Birthdays bring delights. Old friends have gone to enormous trouble to buy and send cards, which crowd the mantelpiece and make me smile. Old friends and new remember my penchant for chocolate and bring me fresh supplies . . . which in this hot weather I keep in the fridge. Wonderful!

Birthdays also bring impenetrable cellophane wrappings. The original slot for opening the package doesn’t seem to work any longer, and there now is no visible means of entry. You try running your fingernail along the sides. You fetch scissors. You search for a serrated knife and after a gigantic tussle, the cellophane obligingly splits and drifts to the floor under a chair where you can’t reach it.

I am beginning to think there is a conspiracy among manufacturers to make it difficult to open their product. Did I succeed with my birthday bars of chocolate? Of course. Eventually. And yes, the selection of goodies was the best ever.

                                                               Progress Report

I have managed to crawl through to the end of the first draft of the next book – MURDER WITH ROMANCE. I have even managed to get the word count to something near enough the intended target. I am still thinking of odd things to go in here and there, a neater way to describe what happened to this character, or what Ellie ought to have said to that. On these occasions I dart back into the manuscript and try to work out whether my latest idea fits in or not. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. And now I must leave the story aside for at least a week so that I come to it afresh when I go through it again. And again. Delivery in the autumn some time.

                                  The next short story is . . .

I think the only suitable short stories you haven’t had yet are a couple written for Christmas. Now I don’t know how you feel about that, but I refer not to read things out of season. So how about giving you a teaser for the latest book published, which is a Bea Abbot called FALSE RELATION? You can read a teaser for it here.

                                        The kindness of strangers

A special blessing this week on strangers who come to my rescue when I’m faced with a really old and heavy door into a shop, or pick up my stick for me when it slips out of my grasp. How kind people are! When I was young I had no idea what difficulties lie in wait for older people. And now, I am really appreciating the kindness of strangers.

 Veronica Heley