Dark, dismal, dreary, drizzling, depressing and what is more very very cold. It’s been this way for weeks with a few hours of intermittent sunshine and we might just as well be living in Yorkshire as the rain never seems to stop. Has this winter been sent just to add to Greece’s agonies? Much more of it and we’ll all be going stir crazy and screaming for summer. Then no doubt we will be complaining that it’s too darn hot.

Have finished writing Thornton King number six, ‘Men And Their Toys’ all 80000 words of it so there is nothing else on the horizon. Am very pleased with the way it has turned out as I never thought I would write a sixth Thornton King. Will I still be around to see it published? Who knows? It’s a long way off that’s for sure. My Gothic horror, ‘The Museum Mysteries and other Stories’ is on the cards at the moment and T.King number five, ‘Celluloid and Tinsel’ is still to go, presumably later this year.

I still want two plays published, ‘Twilight of Aunt Edna’ and ‘Rosemary.’ The latter has already been published but I have made amendments so it will have to be done again.

Got my nose into a very interesting book at the moment. Surprising what one can find on the shelves. At the last count before we left Yorkshire there was a library of over five thousand books. Now it must be touching six thousand if not more. No wonder Douglas is always yelling, ‘No more books!’ In fact there simply isn’t room for any more. There are two sets of shelves in the guest bedroom crammed with books in double rows; there are books in the library downstairs including all those stacked on top of the piano for which there is no room on the shelves. There are books in my study, books in the office, books in my bedroom. At our doctor’s surgery last month we met a very interesting German woman who was a librarian before moving to Crete. She has a collection of books she wants to get rid of and was bemoaning the fact that she can’t even give them away so what will happen to our six thousand and more when all three of us have popped our clogs? The books in my study are all on the performing arts; plays, histories, theories, biographies, and more in my bedroom. Together with the large collection of theatrical ephemera we have, gathered over the years, I suppose those could be left to a university that might appreciate adding to their theatre collection. That is if they are prepared to collect and ship. For the rest? Again, who knows? All of which has got me off on a tangent and I haven’t continued with the interesting book I was going to write something about. Well, for now, it is called ‘The Hollywood Writers’ Wars’ by Nancy Lynn Schwartz, a heavy hardback tome (in weight that is) published in 1982. I’ll get around to it next time.