To find out more, visit us on the blog, but for now, here is my offering – and – oh! – how I enjoyed writing it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She undressed slowly, letting the clothes lie where they dropped. 

She’d dressed with such care that morning, but now it hardly mattered.  Her cream linen trousers were wet, stained with the salty liquid that soaked the bank of the creek and lent a sharp tang to the air.

Breathing deep, she slipped free of the last, carefully functional and conservative flesh-coloured scraps of underwear and stood shivering.  The breeze had been silent when she’d arrived – now it sifted the hair brushing her shoulders, sent the grasses sighing and the leaves of the oaks whispering among themselves.

Her heart was hammering.  Anyone could come, could see… she rubbed her arms, felt the roughening of goosebumps she hadn’t noticed rise.

Toeing off her sandals, the grass felt strangely sharp and strong under her feet.  She stepped forward, laying a hand on the sun-warmed stone beside her, basking like a seal where the emerald flies buzzed in lazy circles. 

As always, the first touch of the water was achingly cold.  She took a deep breath against the shock, forcing herself to take another step.  Estuarine mud oozed between her toes, but the bank sloped steeply and with another step she was deep enough to simply fall forward and slip beneath the surface.  She fought the urge to gasp, to choke.  Instead she let the current turn her, bringing her face naturally to the surface.  Ducking her head back, she washed the hair from her face, slicked it back with hands that trembled. 

Oh, but it was so good.  She ran her hands over her skin, feeling everything lift away, feeling immersed in the power of the water, washed clean by it.  Then she let herself gasp, let herself laugh.  A heron, far down the opposite bank, flapped into the air and drifted away upstream, leaving her alone.

Rolling with the current, she struck out, slicing the water with arms that quickly warmed to the work.  Stretching to the stroke, she swam downstream, past the elderly oak dipping its gnarled branches into the brine, past the fallen tree, lying like the bleached bones of some old leviathan.  Beyond the mouth of the creek, blue sky and blue sea met and melded, mirroring each other’s vastness, a heart-breaking promise of endless adventure.

She’d come here to draw a line, to put all of it behind her.  The swim hadn’t been part of the plan, but it had been an obvious choice, standing there on the bank, knowing all the terror of the past year was over.  The water had called to her.  She’d wanted nothing more than to plunge into its healing depths, to let the coldness wake her, the current cleanse her.

She’d come to Frenchman’s Creek seeking an ending.  She’d never expected to find a beginning, too.

The smile that curved her cheek felt unnatural, unaccustomed.  She felt clean.  Alive.  Free. 

Breathing hard, she angled close to the bank, seeking the slack water.  There she idled a while, sculling languidly back to where she’d started, feeling the delicious contrast the cold water and sun on her face, her breasts and belly.  When she reached the sun-warmed stone, she lifted her head to look.

He was still alive, just.  Sprawled on the rock by the water’s edge, dripping blood that bloomed into russet roses in the living water.  It didn’t matter.  The water would wash that clean, too.  She could hear him breathing, a sound like waves on a shingle shore. 

As she watched, the last drop eased from the scarlet ribbon that painted his arm.  It gathered in the dark hairs at his wrist where the broken watch gleamed silver.  But it did not fall.

An oyster catcher skimmed by, calling, a flash of black and white and scarlet beak.  She breathed deep, tasting sea air and sweet-sharp water.

Smiling, she let her arms drift wide, fingers teased and tugged by the outgoing tide, her palms cupping the force of it.  She lay back, till the water in her ears silenced all sound but the song of the sea itself, and let the current take her.

It was a bit like that at the recent RNA Conference at fabulous Greenwich.  Something in the air?  A wonderful coincidence of perfectly suited people?  Quite a lot (really, QUITE a lot) of wine?

Who knows?  Whatever the cause, I have now taken a step of commitment I never thought I would – I am a group blogger!

Join me, along with friends old and new Susanna Kearsley, Julie Cohen, Brigid Coady, Liz Fenwick and Christina Courtenay at The Heroine Addicts.  We’ll be blogging roughly Thursdays and Sundays, and since we all write very different types of books, it’s going to be a fascinating mix, I think.  Read us, follow us, stalk us – you know the drill!

Today I’m musing on the nature of time…. posting about finding time for writing, in the big ways and the small ones.

And yes, I STILL know I need to update this site.  I’m working on it, I swear. WordPress help files scare me…..

I know the website needs updating.  And I need to decide whether I’m keeping the blog, using it as a Twitter/Facebook link, or retiring it.

