Newsletter from Heather Peck July 2025

Hi All,

Well that was a busy month too!

First off, we had a week’s holiday on the Isle of Wight with our dogs, in a lovely cottage near Carisbrooke Castle. (If you find a future novella features Greg and Chris on the Isle of Wight, you know why. Come to think of it, I could call it The Island of Death…)

Anyway, back to the present. The weather in early June was a bit mixed, but we walked miles and had a great time. The only (minor) problem was the car satnav's enthusiasm for taking us down lanes with names that included ‘Shute’ in the title. We found out, on the first attempt, that 'Shute' is shorthand for ‘steep lane  with no passing places only cms wider than the car, leading to a ford’. After the first couple of days we decided the car, which is admittedly blessed with a certain amount of ai, had a death wish.

I came back to a busy week or two doing the final edits on Spinning into the Dark and loading it up to Amazon. Thank you to all of you who pre-ordered it. I’ve also had a chat with Scott Fleming and he will start recording soon, so that the Audible release can follow swiftly on the book. 

Also that week, I had the great pleasure of attending the local church coffee morning, where I had been invited to sell some of my books. It was undoubtedly the best book selling environment so far, and I thoroughly enjoyed my morning. 

On the very day that Spinning etc was published, Gary and I attended SPS (Self Publishing Show) LIVE in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. There were a lot of interesting speakers, most from the US. A common theme was how hot it was and hadn’t Brits caught up with the invention of air conditioning yet. And that was before it got really hot!

But what about book 9 I hear you cry. Well I am getting on with that too, and have passed the halfway point, so I’m on schedule for publication in the Autumn; albeit, I’m currently writing in the midst of the upheaval caused by having a new floor fitted!

I hope you’re all surviving the heat without too much discomfort, or maybe even enjoying it. Have a lovely summer, and see you next month. In the meantime, here’s a little story from an unusual point of view. What you might call a cautionary tale for anyone planning a barbecue!

This Life

I’m not sure I like this life. It started well enough. There was food in plenty and I was hungry for sure. I always am, at that stage. Always so far, anyway. I suppose there may be a time when I’m not hungry, but I haven’t found it yet. 

So there I was, munching away as usual, until I was ready to sleep. If I noticed anything different, it was that the food seemed – well - different. And I don’t just mean different the way nettles and cabbages are different. I mean it felt different. Firm in places, and runny in others. Smelt alright though, at least to the new me. Anyway, as I said, I went to sleep as normal and woke up transformed as normal. But that was where normality ended. 

First, I had very little time to get myself airborne, and some of my siblings never made it at all. In the confusion of the moment, it was all I could do to get away. The food disappeared into a bag.  Those of my brothers and sisters who weren’t in the air by then presumably perished, and only a few of us who were flying made it out of the door and into the garden.I sat down in the sun on the garden fence for a breather and cleaned my legs and antennae. It was then I picked up a goodly scent from nearby and flew over to check it out. There were lots of flowers in a border by the fence. I flew straight through them without stopping. That puzzled me later, when I stopped to think about it. Normally I would have been checking out the nectar, provided the blooms weren’t already occupied by a big fat bee. ‘But that was my last life,’ I reminded myself. That was then. This was now. And I headed for the food smell. It was on a table. It was warm, but not too warm, and smelt strongly of something good. I walked over it to check it out, and I was just settling down to feed, when one of the people standing by the fence, watching the events next-door, turned round. ‘Ugh. Disgusting,’ was the cry. And the woman rushed over, flapping a napkin or some such. I just about got away before she hit me and went to sit on the fence again. Close enough to pick up the food scents. Far enough away to be safe. I cleaned my feet through my mouth and realised I felt hurt. ‘How ridiculous to feel hurt by one of them.’ But it did hurt.I was used to cries of ‘Oh Look,’ and ‘How lovely.’ Not cries of disgust. I paused in my cleaning and looked at myself, as well as I could. I still had six strong legs. I still had wings. Just like before. My body was black, just like before. Ok, it was shorter and fatter, and my wings were small and clear instead of big and covered in coloured patterns. But was I really so disgusting?

Wasn’t there room in this world for someone who was useful instead of beautiful?‘

Feeding on flowers is all very well,’ I said to myself. ‘But they’d be knee deep in food if we didn’t clear it up.’ I turned round on the fence and watched what they were watching. The food in the bag was being put into a dark vehicle. Soon it was driven away, and they all turned back to their meal. The one I’d tried to share, until they flapped at me.‘Just think, he’d been lying there for at least a day, so I heard,’ said one, picking up the food I’d started on. ‘That’s mine,’ I said to myself. ‘Mine.’ But I stayed where I was for the moment.‘ Flies all over him,’ said another with a shudder. ‘I overheard the doctor say they’d got into the body through the stab wounds.’ ‘Ugh, do shut up,’ said the first. ‘I don’t want to hear that while I’m eating.’ And he took a big bite just where I’d tried to graze. Hope it chokes you, I thought. And flew off on my stumpy clear wings to look for another body to clear up.  

All the best,Heather

copyright, Heather Peck 2025