I originally intended on starting this post by wishing you a Happy New Year which would have been appropriate because I’d intended to write it during the first week in January. However, time has not been on my side and I’ve been frantically beavering away on my edits for Summer Nights at The Starfish Café with no time to write a blog post.
The second round of edits went off to my editor this morning and I’m busy trying to catch up on a million things I’ve missed … including this blog post. So I’ll start it instead by saying I hope the New Year is treating you well so far.
I don’t know about you but I’m not a fan of New Year. I think I had too many anti-climax nights out on New Year’s Eve when I was in my late teens and twenties and it has jaded me somewhat. I’ve also had some good New Years, but most of them haven’t turned out as hoped. I therefore haven’t been out for NYE for a very long time – can’t actually remember the last time – and I am usually in bed before midnight.
For many years now, I’ve found myself struggling with that period between Christmas and New Year, and the end of 2021/start of 2022 was the worst ever. The threat of another lockdown (which never happened) didn’t help but, even without that, I would have felt down. I can’t fully pinpoint why but I think it’s that feeling that I should take time out but, really, I’d rather be working. I’m also very mindful of the NY resolutions I’ve never kept (losing weight and getting fit, I’m looking at you!) and that brings me down too.
So, after a sombre NY a year ago, hubby and I decided to do something different and go away for a week after Christmas, meaning we’d be away over NY. It didn’t mean we’d physically go out and celebrate NYE – still anticipated being in bed before midnight – but we thought the change of scenery might be a good plan. So we booked a week in our spiritual home of Keswick and it did us the world of good.
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know how much I love Keswick and that it’s the area is where I’m going to be setting a brand new series starting in the summer this year. I’ll be writing my first chapters on Wednesday and I’m so excited to get going.
The weather wasn’t particularly kind to us with rain most of the time but, hey, it’s the Lakes and they wouldn’t be what they are without the rain. Sadly, the companies making outdoor clothing seem to think that women bigger than size 18 don’t walk and it’s pretty much impossible to get hold of decent waterproof walking gear in my size (bigger than 18) so being out and about in the rain and cold is a challenge and it meant we couldn’t venture too far. So, a huge shout out to those companies – bigger sizes please!!!!
Keswick looked beautiful with the Christmas lights on, although my photos (in the rain) really don’t do it justice…
There’d been so much rainfall recently that Derwent Water had risen significantly, covering many of the wooden jetties. There was a flood warning and some of the campsites on the lake edge had an evacuation order in place for the caravans and lodges closest to the lake.
If you look at the pics below, you can see the jetty is flooded. And check out that tyre and swing – wouldn’t want to play on those!
Our holiday cottage (one of the white ones in the second image) was in a great location, five minutes’ walk to the bottom of town. It overlooked Fitz Park where the river was looking particularly swollen.
While our daughter stayed in the holiday cottage one day to do some revision (she’s doing her GCSEs this year), hubby and I had a walk to the area that is providing the main inspiration for my Lakes series … but I’ll hold off on showing any photos of that area for now as I want to save them for when I launch the series.
We wandered down to the water’s edge again and it was very different to when we’d visited over Easter. I’ve included photos of the same view (roughly) the first with the blue sky taken at Easter and the overcast one over New Year. Still stunning, though, in both types of weather! In the fourth photo below, the mountain beyond the pathway is Cat Bells which we had to abandon over Easter when the weather came in but hope to conquer over Easter this year.
On another day, hubby and I went for a walk round the other side of Derwent Water. It absolutely bucketed it down and, by the time we got back to the cottage, every part of me was wet – even my underwear. Nice!
Again, I have a comparison pic. There are a pair of stones called the Millennium Stones. When we visited previously, you could see them fully out of the water. This time, with the lake so high, they were only just peeking out. I’m pointing at the top of them on the photo!
And then, after a cold, wet, overcast week, the sun came out … on the day we were leaving! And what a difference a bit of blue sky makes! It was frosty and really quite beautiful as I took Ella out for a walk in the park. Again, my photos don’t fully do it justice. The peak you can see in the first one is Latrigg (which we did conquer over Easter, although it’s one of the smaller ones) and the snowy-capped one in the second image is (or is near) Skiddaw (not 100 per cent sure which peak is actually Skiddaw but it is in that range).
We didn’t venture far from Keswick during our week – only going out on foot – but we decided to drive home via Bowness-on-Windermere where the weather was even nicer, but still very cold. Loving that change in light towards the end of the day.
