Five February Favourites

1.  When the sun shines you can feel warmth and the promise of spring.

2.  The snowdrops are amazing.

3.  There are no family birthdays/anniversaries in February so I’m saved that difficult question that begins, “What do you want for…”

4.  The nights are starting to get lighter but it’s still proper dark for bedtime. [Don’t you hate going to bed when it’s still light out?]

5.  My brain can finally stop singing that irritating Slade song, “So here it is, Merry Chr…..” Gah! Now I’m singing it again!

Do you have a February favourite?

Why I'm not doing A to Z

For the last three years I’ve looked forward to April with a feverish excitement and it’s all to do with A to Z. I’ve loved taking part in the A to Z Challenge and what a challenge it is. For those who don’t know, you have to blog six days a week during the month of April and each blog must be dedicated to a letter of the alphabet.

Sadly I won’t be doing A to Z this year for two reasons. Firstly, I am committed to the Heritage Lottery Funded Cemetery Research Project that I’m coordinating. It’s called Lives Behind the Stones and it's taking up more time than I ever expected. These last few weeks I’ve been checking and rechecking a list of names from graves with no headstone. Some date back as far as 1903 and, in some cases, there’s nothing but a scribbled name in the records. Without even a definite date of death to help, a small group of us have been researching the names. We’re going to have small stone plaques made for these unmarked plots but wouldn’t it be awful is we spelt the names incorrectly? The errors would literally be written in stone!

In addition to the Cemetery Project I’m working with the lovely Alice Povey, Illustrator, to complete my Children’s Book of Richard III. We are hoping to get it into the shops by June which isn’t that far away. So, you see, there really is no time to draw breath.

I’m sad that I won’t be joining the A to Z crowd. I made a lot of good blogger friends through A to Z. I also produced three fascinating lists. The first one was my A to Z of Leicester, the second was A to Z of nostalgia and the third was A to Z of lyrics. Maybe next year I’ll have a bit more time and I’ll be able to join in with all the manic fun. I’ll still come and visit lots of your A to Z contributions in-between all of my work but please forgive me if I don’t manage to visit every day.

I’ve decided that, when you’re a self-employed writer, work is like the proverbial bus, nothing comes along for ages and then, suddenly, you’re inundated!

If you want to take part in the A to Z this April then visit Arlee Bird who started the whole crazy thing going in the first place.