One of my favourite times of the year is that interregnum between Christmas and the start of the New Year. For me, it's usually a period of complete relaxation: unwinding with the remaining mince pies; whipping up a turkey curry; polishing off the last of the mulled wine; doing little by way of preparation for the year of work to come.
|
| |
|
|
|
| | | This year was a little different. For reasons unknown even to us, Mrs B and I decided that we wanted to prepare for the year ahead with 'The great de-cluttering.' |
|
|
| What that meant in practice, was a climb (or more accurately, multiple climbs) into the loft to clear out nearly twenty years' of accumulation. Much has gone and I hope that someone, somewhere, will find something of use to them in a nearby 'Op shop'. We didn't, however, end the purge with the loft, migrating also to the study, where eons of files are housed that contain, amongst other things: my book of lovesick poems from 1986 (which I can assure you, will not be destroyed, but will never see the light of day); warranties for multiple appliances that expired sometime before 2006; tax returns compiled with the help of an abacus; and the astonishing amount of paperwork that goes into an incomplete application for a US green-card - with apologies to my American friends, we may have avoided a slip on the ICE there. |
|
| Our poor wee shredder is groaning with the workload and I still have around 90lbs (or 40kg for my metric mates) of paper to deal with. I offer an apology to the felled trees that supported the process. | | |
|
|
| In addition to the paper, I also determined that I would cull that which is invisibly stored; those records that sit on a hard drive or in the ether that accumulate with stealth. In this case, that also includes the books that I serialised for the launch of A Little Something To Hide. I have decided to 'unpublish' them, removing them from Amazon. I think the multiple volumes confuse people who are new to my work. That said, the full novel and its companion piece, Nothing Left To Hide, are still available, and between those two, you can find the combined content of the serialised volumes (in fact there's a tiny bit extra in NLTH that isn't available elsewhere). So if you're looking to complete the set, click on the 'Last chance' image below before 31 January to order the missing volumes, or if you're new to my work, a click on my future cult classic is the way to go. I hope you enjoy.
| |
|
|  | | Remember - never trust the person you’re sitting next to, no matter how sweet they look. |
|
 | | Read the novel and wondered what inspired the characters?
Find out here. |
|
 | | Missing one or more of the serialised versions? Get in quick - available until 31 Jan.
Then poof - gone! |
|
| |
|
That's it from me for this month. I'm off to continue my drafting of 'Remembering Rose'. She's a troublesome girl and causing me all sorts of bother. If only I'd managed to clear my head as well as we cleared the loft, I might know how to deal with her. Cheerio for now Craig |
|
* According to me ...
=======
Craig Brown is an author living in Newbury. To follow his work visit craigbrownauthor.com
Facebook/BlueSky/Threads/Instagram: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2026
20 January 2026
