About Me

An exceptional tale requires a spectacular forest

                                               

Since the first flickering of my childhood memories I have loved stories.  Being an avid bookworm, my mother firmly believed that children should be surrounded by books and taught to love and respect them and I started life with a splendid collection of fairy tales and adventures which powered my initial flavour for the sinister and supernatural, annuals and comics which taught me about characters, mannerisms, humour and make-believe, and a much cherished and enormous glossy book of the classical ballets of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker which inspired my imagination to exist in their fascinating ethereal worlds.

To be without a story book to hand is unthinkable, whether in its place beside my bed or where it has been with me on my journey from kindergarten book-bag to school satchel, from bent and dogeared paperbacks in my teenage backpack to neatly tucked in my bought-for-book-size grown-up handbag.

Bookshelves have come and gone throughout my life in various shapes, sizes, materials and stages of stability filled up, then piled one on top of the other, then overflowing with my books (and the occasional little keepsake ornament).  These vital and equally loved structures have, in turn, leaned forward or sideways, rocked, tilted and toppled, crashed to the floor and been bitter-sweetly disposed of or dismantled and replaced with new upright, wider, higher and more stable varieties to continue the proliferation of my stories.

And books, too, have come and gone - only the most cherished or valuable remaining in their places of honour, like old friends, to be stroked, picked up and held close to smell, to flip through the pages, stopping occasionally to recall bits of the story and then lovingly replaced and admired.

With the wealth of resources at my fingertips through the ages my imagination has always been rocket-fuelled, with every spare moment spent living my own tales and adventures, all requiring a spectacular forest whether enchanted, haunted, dark, frozen, tropical, Jurassic, alpine or drowned.

Welcome to my tale of imaginative quests, adventures and journeys waiting to be put into words.