Coming to an end and starting again

More great blogs in Wikio's September top 20 UK Literature blog rankings, as previewed by the wonderful Cornflower, who comes in at #2. This blog is amazingly still hanging in there, in spite of the fact that it's been so sadly neglected recently due to novel immersion and poor internet connection - thanks so much to those who are still tuning in! I hope to have normal service resumed in a few days, when my retreat will come to an end. I do feel sad that this quality time with my novel will soon be over - and which I know I'm really fortunate to have had - but at the same time I'm itching to get back to society and being once more in proper communication with everyone.

Ordinary life is already creeping in: this week I had an urgent e-mail order from Bertram's for the second edition of The Birth Machine, the revised edition I published myself. And what do you do about that, when you are your own publisher but you're away, and although you always keep a few copies of your books in the back of the car, you have only two of that edition of that particular book with you because anyway you more or less consider it off the market and out of print, since a lovely new edition is due from Salt this autumn? Suggest they wait until copies of the new edition are available at the end of September, you might say (and I did). But no, the order's too urgent, and you have to find an old jiffy bag somewhere and sellotape it up with the two copies and a promise to complete the order when more copies are available (ie when your partner finishes painting the outside of the family house on the mountain and you can both go back to Manc).

And speaking of family, I even had a break from the novel this week, as other family members joined us, and we went for very long walks. Here's a sunset we saw one night on the beach (horizon's not very straight!)...