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17/8/2026 A visit to Mere, Wilstshire Castle Hill, or Mere Castle - Memorial to the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division  The town seen from Castle Hill After having spent a productive morning at a fantastic car boot fair, we dedicated the rest of the day to visiting Mere, a pretty historic town just south of the A303 (the town is luckily protected from the roar of the road by Castle Hill). The town is full of extremely handsome buildings and is dominated by Castle Hill (or Mere Hill) where there was once a castle which fell into disrepair as early as the 14th Century!  The Chantry
Castle Hill comes with a herd of supremely laid-back resident goats who were protecting themselves from the sun under a nice clump of trees.   Here they are! Mere has a great feel and we promised ourselves to come back in the autumn when the grass is greener and the tearoom is open! The Monarch Way passes through the town, which makes it the ideal base for further exploration...
13/8/2026 Dorset has turned yellow! The view from the Hardy Monument car park looking towards Weymouth. The green and pleasant land of Dorset has been burnt to a crisp and is barely recognisable. We spent some time at one of our favourite spots, mostly sitting under some trees on a blanket. We did a short walk towards Portesham, but gave up quickly because of the heat - we will be back soon!  These two small trees provided very welcome shelter from the sun!  The Hardy Monument.  The Hardy Monument and Black Down, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, seen from one of the footpaths.  Barn at the foot of Black Down. 9/8/2026 The Right Place: starting again... I am not ready to give up on The Right Place just now. But the truth is that I have barely done any work on my third novel since Covid. The clear idea I had about what the novel was supposed to be gradually faded to the point of becoming invisible, I realised that I was not happy with the tense I had used in some chapters and would have to rewrite them again, and, to put it simply, writer's block set in... I also had other priorities (but that's another story) and couldn't find the headspace to write. But the time has come to start again... The first draft stands at around 50,000 words and I am really happy with some sections. I intend on starting work again on my third novel on 1st September, with a pub date of late 2027. I have a lot of work to do on it. Watch this space, I will update this blog and the Arcane Publishing news page regularly throughout the autumn and winter...   We were recently back at the superb Imperial War Museum in London to see the exhibition Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art - the Blitz painted by war artists. I have been fascinated by the story of the Blitz since studying it at University as part of my British and American studies degree. I had fallen in love with London aged 10 on my first visit to the UK and the idea of this incredible city full of history and life being bombed touched a nerve... This is a small but beautifully put together exhibition. Every single image is significant and carries some kind of poignant beauty, but here are my two favourites:
 I now belong to a family whose members have lived through the Blitz and it has become part of my story, in a way (if you had told 10 or 20 year-old me that it would one day be the case, I wouldn't have believed you!) and even though I have moved away from the capital, it still feels like my real home each time I go back.
  Walking back to Central London from Lambeth via Lambeth Bridge, we spotted one of the iconic Thames tugboats... Everyone was on Westminster Bridge and therefore, we had this one to ourselves!  Then it was to the Water Rats in Gray's Inn Road to see the fantastic Light of Eternity live again. We saw the band for the first time last year in Bristol, then in London as support for one of our favourite bands, Ministry! I just adore Light of Eternity's sound (post-punk, metal, industrial... it's all there, led by Pauly Williams's guitar and Paul Ferguson's drumming) - there is basically not a weak song on any of their releases. One of the many strengths of LOE is Fred Shreck's voice - I like his precise, clear yet devastating delivery. The fact that the band now have a new member on bass (James Oz Bowery) has freed Fred from bass duties. On Wednesday at the Water Rats, he was genuinely compelling!  Pauly Williams  Paul Ferguson / Fred Shreck / James Oz Bowery       I am no longer a music journalist and therefore will not write full-blown reviews of gigs on here, but after having neglected my blog for several years, I am back posting about writing, reading, art and music, and as we now have tickets for some super exciting gigs over the next few months (and already two in 2027!), expect gig photos to appear on here regularly!
I've come to the conclusion that social media is the most useless piece of overrated rubbish ever created, and I don't want to waste my time on it. Social media is dead, long live my (old) website! |
AuthorI think therefore I write. Archives
September 2026
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