New arrivals

Just opening up the old place, blowing the dust off and sitting in the comfy chair to say: My book has been published TADAAAAAH. It looks absolutely great, thanks to my wonderful editor and her team. Bummer is that they won't pay for a launch because it's only poetry, and so far all the reading venues are booked up till after the "holidays", so at the moment I have to hope their sales and distribution people are doing their job.

The cover photo is is spookily like my inner landscape: a gaunt dark man with a beard (cut mine off), hurrying hunched against the cold along a pocked road lined by flowing concrete and a still canal towards the grey loom of a cruel city (I think it's Leeds).

Second development: meet Jamie, three months. He's a lovely kid, so I won' t hold it against him that he has sent me tottering into great-grandpahood, thanks to my teenage granddaughter. It's been decided by my daughter that he will refer to me as Granddad, so that's great.

Oh well, that's it then.