Writing – as you may recall from high school -can be hard work! But there’s also fun to be had. For example, in Up on the Woof Top (see yesterday’s post on the current audio sale) Dame Ariadne Carlisle, an important character in the story, is the bestselling author of a long-running series of Christmas mysteries. As soon as I knew that I also knew I’d be duty bound to write some of her material! Very different from my own! Now we’re talking fun! Here she is at a book signing.

She opened the book. “Bad or Good,” she said, “number ninety-nine in the Trudi Tremaine Christmas mystery series.Chapter one. Snow fell softly on the sleeping Cotswold village of Potherington. Soft and steady for a night and a day, which was St. Ambrose Day, and the following night. It rounded all the corners, smoothed what could be smoothed, and smothered any sound in the village, a village known throughout the west country for its quiet in any case. Nevertheless, Miss Eleanor Poddle,the village postmistress who lived in Honeycomb Cottage, the last residence on Lavender Lane, sat up in her bed with the conviction she had heard something.”