Rather shocked to see it is again ten months since I wrote in Chip’s Chatter. I must return to my original intention of monthly pieces now, surely, that the pandemic is waning.

Progress with my work in progress has also slipped but has picked up speed again for 2022. First, I am adapting my short story – PUFFBALL published in 2019 in the Exeter Authors Association anthology ‘Tales of Deepest Darkest Devon’ – into a novel. At first blink, this might be a straightforward task, but the skills of short stories and novels are very different. It is coming together, but the novel will not be ready until the year-end. The working title is EXMOOR PUFFBALL, but the mystery evolves around similar giant puffballs growing on Exmoor and in the mountains close by Kyoto in Japan.

Second, my other novel now in working draft is THE REGISTER OF JOE’S TREES. This spans the decades from wartime 1940s into the 2000s. It tells the story of Alice Hallet’s teenage affair with a US airman, Joe, whose B17 is lost on a 1943 bombing raid to her linking with his US family in her old age. Joe’s grandson comes looking for the Suffolk airbase where his grandfather was stationed.

The first signs of spring are here. The days are getting longer and the snowdrops are blooming.