jo Carroll.

The MOST popular blog post, with nearly 6 thousand views so far was this one. http://carolhedges.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/once-upon-nightmare.html

All the Victorian Detectives books were re-issued with brand new covers, designed by Gina Dickerson (@GinaDWriter ). The fifth Victorian Detectives book, Wonders & Wickedness was published in September and has been on several eminent book bloggers' Best of 2017 Book Lists including @CathyRy  and @MrsBloggsReader  @TerryTyler4  Thank you ladies. I am honoured.

I'd also like to thank everybody who reads and comments on my blogs, and chats to me on Facebook and Twitter. You know who you are. I know who you are. In the dark times when staring at a blank computer screen and wondering why I have the effrontery to call myself a writer, YOU have encouraged and cheered me on. Especial affection for all my mad fellow #thearchers Tweetalong mates.

I see someone has opened the PROSECCO! Excellent! And if one of you can sort the play-list, let's start celebrating!

On behalf of the SOFA and myself: A Very Happy Christmas to One and All!!

Cold Comfort (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

It is nearly the beginning of December. Everywhere is gearing up for Christmas: lights are being strung between High Street lamp posts, Christmas goods are enticingly displayed in windows, shops have placed twinkly trees in pots outside their doors in precisely the wrong place for a passing double-buggy, and we have all gone down with coughs and colds.

Small brought it back from nursery first. Little G then caught it, and with the loving generosity displayed by all small children towards their adored grandparents, they gave it to us. We are both fuzzy-headed, bleary-eyed, badly-slept, runny-nosed, coughing and generally under the weather.

Meanwhile Little G and Small, perfectly accustomed to living with a wide variety of minor ailments, forge through the day, mopped up at intervals, waiting expectantly for us to provide the next entertainment. All we want to do is curl up under a duvet without being used as a slalom or a trampoline. It doesn't happen.

L-Plate Grandad has cunningly mastered the ability to sit with his eyes closed and zone out for 5 minutes, but I am too worried about Small's ability to run amok to relax. I am like a coiled spring, constantly monitoring him for incipient catastrophes involving stairs, drawers, plugs, doors, small found objects on the carpet, the cat, sharp objects, or cupboards, for which I will be held accountable by You Must Be Mad. I do not remember feeling this heart-lurching sense of responsibility when she was growing up.

In an effort to corral the wagons pre~CBeebies time, I sit them both at the kitchen table, give Small some crayons to eat, and help Little G compose her letter to Father Christmas. I write to her dictation: ''A crown, a wand, a dressing-up box and a police outfit.'' She signs it. I am impressed. Little G is clearly going to rule the world when she grows up.

If she could also find a cure for the common cold, that'd be great too.

The PINK SOFA meets writer Jan Ruth

The PINK SOFA is a great celebrant of Christmas, and has already laid in stocks of food and bottles of mulled wine for its Christmas guests. Here is the first of them: Jan Ruth lives in Wales and has horses, something the PINK SOFA envies to the ends of its little curved wooden legs. She also has a new book out just in time for the festive season. So, sit down, grab a mince pie, and let's find out all about it:

The Story behind the Story...

"Away for Christmas is a novella about the joy and pain of fractured relationships, the joy and pain of Christmas itself – because the festive period is not always fun for everyone – and the joy and pain of publishing books! But perhaps most of all, this is a story about staying true to oneself and looking for the real Christmas spirit beyond the baubles and the glitter.

Regular readers will know that my characters tend not to be in the first flush of youth, and that the joy and pain of relationships are often par for the course. Christmas is very much a family time and can unearth a multitude of unwelcome emotions and in the case of my character, present plenty of troublesome hurdles before the festivities can be enjoyed. His ex-wife doesn't always make life easy, but Jonathan is determined to be a better dad, against all the odds.

And finally, the joy and pain of publishing books. There are some great publishers out there, ones who achieve results, look after their authors and understand the industry from the ground up. This story isn’t based on them.