But currently I’m trying to create a vampiric non-vampire secondary to add a spice of danger and sex for my Victorian mad scientist in my steampunk science-as-the-arcane subplot in my adventure/thriller Durham-based contemporary.

Yes, this is as complicated as it sounds.  You can see why this would be, um, absorbing.

Bear with me.  It’ll be worth it, I swear.

In the mean time, I really need to find a picture of a red velvet Victorian ladies’ pelisse.  Hmmm.

She says:-  “Runner-up & Buried Treasure: Dangerous Lies by Anna Louise Lucia.  I was extremely impressed with the author’s control of both character and plot, in a situation that could easily have gotten out of hand, and I am looking forward to this author’s future books.”

*wiggle*  Thank you Jean! 

I have a horrible winter bug at the moment, and this is just the pick-me-up I needed.

A couple feeding livestock and calling their excited lurchers in from the woods.  A family out in woolly hats and wellies, Dad fetching salt to grit the road, Mum and daughter gathering snow in buckets to build a snowman.

Walking down the hill into the village, every dog walker and path sweeper is smiling.  A lorry goes by, sending the snow billowing down from the trees.  A breeze through the thorny hedgerow makes it snow on one side of the lane.

Down by the river, on the cricket pitch, there’s a massed snowball fight for all the kids whose schools are closed.  I never knew there were so many children in the village – fantastic.  The river gurgles and gushes over its stones, under the bridge, where the trees are dipping iced fingers in the water.

The shining sun makes diamond crystals of unsullied fresh snow.

A beautiful day.

A thrush and a robin, fluffled up against the cold, eat greedily from someone’s bird table, pausing to insult me for disturbing them as I walk by.

There are many unanswerable questions in the universe.  Why do you buy hundreds more pens than you ever use up till they run out?  Where do all the calculators go?  Why is Technorati inexplicably turning up in my ‘incoming links’ category for this blog?  Is it possible to have too many shoes/bags/Pilgrim jewelry*?

But mostly, at this time of year, I’m musing on how anything with baubles and tinsel becomes far, far more absorbing than the latest book.

A Thousand Secrets is somewhat behind.  *embarassed cough*  But I’m action planning for recovering my position.  This story is one that will not go gentle into that good night…

In the meantime, I’m experiencing my usual OTT Christmas excitement.  One sure and certain sign of a household that has too many Christmas lights is when you open the box labelled ‘Indoor Lights’** and the first thing you see is half a dozen timer switches and extension leads…  *whistling innocently*

Anyway.  Just some random musings from me. 

Carry on.

* No. 

**NB, different to the box labelled ‘outdoor lights’ and even the box labelled ‘misc lights’.

Today I’m participating in a mass blogging! WOW! Women on Writing has gathered a group of blogging buddies to write about family relationships. Why family relationships? We’re celebrating the release of Therese Walsh’s debut novel today. The Last Will of Moira Leahy (Random House, October 13, 2009) is about a mysterious journey that helps a woman learn more about herself and her twin, whom she lost they were teenagers. Visit the Muffin (on the 13th) to read what Therese has to say about family relationships and view the list of all my blogging buddies. And make sure you visit www.theresewalsh.com to find out more about the author.

Day Five:-  Logan Botanic Garden

Hobble:-  2 miles
Words:- 4,386
Food:-  jacket tattie and beans
Soundtrack:-  Moby again.

Today is a day of screams and grunts.  I am very stiff, and very tired.  I thought it would be my ankles and knees that were protesting today, afterall, my left knee felt like a spit-roasted melon last night: hot, swollen and knifed.

But no.  No, today it’s all about the big muscles in the front of the thighs.  Crouching down to pick something up requires a handhold.  There is a distinct delay between the nervous impulse to stand, and the actual movement of muscle to obey….

I am blistered, too, sadly.  I always think of a blister on a hill walk as a sign that I’ve failed, somehow, that my boot-and-foot management didn’t pass muster.  Dad would be tutting and shaking his head.  But the sad fact is I have lovely feet, tractable, behaving themselves, reasonably attractive, reliable feet – right up to the point I put them in walking boots.  Walking sandals, yes.  Approach shoes (fusion boot/trainer footwear) definitely.  Boots, oh no.  I have this recurrent problem of the tendons under my left toes cramping.  It’s agonising and really difficult to manage or prevent. 

