Moving House and Book deals

I have finally moved house and a whole new world has opened up for me. I can walk straight out of my front door down through the fields to the coastal path. The sea shimmers blue through the emerging leaves of the trees that edge my garden. I watch the small crabber down on the point as he checks his pots. I spot seals off the rocks and small white and rust sails as they slide past

In the evening the sun plunges dramatically into the sea leaving a wash of red and gold. As I rush out with my camera a beautiful fox leaps over the wall, bold and proud. The world is magic and I am enthralled by spring unfolding outside my door. Waking each morning is an adventure. I cannot wait to leap out into rainbow days of changing colour and texture.

In the first months here relentless winds bent the trees in half and drove through the garden like a hurricane making all untethered things fly past the window. The camellias, great shiny green bushes of rose red, pink stood bravely in the lea of the storms and their blooms blistered cruelly. Then, suddenly, the winds softened, the storms were over. In a day it was summer, the birds sang in my overgrown jungle and the cat howled to the moon to be let out. The weather here cannot go unnoticed, it is as fickle and moody as a teenager. One day it is like like Crete, another day as bitter as a Scottish Island.

I find if I get up early to walk then I can happily move to my desk and write for six hours at a time without feeling deprived. I have set up office in a  tiny room facing the garden. It is like a rat’s nest for I have no shelves yet. But it is my space and  I can write in utter peace. The only thing I can hear are the soound of  birds and in rough weather the roar of the ocean.

The only flaw, so far, is the sound of raw and cruel nature. This is Paradise on earth for my beautiful cat who has turned into a psychopathic  killer. Many mornings are punctuated by the screams of baby rabbits. It is deeply upsetting. I save as many as I can but it is not a battle I am going to win

Just before I moved I signed a two book deal with HarperCollins. My new book is due to be delivered in July.

I took a bit of a gamble moving out of a small town and buying a house down an unmade road in the middle of fields. I feel so lucky to have found such a serene, happy and perfect place to write.  I am ignoring the unpacked boxes, the dust and untidy rooms; the work that will need doing to the house, my Mini that is having trouble with the potholed track. In two months I have to finish and deliver a book and just writing that sentence induces a frisson of fear and excitement.

Moving back to the country feels like coming home after a long journey. It is like taking a deep, wonderful, powerful life enhancing breath.