Well, what a start to the year!

Three weeks ago, Christmas hadn't even happened. Three weeks ago, we hadn't lost Lemmy. Three weeks ago, we hadn't lost one of my heroes, David Bowie.

To say this man made a huge impression on me, both in my teenage years and as a young adult, is one hell of an understatement. I was listening to Bowie and the likes of Deep Purple, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, The Beach Boys et al when everyone else was listening to Vanilla Ice, Bros, Kylie and all that jazz. Bowie made you feel you could be anyone you wanted. He was ground breaking when it came to fashion, style, self expression, and of course, music. His music has no age. It sounds as good now as it did then. He made it seem perfectly fine to listen and enjoy a wide variety of music (which I have done and and which I will always do). Everyone could listen to his music it and enjoy it. There was and is no "genre" to it. So, thank you, Mr Bowie. Thank you so much. "The Stars look very different today."

On a lighter note... How was your Christmas folks? Good? Brilliant? Absolutely amazing? Well, ours was the latter and I can honestly say it's been the best yet. As a result of it being so wonderful, I got a large dose of the post-Christmas blues. I just didn't want it to end.

But end it did and we put 2015 behind us in a style only our family do.

And now, we come right back to the present. Deaths of musical icons aside, so far 2016 has been brilliant and its set to look even better and that is mostly in part thanks to Southcart Book Club, a brand new venture between myself and the awesome owners of Walsall's ONLY independent bookshop, Southcart Books. It starts, officially on Thursday 28th January and then takes place on the last Saturday of each month at the shop. The first Saturday session is on Saturday 30th Jan. The perk of setting up the book club? I am featured/guest author on the aforementioned dates. If you can't get to the book club in person, you can still get involved though. Just look at the pages you can follow:

Southcart Book Club

Twitter: @SouthcartBClub

Instagram: @southcartbookclub

As well as all this going on, I'm still busy typing up book-number-4, 'If You Should Ever Leave Me'. I just can't wait to get this first draft typed up and sent to my proof reader and then get it published. It's screaming at me to get it done because, as is always the case with, I have yet another book/story idea in the pipeline. Sometimes I wish my brain wouldn't come up with new ideas in the most ridiculous times in the morning or at silly times at night, but then I tell myself how silly I am.

So, I'll let you all know how I get on. With everything. In the meantime, I wish you all a happy, healthy, bloody awesome New Year.

Catch ya later