I’ve found that if I use good quality (sorbothane, how we love thee) insoles, and DON’T use thick socks, this is minimised, and only really turns up when I start to get dehydrated.  BUT the thinner socks don’t provide enough protection for my heels and I get blisters.  Compeed is good, and keeps me going a few more miles, but Compeed does not like, no sireee, he does not like, the soaking the feet in peat bogs approach.  Alas.

So, stiffness, a blister or two, and a couple of bruises.  Not bad, really.  Considering.*

The thought of staying in the cottage and slowly sitffening up all day had me out and on the road shortly after breakfast.  I’ve headed for the Logan Botanic Garden, one of the most important gardens in the UK.

And, even thought I’m holidaying alone, I’ve brought my family with me.

Yesterday I had Dad on my shoulder whispering encouragement and instruction.  He taught me about walking (and running – he used to do fell running, jogging up and down mountains we’d struggle to walk up and down) and climbing in the hills.  He taught me how to pick my footing, to take little, fast steps on ascent, and know where my feet would land two or three steps ahead on descent.  He taught me to place my foot sideways on steep, uncertain terrain, how to recognise the safe and the unsafe.  It was Dad showed me how to read a map and use a compass – when I refresh myself on these skills before a walk, I can almost see his hands in front of me, smoothing the map and following the contour lines.  Dad’s voice, and his teachings, are with me every day in the mountains, even though he can’t be with us anymore in the flesh. 

But that was yesterday.  And today the voice on my shoulder is Mum’s.

Dad taught me to walk safely.  Mum told me it was the little yellow blooms of tormentil and the fire spikes of bog asphodel I was treading on.  Dad showed me where bogs were treacherous, Mum showed me the insect eating plants that grew there – the little green fly-papers of butterwort, the misty red tentacles of the tiny sundew.  I give my respects to the birch and the rowan, the sedge and the lady’s smock, calling them by name because Mum introduced us.

Now, today, I’m conscious that I’m in a place that would give Mum as much pleasure as it’s giving me.  I’ve only been as far as the entrance, the ticket office, and the coffee shop (hazelnut cappuccino!  And it’s good!) but already I’ve had three, “oooh, Mum you have to see this moments.”  I don’t have Mum’s botanic knowledge.  I only know that she’d be intrigued by the double nasturtiums, awed by the flowering cordeline, and knocked out by the big house-leek-on-stalk-type things in purple.  (Mum?  What are they called again?)

EDIT – Mum says they’re eoniums!  Thanks Mum!

See, I said I didn’t have the botanic knowledge….

I’m taking lots of pictures, and thinking about how to get them to her.

I like holidaying alone, just once in a while.  But I love that my family comes too, all the time. 

*Actually, pretty awful.  By the evening I was snivelling.  It never ceases to amaze me how far we can actually make a body perform beyond its comfort zone.  Ow.

By Therese Walsh

A LOST SHADOW
Moira Leahy struggled growing up in her prodigious twin’s shadow; Maeve was always more talented, more daring, more fun. In the autumn of the girls’ sixteenth year, a secret love tempted Moira, allowing her to have her own taste of adventure, but it also damaged the intimate, intuitive relationship she’d always shared with her sister. Though Moira’s adolescent struggles came to a tragic end nearly a decade ago, her brief flirtation with independence will haunt her sister for years to come.

A LONE WOMAN
When Maeve Leahy lost her twin, she left home and buried her fun-loving spirit to become a workaholic professor of languages at a small college in upstate New York. She lives a solitary life now, controlling what she can and ignoring the rest–the recurring nightmares, hallucinations about a child with red hair, the unquiet sounds in her mind, her reflection in the mirror. It doesn’t help that her mother avoids her, her best friend questions her sanity, and her not-quite boyfriend has left the country. But at least her life is ordered. Exactly how she wants it.

A SHARED PAST
Until one night at an auction when Maeve wins a keris, a Javanese dagger that reminds her of her lost youth, and happier days playing pirates with Moira in their father’s boat. Days later, a book on weaponry is nailed to her office door, followed by anonymous notes, including one that invites her to Rome to learn more about the blade and its legendary properties. Opening her heart and mind to possibility, Maeve accepts the invitation, and with it, a window into her past. Ultimately she will revisit the tragic November night that shaped her and Moira’s destinies, and learn that nothing can be taken at face value, as one sister emerges whole and the other’s score is finally settled.

