I haven’t been doing much – correction, any – writing for the past month, so finding something to say for a writing diary like this is a bit of a challenge. I’ve been on holiday for so long, I’m finding it really difficult to get back into a writing routine, and was feeling guilty until I remembered that everything is grist to a writer’s mill and that holidays are, after all, little more than research trips, full of experiences that will turn up in a book some day. Christmas Eve Marriage arose directly from a holiday we had in Crete a few years ago.

I’m not sure how my boys’ week in Scotland could make a story, but it’s certainly a beautiful setting. This is me in Rascarrel Bay with Mungo. It’s an interesting angle, isn’t it? That’s what comes of handing your camera over to a nine-year-old, but somehow it works, and I think it gives a feel of the golden day we had there.

There was a distinct change of tone for the next two weeks, when I went to Greece with my best friend, Diana, and her two daughters for our annual girls’ beach holiday. This was the first time we’d tried an activity holiday, and as you can see, it wasn’t entirely successful. The girls had a great time, but when Diana and I attempted an introduction to sailing course, it ended with me breaking her nose with a boom (not deliberately, of course, although her irritatingly immaculate wardrobe full of linen shirts that never crumple would have been provocation enough). Diana spent the rest of the day holding an ice pack over her poor nose, which was obviously painful, although beneath the ice, she is, in fact, laughing here.

After the nose, we gave up on activities and retired to our sun loungers for the rest of the holiday. Fortunately, our friendship survived intact, and Diana even gave me my annual pedicure on the last night. I wanted my toes in a subtle champagne but she insisted on red, and I’ve got to admit that the colour does look good with my shoes … aren’t they fabulous?

I did rouse myself occasionally to wonder about the ending of the second book of the duet I’m struggling with at the moment. I wanted my heroine to have to prove that she loved the hero, but I just couldn’t think of a way she could do that, and now I’ve decided that’s the whole point. Love isn’t something that can be ‘proved’, you just have to believe in it. Not that this helps me with the plot, but at least all that mental activity on the beach hasn’t been wasted!

Now the holidays are over, so it’s back to work. September always makes me feel like going out and buying myself a pack of new pencils, and writing my name carefully on a clean exercise book. Now all I need is that new term feeling when it comes to the book. The (very) rough draft is sitting on my desk, but I haven’t dared look at it until I’ve finished clearing the deck of distracting jobs (like updating the website). I’m hoping it won’t be quite as bad as I think, but even if it isn’t, I’ll have to rewrite the whole thing, and if I’m to do that by my deadline of mid October I’m going to have to settle down on Monday morning, take a deep breath and follow my mother’s maxim, which is to just ‘get on with it!’