Clever girl that she is, Jess passed her driving test! Which means that a) I no longer need to give her lifts everywhere, and b) she can take off and visit her mum any time she feels the urge, which taken in combination mean I’m likely now to have a goodly sum of free time where once I had not much.

“Hooray!” you exclaim. “You can put that free time to good use and entertain us with frequent blogging and silly larks like in the old days!” I could, but I won’t. For now I am a driven man.

Tenish years ago I wrote a novel and sent it to a load of agents and they all rejected it so I wrote another novel and sent it to a load of agents and they all rejected it so I wrote another novel and sent it to a load of agents and they all rejected it so I gave up. I didn’t see much point in carrying on, because, really, who was I kidding? I was destined to spend the rest of my working life trapped in an office, bored out of my mind, just trying to get through the day without doing any actual work (note to any former bosses who may be reading: I did loads of work). Any attempt to escape the rat race was doomed to failure.

…Except I managed it. Not as a writer, but I’m doing very well as a freelance illustrator thankyouverymuch. And now I’ve done it once, my writerly ambitions no longer seem so impossible.

So I wrote another novel and sent it to a load of agents and they all rejected it.

But.

This time I’m being businesslike, and determined, and proactive. I’m taking the same approach that I took to illustrating, which was “This is going to work, I just need to figure out how". This time I’m not giving up.

(Yet.)

So I’m going to continue tweaking Killing Elizabeth, and start planning the sequel, and also start planning a totally different sort of novel as a backup plan in case I don’t get anywhere with this genre. I’ve always thought there was a novel in The Trawler Man.

And also I’m going to network furiously on authonomy.com, which seems a good way of getting noticed by agents and publishers if you can rise sufficiently up the ranks. Incidentally, should you wish to register on that site and add Killing Elizabeth to your bookshelf, I’d be jolly grateful. I only need, oh, a couple of hundred of the twenty or so people who still read my blog to oblige, and I’ll hit the number one spot for sure.

So that’s me busy for the next few years. I promised Sam I’d do an animation for his brilliant audio version of my silly song, god knows when I’ll fit that in. Look out for it in a couple of decades.

I don’t know what the record is for how long someone’s gone without doing a blog, but I’m pretty sure I’ve just broken it. I’m compelled to end my period of non-bloggingness now through my desire not to set the precedent of letting a whole month go by without doing one.

I mean, it’s been more than a month, but an actual physical month hasn’t passed. If you see what I mean.

Anyway.

I’ll start by giving a vague and dissatisfying account of the things that I wanted to tell you about but which have already begun to fade from my memory, then report more comprehensively on last night’s EXCITING ADVENTURE, which mostly involved sitting behind the washing machine.

We had our fourth anniversary! We celebrated with a meal at One19, a fancy restaurant down the road we’d been saving for that very occasion. It was ace - the food was yummy, the atmosphere was perfect, and there was a piano man taking requests. We took down his details, look out for him at our wedding reception. Unless it turns out he’s too expensive for us, which is entirely possible. All in all we had a jolly nice time, and if you’re looking for a nice restaurant in the York area, I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Jess spent the next two days throwing up. We don’t think it was food poisoning.

As if that wasn’t enough romance for one month, it was compounded by Valentine’s Day, which we spent having a day out in London. We went to the Tate Modern and the Natural History Museum and had dinner at another nice restaurant which I would also recommend but I can’t remember what it was called. There’s a poster advertising it in the lift at Covent Garden tube station if that helps.

And we got our photo that Loughborough Photographer Stu took for us. It’s great! I was going to show you it on here, but I’d have to take a photo of the photo and get it onto the computer, and I haven’t been able to find my SD card reader since we moved, so you’ll have to wait for that.

Then last week we got the chinchillas out for a run around. They come out in the kitchen, with bits of cardboard up around the walls to stop them chewing on stuff or slipping into places they shouldn’t be. But that naughty Jerry slipped through a gap and snuck under the washing machine and round the back of the cupboards, where he had a great time running around until he made the mistake of coming out and we grabbed him.

To prevent it happening again, I constructed an Impenetrable Fortress. It debuted last night. No chinchilla could possibly get past my fortress of impenetrability.

Then Jerry snuck through a gap and scurried under the washing machine.

Unfortunately he’d learnt from his previous mistake, and this time refused to come out. He went under at about 11 o’clock, and so began my vigil. There are a couple of holes in the back of the cupboard for access to pipes, but they don’t work so well for accessing chinchillas. What they do allow you to do is poke your mobile phone through and take pictures with the flash on, so you can at least find out where your chinchilla is and make sure he hasn’t chewed through a wire yet and electrocuted himself. I now have about thirty photos on my phone of the gap behind the cupboards, with the occasional chinchilla’s nose peering into the lens. I wouldn’t put any money on my chances of winning the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, but they served their purpose.

