December was something of a blur – the first half of the month I was re-starting my Pilates and Fitstep classes and getting used to being out and about, again. I was also still in close touch with my daughter and her family, as we are part of her support bubble.
As usual, I was slightly behind and disorganised with my Christmas preparations – but that wasn’t a particular problem, I reasoned, as we were going to have a very quiet day with just Himself, me and my sister… Until the new measures that came in a handful of days before Christmas wiped out my daughter and the children’s Christmas plans – they were no longer able to go and stay with their other grandparents for a short mini-break. So I suggested that they come to us for the day. And was then rushing around to ensure we made it as enjoyable a day as possible, given particularly awful year they’ve had, with COVID just making a horrible situation a whole lot worse.
Christmas Day went off well – and then we were lucky enough to have all three children stay over for a couple of nights, which was full-on, given it was the first time two-year-old Eliza had ever stayed with us. But that was a success, with her remaining happy throughout.
Reading
I read sixteen books in December, with more wonderful reads qualitywise. My Outstanding Book of the Month was Lamentation – Book 6 of the Matthew Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom and my Outstanding Audiobook of the Month was A Quiet Life in the Country – Book 1 of the Lady Hardcastle series by T.E. Kinsey.
My reads during December were:
AUDIOBOOK Machine – Book 2 of the White Space series by Elizabeth Bear. Review to follow.
Forged – Book 11 of the Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka. See my review.
Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. Review to follow.
Lamentation – Book 6 of the Matthew Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom – Outstanding book of the month. Review to follow.
Mistaken Identity Crisis – Book 4 of the Braxton Campus Mysteries by James. J. Cudney. Review to follow.
AUDIOBOOK Mark of Athena – Book 3 of the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. Review to follow.
Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders: A Dominion of the Fallen Novella by Aliette de Bodard. Review to follow.
Scardown – Book 2 of the Jenny Casey series by Elizabeth Bear. Mini-review to follow.
AUDIOBOOK A Quiet Life in the Country – Book 1 of the Lady Hardcastle series by T.E. Kinsey – Outstanding audiobook of the month. Review to follow.
Inherit the Shoes – Book 1 of A Jersey Girl Legal Mystery series by E.J. Copperman. See my review.
The Woman in Blue – Book 8 of the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. Min-review to follow.
Bear Head – Book 2 of the Dogs of War series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. See my review.
Outstanding read of the month 
Outstanding audiobook of the month
Guilt at the Garage – Book 20 of The Fethering Mysteries by Simon Brett. Review to follow.
AUDIOBOOK In the Market for Murder – Book 2 of the Lady Hardcastle mysteries by T.E. Kinsey. Mini-review to follow.
Doors of Sleep by Tim Pratt. Review to follow.
Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley. Review to follow.
Writing and Editing
Given everything else that was going on – you won’t be surprised to learn that my work on Trouble with Dwarves, which is the second book in my Picky Eaters trilogy, featuring grumpy old dragon, Castellan, slowed down somewhat, though I’m happy with what I managed to achieve. I also completed a couple of editing projects for other folks, as well as continuing to work on my father-in-law’s project of writing his memoirs.
Overall, I wrote just under 30,000 words in December, with just under 14,500 on the blog, and just under 13,5,000 on my writing projects. This brings my final yearly wordcount to date to just over 506,000 words. I’m very happy with that – it’s been quite a long time since I was able to break the half-a-million word barrier for the year, and just goes to show how much my teaching duties had impacted my creativity.
Blogging
It was a frustrating month. I’d begun to really get back into the swing of my blogging rhythm – and then the last-minute flurry around Christmas, as well as some really miserable family stuff, and I went AWOL again. Apologies for the delay in replying and not visiting as much as I should! With everything going on right now, my blogging is going to be a bit hit and miss for a while. In the meantime, I very much hope you are all able to continue to stay safe, while waiting for your vaccination. Take care.x
Brainfluff 