Note: To read reviews about The Last Will of Moira Leahy, please visit Therese’s website: http://theresewalsh.com/News_Reviews/news_reviews.html

 About the author, Therese Walsh:

Therese is the co-founder of Writer Unboxed, a blog for writers about the craft and business of genre fiction. Before turning to fiction, she was a researcher and writer for Prevention magazine, and then a freelance writer. She’s had hundreds of articles on nutrition and fitness published in consumer magazines and online.

She has a master’s degree in psychology.

Aside from writing, Therese’s favorite things include music, art, crab legs, Whose Line is it Anyway?, dark chocolate, photography, unique movies and novels, people watching, strong Irish tea, and spending time with her husband, two kids and their bouncy Jack Russell.

Therese’s website: http://theresewalsh.com
Therese’s blog: http://theresewalsh.com/blog.html
Writer Unboxed: http://www.writerunboxed.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ThereseWalsh
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/therese.walsh  

THERESE!  Many, many congratulations on the release of your debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy!  It’s been a honour seeing its journey. 

The Merrick is Mine – Climbing The Merrick via Benyellary; descent via Loch Enoch, Loch Valley.
Walk:- 11 miles and 3,000 feet ascent.
Words/Research:- 0
Food:- chinese takeaway.  I caved.
Soundtrack:-  Kate Bush

Oh, I had SUCH fun today.

Fun in a oh-god-make-it-stop kind of way.  Like being tickled but with less laughter and more groans.

I love hill walking.  It’s a symphony of little pains and niggles, and some big ones.   There’s rain and sweat and bog water, bugs and gusting wind and cloud.  I don’t walk up mountains for the view, although when I get it, it takes my breath away.  I don’t walk up mountains to ‘conquer’ them – what an egotistical illusion that is.  The mountains can, and will, wipe you out in a blink of an eye, and it’s a privilege to be among them.  Every moment you spend in their company is a gift from them to you.   I think I walk up mountains to challenge myself.  When I walk alone, I’m always just a little bit scared.  It’s my do-something-every-day-that-scares-you contribution.

By the way, if you ever hear a Red Deer stag, in the flesh, roaring out across the valley, you will a) nearly wet yourself and b) wonder how the offspring of a minotaur and a lion got onto a Scottish hillside.  Really.  Viscerally arresting.  Yikes.

Today was a good one.  Partly because I felt like it was just me and the mountain, the whole time.  I walked from 7.30am to 3pm, and didn’t meet another soul until I was within spitting distance of the car again.  Partly because the cloud came down, and I had to be careful and sensible and pay attention to map and compass. 

The summit, in cloud. 

The solitude was starting to get to me, though – I know this because firstly I was talking to myself a lot and secondly I was inordinately disappointed when the sheep ahead I was looking forward to saying hello to turned out to be a rock.

Partly it was good because I took a route down that was off the path, and needed decent navigation skills, but mostly because I couldn’t believe how much my, let’s face it, occasionally malfunctioning body could take, and still deliver the goods.

It wasn’t really about the distance, although 10 miles is usually my comfort limit.  It wasn’t really about the ascent – The Merrick is a small mountain, really only a hill (I just like the word mountain) at 2,700 feet or so.  It was all about the terrain.  That off-path descent was bloody hard work.  Bogs, crags, steep grassland, heather and scrub.  And that distinctly evil walking surface – tussocks.  And I mean knee-high tussocks, where you can’t step on the top because it tips over, and you treading inbetween is a journey into the unknown, that could (and several times did) drop your unsuspecting foot into a chasm between granite boulders, or into a boggy sink hole.  I turned my ankle within an hour of starting down, muttered to myself, “you can’t afford to do that too many times,” and then proceeded to do it five more times in three hours.

The cloud lifts for a second, and you get a glimpse of the lochs you’ll pass on the way down. 

Usually, I descend far faster than I go up.  At least twice as fast.  I started at 7.30am, got to the top about 10.45am, left the top at 11:55….. And got back to the car at 2:54pm.  The last two miles took two hours.  Even when I got back to a path (of sorts) I couldn’t make much headway in slippy boggy patches, worn away sections and narrow, ankle-breaking rocky gaps.  I fell over three times.  Twice in grass, converting a trip into a controlled bum-slide.  And once, in true slapstick fashion, stepping out onto a sandy-muddy flat spot at speed, and finding that contrary to every visual clue, it was liquid and not solid.  I catapulted myself forward as soon as my feet felt the difference, went in up to my knees, but fell forward straight out again, and spent the next two minutes on hands and knees thinking how comfortable it was down there, and shouldn’t I get up now.

