I was going to say ‘we’re at the end of January’ but I now realise it will be the start of February when this is published. It has probably been a miserable month for a lot of us; cold and dark and pretty lonely with the tight lockdown restrictions in the UK. But, January is over! Now onto February which is inevitably just as cold (if not colder) than January, but even so, it’s a step closer to spring and the hope that the vaccine roll out will mean an easing of restrictions.

In other news, Stef and I are still working on our next Cunningham and Petrov story. We are halfway through chapter 5 at the moment, where David has just returned to the Evans’ farm with the donkeys trailing after him. I don’t know yet how many chapters it will run to, the last one was meant to be 9, then 12, then ended up being 25 (sort of like how the Famous Five series was meant to be 6, then 12, then 21, but rather than children clamouring for more, it’s just that we cannot be succinct apparently!) so we will hold back on starting to publish it for a wee bit longer.

January round up

and

If you like Blyton: The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

“Slithery dithery, musty fusty dusty,” said Kiki, trying to remember the various collections of words she had picked up at one time or another. “Huffin and Puffin.”

Kiki shows off her perhaps irritating intellect in The Mountain of Adventure. She’s actually very like a toddler, if you think about it. Likes rhyming words and repeating things, talks a lot of nonsense, makes a lot of noises, is very loud…