The house is filled with strange sounds – squeaking, thumping, rumbling, bashing and crashing thunks. Our immediate neighbours are having a new roof installed. I’ve turned in Victor Meldrew, having already photographed our own roof (with the builders’ scaffolding in the frame) to prove that we had no missing tiles before they began work.

The men who erected the scaffold have already destroyed the best camellia in my front garden. Five years to grow it, one second to ruin it. It’s not as if the two-foot-high shrub was difficult to step around.

And I am injured. Not mortally, but try telling my finger that. I painted the hall wall yesterday, and now I’ve got a blister. One tiny, dinky blister. And my finger feels like it’s on fire! Silly old thing….

Riverside Writers

Our meeting on Monday, July 28th went well, with another lively turn-out – and three new faces, too! Since the start of this year we’ve seen a big increase in membership, as if interest in creative writing is growing. Perhaps it is! Several of our members are new to writing, and some others write purely for fun. Several of us are more serious about writing, and have had work published and are developing writing careers. Between us all, we cover just about every genre, too.

Visitors are always welcome to our meetings, so if you’re thinking about exploring a new interest, or it you’re already a writer of any kind, come along to the next meeting which will take place at 7.30pm, on August 18th in West Kirby Library which is located inside The Concourse, right next to the train station.

Barren Worlds!

I am pleased to announce that Barren Worlds (ISBN 978-0-9785148-2-2) is now available from all good bookshops and from the usual on-line outlets.

This anthology of new Science-Fiction features my story, Project. A beautiful and androgynous crew fly over a terminated planetary project called Earth. But is this the future or the distant past?

Edited by Eric T Reynolds, Adam Nakama and Rob Darnell, this collection of twenty-nine stories is published by Hadley Rille Books.