Heading for Loch Enoch.  Just a bit steep. 

Even then, I was conscious that I had more energy, if I needed it.  I was capable of farther, more, longer.  I was concerned about my knees and ankles, because they were starting to get shaky, but I wasn’t truly tired.  Health wise, I’ve had a dodgy year or two.  I can’t tell you how triumphant I felt, standing by the car in the rain, breathing hard after the last quarter mile ascent AT SPEED, and feeling wrecked, pained, tired, but absolutely certain that if I had to, I could do more.

That felt so GOOD.

I don’t walk up hills to conquer them.  But perhaps I do it to conquer the mountains in me.

 
I’m an addictive kind of person.  I know that about myself.  Currently, I’m trying not to think about the fact that work kept me for several weeks in Penrith, a lovely market town, with many, many things going for it, but WITHOUT either Costa Coffee or Starbucks.

*whimper*

On the way to the cottage, rushing from a Saturday day job appointment to the holiday, I gleefully stopped at the one service station between me and my destination which I knew sold Costa Coffee. 

They were closed. 

I may have uttered obscenities, but in my defence, I did have the restraint to NOT take the half hour detour into Carlisle and Starbucks (blessed, blessed Starbucks, of the lovely, recognise-me staff, and the blissful hazelnut latte).

SO.  The POINT is.  I haven’t had what I’d call a decent coffee for…. A month. 

Help me.

Anyway.  Today I planned a good, longish walk, with enough distance and ascent to warm me up for The Big One (more later).  Everywhere I go, I have to bear in mind I’m walking solo, in quiet, sometimes remote surroundings.  Risks have to take that in mind, so walks which would be fairly innocuous in friendly, populous, well-remembered Lake District, here have to be taken a bit more seriously.

I drove to the car park at the far end of Loch Trool and, simply put, walked to Loch Dee and back again.  A good half the distance I took the Southern Upland Way, which strove to be interesting by taking the unsuspecting walker through bogs, tussocky marshes and some steep (if short) climbs. 

Oh, and by the Highland Cattle.  You know, the ones with the big horns.  I’d sat down for a break before I spotted them, but they’d already spotted me from a couple hundred yards away.  Head cow wandered in my direction, stared menacingly, and went, “mooo!” in a distinctly warning manner.  I said, “um, hi there, ” in a faint, wobbly voice, and clocked the steep jumble of rocks behind me that might be a safe haven should I have to run for it. 

I shouldn’t have worried.  After watching for ten minutes while I tried not to attract their eye, or look threatening, edible or interesting, they decided I was boring and kept grazing.

After lunch, on the shores of Loch Dee, I started back, this time taking the more straightforward cycle path route.  At which point, the patchy drizzle that hadn’t prevented me from stripping down to t-shirt and STILL feeling too hot on the way up, decided to take things seriously.

HOW is it possible for all the rain hitting your body, to concentrate on the two-inch space in front of your eyes, formed by your hood drawn as tightly as it will go???

This was, however, encouraging, as I’d decided at lunchtime I hadn’t brought enough water… Whoops.

The kit report is good:  new Sprayway trousers (which fit!  Hallelujah!  Walking trousers that fit women with curves!) were, indeed, water resistant, except when the wind really got behind the downpour, and even then were damp not sodden.  The ancient Berghaus jacket, still going strong after its third re-proofing, did its job well, in spite of never having fitted me.  No water in anywhere.  My boots (are they Berghaus or Karrimor?  I forget.) did their usual trick of proving utterly waterproof when I was up to my ankles in peaty water, but as waterproof as a sieve when walking through dewy grass.  HOW does that happen?  The aged, bloke’s The North Face fleece performed perfectly, as did Rohan base layer and socks.

I stupidly forgot my Fat Face hat and Rohan buff.

Yes, okay, I’ll admit I’m a label addict, too.  But ONLY in outdoor kit….  You can keep your Gucci and Prada.  But I’ll fight you for my Sprayway and The North Face…   I do love my kit.

So why did I start talking about coffee?

Because when I got back to the car, dripping, getting a little cold, with fingers wrinkled from the rain and hips in imminent danger of going on strike in protest, I immediately drove to the local visitor centre, little more than a friendly-staffed hut on the banks of the river at Stroan Bridge, and had a HUGE cappuccino. Okay, so it was from a machine.  And more like a latte.  And not very nice.  But, oh, the caffeine.  Made so many of those little aches and pains and protesting joints just… Go away.