By 2 in the morning I was getting desperate. I armed myself with chinchilla treats, pulled out the washing machine, and crawled into the space behind. There I sat for the next half an hour or so, but to no avail. The treats did their job, and Jerry was eating out of my hand, but he knew exactly how close he could get without risk of being grabbed. Eventually I scrambled out from behind the washing machine, and hid on the other side of it with a mop.

The next time he emerged from behind the cupboard, I brought down the mop at high speed with a view to blocking his way back. But he was too quick for me and disappeared.

I thought then that I’d missed my chance - now he knew what I was up to, there was no way he’d come out again. But he did, just a few minutes later, and I rammed the mop down again. This time I managed to get it behind him and tried to nudge him out, but he wasn’t having any of it. So I just slid him along on his bum. But he didn’t like that much either, and jumped over the mop and went into hiding again.

I was certain he wasn’t daft enough to make the same mistake for a third time. He did, but this time I didn’t dare bring my mop down in case it scared him back in again. I didn’t need to - he came all the way out, so I blocked his way with a barricade hastily constructed from cereal boxes, then chased him around the kitchen, and only bashed my head on the wall once before I caught him. It had only taken four hours.

Before we let him out again I’m going to block up the gap at the side of the washing machine. I should probably have thought of that earlier.

Discounting the silly song, it’s a mere 20 days* since last I blogged, but my goodness a lot has happened. The second biggest news is that we had Christmas! You might have had one too. Ours involved bouncing around the country like it was a giant, witch-riding-a-pig-shaped, snow-covered pinball table, and I was expecting the latter of those compound adjectives to thwart at least one of our multifarious plans, but by some miracle, and an unexpectedly heroic performance from my little Mazda Demio, everything went smoothly.

We got presents! I won’t list them all, because we’ve just moved house (I’ll get to that later), and we haven’t worked out how to set the burglar alarm yet, so it would be foolish to advertise our pile of diamond encrusted tiaras on the internet, but I’ll mention the make-your-own-bath-bomb kit I got from my sister, and the Robert E Fuller picture I got for Jess, and the falconry day she got from my family, because they all relate in some way to things I’ve told you about previously. So you can look out for more DIY bath bomb disasters (or maybe even successes) coming soon.

And then we went for our free sitting with everyone’s favourite Leicestershire photographer, which was fun but slightly depressing in that he’s only been doing it for, oh I don’t know, a year and a bit? and he already seems like more of a Proper Photographer than I feel like a Proper Illustrator.

Apparently our picture’s in the post. I’m all excited!

And then we had the Secret Birthday Present Thing I mentioned, which I think everyone assumed was for Jess, but in fact it was for her brothers, being a tour of Old Trafford, home of Manchester United! As a lifelong fan of the beautiful game you can imagine how thrilled I was to stand in the same spot as such footballing greats as Ian Botham, Eddie Edwards and Frank Bruno, and to see first hand the very field in which they’ve performed legendary home runs and match points. Ah, happy memories.

Then Jess turned 21, and has no doubt spent all her time since doing all the things you’re not allowed to do until you’re 21, though I can’t be certain because I don’t really know what they are. And then - and this is the biggest news - we moved house!

The new place is actually an apartment, the house it’s in having been split in two at some point in the past, so we’ve gone from paying £550 a month for a house to paying £625 a month for half a house, which on the face of it doesn’t seem like a very good deal, but it’s such a nice half a house. I like to walk around just looking at it and thinking how nice it is. Though of course at present that involves climbing over boxes.

It also involved climbing over bits of wardrobe. We ordered one from Argos and it came yesterday in a million pieces. Shall I go and try to make it now? I think I will.

* Make that 22 days. I got distracted.

I’ve never seen you looking so freakish with your withered arms,
I’ve never seen such hairy palms.
I’ve never seen so many men ask “Have you escaped from a zoo?
“Are there surgeons that you’re planning to sue? I would if I were you.”
And I never knew that adult diapers
Could be bought that come complete with holes for tails. (It’s like a whale’s.)

The lady in-bred is dancing with me, cheek to nose.
There’s nobody here, they fled I suppose. (Coz you’ve got eleven toes.)
And even if I were to gouge out my eyes,
I’ll never forget the way you look tonight.

I’ve never met a woman whose brother is her father too,
Seen a club foot in a high heel shoe.
I’ve never seen so many people laughing as they point at your face
Or call you a genetic disgrace. You’re like an alien race.
And I’ve never seen an eye so lazy,
Or a skull so oddly shaped and lacking chins. (And are those fins?)

The lady in-bred is dancing with me, cheek to ear.
I never much liked this blind date idea. (Wish I wasn’t here.)
I’ll wake in a sweat, and scream out in fright,
Coz I won’t forget the way you look tonight.
Wish I could forget the way you look tonight.
The lady in-bred,
The lady in-bred,
The lady in-bred,
My lady’s in-bred.

It’s been a busy month since last I put pen to blog.

We had a party! People came! There are pictures, but I don’t have them here, so you’ll just have to trust me. Unless you’re one of the people who came, in which case you can trust your memory. And if you’re not one of the people you came, then frankly you disgust me. Unless I didn’t invite you, in which case, er, sorry.

