On 28th June we were at the Harper Collin’s Party at Kensington Palace well ahead of those wonderful Olympics and a great time was had by all and but Denis and I stayed a extra day because we wanted to see Billy Eliot and we did and it was just terrific. Sadly in early July, we had to put our old dog, Patches to sleep for she was dying with liver disease and had begun to suffer. We still miss her a great deal, but later that month we bought another collie pup we call Megan, who has kept us on our toes, but also has given us many laughs. She’s a smashing little dog and totally different to Patches, which is great because we wanted no replacement. Megan has her own character, but she is just as bright and eager to please and confident where Patches was nervous and we love her to bits The summer was dire weather wise. This is a picture of Conwy Mountains in the mist and it was seen like that on quite a number of occasions. The families came for a week each and we enjoyed each other’s company, though we battled with the weather taking advantage of any drier warmer days. I also saw a great deal of Catrin, but the wet, cold and wind did mean that I could get my head down to work without being, tempted outside with the sun shining on the hills or making the sea sparkle. Denis had good news in his cancer check in early October for he not only is he cancer free but he is also hasn’t to see the specialist for twelve months and in the middle of this he has been invited to be a governor at the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital when he had all his surgery. I am pleased for him because he not only loves things like this, and his band has been n the doldrums for a while as the fiddler has moved abroad for work, which was a bit of a blow. However, they are seeing a new fiddler in the New Year so things may pick up again. After Denis’s check up, on the advice of the publicist, we went to a couple of the events at the Birmingham Literary Festival in October taking in the Launch Party and also to a Readers’ Afternoon. We were not home long either because we had booked to go to Malta as we felt that we had just scratched the surface in our previous trip in March. We had a wonderful week and the weather was perfect warm and sunny without being too hot and I even got to swim in the sea, a thing I hadn’t done in years. November 13th was Briony’s 21st birthday. We weren’t able to see her then, because she was working, but we all sent charms for the Pandora bracelet her parents bought and the real celebration will be in February when the whole family are travelling to Manchester to see ‘ The Lion King’which is what she wanted. Just after this I went to the Tool Kit event in Birmingham that I had been invited to attend by the organisers of the October Literary Festival. From there I went on to London to have a massive dinner with my agent and all the girls she represents at the New Cavendish Club and on to the RNA a party the following day. The picture shows me the RNA do with people from Harper Collins. I arrived back on Denis’s 65th birthday, but though we had a family dinner with Beth and Tamsin we didn’t really celebrate till Saturday when we went out with friends. Harper Collins had another treat in store though because for the first time they held a Winter Party for their writers to meet the entire fiction team in the loft room of the Ivy Club. I had only been home for six days from London, but it was well worth going back. It was amazing to connect with so many people. Two musicians one playing bass and one piano played ‘If You Were The Only Girl” for me, which is the title of my new book and they played it over and over till everyone was singing. It was absolutely great. So what of the future? Well, ‘If You Were The Girl’ is out on 17th Jan and the publishers have promotion lined up for the following week. Find the list below and then I have a story coming out in My Weekly on 26th January called ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and another story called ‘Brown Eyed Beauty’ coming out in the Spring bumper edition of People’s Friend in February and probably I am doing something in March in the Birmingham Book Festival they have in the spring. These are the library events they have planned for me and would be pleased to see any of you who could make it to one of the talks. Harper Collins had also bought the four books I wrote for Headline way back at the start of my writing career that have now been out of print for some years. They are going to re-issue them all, after in depth editing with new covers and possibly new titles and this will ensure that for the next 4 years, I will be releasing a book every six months, one new one that I have written fresh and one older one that has had a severe make over. This is very good news for me. Looking back over this it looks as if my life is one long line of junketing, but in reality most of my days are spent in my study on my own, though my dog and I have a good walk every morning. I also look after Catrin one day in the week and once a month I meet with, the Novelistas. I hate missing one of their meetings because it is lovely to talk to people who really understand the writing process and we help and encourage each other. We have a blog you can access, http:novelistasink.blogspot.co.uk to find out what we are all up to, though many of the photos of our meetings are posted on Facebook. There is a Christmas story up now that we have all helped write. You can also find me on Twitter, the Historical Saga site, access through Novelistas, Birmingham History Forum, She Writes and Good Reads, not to mention my web site,www.annebennett.co.uk and I would love it if you were to make contact and please let me know if you want to receive a quarterly newsletter and I will add you to my fan list. As for the rest of the family they are fine. Briony must make up her mind by April whether she wants to carry on with her training or not, while Kynan, who had had really good mock GSSE results is knuckling down to serious revision for the real exams, Jake too is doing well and so is Theo who settled well into his new school. Simon and Carol were badly hit by the recession, but now the contracts have started coming in again and we are looking forward to seeing them for Christmas. Tamsin, Mark and Catrin are all down for Christmas too so there will be ten of us for dinner, with Nikki and family coming for New Year. And that’s it. I could go on forever but here endeth the epistle of Anne Bennett. I hope you all have a really great Christmas and I wish you and yours health and happiness in the future. Lots of love – Anne