Hello my friends and the occasional relative!

Enjoy this day celebrating all things otherworldly (a great day for fantasy readers and writers, if I say so myself) secure in the knowledge that the saints will all be marching in tomorrow to celebrate the bond between human and divine. (Reminds me of a Dio lyric…)

I’m 1/3 of the way through my final read-through and edit. It should be more, and alas, my friends, I must admit that the wheels rather fell off my productivity train this past September and October. I had high hopes, but life has conspired to get in the way. I shall get back on track, but to be honest, the new book will not arrive this year. Sad, but true. First quarter of next year? Yes. It will be published by March 31st. There. I’ve said it. Deadline.

I want to talk to you about beans. Recently I chatted about corned beef, now it is beans’ turn. Why? Because this week I’m eating bean chili on a bed of cabbage every day for lunch. This is not a meal for amateurs, and should be carefully built up to. For dinner last night I had…. bean dip. And a salad. From experience, my friends, I advise no-one to dive into such a bean heavy diet without careful preparation and low dose exposure first. Going straight to bean apocalypse with a cabbage side will end in painful, gaseous disaster. I know, I’ve been there. Pause for pun effect.

I’ve had many jobs in my life, and I’ve truly hated none of them. Even when I was picking brake clamps out of the mud in a scrap yard in cold and dreary November Scotland, I didn’t hate the job: I made it a game. Then I stacked tyres, because we were in Scotland and they were spelled that way.

But sometimes you get a great job, and it is like Camelot, a shining castle on a hill. You know it probably won’t last long, but it will live on in the memory as a reminder of happier times, and that what once was, may yet be again. I’ve had two Camelot moments in my career (maybe three, now I think about it), with only a couple of true dark ages in contrast. Where I am now is one of them. And I’m eating beans and cabbage there. You know that saying that if there’s no sucker at a poker table then you’re it? Well, if everyone at your job is cool, you’re probably the moron polluting the communal atmosphere, I’m just saying.

And with that, my friends, I bid you a fondly perfumed farewell – enjoy haunting your friends and neighbours, don’t eat too much sugar, and consider adding some fiber to your diet – gently – in the coming weeks – your colon will eventually thank you!