UK Referendum, Anthologies, and Summer Storms, by Enid Richemont

It would be hard to ignore today's results from the UK's Referendum. Like most people I know, I'd assumed we would (and had voted for) 'Remain', but came down this morning to the news that the Farage tribe had succeeded. We now seem to be in bed with some very unlovely people - 'Approved by Trump' is not a sticker I'd want to flaunt, and as for Marine le Pen... I've just signed a petition to request a second referendum, which is gathering pace - apparently some of the people who voted Out are now regretting it. There's also a feeling that the Brexit team didn't ever expect to win this one, so making unrealistic claims was OK as they'd never be called on to implement them. My husband, David, used to say that there's an old Chinese curse: 'May You Live In Interesting Times'. Well, unfortunately, we do, we do.

'Another Flash in the Pen' came out recently. I'd already pre-ordered it, but forgotten, so its arrival came as a delightful surprise (oh, and if you haven't already grabbed it at its current bargain price, do so quickly, because it's a treat.) I love short story anthologies - they're like opening an exotic box of chocolates, each one with a different flavour and texture - yum! At present I'm hovering and picking, in no specific order, so I started at the end, with Nicky Browne's tongue-in-cheek 'The Sisterhood Of The Unseen', and then moved backwards into Susan Price's 'This Is Hell'. Later, I jumped into 'Mussolini's Hat', by Kathleen Jones, of whose work I never tire, and there are more treats to come. I think this is Authors Electric's best anthology yet.

It's been a very long, and often tedious, journey, but it does seem as if my first children's book: The Time Tree, might have finally earned itself a proper film contract (WATCH THIS SPACE), with legal papers etc to be signed in September, and work scheduled to begin in Spring 2017, but I will still believe it when I see it. So many authors have had film contracts dangled in front of them like fairy carrots, only to see them vanish, as objects from Fairyland have a tendency to do, but this one, at last, feels real. How the world has changed, though, since I dreamed up this story - for just one thing, the research my two young protagonists do would now take place online, although physical books might still come into it. Stories are still stories, though, and that doesn't change.

Thunderstorms have vandalised our little local fete, and I weep for all those small traders who turned up this morning and set up their stalls. Somehow, this situation feels classically British ( or maybe it was all those pesky foreigners who caused the weather in the first place...) There's an interesting article in the current edition of The Author about writing and the weather - it seems academics prefer working through the summer months, although there are practical reasons for this, too. I find dark evenings and bad weather more conducive to creative thought. Sunshine keeps nagging me to come outside and smell the roses.

Lastly, and at the risk of being labelled a dream bore, I had a curious one during which, already inside a dream situation, I fell asleep, dreamt and woke up - so a dream within a dream. I'm still trying to get my head around it.