Waterstones goes Welsh

Today I went to Waterstones, which is frankly no shocker, given my reading and writing habits.

While there, I was looking through the crime section and I saw books by a lot of people I know, a lot of members of Crime Cymru: Alis Hawkins, Bev Jones, Philip Gwynne Jones, Chris Lloyd, Louise Mumford.

These guys are all brilliant and well deserve their place in bookshops.

Alis, Chris and Louise will be appearing on a crime panel on the 22^nd August which was one reason I went in–to get tickets to attend. Headlining that event is another Welsh author, Claire Mackintosh, author of The Last Party and many others.

The reason for mentioning this is that it’s wonderful to see so many Welsh authors on the shelves of a national book chain. Maybe the point of Crime Cymru is starting to take effect. Greater visibility or Welsh Crime Writers. That’s got to be all of us.

Newport Brick Festival

Had a great day out in Newport today at the ICC for the Newport Brick Festival. Spent a lot, but on a set I’ve been wanting for ages, and saw some incredible builds. Here’s the gallery of photos from the event, and well done to all the makers, these were fantastic!

Rocky Spot

This cat has been appearing in our garden for the last three weeks, and he was very skinny when he first appeared. And if we had food out, he would gobble it up like he was staving. We’ve been keeping an eye on him because we were worried he was a stray. He seemed to walk a bit funny, instead of his feet being in line with his hips, his feet tend to point outside. We were also worried because he aggravates our cat who is old and unwell.

Because we get a lot of cats in the garden who aren’t ours, I tend to name them so that we know which ones we’re talking about. This one we called Spot.

Spot is almost mute, rarely makes a sound. I never heard a meow from him. You’ll see him in the pictures, he looks like he was hissing. He wasn’t. He was doing his mute crying. Spot had a good temperament (except with our cat) and was clearly not afraid of human contact. However, there were marks on his back legs that I couldn’t tell if they were damaged or dirty. The worry was that he’d done something to himself

Well, today we took him to the vets, and thankfully he’s microchipped. Better yet, his legs weren’t damaged, though he did have some issues with his teeth, which might be the source of the dried blood on his back legs (from washing himself). His real name is Rocky, and the vets were able to call the number registered as his owners. It wasn’t that simple, but at least the vets were able to start the process of tracing him and they kept him in the practice to get him back to his owner.

I won’t know what happens to Rocky, but I hope it’s a happy reunion with a loving owner.

Driving Experience

I’ve been driving for years. It was my way of commuting for a very long time, but the biggest thing I’d ever driven was an estate car.

Five years ago my husband and I brought a campervan. When I say we bought it, he bought it. While we had had a Volkwagon camper when we were first married, that was really a day van. This time around, we wanted something bigger. After checking out a lot a different van configurations, we worked out what we wanted. That came down to a fixed double bed, a table for me to work at, and a bathroom for when hubby gets back for playing outside and needs a shower. That meant a big van. Not silly big, but 6 meters long. Here it is.

Though I can legally drive this van in the five years, I’ve only ever dared to do two short drives around Pembury Park, and one drive from pitch to exit point in a campsite in Keswick. I’ve wanted to drive more, but the sheer size of the bus makes that a cary prospect and I’ve never before driven on public roads.

Today I did!

Hubby drove us up to Llangors Lake in the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons), which meant that I got a good view of the roads. Between there and home, we had motorway (about a mile of), good A-roads, reasonable A-roads, and some B-roads that narrowed in places. Basically, everything but twisty country lanes. The terrain included residential roads and mountain roads. So I surprised my hubby by saying that I wanted to drive home, but he’d have to do the reversing onto the drive. Mostly this last is because we live on a shared drive and I didn’t want to risk other people’s cars because I know in our car that that reverse onto the drive can be tricky even in a smaller vehicle.

So I did it, I drove home. All the way. I’m proud of that. I’ve never driven anything that size before, and I did well. I even did the reverse.

The funniest thing about the reverse was that my hubby said, don’t worry about the reverse, you’ll never do it in one. I did it in one. He wasn’t amused, impressed yes, but annoyed that I did it first time when he’s rarely able to do so.

Festival Take Over

I know I’ve not been writing here much this year, thats because I’ve been much preoccupied organising an in-person festival. Yes, a whole festival, and no, not entirely on my own.

Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival 2023 will be Wales first in person crime focused literary festival. Live events run from 21-23 April / Ebrill 2023, in Aberystwyth. We have a beautiful venue in the Ceredigion Museum, an old theatre which is now a museum. And just around the corner, we Aberystwyth Library and Archive in the old Town Hall are also hosting events for us. We are also working with the National Library of Wales for an event in their archive. Waterstones have partnered with us and will have a pop-up book shop in the Museum, plus we have two author events in Siop Inc the local bookstore.

The main auditorium in the Museum will be the venue for many panels and also our evening events, our Gala Quiz Night and our Evening with Clare Mackintosh and Philip Gwynne Jones, and The Gallery will be the location of our Waterstones pop up shop. The library will also host panels, plus workshops and a talk from the Ceredigion Archives.

Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival has taken place twice before, but only online.  This year while the main focus is on the in-person events, we are also producing some online exclusive events.  This year on the 20^th April, we are very lucky to have the incomparable David Baldacci joining us for a live interview with our own Philip Gwynne Jones. For “Law And Audio: From Page To Audiobook” we also have a guest team discussing the process of moving crime novels from physical to audible. This team includes Paul Gitsham, crime writer, Malk Williams, voice actor, and avid audiobook listener and reviewer Alex Hawley. By the way, this event will be prerecorded, so if you have questions you want answered about audiobook production send your questions to gwylcrimefest@gmail.com by Friday 14th April 2023. Last of the online exclusives will be “Disability and Crime Fiction – Why Representation Is Important” a conversation with Penny Batchelor and Nell Pattison.

The festival has:

• Author Panels for book discussions, in English and Welsh
• Writers’ workshops, in English and Welsh
• Panels about self publishing
• Panels about agents
• Panels about publishing, in English and Welsh
• Online and in-person exclusive events
• Recordings of some in-person events will be shared after the festival

For more information see the website, but importantly, don’t forget to book your tickets online as there is no physical box office for the festival.

Hope to see some of you there.

The Festival committee is Alis Hawkins (Chair), GB Williams (Secretary and Organiser), Louise Mumford, Philip Gwynne Jones, Mark Ellis, Chris Lloyd, Beverly Jones, Wini Davies

New Year’s Eve

Another year at an end already. Kind of feel like I lost 3 months of it (thanks Covid) but other than that it’s been good.

Read lots, reviewed most, wrote very little, edited some cracking books. Published two books with Diamond Crime (Breaking Free and Play The Game). Went to CrimeFest, Harrogate, and Stirling for Bloody Scotland. Went loads of places in the camper which was great. Made some new friends, got on with my life.

Still working on getting an agent, but that will happen when it happens. Going to keep chasing the dream. Gotta have a dream to have a dream come true, after all.

Lots of good books to read in 2023, some to write (assuming I get time) and lots of work do on on organising a festival. Should be a fun year.

May 2023 bring you all that you would wish for.

Running on Empty

As I’ve mentioned here before, I had covid in September. Totally knocked me for six, and my hubby too. In fact hubby is still suffering.

We were talking last night and he said how quickly I got back on my feet from it. And after about three days of being out of it, I was doing things around the house and generally managing things. But that’s not to say I was well. I wasn’t. But things needed doing, he couldn’t do them, so someone had to. And I can also say I was a bit resentful at the time because really all I wanted to do was sleep.

But heres the thing. I was able to do the keep going thing because, like a lot of women, I am used to running on empty.

Just because I don’t want to do things, don’t feel like doing them, don’t feel well, I know I still have to get things done. So I do.

This isn’t a superwoman thing, it’s an everywoman thing. It’s kind of the opposite of man-flu.

Am by the way, still not entirely up to full strength, I get tired very easily and don’t want to get up in the morning. But it’ll pass. And if it doesn’t, then I’ll just carry on functioning anyway.

20 centimetres

I had a call from my doctor this morning, the results of an ultrasound I had last week. I’ve known for a while that I have a condition called fibroids. These are fibrous growths in the womb. Theses are not cancerous, and they are not in themselves dangerous. However, they can cause problems.

