Leigh’s Scribblings

…to Harlan Coben novels.  The American crime writer piles twist upon increasingly dark twist, while also raising many a wry smile with his use of plentiful gallows (pun intended) humour in his witty thrillers.

The one I have on the go at present is The Woods, but I have read about seven of his books back-to-back in the last couple of months.  The stories just suck you in.  I adore the way he writes.  It’s so inspiring.  I would love even a quarter of his success in the literary field.

I am delighted to say I finally have a publication date for TV Spa-Dom!!! It is going in the 17th October edition of My Weekly magazine and is being renamed Girlie Weekend!!

I will have a good week that week, as by coincidence Flash Harry is going into Yours magazine on 20th October! The dates are on the calendar. This news has cheered me up, especially after I received another rejection letter from Take a Break yesterday. Apparently Heather’s Headache is not suitable for their requirements. Nice to know I am not totally worthless.

As far as my novel is concerned, I am still greatly enjoying working on The Four Matthews. Writing gives me such a high.  Creating characters and situations is so wonderful.  It makes me feel as though I have such power at my fingertips.

Mum and I had a wonderful day today at Magnalonga, the annual seven-mile walk around the gorgeous town of Ludlow in Shropshire which offers participants, at each stage along the route, a five-course meal of locally produced ingredients. 

We were unbelievably lucky with the weather. It has been one of the nicest days of the year. If we’d been caught in heavy rain, the like of we have seen a lot of lately, it would have been dreadful.

To summarise, these were the courses we had and the stops we made along the seven-mile course:

1. Snack: bag of Tyrrells sweet chilli and red pepper crisps and bottle of water to get us going from Dinham Bridge. We were provided with a souvenir glass for our drinks along the way. A group of young violin players were performing at the start point.

2. Starter: cheese, tomato and pesto quiche, washed down with ‘Andromeda’ organic Herefordshire cider, in the back garden of a house, kindly donated for the day by a Mr and Mrs Moore, at Priors Halton. A nice jazz trio provided the music here.

3. Main course: sausage and leek hash, with Oliver’s pear cider, at Ludlow Food Centre on the A49.

4. Dessert: scrummy yummy chocolate pots, with Ludlow Brewing Company beer (don’t like beer so didn’t partake), at Felton Farm. Music was provided here by a young girl playing the violin.

5. My fave course (as you might imagine) – yummy cheeses with oatmeal biscuits in the grounds of Elm Lodge Hotel, washed down with Ludlow Festival Cider, which was pressed at last year’s Ludlow Food Festival. The cheeses were Ludlow Blue, Oakly Park Cheddar and ‘The Cheese With No Name,’ so called because a competition was run to find a name for this new local cheese but none of the entries were up to scratch, hence the name stuck! This latter one, which was quite similar to Brie, was actually my favourite cheese. Music came courtesy of an Indian guy playing a flute.

6. Finally a wee sloe gin was served at the finish point, back at Dinham Bridge.

It was a brilliant day with a lovely friendly, community atmosphere. We saw some picturesque scenery and met some nice people. I will definitely be back.

Sorry for not having added any updates for a while.  I have been beavering away on The Four Matthews, which is progressing reasonably well.

In the meantime, I have been in a bit of a ranty mood today so updated my Likes and Dislikes page – and have to admit the Dislikes outnumber the Likes, which does not necessarily indicate that I am a miserable cow.  Oh come on, it’s fun and cathartic to rant!

I have updated my Leigh’s Links page to include my favourite retro TV clip websites, to reflect the fact I am a saddo who likes watching old adverts.

My current favourite site is http://www.tellyads.com/vintage_index.php – it’s hopelessly addictive and takes you on a nostalgia trip back to the days when ads truly were better than the programmes. Commercials used to be mini stories. Nowadays they are pretty poor.

Ah, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

We had an absolutely wonderful day in London on Wednesday (8 July) when we went to see the fabulous show Oliver at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.  We also spent a bit of leisurely time in the city, which included an unexpected stroll up to Buckingham Palace.

My husband and I (I’m even starting to sound like the Queen) are big fans of Rowan Atkinson, who played Fagin and is only in this production for another week before being replaced by Omid Djalili.  We booked our tickets back in January, and Wednesday was the earliest date we could bag.  No wonder the show is so popular – it’s amazing.

We got there really early, parked up at Hounslow West tube station (BIG relief when we found a parking space – we could then relax for the rest of the day) and caught the Piccadilly Line directly to Leicester Square.