While I was away, I had a chance to catch up briefly with one of my friends, the amazingly talented artist Lucy Pittaway. Lucy has a gallery in Keswick which was actually right opposite the bottom of the street we walked down to get to town. She was holidaying in the area too so it was lovely to meet up for a couple of drinks. It never enters my head to take a photo of us together until after we part company, so here’s a picture of Lucy’s gallery instead. If you’re not familiar with Lucy’s work, do check out her website here.
Would I advocate going away over New Year? Absolutely yes. So much so that we’ve already booked to do the same this year, although a different location.
My one learning was that I shouldn’t go aiming to work. I took my first round of edits with me and, using the rain as an excuse, spent way too much time in front of my laptop trying to work on them. I got very little done for the amount of hours attempted. I need to use time away as a break and, if I do need to do some work, it either needs to be writing a first draft or doing the final read-through where limited brain power is required.
Hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the photos
Big hugs
Jessica xx
One of my northern writing heroes is Catherine Cookson. What a writer! Born into extreme poverty in Tyneside, Cookson channelled her experiences into over 100 books. My mum has read all her books and I have probably read about a quarter to a third of them, borrowing from my mum’s collection in my teens and early 20s. My favourites include the Tilly Trotter series, The Dwelling Place and A Dinner of Herbs. I would certainly cite Catherine Cookson as an early inspiration for me becoming an author as, along with Virginia Andrews, she was the first author of adult books I read prolifically. They both taught me what a page-turner was. You can find Catherine Cookson’s author page on Amazon 
Yorkshire-based Sharon Booth writes stories that include “love, laughter and happy ever after” and they’re simply gorgeous. I’ve read and loved every single one. With Yorkshire settings inspired by the Dales, Robin Hood’s Bay and Knaresborough, you can find her Amazon author page 
Helen Phifer is based in Cumbria and writes crime and horror books. I absolutely love her Annie Graham series which are crime with a supernatural/horror book but her pure crime are superb too. On Amazon, you can find Helen’s author page 
Alys West is also Yorkshire-based and she has a couple of different genres in her writing toolkit with contemporary fantasy and steampunk. Both are genres I’d never explored before but Aly’s work is fabulous and I’m a convert! Alys’s author page can be found 
On 19th July, I was excited to reveal the cover for my new book, The Secret to Happiness, as part of me being Boldwood’s Author of the Day. The novel will be released on 3rd September but is available for pre-order on Kindle, for the bargain price of £1, right 
My good friend, author Sharon Booth, came through to Scarborough for a day and we loitered with intent in a couple of different coffee shops, having a good old writerly chat, which is always a fabulous way to while away the hours. We came to a difficult decision, though, to cease being ‘The Yorkshire Rose Writers’. Last year, we joined forces under this brand as we both live in Yorkshire, write about Yorkshire, and love Yorkshire. We thought this would be a great way to promote Sharon to my readers and vice versa, as well as have a stronger online presence. We put a huge time commitment in to blog, tweet, insta (is that a word?) and update content on the Facebook page, especially Sharon who is much better at these things than me, but we found it didn’t engage with any new readers as hoped. We also decided that, whilst we love Yorkshire, this is not our brand; our brand is us as individuals and as friends together. We therefore have a new idea that is in early stages of development but will be a little different. The blog has been deactivated and the social media activities have ceased with accounts deactivating shortly. It was short and sweet but these things are always worth a try. We’d probably have continued on Facebook but the imminent changes from pages to groups make us lose the will to live when it comes to that format so bye bye to The Yorkshire Rose Writers and thank you to those who did support our little venture.
Outside of writing, I had a short break in The Lake District with hubby, daughter and Ella, our Sprocker Spaniel. It didn’t go as planned. I managed to break my tooth about an hour into the journey eating a toffee. Oops! Thankfully it doesn’t hurt as it was a crown that I’ve snapped off a couple of times before … also by eating toffees. You’d think I’d have learned by now! I don’t think the dentist will be able to rebuild it again this time so I’ll see what he suggests next week.
and Robin Hood’s Bay to see the seals. A year or two ago, we did attempt to see the seals but took the wrong path and still ended up on a cliff top with no way down to the beach, so we did the sensible thing and asked this time. The seals were sooooo adorable. The walk is very steep, though, and the journey back up was certainly hard work. I swear I’d shed about two stone in sweat but the scales laughed at me and told me otherwise!
Jessica Redland Author 