On my dog-walk this morning I was struck by the softness of everything on this grey mid-summer day: soft air, soft clouds, soft breeze stirring the branches, stroking my bare arms and the soft, sweet scent of elderflower. So unusually soft and dry and cushy for Edinburgh. But at the end of the week, we’ll be uprooting for our Orkney summer where it will not be so soft or cushy. There will be sharpness and hardness, salt in the air, rocks, seagull cries, waves, a sense of rawness, of the elemental.

Having been away and busy lately with family matters and other interruptions and distractions (including the upcoming upheaval) I’ve hardly written anything for the past few weeks, but I believe in Orkney it will be different. The contrast will wake me up and I’ll rock back into my rhythm again and, instead of spending half the morning raking out a despicable cupboard (split rice and lentil bags, mummified marzipan, three out-of-date pots of baking powder etc) I will return to the 1950’s and the world of my story and the head of my character Minna – the one who likes algebra. And I’ll return to my algebra lessons.

Oh, I’m happy to say that Sandstone will be publishing A Hole in the Corner Affair next year – no date yet. I’m delighted it will be in the same stable as Blasted Things, as there is a connection. I revisit some of the same characters twenty years later, though it’s a stand-alone novel and definitely NOT a sequel.