Every Tuesday I am copying out a randomly chosen paragraph from my novel The Blue Handbag, so you can get to know Leonard and all the others. This week Leonard is slightly the worse for wear…

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Leonard meets his dog in the hall on Sunday morning. Pickles enquires politely as to his owner’s state of health with a short ‘yap’. Leonard’s glad to pronounce that the most terrible hangover he’s had for years is almost over. He’d woken up on Saturday morning with a mouth like a dog’s arse, as his mate Charlie would have said. He drank two whole pints of water down straight, which only added to his nausea. He couldn’t remember getting home at all and had to call the pub to make sure his bike was still there. He only vaguely remembered his converation with Charlie – did he cry in front of him? He remembers telling him about Lily, and he thinks that Charlie told him to leave it alone. He’s probably right. He eats a hearty fry-up, and after washing-up the breakfast things he sets off on an extra long walk with Pickles to make up for the lack yesterday.

Every Tuesday I am copying out a randomly chosen paragraph from my novel The Blue Handbag, so you can get to know Leonard and all the others. This week Leonard is worrying about his grown-up daughter, Raine.

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Leonard guesses that the same thing is happening to Raine. Her life is ‘too busy’ because she needs it to be. How can you help someone like that? Leonard can hear Charlie telling him the answer. You can’t help them. Not until they’re ready to hear it, not until they’re ready to listen to themselves. It’s infuriating. All you can do is wait on the side-lines, ready to catch them if and when they fall. If they want you to catch them, that is. If only it were as easy as that teenager in Catcher in the Rye, who dreamed of standing in tall rye grass at the edge of a cliff and catching children when they strayed too close to the edge. Sometimes it’s too painful to be caught – it’s easier to run off the cliff. He can imagine the little children swerving away from him as he tries to grab them, their faces calm and determined. He imagines catching one every so often and holding it, squealing, in his arms, and not being sure what to do with it next. How long can you hold on to someone before you let them go again to carry on heading where they’re heading? What can you whisper in their ears to make them change their minds?

Every Tuesday I am copying out a randomly chosen paragraph from my novel The Blue Handbag, so you can get to know Leonard and all the others. This week we join Leonard reading a bed time story to his grandchildren, Buddy and Rory, at his daughter Raine’s house.

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The story is about a great big raggedy ginger tom called Chester. Leonard’s only read it once or twice, but it’s a firm current favourite with the boys. Raine has told him that Chester often caterwauls through the streets of her dreams. Tonight the twins are fidgeting like jumping beans when he starts reading, so he rolls right through to the end and starts again at the beginning, making his voice softer and softer as he goes. This seems to do the trick, and by three quarters of the way through they’re both making little snuffling noises and Rory’s thumb is drooping away from his mouth. He sits quietly for a while and enjoys the peace of watching them sleep – their juicy looking cheeks, their mussed up thistle-down hair, the trains on their identical pyjamas. Their little fingers smell of candy-floss – he could eat them up.

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(To read on: Amazon UK or The Book Depository with free worldwide delivery or Snowbooks)

Every Tuesday I am copying out a randomly chosen paragraph from my novel The Blue Handbag, so you can get to know Leonard, his dog Pickles and all the others. This week’s little snippet is taken from a scene where Leonard visits his mate Charlie in his greenhouse after some particularly disturbing news…
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Charlie finishes the pricking out and clears away the left-over pots and compost. Leonard sips his tea gratefully. He lets the liquid warm him from the inside, and the concentrated sunlight warm him from the outside. He looks at the hairs on his bare shins and wonders what his legs would look like if he shaved it all off. They sit for ten minutes or more, the silence broken only by the sound of Charlie seeing to his tomatoes. He carefully measures out the tomato feed into a battered-looking metal watering can and fills it to the brim with water. He tips it onto the soil around the base of the plants, the rose of the can dividing the water into thin sparkling threads. When he’s finished watering, he starts removing any yellowed leaves he finds and pinching out the tips.

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(To read on: Amazon UK or The Book Depository with free worldwide delivery or Snowbooks)

Something new. Every Tuesday I will copy out a paragraph from my novel The Blue Handbag, as I would like you to get to know my character Leonard and his dog Pickles. I’ll just open the book at random and see what I can find. Here we join Leonard (who’s a gardener for a National Trust property) as he goes on his usual morning stroll around his domain.

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He leaves the walled garden to walk along the furthest perimeter of the estate. It backs onto farmland, and he likes to stop at the gate, where he and the cows can get close to each other. He usually rips them up some long, luscious grass as a breakfast treat, and lets them in on the latest goings-on in the mess-room. Today they decline to come over when he calls to them with a mixture of whistles and whoops that usually works a treat. They turn their detached gaze on him for a few seconds before continuing to crop the grass as close to the earth as they can. He wonders if they notice when they get an occasional mouthful of damp, bitter soil. Maybe they’re too practised for that. He shouts cheerfully at them that he’ll see them tomorrow, so they’ll know that he won’t hold their disinterest against them.

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(To read on: Amazon UK or The Book Depository with free worldwide delivery or Snowbooks)