I'm ashamed of myself for the length of time since I last posted a blog, but hey, I've had a good excuse.

I've become a grandma! And life has just been too exciting.

My little grandson is a gorgeous baby, called Iskander McDowall (Iskander means "Alexander" in Urdu).

Here's a picture of him needing a bit of a snooze.

I'm not sure where the summer has gone, but it's whizzing past. There was the wonderful Borders Book Festival at Melrose in June. That's where the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction was announced. It's a new award, and I was lucky to be one of the judges. Hilary Mantel won the prize for her extraordinary book, "Wolf Hall".

The next big thing is the Edinburgh Festival. I'm off tomorrow for a week of books and shows. I'll be doing an event with David Almond on Sunday 29th August at 6pm in the RBS Corner Tent. Not sure what we'll be talking about, but do come and listen! No pictures of this year's festival yet, so here's a rather belated one from last year, with the wonderful Philip Ardagh.

And the REALLY big thing after that, is a stage production of The Garbage King at the Unicorn Theatre in London. It runs throughout October. Here's a link to the theatre if you want to find out more.

www.unicorntheatre.com/garbageking

Well, I'm sorry for all those people who couldn't go on holiday, or have been stuck abroad and couldn't get home because of the ash cloud. My sister was going to visit me from Norway, and she couldn't come.

But I can't say that I haven't enjoyed the peace and quiet without the planes roaring overhead. And I've never before seen the sky in London so blue.

Just compare these two pictures that I took in my garden. The sky when the planes weren't flying was a gorgeous, perfect blue. As soon as the planes came back, the vapour trails came with them, and misted the sky over again. Wouldn't it be great if we could find a way to fly without messing up the environment?

I've just been to a meeting at the Society of Authors, to hear Mary Hoffman and Rhiannon Lassiter talk about blogging. Wow! Such professionals! But I think I'll just plod on doing my occasional post when I feel like it.

And I feel like it today, because I've received in the post the first copies of The Witching Hour in paperback. I think it looks great. I hope you do too.



The story transported me back to the seventeenth century when I was writing it, to remote, misty corners of Scotland. Just to give you a taster, this is how it begins:

"I was the first one to see the whale lying dead on the sand at Scalpsie Bay. It must have been washed up in the night. I could imagine it, flopping out of the sea, thrashing its tail and opening and shutting the cavern of its mouth. It was huge and shapeless, a horrible dead thing, and it looked as if it would feel slimy if you dared to touch it. I crept up to it cautiously. There were monsters in the deep, I knew, and a great one, the Leviathan, which the Lord had made to be the terror of fishermen. Was this one of them? Would it come to life, and devour me?

It was a cold day in December, the sun barely risen, and I'd pulled my shawl tightly round my head and shoulders, but it wasn't only the chill of the wet sand beneath my bare feet that made me shiver. There was a strangeness in the air. The early mist was clearing. Across the water I could already make out the Isle of Arran, rearing up out of the sea, the tops of its mountains hidden as usual in a crown of clouds. I'd seen Arran a dozen times a day, every day of my life, each time I'd stepped out of the door of my grandmother's cottage. I knew it so well that I hardly ever noticed it.

But today, as I looked up at the mountains from the dead whale in front of me, the island seemed to shift, and for a dreadful moment I thought it was moving towards me, creeping across the water, coming for me, wanting to swallow me up, along with the beach, and Granny's cottage, and Scalpsie Bay, and the whole of the Isle of Bute..."

It may be cold, it may be dark, and the winter is still with us, but I was on the Isle of Bute in the west of Scotland last week, and it was incredible! Brilliant sunshine and the most beautiful scenery in the world. If you haven't been there, you must go.

I set the first part of my novel, The Witching Hour, on the island. This is the view that the main character, Maggie Blair, would have had from her cottage every morning. Quite something, isn't it?



The action in the novel takes place three hundred years ago in the seventeenth century, when life if Scotland was a bit too exciting if you liked a quiet life. It's being published in paperback in April. Coming soon - a picture of the cover in my next blog post.

I took a day out from Bute , went over to the mainland and visited the school at Lochgoilhead. What a lovely place! The pupils from Strachur school came to join us for the morning, and here we all are together. (I'm the one at the back with the grey hair.) That's all the pupils from two whole schools you're looking at. It must be great to be in such a small school where you can get to know everyone really well. And the playground's not bad, either!

Spring!

I've just stepped out into my garden on this cold grey winter morning, and found this daffodil about to flower.

Spring must be on the way...

It's Christmas time again, and I thought you might like to see some Christmassy pictures, but these ones are a bit different. They're from Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was the first country in the world to become Christian, and for centuries Ethiopians have been have been painting beautiful pictures to illustrate Bible stories. The ones here are several hundred years old. They were painted by monks on vellum (made out of sheepskin).


In this picture, Joseph is asleep and dreaming of an angel, who is telling him that Mary his wife will have a baby, Jesus. I love the way the angel is surrounded by all those puffy clouds against the golden sky.

In the Ethiopian Christmas story, the baby was not born in a stable, but in a cave.Here's the baby Jesus, with Mary his mother, Joseph and the midwife, Salome. Salome has brought a goat as a present.

The Holy Family had to escape to Egypt after Jesus was born. The Ethiopians believe that they came to Ethiopia, so they've put African animals in this picture - an elephant, a monkey and a wild pig.

That's all for now, folks. Have a great Christmas! I'll try to do more blogs in the New Year, but I don't find it very easy getting the pictures straight. Oh well - practice makes perfect.

Summer 2009

Forget about writing and being an author, I'm just a mum this summer, and a new mother-in-law too. Both my sons are getting married, and believe me, wedding fever beats writing any time.

Here we are with our two boys. Angus is the one in the kilt looking nervous. He's about to get married. William's looking fine because he's the best man. David's the one in the beard and I'm the one in the silly hat.

This pic was taken at the wedding of Angus and Amynah on 25th July. William and Ashleigh are going to be married in September, in Canada, so I'm off to celebrate with them soon.

Here are the four of them. Don't they look gorgeous?

I'm not quite sure if I should post this last picture of the morning after the wedding, but hey, I might as well. I'm still in my pyjamas, I've just had my breakfast, but I have no idea why I'm clutching the telephone directory. I look quite mad, and I didn't even have more than a sip of champagne to drink!

Next blog entry will be a bit more sensible, I assure you...