Last Saturday, I helped @mattartpix on his stall at the fabulous Go East Vintage and Antiques Weekender at Wapping Power Station in London. 
It always feels rather special working in London - you feel like you are part of the fabric of this iconic city (although I have to admit that I haven't always felt that way whilst working full time, commuting long hours and living in shared houses then minuscule one-room flats...). I have to say that it was thrilling to drive on Tower Bridge on our way to Wapping Power Station! All the years I lived in and around London, I never drove around the capital, apart from the first time I moved there many moons ago and got lost because of road closures!
I am definitely discovering more of London now that I have moved away - and the good news is, there's still so much to explore! 

The Go East markets are basically what this type of events should always be like: a brilliant and involved team, excellent promotion and organisation, an iconic location and plenty of customers ready to support small businesses! The place was literally buzzing! 
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Below are a few pictures of Matt's stall and the books and prints I had brought to the event! 

The fabulous traders were not the only attraction though - the Victorian Wapping Hydraulic Power Station is a massive draw for lovers of London's historical architecture! The pumps and various other items of machinery are still there!
​*Please note that I took the pictures during set up before any customers were allowed in, this is why it looks so quiet! 

I also found my dream house on site, built in 1891! I'd never be able to afford it, though - it sold for close to £1.5M back in 2022 (oh yes, I've checked!)! 

We also had some classic cars on display! 

I am now preparing for an event in Bristol in October (but we'll be back in London beforehand for some MUSIC!) Watch this space, and keep an eye on the Arcane Publishing Instagram! 
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I will be helping @Mattartpix on his stall at the Go East Vintage Flea Weekender at Wapping Power Station, London, on Saturday 5th September. 
I'll have some art and fashion prints, books and a few CDs. For more details about the stock I'll have at the event, go to my post on the Arcane Publishing Website (or the Arcane Instagram!). 

​More news about writing, music, etc. soon! 

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! 

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. 

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... 

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!  

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!

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! 

Earlier this week, we were back in Salisbury (been a while...) to see Salisbury Museum's exhibition Bloomsbury in Wiltshire.

The Bloomsbury group has been an endless source of inspiration to many for decades, falling in and out of grace with critics and the public according to the era and trends, and this exhibition concentrates on their links to Wiltshire. Photographs, films, books, letters, paintings, ceramics and more are on display at this small but perfectly formed exhibition. I particularly loved Henry Lamb's large portrait of writer Lytton Strachey painted in the former's Hampstead studio. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture of it due to the shining light... 
Visiting the group's Sussex Home, Charleston, has been on my to-do list for many years... ​

The museum is located in my favourite bit of the city - Cathedral Close. When you are there, you step into a time warp, a welcome escape from our noisy technology-led reality. 
On West Walk, we stopped to gawp at Leaden Hall, formerly an Independent girls' school, now a suitably gothic-looking abandoned(?) building (would they sell it to us for a few thousands, I wonder?)

We tried to emulate Constable by taking a walk in the (without)water meadows... 

I have been busy with things unrelated to Arcane Publishing business, but plans are starting to take shape for this autumn/winter... Over the past few months, I have been mainly working (my freelance day-jobbing) and... buying gig tickets! 
Expect a lot of gig pictures on this website in the coming months, starting next week! 

I have started plotting my return writing (this to start on 1st September) with the aim of publishing my third novel The Right Place in 2027, which is a very important year for me for many reasons... 

I also intend on opening a trial online bookshop in the winter, starting with my novels and building up a small amount of vintage/preloved books for sale. It will only be a six-months trial and then I'll make a decision about what to do next... 

​Watch this space! 

We love going back to London. After 10 years away (of course, we go back from time to time, and in the past couple of years, our visits have become more frequent) we have started to miss it quite a lot, and we really still feel like Londoners each time we are there. Dorset has always felt like some kind of temporary home, whereas London IS home.
 
The things that we miss the most is to feel that you are in a place that matters, where the most important decisions take place. For people like us who love (social) history, architecture and anything to do with culture, London is the place to be. When you live and work in London, you can’t help to feel that buzz and excitement to be in one of the most iconic places in the world. Matt ArtPix’s family all come from London back several generations.
  
For example, we have tried over the past few years to go to gigs outside London. I'm very sorry to say: it's not the same (and very few people turn up for bands that have a full house in London, even in a big city such as Bristol!). 
We knew things would be different when we moved to Dorset, but we had given ourselves 10 years before reconsidering and moving on to pastures new. With that time almost up, we have started thinking about what to do next… We will never be able to go back to London 100%, but it would be nice to get closer to it and be able to reach it within a 2-hour drive maximum!

London is an incredibly green capital and its parks provide very welcome respite from the heat.
We went back to Battersea Park – it was quiet and cool, with an end-of-school year feel to it!
Our favourite bit of the park has to be the Festival Gardens which retain a little bit of the structures built for the Festival of Britain. I have found a fantastic blog about it HERE (the whole site is fascinating, I can’t believe I haven’t come across it before! It’s called “A London Inheritance” and is well-worth exploring for anyone interested in the history of the capital). Near the Fountain Lake, you can find a small kiosk where you can purchase drinks (hot and cold) as well as food. It’s a fab location for a nice tea stop!
Incidentally, this year if the Festival of Britain's 75th anniversary and there is... nothing to show for it! I had a look at the Southbank Centre website and there is very little going on of any interest, really... I have the feeling that the powers that be just couldn't be bothered with it. In 1951, the festival was a brilliant showcase of the country's creativity, with brilliant designs and ideas. Can't we do something similar now? It feels like a massive wasted opportunity... 

We wanted to go and walk along the river at Chiswick but we didn’t quite make it down to the Thames in the end (it had been a long day!) So instead, we decided to make our way to the wonderful Chiswick House (one of our favourites) and sit by the lake looking at the geese, coots, moorhens, ducks and occasional hot dog enjoying the coolness of the water. It was simply divine after such a hot day!
 
We’ll be back in London in early August, and I can’t wait... ​

Last week, I went back to Abbotsbury and climbed up Chapel Hill to St Catherine's Chapel for the first time in months to reacquaint myself with a place that had become very familiar indeed over the past decade or so.  

I have been posting pictures of the chapel on here ever since I decided to write a novel set around the area many years ago: The Right Place. I even moved away from my beloved London to come closer to the location of the book I was writing. And then, that very same writing first slowed down, and then stopped. 

I am not going to lie, I haven't done any work on the novel since Covid. 

After having launched an imprint, written, edited, published and promoted two novels in quick succession, the momentum I had build just collapsed from under me. It is fine. I have accepted it and have learnt how not to force things. 
I also now have a substantial stock of pre-loved, vintage and rare books and intend on developing that side of things further next year. I am still very busy with freelance projects and want to use the rest of 2026 to finish off the manuscript of The Right Place. Then it will be time to turn my intention to the bookselling side of things. 

But I will be returning to The Right Place in September. And I will finish it. 
Hopefully, I will publish it. 
And then, I will move on to the fourth novel. 

I was thrilled to see that the offerings to St Catherine are still being made (I write about it in the novel). 

As mentioned before, I am planning on using this blog and the Arcane Publishing one more often from now on as my patience with social media has been running out. 

Come back here regularly, I'll be here! 
Next time, I will write a short blog about the podcasts I've been enjoying over the past few months. 

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