First up, completely unexpectedly, my story Lavender's Blue, Lavender's Green is in the December issue of Realms of Fantasy! It's unexpected because I only sold it to them a few months ago and they normally take much longer. In fact, they have another of my stories, Uncle Vernon's Lie, that they've had for much longer. Nice surprise anyway!

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We had a great weekend in Edinburgh. We've both been needing a holiday for ages, to get away from all the crap. We'd decided we were going to give ourselves a writing weekend to kickstart our progresses on novels. Which it did. I forced my way through the latest draft of The Sleepers, rewriting the remaining awkward bits and hopefully eliminating the flop in pace in the middle.

Steph got back into her tentatively-titled and unambiguously-brilliant historical fantasy, "Congress of Shadows", and is now in full-flow.

Of course, it also turned out to be a touristy weekend. We visited the castle (of course), the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre (tacky, but fun) and spent very much time in Plaisir du Chocolat, which has the best hot chocolate and teas in the world. Possibly also the most expensive teas in the world too; they have one variety for £23.80 (approximately $40) for a small pot. Needless to say, I didn't try that one.

We stayed at a cool vegetarian guest house, The Greenhouse, and so I got to stuff my face with vegan breakfasts. Very nice.

It did, however, rain the entire time. Solidly. Edinburgh must be one of the wettest cities on the planet.

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Now we're both back at work and wishing we were still on holiday. It's amazing how quickly work and people at work can suck out all of the holiday buzz, like little, hungry vampires.