The holiday was great - the weather was kind and I loved it. The only slight problem was that for some reason I was sick as a dog the first night so was up for most of it. Unfamiliar bathrooms are never pleasant when you're ill. Still, at least I got a lot of the puzzles in my Puzzler magazine done. How I love puzzles.

We also managed to see several new birds including a glorious great white egret which was absolutely stunning, twite, Dartford warblers (which we've been chasing for a while) and bearded tits (firsts for this year only). Ooh, and today we popped over to Staines and caught a brief glimpse of the brown shrike currently staying there, so that was fun. Less fun was the appalling amounts of mud there is all over the place - thank the Lord for Wellington boots, eh ...

Quirky thing of the week: Lord H was reading through the latest copy of one of the birding magazines, who are having a big focus on encouraging sandpipers to breed more effectively. Husband is therefore now musing on what, exactly, sandpiper porn might be. Best not to go there really.

And on my return, I see that my short story, Speaking Her Mind, has been accepted for publication by the Chick Lit Review, and new e-publisher, Untreed Reads, is very interested in my literary short, How to Eat Fruit. So that all looks hopeful. Less hopeful is I've had my first rejection for the much-revised version of The Hit List, from a publisher who says my hero Jamie isn't terribly nice at the start. Well, he's a hell of a lot nicer than he was in the original, I can tell you, and with the amount of personal stress he's under at the beginning, I'm rather surprised he hasn't lost his temper with a lot more people, really. Is it just me or are GLBT heroes getting way too wimpy for words these days?? Anyone who'd like a kick-ass but basically kind-hearted GLBT hero with balls (as it were), please apply here. In the meantime, I've submitted it to a couple of other places, and we wait and see.

Anne