Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Merry Christmas to all readers of this blog and especially those who have read and reviewed my debut novel The Girl on the Beach. I have been so thrilled with the response to my first published book.

Happy New Year to you all too! The Girl on the Beach originally published as an ebook will be issued as a paperback on 10 April 2018 (already up for pre-order here). Yay! It will be lovely to have it on my study shelf. My next novel, as yet hasn’t been given its publication title. It’s working title is Rock, Paper, Scissors and it should be out in early 2018.

I love Christmas decorations, so thought I’d share some picture of my trees, fireplace and a few little stories to go with them.

My Santa sleigh was bought for me by my Nan, she died in 1978, so it’s quite old. When I put it out, I take a moment to remember my Nan. I have lots of other decorations she gave to me too. She taught me to knit, crochet and love crafts, so she is still a large influence on my life.

My brown Santa always has a place on my Christmas fireplace. He shouldn’t have been brown of course, but I don’t care. He was made on a pottery course I attended in 1981 the year I returned home from university. The glazing went wrong in the kiln and the whole class ended up with brown Santas.

The pottery teacher was very dishy and an abiding memory is of my friend Sue, who I met at the course, making a pot on the pottery wheel with the teacher guiding her with his arms around her. She was swooning rather than concentrating on the pottery!

When I married my husband, I inherited the lovely decorations and baubles his late wife had collected. I love all of them and find it very poignant as I arrange her things on the tree. I never met her, but always think of her when I do this.

This year has been challenging for me health-wise. I began to notice a lot of unicorns in the shops – toys, ornaments and pictures and have taken this as a symbol that things will get better in 2018, so I couldn’t resist buying this unicorn Christmas decoration when I came across it.

Here’s hoping that you have a lovely festive season and that Santa brings all that you desire. I’ll be back in the New Year with some more guest blogs, kicking off with Bella Osborne.

Xxx

Thank you for visiting my blog – Morton S. Gray – Author. I hope you enjoyed this post. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. My novel The Girl on the Beach published by Choc Lit is available from all ebook platforms – Amazon, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Google Play. The Girl on the Beach will be available as a paperback from 10 April 2018 – pre-order now at Amazon.