Good Bye and Thank You One and All

Much as this saddens me, I think the time has come to close the doors of Much Malarkey Manor, throw the dust sheets over the furniture and hibernate for a while.

It's been a long week this week, what with after school meetings, a parent evening, planning lessons and generally trying to get back into the swing of being once more in full-time paid employment. Those of you who are teachers will know that even when you try to fight against it, the job seeps into every crevice of your life. It's not nice, this intrusiveness, but it happens, and needs must where the mortgage, bills, and dreams of a cottage in the country with a plot of land drive.

And the guilt has set in that I have been neglectful of life here at the Manor for a week now. I feel like a zombie, and a zombie must not be allowed to take over this blog. What's the difference between a zombie and the madness of the Lady of the Manor who has been writing for the last year and a half, I hear you cry? I'll tell you. Creativity, that's what.

When I woke this morning, at some ungodly hour, fretting about a heap of differentiated work I have to put together for the two Polish boys who are in my Year 11 set and are taking GCSE English language in 4 months' time, heaven help them, the thought of putting this blog to bed was immediately followed by two more thoughts - one, that I was to send off the first three chapters of 'Indigo Antfarm, Violet and Blue' to five agents. The book isn't quite finished, but if I get five rejections, then that book too will be put to bed. And then I got another title for another book, which is 'Opals and Diamonds' (or Six Diamonds, which came in hot on its tail - I do wish those up there in the Universe would make up their minds before they send me these ideas).

I'll carry on writing because I have always written, in fits and starts, for all my life. I may have the occasional genius moment that will cause me to open up the Manor for a rant, or a chicken rave or some such nonsense. I may have to accept that I am a hobby writer, not a published writer, not in this life anyway. (Next time around I'm re-incarnating as Agatha Christie.)

The dream of the cottage in the country with a little spot of land still travels with me and Andy, but to get there we must both work, and save in the light of our appalling record of playing the lottery - many tickets, never a win, not even a sodding tenner.

Mrs Miggins is back in lay, for a third season, just in time for Mrs Pumphrey's first moult. It's like they have a rota for laying eggs, those two. Mrs Slocombe is fully feathered, laying well, and we have managed to engage her into attacking half a white cabbage every day to satisfy her anti-social pecking habits, rather than other chickens' bottom featherage.

Phoebe is fat and fine, Tybalt's ego has reduced to its normal size after his brief fling with fame via the world that is jigsaw. And Pandora, who is sitting asleep on my lap as I write this, continues to perch on my shoulder when I'm cooking, even though she is now as big as my head and there's little room on my shoulders for both of us.

My grand-daughter is due to arrive in just seven weeks now. Yesterday, Andy and I went to buy the pram. As we stood in the shop looking bemused at the array of travel options available these days, the assistant said, 'First time, is it?' I didn't know whether to be insulted that she thought I looked pregnant (too much cheese over Christmas), or flattered that she thought I looked young enough to still be having babies. Anyway, we bought a 'travel system' - buggy/pram/car seat combo, and took it to the parents-to-be who are now all braced and ready to go to submit the rest of their lives to slavery.

The allotment looks a mess; so does the garden. I blame the snow and the rain. It's certainly nothing to do with the winter apathy from the Manor gardeners. But in a few weeks, seeds will be growing into plants and food - our fourth year of feeding ourselves. And you never know, this year we might get the hang of it!

So thank you to all who have been kind enough to read and be entertained by my writing, and who have left comments so I don't feel like I am writing to an empty void. God bless you all (please feel free to insert your own belief system here - Buddha, Jehovah, Jedi or Muppet). May life be as good to you as it was to me during my 'Year And A Bit As A Writer'.

It's been great! And if some agent or publisher ever recognises my obvious writing talent (!!!) and I find myself in the middle of that 'happy co-incidence' moment called a three book publishing deal, you'll be the first to know!

xxx