Christmas is a religious festival I know; the clue is in the name. However, whatever we believe in, how many of us enjoy a good ghost story when the nights turn cold and dark?
It’s the best excuse ever for curling up near a warm body – or fire if you’re not so lucky to have a spare body to hand, lights low and a favourite drink to hand.
If you fancy a change from the old much-loved but well read tales it’s time to try something new. Something for the twenty-first century, perhaps.
Okay, so I tend to favour the seventeenth century and will be heading there, no doubt in December but I have been lucky enough to have been allowed to read some of the newest and most exciting ghost stories submitted to Corona Books this year. The result being The Corona Book of Ghost Stories.
If you like ghost stories, or know a man/woman/person who does, why not treat them to a copy for Christmas? Books are so easy to wrap! What are you waiting for?
https://getbookat/CoronaGhostStories
If you want to know more why not come and meet me at the UK Ghost Stories Festival in Derby. The festival is on Nov 29th/30th/Dec 1st.
I shall be on the panel helping you to develop your ghost story on Nov 30th and Corona Books will be discussing editing on Dec 1st.
Have you ever wondered about the origins of Halloween?
My daughter has two dogs both of which moult like there’s a serious attack of global warming. She has also borrowed my car quite a bit lately and so the back seat was covered in what I was about to say was loose hair.
the seat, and the blanket that’s supposed to catch it. The dogs tend to runckle that up and get underneath it. It sticks to the carpet and anyone who cares to give them attention. 
She went to sleep in her own bed and just didn’t wake up. She was a little sweetheart and very loving.
One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to decorate as much of my home as possible this year. The provisos to this being;
I also had a dog. Not my dog, who would most likely have been used to me, but my son’s. He was on holiday with his family and the dog was being spoilt at my house.
Walking backwards across the bathroom while gazing at the ceiling as you paint is not the best thing you can do if you, a) don’t want to fall over said dog, b) spill paint everywhere, including on the dog who then runs off daubing other parts of the house with her paint covered coat, c) miss bits of the ceiling in order not to do a) or b).
I’d try again but I have my daughter’s dog at the moment and I’ve already fallen trying to avoid her as I came down the step into the living room.
