Now that I am finally back from my world travels it’s time to crank up the laptop, clean up the mess, and get back to blogging and writing.

This week, as I drove up and down to work in a heatwave that would make hell look like Siberia, fighting my way through traffic jams  I swore I would never complain about ever again after recently driving in the UK, (I lied. I still complain, but only because no one should endure traffic chaos caused by the closure of roads to allow, what my son calls, a glorified taxi race) I turned my mind to my continual adoption of a craze after everyone has moved on to something new.

I’m not big on following the crowd, and no matter how long something has been out of fashion there is no guarantee I will suddenly decide it’s the new thing for me. However, I hear the talk about things and wonder, is that a TV show I would like? A book I could read?

When something becomes a fad I am immediately turned off by it. If a song is the top of the charts I am probably not listening to it, although I may decide to buy it later on because it’s a great tune. Is a band big right now? Then I’m not interested. Is their popularity waning? Then I’m probably buying up everything they’ve ever recorded.

The same with books. If everyone is buying it then I’m not, and there are some I will never read no matter how many movies, TV shows, etc they make about it, just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good, or worth reading. Running with the crowd is not my thing.  I am anti fashion, but I don’t mean to be. I live life at my own pace. New technology is only any good if it makes my life easier at a price I will pay. I don’t have an ianything, and I have no desire to have an ianything. My mobile phone is not the latest generation, neither is my tablet PC or my netbook.  My car doesn’t do bluetooth, and the colour and style show it to be from another decade, but it carries me from A to B in relative comfort.  It does what is required of it.

People at work blather on about the latest episodes of I’m  A Celebrity Get Me out of Here, or The X Factor, or Big Brother (I can’t believe they are still making that) and I have nothing to add to the conversation. They are not shows I watch, or have ever watched. I can’t imagine I will ever become a big fan of reality TV, but there are some things out there that have come and gone and are now showing as re-runs that I have started watching.

There is some joy in waiting and being a late adopter to cultural phenomenon. Why watch one episode a week of a TV show, and then after the series ends wait months and months to find out what happens, when you can wait a few years to begin watching it and see every episode that has ever been made back to back for hour after hour? The same with books. If you read book one in a series and love it then you have to wait, sometimes for a year or more, to get your hands on book two.

So, what have I started watching and reading that has me lagging behind the crowd?  Downton Abbey. I love all things English history. A great holiday involves moldering ruins, old houses with servants quarters and reading headstones in ancient churchyards. Easy to see why Downton appeals then. I watched the first episode a few weeks ago, fell in love with Maggie Smith, and was hooked.

My latest book series was discovered purely by accident. My husband loves a bargain so he bought a book on super sale at the local book store some months ago. He read the first few pages and told me it made no sense.  In our quest to rearrange our home to accommodate a returning wayward child to the family fold, the book came to light. An email discussion with a critique partner, after I had beta read her latest time travel novel, included mention of the author of the mystery book. Further investigation revealed that my husband had bought book seven in the series.  No wonder he was confused.  So, now I had book seven, and knew it was a time travel series, I was intrigued and bought book one. Currently I am devouring book two.   So what am I reading? The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Not only do I love the series but I love the fact that my husband is my very own Jamie Fraser, a true Scotsman whose family name shows him to be a member of clan Fraser.

Are you an early or late adopter of technology and cultural phenomenon?

And for those who are early adopters of everything and have read book one in my Daisy Dunlop Series, brace yourselves, book two is not far away. My editor is polishing it up ready to be formatted and unleashed on the unsuspecting reading public in late March or early April.