January

It’s cold in deepest France. The days are quiet, chill, frost in the morning, grey skies, sometimes freezing fog. Then, you have a day when the sun shines, and the winter world has a breath of spring, persuading you to eat lunch outside, walk to the village for the baguettes, open a few windows.

When the gloom returns, we load up the stove with seasoned wood, look out the box sets, the books we didn’t read in the summer, the DVD’s we always said we would watch.

It is also a time for writing, laptop on my knee, feet up on the footstool in front of the heat, coffee warming on the hob. There is no guilt, no distraction, no summer evening beckoning me outside, just the words and sentences and the imaginary world.

Winter is certainly the season for writers.

I look forward to talking about my novels on Saturday morning, January 19th, at 10.30 at the library in Parisot.