Writing a murder story is a lot like volunteering to stand under a tree in a lightning storm - a foolish venture and one unlikely to come to a good end.

I suppose there are those who are capable of working it all out in minute detail and producing an instant best seller. Not me. I'm more of the problem setter, not the problem solver, or should I say I prefer to let the characters do the solving. I work out the main chararcters, the theme, the locations and the rough timing and then get them started into the maze and see what happens. Usually in my case they get lost pretty quickly and I find myself dropping the whole thing into the recycle bin at the cost of a few printer cartridges later.

This is pretty much where I've got to with my latest one. Three bodies in (or should it be down), seven chapters in, our heroic detective if not completely baffled then obviously somewhat challenged, it is beginning to look a done deal. Hence the grumpiness. Am I wasting my time? There are certainly lots of other things I should be doing with my time. Winter is on us after a long and beautiful summer and the longer I leave it the worse it looks. If I don't do something with it soon then frost will render it a disaster area. Flowers are still blooming and we have just had snow. Is global warming trying to send me a message?

So I opted for tidying up the attic today. In our house that's where everything ends up, including me. History in every box and sitting up here amongst the decaying carcasses of dead computers I keep promising to resurrect I wonder if thats where my life went. Filing cabinets of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your ghosts!

Time to go and self-medicate with some more Super Strength Lemsip to counter the effects of a stinking cold caught from some sniffling brat in the Post Office. Ironic, since the week before I had the annual Flu injections. Apparently I am now protected from catching the Moscows, the Hong Kongs and the New Caledonians, (oh yes, and the deadly pneumococcals!).But not, apparently, the common cold!

Perhaps that's why I'm in such a grumpy mood - that and the fact that one of the locals who has been building a new uglier than thou bungalow on some adjacent land is about to put a pitched roof on his exaggerated new garage which will block our view of the lovely little bridge over the village burn. My only consolation is that he will probably get frostbite in the process.