Tag: Tetbury Advertiser

section of knitted temperature blanket
Posted in Personal life, Reading, Writing

WHATEVER THE WEATHER: In Praise of Temperature Blankets

Posted on by Debbie Young

Filing my tax return just before a significant birthday last month, Benjamin Franklin’s dictum that “nothing is certain in life except death and taxes” hit home. Seeking uncertainties as an antidote, I turned to thinking about English weather. What could be more uncertain? Perhaps that’s why we talk about it so much. According to social anthropologist Kate Fox, author of Watching the English, every hour of the day at least a third of the population of England remarks on the weather.

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Posted in Personal life, Writing

Never Too Late to Learn – PLUS New Book Out Now: “Death at the Old Curiosity Shop”

Posted on by Debbie Young

Don’t we all have a skill we yearn to learn but have never quite got round to mastering?

When I entered the job market post-university, one of the first things I did was to learn to touch-type. That skill has been a boon in every job I’ve ever had, using every generation of technology from the electric typewriter to the electronic tablet.

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Photo of Debbie laughing at book signing table
Posted in Events, Writing

Never Too Late to Start Afresh

Posted on by Debbie Young

In this month’s column for the Tetbury Advertiser, I was getting overexcited at the prospect of a fresh start

There will never come a September that doesn’t shout “back to school” at me. Although it’s a long time since I left school, I’ve never lost awareness of the academic year.

cover of Dastardly Deeds at St Bride's with fountain pen
In the first of my St Bride’s cosy mystery series, teacher Gemma Lamb has a fresh start in September

This isn’t only because supermarkets start badgering parents to shop for the autumn term before the summer holidays even start. Nor it is because I spent thirteen years of my adult life working in a school, or because I write novels set in a boarding school (first in series is Dastardly Deeds at St Bride’s, published by Boldwood Books).

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horizontal slice of cover of Driven to Murder, showing Sophie careering across the road by a bent bus-stop sign
Posted in Personal life, Travel

Bring Back Colourful Cars!

Posted on by Debbie Young

Last month, the need to replace my faithful old black car – and the dearth of any more colourful ones in my price range – inspired me to write about car colours in my column for the July/August double edition of the Tetbury Advertiser.

When did British car buyers become so dreary? Shopping for a second-hand car to replace my defunct Fiat Panda, I’m astonished to find the choice of colour so limited.

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photo of Sainsbury's carrier bag with caption promoting recycling and picture of a peacock
Posted in Family, Personal life, Writing

The One-Bag Wonder

Posted on by Debbie Young

Decluttering features in my next novel, Death at the Little Curiosity Shop, the start of my new cosy mystery trilogy – and it’s been front of mind lately for other reasons too, as I explain in my June column for the Tetbury Advertiser.

***You’ll find a sneak preview of Death at the Little Curiosity Shop – and a link to preorder it – at the foot of this post. ***

On return from a few days in Suffolk, where I’ve been helping my 93-year-old aunt declutter her house, my cottage seems terribly crowded. Having lived here for 33 years, I’ve allowed far too much stuff to accumulate.

Conscientious about recycling things like packaging and kitchen waste, I’m not so hot at disposing of items of purely sentimental value. I hoard amusing scribbles by my  toddler daughter who has just turned 21. Ornaments from my childhood home lie tucked away in a storage box. A long-empty bottle of my late grandmother’s perfume lurks in my dressing-table drawer.

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