Autumnal Excitement

V.v. excited about so many things!

PARTY DISASTER
My latest Jess Jordan adventure, Party Disaster, is available but should not be read by parents of a nervous disposition. If you could in any way be described as young, though, you have my permission to read it and, at the appropriate stage, scream aloud into your fists! (No vampires, obviously, this is real life horror of the everyday sort).

GLOOMSBURY
For youngsters under the age of ninety-five, there's my new six-part Radio 4 comedy series, 'Gloomsbury: a Rhapsody about Bohemians' which takes to the airwaves on Friday September 28th at 11.30am. Marvellous cast including Miriam Margolyes as Vera Sackcloth-Vest, Alison Steadman as the neurasthenic novelist Ginny Fox, with Nigel Planer and Jonathan Coy as their strange husbands. Vera's Sapphic squeeze Venus Traduces is played by Morwenna Banks and there is a guest appearance by John Sessions as D.H.Lollipop. Don't forget to tune in on Fridays.

VIRTUAL SCHOOL VISITS
I'm launching a programme of virtual school visits via Skype. Up till now I've confined my school visits to places reachable by British Rail, but now if your school is in the teeming cities of Asia, the scorching deserts of Australia or even the frozen wastes of Yorkshire, we can talk via Skype at a time organised by your English teacher. Just whizz me an email and we can organise it. Can't wait!

Nevis

Nevis is St Kitts's sister island: smaller, darker, quieter, more atmospheric. St Kitts is breezy, noisy, edgy, energetic. It's 1st February and I wish you all a happy one. February is an under-rated month. My daughter was born in it. But February here: wind, rain, lashings of it, sun, dazzling, then wind and rain again. The rain mostly happens at night , thrashing down on a tin roof. We are staying at the Hermitage, an earthly paradise, the oldest wooden house in the western hemisphere (allegedly). We are discussing the possibility of holding a literary festival here, so punters could discuss historical novels and such whilst sipping Pina Coladas. I can't cope with Pina so my Coladas are all Virgin (ie non-alcoholic). Any writer, or wannabe writer, who is interested, please get in touch.

I am now going to try and video the leaves of the towering Royal Palms streaming in the wind. The kingbird sits and twitters from the highest tips. With such twittering available, I have tweeted little in the past few days.

I have eaten far too much rich food and now want nothing but crackers and soda-water, like Byron dieting. It worked! - He was five feet eight and a half, and started off a porky fourteen stone, but after the furious dieting got down to eleven stone and become Pale and Interesting. I am re-reading Benita Eisler's biography of Byron and it couldn't be more fascinating. He seems to have been an absolute swine about ten per cent of the time - for the rest, he was adorable. If there is an afterlife, I wonder if you're allowed to pester celebs from past eras? There will certainly be a long queue for his cloud.

Postcard from St Kitts

Sorry to have to report to anybody reading this in a northern January, but I am sitting among palm trees and watching pelicans fly up and down the beach. At least I have a stiff neck, a twisted ankle and a gippy tummy to mitigate all this delight - although goodness knows, the same would probably be true were I at home in Blighty.

From time to time I think about my new project Gloomsbury and am excited about the v.v.distinguished actors who have expressed interest. (No, not telling who! Secret - for the time being.)

Most of the time I stare into the casuarina tree and listen to the crashing surf.

Before coming to St Kitts we visited Montserrat - we flew there from Antigua in a v.v.tiny plane - I had seen bigger ones in Hamley's. Montserrat's volcano was still smouldering away, but one hopes it will quieten down now. The habitable northern bit of Montserrat is one of the most delightful, beautiful, dark, shady, adorable places I have ever visited. The local feral mammal is the Agouti, blessed with a large bum and thin extremities - so of course I identified with it. Here in St Kitts we have monkeys, which sounds delightful but, like Homo Sapiens, they are a source of destruction and damage, ripping ripe mangos off the trees, taking one bite and then chucking the rest on the floor.

I have no idea what is going on in England, which I suppose is the point of holidays, but I do hope it is still there.

The latest Jess Jordan adventure

The latest Jess Jordan adventure Chocolate SOS was published in the UK on 5th January. I have also been commissioned by Radio 4 to write a six-part comedy series called Gloomsbury based on the lives and loves of the Bloomsbury Group.