A Christmas Card to all my lovely friends - you are also allowed to read if you don't consider yourself either lovely nor a friend. Although, if you are an evil harpy, bent on world domination, please skip this page...

Come in, come in, pour yourself a glass of egg-nog.  Well, I call it egg-nog, even though we ran out of eggs, and I'm not entirely sure what 'nog' is, so I didn't put any in, so it's mostly water with a bit of yellow food-colouring in.  But pour yourself one, anyhow.  There's probably a slice of Christmas cake somewhere too, if you want to help yourself but...well, if there's any teeth marks in it, I should pass, if you know what I mean.

Anyhow.  I have gathered you all here today in order to raise a glass and toast you all with a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...oh, whoops, sorry, don't worry, it's mostly water and the food-colouring will wash out eventually.  This has been a most auspicious year for yours truly, with awards and events and things happening all over the place, although I have been a little quiet on the SHOUTY front for the last few weeks, what with trying to get some actual work done, plus all the preparations for a family Christmas and the day job and everything, so if I have missed out on congratulating you on a personal triumph then I am very sorry and I shall raise another glass to you later. Without spilling any this time.  But you have probably used this period of uncharacteristic quietness on my part to remove your earplugs, breathe a sigh of relief and get on with normal life without having to worry about me suddenly SPRINGING UP and yelling at you.

I have been working on the follow up to Vampire State of Mind (currently entitled Love Like Blood, but that's just its working title, it's probably going to end up called something like Five Little Ducks Go Shopping, or something, because I'm rubbish at titles).  It's full of trouble, zombies, family arguments, and there's one or two sexy vampires thrown in to the mix just to add a bit of je ne sais quois in the bloodsucky department.  Sil's in trouble, Jess is under stress, Zan is being unexpectedly nice - and Liam has bought an inflatable Cyberman suit.

I'm also working on my Astrophysicist book, about a really accident prone astrophysicist, his best friend who is, inexplicably called Link, a slightly traumatised young woman with a horse called Stan, and local folktales.

So, that's what I'm up to.  But, for now, I'm busy wrapping, peeling, cooking, propping up the cards that keep falling over in the draught, cleaning out hens, dispossessing many, many spiders of ancestral webs, scraping stuff off every surface, as, I suspect, are most of you.  So it only remains for me to wish you all

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

See you on the other side....