Did you miss me terribly?

What do you mean you hadn't noticed?
I'm back from two weeks in sunny France and had the first break from writing in three or four years. Wow. Weird how addicted I've got to writing that I found the last two weeks so hard.
Well, I say hard but it's decidedly relative. Not hard as in "Oh, I'm on a six-month tour around Afghanistan and my combat outfit is flourescent pink with a great big target painted on the chest" more hard in being given the keys to the sweet shop and wondering which of the delights to scoff first then glutting yourself until you're sick.
You can have too much of a good thing (more on this at the end, it's really embarrassing).
So, here we are in the south of France, mountains, lonely mountains castles high up on the rocky outcrops, windy roads and more mountains and our little cottage is at the end of a windy, cliff-hunging windy road that's seriously not wide enough for two bikes to pass without risking one over the edge, let along drivers that have had a little too much of the vin rouge/blanc/rose and assume everyone else will get out of the way and we're a twenty km round trip to the nearest ANYTHING.
I don't do mountains. I feel dizzy wearing high heels (which is why I don't wear them anymore). This may have been a bit of a mistake. There's a reason they call the place inaccessible. I blame Kate Mosse. No, not the supermodel, that's Kate MOSS. We may blame supermodels for the rise in eating disorders and the general trend for poor body image perception amongst our young but we can't really blame them for the Albigensian Crusade.
In the end we didn't get to the main sights since it was hairy enough just getting out of the house but I had a lot of time to ponder things. Plots. History. Swimming pools. Barbeques.
Plans were discussed, formed and made. Plans within plans.
Now entering my third year as a full-time writer bloke I'm trying to be a bit more organised. Less flapping about and being more focused. Get things written and get out there a bit more.
There will be announcements on all this over the next few weeks.
What I can tell you is that there'll be a lot happening around Halloween. I'm up at the Chester festival, at the Crystal Palace book fest, Norwich and back at Foyles for their Angels and Demons extravaganza and what's more, I'll bring some friends along to. All of them, in fact.
Oh, yes, and John Mayhew.
And I'm in Florida in November for a conference at Disneyworld. RESULT! I haven't told my children as they won't quite understand why Daddy's going to Disneyworld for work and they can't come too. Apparently I count as TALENT so either I'll be able to jump the queues or they'll be dressing me up as Goofy and I've completely misunderstood the email.
Now you know why I don't miss my old job in engineering.