Amongst the gifts that were bestowed upon us was a photo frame wot’s designed with the intention of people signing it, so young nephew Thomas took it round and got everyone to. Almost everyone. He missed a few. Then all we needed was a good photo to put in it, and as luck would have it a passing Leicestershire photographer offered to add to our pile of gifts with a free sitting. Only metaphorically - he wasn’t proposing that we actually sit on the pile of gifts. They’d have got squashed. So that’s going to be happening shortly, and fans of the aforementioned photographer in Loughborough can look out for the result on this very blog.

Lots of other things are going to be happening shortly too. I reckon the only person who’s got a more hectic Christmas than us looks good in red and rides a sleigh. Tomorrow - and it is tomorrow as I write this, though it will be today by the time I’ve finished - we’re going to Leeds for a three course meal at my sister’s house cooked by a proper chef and everything. I’m imagining the guy from the Muppets, but it might not be like that, though I’ll be disappointed if it isn’t. The next day is Jess’s brothers’ birthday (that wasn’t apostrophe misuse - they’re twins), so we’ll be heading to Lancashire for that. It’s back to my sister’s on Christmas Eve, then back to Jess’s mum’s house on Christmas Day, to her auntie’s on Boxing Day, to Leicesecesester on the 27th, something secret on the 28th that I can’t talk about here because it’s a birthday present for someone who might conceivably read this, and before you know it it will be New Year’s Eve, which happens to also be Jess’s 21st.

With all that going on, arrangements had to be made for the chinchillas, so this afternoon a nice lady came to collect them. Unfortunately their cage wouldn’t fit in her car, so we had to follow her home, and the snow made what should have been a quick trip a much much longer one, and the driving experience much more like bumper cars, though by some miracle without any actual collisions.

And as if all that’s not enough, guess what we’re doing in the new year? Go on, guess. Nope, not even close. We’re moving! “But that’s crazy,” you may be thinking. “Jess finishes her degree in six months, then you’ll be leaving York for adventures elsewhere. What’s the point in relocating now?” Well the thing is that she wants to do an MSc next, which she can’t do at York, but all the places she can do it insist on already having the results of your first degree before you apply, which means she’s got to have a year out. And since we’re happy in York, we figured we might as well spend that year here. But where we live now is out in the middle of nowhere, so we decided to move somewhere closer to the action.

So we looked at a few places and found one we loved and said “We’ll take it!” and put down a deposit. Then we realised we’d misunderstood the terms of our current tenancy, and we’re not actually allowed to leave with a month’s notice like we’d thought, so for a while it seemed we might not after all be able to move to the place we’d fallen in love with. Luckily our current landlady’s doing her best to accommodate us and find a new tenant. We’ll probably end up paying rent twice in January, but given the deposit we’d lose if we backed out, going ahead regardless isn’t as financially reckless as it may appear.

And did I mention that it’s nearly Christmas? You might have already known that. I’m excited!

So I was having a tidy earlier and tossing a load of dirty clothes onto a pile in the bedroom, when I heard a muffled buzzing sound. I didn’t think much of it - I’m deaf in one ear, I get tinnitus - so I continued about my business, picking up my pile of clothes and taking it downstairs, where I dropped it to the floor. And as I did so, THE BIGGEST WASP YOU’VE EVER SEEN jumped out! It was like that one in Doctor Who when he met Agatha Christie! And I’d carried it downstairs in my pile of washing! It could have STUNG ME TO DEATH at any time!

I hurried back upstairs and grabbed the bottle of fly killer. Then I decided this might not be enough to slay such an enormous beast, so I grabbed a bottle of hairspray too. I figured if I couldn’t kill it I could at least give it a great hairdo. Possibly a beehive, a ha ha.

With hairspray coming at it from one direction and fly killer from the other, it didn’t know which way to turn. Eventually it opted for downwards. If you’re in the York area and you noticed a tremor earlier in the evening, it was my wasp hitting the floor.

So now I’ve got a gigantic wasp carcase to deal with. I figure if I carve it up I can dine on wasp steaks for a month.

Jess has always fancied trying her suitably gloved hand at falconry. We were planning a falconry day with the remaining money on the Red Letter Days voucher my sister got us last Christmas after using the bulk for a spot of Rasul, but we were incompetent, and by the time we got round to booking it the voucher had expired, so we didn’t. Another thing Jess likes is local wildlife artist Robert E Fuller, who’s got an exhibition on at the minute, so this afternoon we tootled along to take a look.

In the car park were some people from a falconry centre hawking their wares (do you see what I did there?), and they’d got a few birds in tow to help sell it. We moseyed over to have a look, and the next thing we knew a nice man was asking Jess if she wanted a go. Which of course she did.

And so our trip to look at some paintings was preceded by an unexpected and completely free opportunity for Jess to do something she’s wanted to do for aaaages. And I had the presence of mind to whip my phone out and record the moment for posterity.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.