SO WHAT'S NEW? Linda Mitchelmore

I make no apologies for saying I like new things. That's not to say I spend endlessly - I do cherish the old as well; the favourites, the sentimental things. But there's something about new things - shoes, clothes, jewellery, bags, a food mixer even - that can lift the spirits. Finding a new author to read and enjoy can be one and I well remember 'finding' Elizabeth Berg and then devouring just about everything she's written. I got that in first because this is a writers' blog. But it was actually a photo of a friend's newly-born pigeon pair twins that sparked this blogpost. There's just something so scrumptious, so full of hope, with a new baby, isn't there?

I extend that sentiment to all new life, be it wild and domestic animals, bird life, insect life .... it all seems such a miracle. (I will draw the line at reptiles, but that's probably another blogpost!) And then there's the new romance. You know, that butterflies-in-the-tum feeling you get just thinking about the new person who's come into your life and with whom you are falling in love. It colours our days, doesn't it? Consumes our thoughts. Again there's that full-of-hope feeling for a future we get. There is the ecstasy and the agony of it .... the ecstasy being that we can feel how their hand felt on our cheek, or smell their unique scent, or hear their voice, even when they're miles away. And the agony is sitting by the phone just willing it to ring - will they still feel the same as they did half an hour ago when you parted? Will you be able to detect a cooling off or a hotting up of the relationship?

And I don't know about you but I find we get to a stage where we don't really notice our surroundings .... the couch has been there for ages, the lamps came out of the ark, the footstool was your grandmother's or whoever's, and then suddenly it all seems so deadly drab and we have to do something - it needs something new. Cushions do it for me, which is probably just as well for my bank balance.

So where, I hear you ask, is this all leading? Obvious really, this being a writers' blog - I have a new book out. Oh yes, I do. It's called THE LITTLE B&B AT COVE END and is out already in ebook format and paperback will be in early August, although I've got my author copies now .... and very lovely they are too. There's that new paper smell of them, the pristine way the pages almost crackle as you turn them for the first time.

But a new book won't be new for very long .... soon it will be last month's publication, last year's. So I have to start working on a new book .... and I have. Its working title is PAST PERFECT and I am 72 pages in .... watch this space for the next new thing.