And... stop! It seems like I've been writing Somewhere Else Entirely forever and it is a strange feeling not to have a chapter to finish and post.

So, what do I do now? Here are some thoughts on how the past happened, what the present holds and what the future may offer.

In fact, just recently I've been in the middle of an almost perfect storm. Things started to go downhill while I was writing #139 and I just about managed to get that out and make a start on #140, which was planned to be the final chapter. Of course, #140 turned out to be far too big and I was forced to split it into two... which meant that I could progress the story at a reasonable pace without cramming everything that needed telling into one chapter.

This had one benefit, in that when the farmyard residues hit the rotating impeller I already had most of #140 and #141 written and didn't need to spend the usual amount of time in pure writing. Julia will tell you I sent her a number of drafts which were probably junked before she read them. The final result was nothing like I had originally anticipated, but I think it turned out much better.

I know many of you were unhappy about the jump in time and would have preferred to continue with Garia's life. Well, I decided on a specific end point at the time I began this project and it was originally going to be just a single epilogue chapter. I'm sorry it essentially began another story but that's how the world works sometimes. I did consider writing the Vasco da Gama's visit as a separate story from the point of view of the crew, but thought better of it...

So, what transpired to upset my day? A number of things, really. I was taken off my medication in mid December but suffered a severe cold during January some symptoms of which implied that my problems might be coming back. That means I have gone back onto a low dose to try and prevent any flare-ups. It might mean that I am on steroids (prednisolone) for the rest of my life, which won't be fun. I'm still suffering from that cold, by the way.

Next, I had to get four new tyres for the 7-seater car I bought when the family came over from New York. So, a few days later and a rear tyre is flat. It turns out the valve stem is rotten but I couldn't just get a new one, no, this special kind has the automatic tyre pressure sensor screwed to the bottom and they won't sell the stem separately. ...which means an new stem and sensor, £84, plus pairing, calibrating and fitting, £101. Oh, and the dealer is an 18 mile bus ride away which essentially means a day wasted. Cars are just money pits but I already knew that.

Next, the boiler goes on the blink with an intermittent fault... you know the kind, the fault that only ever happens when an engineer isn't around. I've had three visits so far and almost all of the boiler innards have been replaced... except, it seems, for the sensor which appears to be the root of the problem. Cue final visit Tuesday to have that done. Fortunately that is all covered by our yearly maintenance contract which no doubt will go up next time we renew it. Another racket, of course.

Then there's the networking issues. I've had trouble for some months with what looked like a poor connection to the outside world. It came and went and I put it down to water in the cable ducts. Then last week I did a bit of fault finding on another issue and it looks like one of my Gigabit switches is faulty. Not defunct, that would be too obvious but just dropping packets every so often, just enough to make websites slow and updating software a right pain. A replacement unit is arriving Tuesday.

Tuesday is beginning to look busy...

Oh, and we have had regular incursions from the grand-daughters, which means drop everything and give them our full attention. They have only just departed, which is why I'm taking the opportunity right now to get something out there.

The future. Well, I have three Anmar related tales in the pipeline, plus work to do editing out the worst excesses of SEE. I'm currently re-reading it and am appalled by the blatant plotholes and mistakes I have noticed going through it. (I'm also amazed that I wrote any of it.) Any editing I do will not change the narrative significantly but will tidy up the storyline in a number of important respects. Because the thing is so big I expect the edit process to take at least a year and I won't make any announcement except when it is over. Chapters will get done as I find time.

The first new tale will detail what Milsy did after she changed places with Garia in South Slip. I won't say much more but it will go into detail about events which were reported back to Garia and Keren in SEE. I'll have to determine how much new material I can sneak in or even if that would be advisable.

The second new tale will follow Eriana as she takes the Visund on an exploratory voyage up the Sirrel. She will stop at each country she comes to and there will be interactions of various sorts with the locals. It is likely that on her return to Palarand she will discover that Garia has just returned from Earth but I need to consider timings to see if that is practical.

The third new tale will be TG and will take place 30 years into the future. I'll say no more about that for now, except that it will be a castaway who doesn't realize that she isn't dreaming.

I may not post any of the above until they are complete. If I had tried that with SEE you would now be reading chapter 3 with about another year's worth of reading to go, so that wouldn't have worked very well. (Yes, I know all about Bike, thank you.) Making me finish them first should help to keep them down to a reasonable size.

Other projects? Well, yes, but SEE has taken so much of my time and focus some of them may never now see the light of day. A shame really because I don't want my life to be all about Anmar, there are other stories that need to be told, not all of them TG ones.

So there you have it. There is more of Anmar to come and perhaps more stories of other kinds. I'm not going away, although Real Life may have something to say about that, of course.

Thank you for reading my stories. I hope I have offered something that has kept you entertained for some short while.

Penny