In this annual race commemorating a popular Hastings fisherman, competitors ride a delivery bike up steep Crown Lane. A ten-bob note on the saddle makes sure that they cannot stand on the pedals!

Massive gap since my last post: we have been frantically busy selling our house and moving to the seaside town of Hastings, East Sussex. We finally made it, about three weeks ago, arriving in the middle of Old Town Week (see picture at right.)

Old Town Week is a frantic celebration of all things Hastings, with races, parades, concerts, comedy, music, and countless other events, all in aid of charity. It was a wonderful introduction to our new home town.

We are in a temporary house up the hill from the Old Town, and I am writing in a spare bedroom. It’s a lovely, light room, but doesn’t compare with the brilliant study I used to work in up the garden at our previous house:

Almost all of the books are in storage now,  and I am facing a dreadful writer’s dilemma. We are trying to buy a small, 15th-century, timber-framed house in Hastings Old Town. I knew I would not be able to have all my books out on shelves, but I had planned to store at least half of them in the loft. There are a lot. 84 boxes, in fact, and they weigh nearly three tonnes.

We had a survey this week and when I asked the surveor about my plans for the books, he scratched his head and looked worried. “You might need to add some new timbers if you do that…” he said, “…the death-watch beetle has chewed away so much of the house that the weight of your books might well bring the ceiling down.”

Haven’t yet decided quite what to do, but I make end up having a very big book sale!