We strolled down to Trafalgar Square and marvelled at the sight of Nelson’s Column (don’t say ‘Ooh-err’), which I had to cross several streets in order to photograph.  It really is a pretty magnificent structure.

Through Admiralty Arch, with our London geography not being too hot we were quite surprised to discover ourselves in the Mall heading for Buckingham Palace.  I never fail to get a buzz from seeing these historic and universally recognised buildings ‘in the flesh’ as it were.

We arrived – along with scores of American tourists – just in time to witness what we subsequently found out was the daily Changing of the Guard ceremony but we assumed at the time was a march for a special occasion.

From there we headed up the Strand (‘have a banana!’) to Covent Garden.  The place has a special atmosphere, so buzzy and arty.  We watched an escapologist for about half an hour.  He freed himself from chains in under two minutes whilst standing at the top of a ladder – a very clever feat but a tad gross when it involved dislocating his thumbs and lodging them back into place.

After a brief Starbucks stop-off, we made our way to the theatre.  It’s always exciting seeing an idol in the flesh.  Nathan and I are big fans of Mr Bean and Blackadder.  I also avidly followed the I’d Do Anything series, in which Jodie Prenger won the coveted role of Nancy.  Whilst I admit I favoured Jessie Buckley, the runner-up, I knew Jodie would do a good job.

Rowan made a hilarious Fagin.  He made the part his own, adding a few uniquely ‘Rowan’ touches and inflections.  He was heard just before he was seen, spitting out the ‘T’ in a ‘WhaT?’ in response to his young gang’s calls, and earning a rapturous applause in the process.

Jodie was definitely the perfect choice to play Nancy.  She belted her numbers out like Liza Minnelli.  As Long as He Needs Me was absolutely heartbreaking.  Brilliant as Jessie is (and she is now starring in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at the Garrick Theatre), Jodie brings just the right warm, motherly quality the role.

The kids were superb too, and Burn Gorman made a suitably menacing Bill Sikes.

It was simply an absolutely belting show with a hell of a cast.  We walked out of the theatre on a total high.

Afterwards we had a quick drink in the Opera Tavern opposite the theatre, which resembles a dark Victorian inn typified by ‘The Three Cripples’ of Oliver fame.

We then walked back down the Strand (‘have a banana!!’) to Pizza Express where we had booked a table for 6:00.  It was a good job we had booked as it was heaving in there and people who hadn’t booked were having to wait half an hour for a table.  I’d had to try three Pizza Expresses in the locale before managing to get in at one.

It really was the most perfect day, and a wonderful belated wedding anniversary.  Everything just went like a dream.

The buzz of a live performance is unbeatable.  My next theatre jaunt is We Will Rock You in Birmingham at the end of August.  We really ought to make the effort to venture down to the West End more often.  I have only seen five shows in London, the others being Joseph, Grease, Buddy and We Will Rock You.

Woo hoo!!!!!!

Flash Harry has been accepted by Yours magazine, for the over 50s!! (Well I’ve always been a bit of a fogey at heart!)

The story was rejected by Take a Break a few months ago, I slightly tweaked it to focus more on Harry, the elderly marathon runner, and obviously the tweaks did the trick!! I am due to appear in a September/October edition of Yours!!!  Just goes to show not every story appeals to every fiction editor.

What a wonderful 2nd wedding anniversary present this has been!  I am on such a roll now.  Having two pieces accepted is an unbelievable boost to my confidence.

Sorry for the abundance of exclamation marks, by the way – I can’t help feeling excited.

I can’t believe Nathan and I have been married for two years today – feels more like 20!!

We got up at 6:00 this morning to open our beautiful cards. I can’t believe we have received such an abundance. It is very touching. We really didn’t expect so many after our first year.

It rained relentlessly on our wedding day, so fittingly we are flooded out now too!  We need wellies just to walk down to the car.

You’ll see I have uploaded Chapter 1 of The Four Matthews, as well as some further chapters of my other novels.

Hope you enjoy…

Had a completely boring, frustrating day at work due to the computers going into total meltdown. 

The computer guy has been in the office all day attempting to solve the problem, and we have all had to log on and off that many times I lost count.  I was actually sent home at 4:20 because the issues were obviously not going to be resolved before 5:00 and it was so pointless me sitting there twiddling my thumbs.  Typicallythis all happened on a day when I had tons of work to do.  It was ultra annoying.

Just goes to show how dependent we have become on technology.  Computers are great when they work, but we curse them to high heaven when they pack up.