For me, those problems include a lot of menstrual pain and very, very heavy periods. Those periods are so heavy, they also have a negative effect on my ability to remain iron in my blood. I’ve been anemic, with low iron for many years now, and it doesn’t easily improve. And when I say pain, I mean that even prescribed painkillers do little more than take the edge of, they certainly don’t kill the pain. It’s extremely unpleasant for me, curtailing my ability to so much as stand upright, let alone actually do anything. It’s that bad it actually impinges on my family too.

The last time I had a scan, in 2016, I was told there were a few small fibroids, the largest was 5cm long. Because they aren’t dangerous, I was told I could have a hysterectomy or id I could put up with the pain and bleeding, it would all be fine once I got through menopause. Only it’s now 2022 and I’m not getting any of the obvious signs of menopause. The call from the doctor today told me I now have multiple fibroids that are so large they have merged. My womb is now about 20 cm. That’s roughly equivalent to being 4 to 5 months pregnant. Which would explain my rounded figure.

The nature and size of these growths now mean that my only options are full hysterectomy or put up. I have to say, for many years, I have not been in the right frame of mind to have a hysterectomy, but now, the pain and trouble of menstruating have changed my mind. I still don’t want to go through such an operation. I realise it’s a routine operation, but it’s still a major operation. I have however, reached a stage where I accept that there simply isn’t another option for me.

So here’s hoping that I get to speak to a consultant soon, and that I can get the operation I need soon-ish, the doctor did say she was trying to get me seen as a priority, but after covid the waiting lists have grown longer. I don’t know what the true situation is now, but I did hear that the waiting lists are 2 to 3 years. I hope it won’t take that long. I do feel for the people that are on that waiting list, because there is nothing worse for a woman than gynecological problems that aren’t being seen too.

Over 66 Books

My daughter and I are bibliophiles. We may even be verging on Tsundoku, collecting reading materials and not reading them.

Though in truth we do both read constantly too.

So when we heard about 66 Books, it was a no brainer. We had to go. A bit of a girls weekend.

We drove across the country and stayed overnight.Yes, it’s costly with fuel prices, but the train took more than twice as long. And we stayed overnight, but I got a very good budget hotel price.

On the way down, we listened to “An Argumentation of Historians” by Jodi Taylor, a great romp through time and illogic. That night before bed, I read a little of my current reading book, “Hard Time” by Jodi Taylor. The first is from the St Mary’s Chronicles series, the second is The Time Police series, but characters crossover between the two series, so as I settled down to read, I was a tad confused as to who was doing what. Note to self – if listening to one book, don’t be reading another by the same author.

Anyway, the trip to the book warehouse took us three hours. We bagged 81 books in total. The ones in the bag are gifts for others, hence hidden. Savings were way more than we spent – including petrol and the overnight.

The problem now of course is shelf space. But I’m comfortable with that problem.

Absence Explained

Sorry that I’ve not been around much lately, but I caught Covid while I was on holiday. I got so bad my husband had to bring me home early, so we missed 5 days away.

It was just as well though, because we were in the campervan, which only he can drive and the day after we got home, he succumbed to Covid too. I’ve heard some people say that Covid is just a bad cold. It is not.

I’ve had proper influenza before. You know the kind where you literally can’t get out of bed, can’t eat, sweat even when you’re cold and basically become delirious. Covid was closer to that. After eight days, I started testing negative, but I’m now 19 days in, and not feeling a whole heap better.

While I am improving, I’m still struggling, particularly to breathe. My chest is so tight. I do something for a few minutes and then I’ve got to rest for an hour. I’ve never been so exhausted, and I’ve worked full time while having two kids under 5 and doing a part-time degree.

The worse however, is the Covid Brain Fog. This is a real thing. I can’t concentrate for more than a couple of minutes at a time. I can’t hold a thought for long either. As someone who writes for a living this is a major issue. It’s also why I haven’t been blogging or doing much on social media, I just can’t keep up. Then there’s reading, well, there’s the not reading. I’m doing a blog tour due up on the 10th, so I have had to power through and read the the book, write the review etc, but it all took a lot longer than it should have.

As I said, I’m getting better, just not there yet. But what this does mean, is that when I get back to blogging, I’ll be blogging about our trip and visiting various cities and attending Bloody Scotland, even if I will be several weeks late for it all. Just wanted to let you know.