Llanrhidian Marsh

Tuesday, 26 March, 2024

A beautiful evening down at Llanrhidian makes up for a tough day at the house. What's more, some of the images I've taken over these recent evening returns to the caravan park will come in handy later in the year when I put together my next Explore Gower book, Tidal Gower.

The Doors of Hell Have Opened

 Monday, 25 March, 2024

I hope this little beast of a book will be published in a week or so. The Cover design is done and dusted (see above), and the formatting of the novel for publishing is now also completed. I've just got to do a quick page-by-page check on the final typeset work, and then it will be ready...

What's next? I hope I hear you ask? Well, it's finally time for me to sort out that Guy N Smith zine I have been promising for so long. After that, I'm not too sure. I had planned on producing a second issue of Avalon, but with the cancellation of our Glaston visit for the May Day celebrations, I am going to put that on hold for a year. Reissuing/reworking my Hand in Gove book may be an option as this theme seems to have grown in popularity recently, but I'm not too certain yet. And my fourth Gower book, Tidal Gower, will still probably conclude my publications this year. 

Of course, while all the above is going on, I will be writing my ninth horror novel, Familiar, and ideas for it are already coming thick and fast.

Until my next post, keep happy :)

Peace

 Sunday, 24 March, 2024

Peace. My favourite thing in the world right now.

We decided we needed a day away from the house today. And with beautiful sunshine being the order of the day, I enjoyed a nice little sit down outside the caravan in the afternoon :)

I finally put Cold Comfort to bed in the evening. I won't lie, this novel was a bit of a beast to write and is definitely the longest of my novels. 

Family Planning

Saturday, 23 March, 2024#

One of the good things about staying in Llanrhidian is being able to see my brother acting just a few minutes down the road from me. Stepped out after the play to an amazing night's sky!

An early morning sesh

Friday, 22 March, 2024

An early morning writing sesh. Just a couple more days and Cold Comfort will finally be completed.

A Seeming Standstill

Thursday, 21 March 2024

What can I say? Two weeks on, countless thousands of £££s worse off, and we are in no better position.

We are still at the caravan, but the prices are rising dramatically as Spring draws the holiday-makers to the site. The landlord is still unsure what his insurance will pay for our temporary accommodation. We also found out we should not really be clearing the house, given all the toxic soot, which apparently gets worse as time progresses. But there is still a lot for us to do despite the conditions being unhelpful to my already compromised health. Right, I got that out of my system. Let's move on...

Chilling by writing about fictional drama

At least the day ended on a brighter note than it began 🙂.  God bless the sunshine. The drive home towards our temporary accommodation:

 

Down in the Dump

 Wednesday, 20 March, 2024

"I'm beginning to feel like I live down the rubbish tip.

I know I promised to stop taking pics of gloves, lol, but I couldn't resist snapping these. I don't think that this particular pair were lost tho - just waiting for action:

I twinged my back today getting things out of the house and down the dump. North Gower didn't disappoint and the caravan park we are staying at gets some to temper my aches and pains:

The Hum

Tuesday, 19 March, 2024

Another day clearing the house. 

We stopped off for a breather at Paper Mill Pond for a wee drink and snacks in the car on the way back to the caravan:

The Soosh

Monday, 18 March, 2024

We collected Sushi's ashes today from the vets. The bottle of her fur caught me a bit off guard.

Work on clearing our belongs and taking fire, geat and smoke damaged items to the tip is progressing. There is not much catching my eye enough to take my mobile phone out of my pocket now and photograph the place, but these two images seemed worthy of capturing:

Our landing ceiling with burnt detectors and lightshade

Sunset at our burnt house

On the way back to the caravan, we stopped off at the layby near my old childhood home in Penclawdd and took these pics to share with you all:

Rest

Sunday, 17 March, 2024 

Today, we are taking a break from the house for our health and sanity. Here's Fudge sleeping as I continue working on my next novel this morning. Remarkably, it's still on track to be published at the end of this month!

And whilst leaving the caravan site's laundrette this afternoon, I came across this fella. It looks like fudj is not the only cat on this particular block.

On the Road

Friday, 16 March, 2024

It seems like we are continually on the road these days. The commute from our temporary accommodation to the house is becoming a chore despite the scenery en route. The landlord wants us to empty the house of our belongings so he can start work on the place, so we have to box up anything thing that is remotely salvageable and take everything else to the dump. Despite masking and gloving up, our chests are beginning to suffer, and we have had to remind the landlord that we can't "spend every spare minute in the house clearing things"  as he would like. We have our health to think of, as well as laundrettes to visit, rubbish dump trips to undertake, food shopping etc. I can feel my resilience lowering with each successive day...

Anyway, here are some road videos and photographs I've tried to entertain myself with today.

The daily drive to our house:

Pics taken en route to the rubbish dump:

Driving home:

At least there were two rays of sunshine to lift our moods today. The first was meeting a couple of friends from my work, who gave us an amazing gift to help us through our trying times - thank you, I love you all. Secondly, there was the more literal ray of sunshine. For the first time since all this nightmare started, the sun came out:

Showering Monty

Thursday, 13 March, 2024

Drying Monty after a shower

Another tough day. Met the landlord again. He seems to think his insurance will be able to help with our short term accomodation needs and we should learn more about that tomorrow. Bad news is that he needs the house cleared of ALL of our belongings before work starts repairing the place. And he needs us to do it quick. Including the attic!

Back at the trailer now, with just two more pages to get print ready before I can chill for the night.

Moving On and Settling Down

Wednesday, 13 March, 2024

We have now moved into this trailer, which is located very close to my childhood home in Penclawdd: