I'm having system problems with my website and can't blog properly at the moment. Please don't desert me! I'm working on a new blogger site and in the meantime, why not follow me on Twitter? @janetokane

Back soon.

. . . is Twitter's a wonderful thing.

It stops you from doing other stuff. Like blogging.

I can’t blame the virus that invaded my computer any more. I’ve hardly blogged since I got my pc back because I’ve been tweeting. It's fun and easy. Perhaps the trick is to restrict myself to 140-character blog entries.

Anyway, to catch up, in the last month I have:

• Reached the penultimate chapter of No Stranger to Death in my first edit. As it contains one of the most important scenes in the whole thing, it’s proving difficult to get as right as I want. (Much like that last sentence! But this is a blog - it doesn't have to be perfect, right?) However, if I’ve learnt one thing getting this far, it is that I will find the right words – eventually. Actually, this is a major leap forward, having eough confidence in my abilities not to panic when I hit a sticky patch and just work through it.
• Attended Nicola Morgan’s ‘What’s Wrong with my Manuscript?’ workshop. This included a critique of chapter 1 and my synopsis as well as a few hours of intensive tutoring. Eye-opening and invaluable. If you’re an aspiring writer and haven’t discovered Nicola’s ‘Help! I Need a Publisher! blog, you really should. The book-of-the-blog comes out in June.
• Sent off my first chapter and synopsis (now much improved, thanks to Nicola) to CrimeFest in preparation for my Pitch-an-Agent slot. Will try not to agonise over this until nearer the time.
• Read several books, including:
  • Truth Lies Bleeding by Tony Black (who I met recently when he was doing a book-signing in Kelso).
  • This is How by MJ Hyland (the first book in ages I’ve read as a member of the Berwick Book Group and been able to enthuse about). Follow the link to read the Group’s blog about what everyone thought and a comment left by the author hrself. She could give lessons in being gracious.
  • Black Water Rising by Attica Locke, one of the ‘new blood’ authors at last year’s Harrogate.
• Continued my OU history-of-film course. I’m loving it and got 80% for my first essay. I'm now working on the second essay and having to watch lots of old westerns and melodrama for it.
• Become besotted all over again with George Clooney, as I’m watching ER from the very beginning, thanks to that new Sky channel (I missed it first time around). It’s also fun to spot well-known actors in early roles, such as Ving Rhames, Marg Helgenburger and William H Macy.
• Enjoyed the opening theme to Boardwalk Empire so much I bought the album. It’s by a band called The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and reminds me in places of the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones (unsurprisingly, given their name) and is that some early Lloyd Cole I can hear too? I was pleased with myself, liking and buying some ‘new’ music, until I realised the album dates back to 1996.
• Thus far resisted allowing any of my hens (despite several of them going broody) to sit on a few eggs. I’m not sure if I’ll be so resolute after our holiday. Hatching chicks is such fun, and while I’m wary of bringing more cats or dogs into the world, there’s always room for a few more chickens.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to blog because my PC was attacked by a particularly nasty virus which eventually required hospitalisation. However, I'm now back online and once I've caught up with all the outstanding emails and work-related stuff shouting for attention I can settle down and write a few blogs.

In the meantime, because I was feeling so out of touch, I learnt something new. I'm now on Twitter: @janetokane .

As well as housing chickens (23 at the last count), our half-acre also accommodates several groups of wild-bird feeders. We seem to have made it into an avian good-food guide, as John spends an inordinate amount of time refilling these with nuts, seeds and fat balls (yes, we’ve heard all the jokes about them). Our reward is the pleasure we get from watching the birds as they visit the feeders near the house.

Yesterday, there was great excitement.

Him: Have you seen those new birds feeding?

Her: Yes. What are they?

Him: Don’t know.

Her: They look like tits, but their tails are much too long. [Consults bird-watching book]

Him: Well?

Her: They’re long-tailed tits.

Here, courtesy of the RSPB, is a picture of a long-tailed tit:

Coincidentally, next weekend (29/30^th January) is the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. What better way to spend a restful hour on a Sunday morning than sitting down with a pot of really good coffee and counting birds? The RSPB website has a guide to identifying them (in case you’re as ill-informed as us), a handy chart to record your sightings, and you can look up which birds are most common in your own area. I see that the long-tailed tit was the 15th most sighted in the Scottish Borders last year, so they're not that new after all.

Our postie’s been busy recently, delivering books to me. I admit it, I use Amazon a lot, living as I do at more than half an hour’s drive from a bookshop. And I’ve been clicking on that ‘proceed to checkout’ button a lot lately.

On Christmas Day I ordered a book I’d wanted for ages and had hoped to get as a gift: PD James’s Talking about Detective Fiction (I did, though, get Mark Billingham’s From the Dead in hardback, so I can’t complain). A few days later I watched the BBC4 programme on Scandinavian crime fiction, during which I frantically scribbled down author names and/or titles. So there’s a further four novels ordered (I already have a Jo Nesbo waiting to be read).

One of Amazon’s fiendish tricks to get you to buy more is to pop up with other titles which may be of interest considering what’s just gone into your basket. I have no complaint about this – I worked for Boot the Chemists for years and we were always on the lookout for ways to increase the average spend per visit. So, when I was searching for a book about writing I’d read about in a blog, I actually ended up buying two: Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose (what a fantastic name for a writer) and Plot versus Character by Jeff Gerke.

Then the March and April books for the Berwick Book Group were announced: Howard Jacobson’s Kalooki Nights and MJ Hyland’s This is How. And at last we've decided where to go on holiday later this year, celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Cue purchase of world atlas (after discovering we didn’t own one and agreeing it was something every home should have, despite the internet), a traveller’s guide to Arizona and the Grand Canyon, and a road map of the same (big, hot) area.

All the progress I made during 2010 in reducing the amount of books on my TBR shelves is now undone. Do I mind? Not a bit.

Here's what they look like now. It doesn't look much until you actually count them. Lucky for me there's only one textbook for my next OU module.