Every July, I go to this place, Charney Manor, in Oxfordshire on a kind of writers' retreat/re-charge with fellow members of the Scattered Authors' Society. For me, this marks the beginning of the 'Summer Holidays', except they are often not holidays at all. Last year I was working on re-writes for The Fool's Girl; this year, I'm working on a new novel. It is actually set over a school summer holiday, so I can synchronise the events to the changing months. They are having much better weather in the book, but then it is a fiction.