It’s no secret that I’ve been round the houses and back again with regard to writing and publishing. Thirty years ago I used to believe that a good book would always be snapped up by a publisher regardless of genre, style, and content. In the real, commercial world, this just isn’t true. After several years of agents and self-publishing, a turning point came for me when a small press offered a contract for Silver Rain. This is it, I thought. This is the change of direction I need… but be careful what you wish for! Don’t get me wrong in that I had huge delusional ideas at this stage. I was simply seeking greater visibility and some respite from the nuts and bolts of self-publishing.

And all the outward signs were good: they took five back-catalogue titles and one new title, to make six contracts. This material represented several years of my life, several thousand pounds’ worth of investment in terms of editorial advisory, editing, proofreading, designing, formatting for ebooks and paperbacks, advertising… I could go on. Producing a quality product and promoting it to its best advantage doesn’t happen by accident. If you don’t have these skills yourself, then one needs to employ freelance professionals, as I’ve reiterated many times. Of course, we know there are a lot of ‘home-made’ books out there which don’t quite cut it, but this is certainly not the case for all self-produced work. What is slightly disconcerting is that I discovered (and so does my poor character Jonathan Jones) that this isn’t necessarily the case for traditionally produced work, either!


The process of trade publishing has less to do with the quality of material than you might presume, but it has a lot to do with what is or isn’t marketable at any one time. This isn’t bad business, it’s about making money to stay afloat. Small publishers are in exactly the same boat as the independents, but with far more overheads and problems with staff. Some of these staff may be inexperienced or learning ‘on the job.’

These small companies are up against the same fast-moving on-line industry as any independent but perhaps without the resources to manage it effectively, let alone build a lively following on Twitter; a following which has the power to engage. Traditional publishing, by its very nature, is painfully slow and this produces a massive clash with the shifting sands of on-line business. We perhaps don’t realise how fine-tuned independents have become in this respect.

Worryingly, new authors are often excited by offers from vanity publishers, or those who operate under the guise of assisted publishing, not realising the implications until it’s perhaps too late. Even contracts from those real publishers with seemingly no pitfalls or upfront costs, can dissolve into a horribly disappointing experience. Of course, my poor character thinks he’s landed lucky when a small publisher offers him a three-book deal. What could go wrong? If you’ve ever dreamed of writing a book or maybe you’ve just typed THE END to your manuscript, you might think twice about your next step…

Away for Christmas is set over three Christmastimes, and because I feel sure you’ll be looking for a few hours of warm and cosy escapism at this time of the year, I can assure you that there’s a happy ending by the time Jonathan makes it to 2017."

Jan's book can be bought at: myBook.to/Away4Xmas
Find her on Twitter at: @JanRuthAuthor 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janet.wilkin

Christmas Capers (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

Although Christmas is officially still two months away, it has already unofficially arrived at our local garden centre. The garden centre is on our list of  'free activities' because we recently signed up for a loyalty card, which means we get 2 free coffees and cakes every month.

The garden centre also has a pets section with rabbits, guineas and hamsters. Small loves pointing at the pets and shouting 'DOGGIE' at the top of his voice, and Little G is allowed to buy the cat (rarely seen since Small's arrival) some biscuits, which we assure her are gratefully received.

We hadn't been to the garden centre for a couple of weeks, but Little G and I needed some spring bulbs to plant, and we still had this month's free coffee & cake vouchers, so last week we decided to mosey along, only to discover that in our absence, the garden centre had morphed into full Christmas mode.

There were strings of flashing lights. There were glittering baubles. There was more tinsel than you could shake a stick at, and a very large animated snowman, that sent Small into such conniptions that we had to wheel him hastily away. There was also a table of battery operated rather naff 'antique' lanterns with Christmas snow scenes, that whirled fake snow when you turned them on.

While Small was being calmed down and debriefed by L-Plate Grandad, Little G and I drifted towards the table of lanterns. We stood in companionable silence, watching the snow whirling around the little plastic snowman and his friends. Little G's face was wide-eyed in radiant wonder.

Did we end up buying one? Of course we did. Even though I was pretty sure You must be mad, who is very artistic, unlike me, and always produces a wonderfully decorated tree every year, would lament my lack of taste. But nearer December 24th, when we are on our own, Little G and I will turn it on, and sit together watching the little snowman in the snow, and it will be tasteless and fun and wonderful. Because that's what Christmas is like. Here, at any rate.