I’m away this week taking a bit of a holiday. I did say that I was going to repost old posts on here when I wanted a break and I nearly did that this week but then I thought that I could instead share a rambling stream of consciousness about what I’m doing with my life.
First up, I’m working on the next James Burke book: Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras. It’s still very much at an early stage — the point where I’ve written the beginning and I have a reasonable idea of the end and one or two key bits in the middle but I still have to stitch them together into something approaching a whole story. I’m looking forward to it, though, because it will remind me of those wonderful days before covid when we just took off to Portugal to see the Lines for ourselves. It was a great experience and I do recommend them to anybody with any interest in the Napoleonic wars or just people who would like a good walk in lovely scenery.
This being after covid, our break is confined to England. Yesterday we were at Avebury stone circle, which is probably my favourite Neolithic site — massively more impressive than Stonehenge. Of course we arrived there just as summer ended and we walked around it on a grey afternoon in the rain. I did make a quick video which I put up on TikTok. You can watch the first bit HERE. The video doesn’t do the place justice. If you get the chance you really should go to see it.
Tomorrow we are planning a day in the Royal Historic Dockyards at Portsmouth. Those of you who were reading my blog last week might think I should have had enough of tall ships to last me for a while, but I love the Royal Historic Dockyards and we are all looking forward to revisiting some old favourites and perhaps exploring something new. I suspect you may be getting photographs of it on here before too long.
In other writing news, I was absolutely thrilled with this review of Eat the Poor: EAT THE POOR (GALBRAITH & POLE BOOK 2). It’s lovely when somebody not only enjoys one of your books but picks up on all the detail that most people might miss.
What else? There’s going to be a FREE promotion of Tales of Empire later is September, so watch out for that (though if you don’t want to wait it’s only 99p on Kindle). Also later in September, Antoine Vanner will be hosting me writing about spies in Napoleonic times and comparing them with spies today on his excellent blog, the Dawlish Chronicles. Otherwise it’s the usual blogging and tweeting and researching. But not for the next couple of days.
Enjoy your own holidays!
