A new blogging adventure!

To my dear Bloomsbury Bell readers, some of you may already know that I have landed a new blogging gig for The Lady magazine's website. I am hoping that it will give me a more structured approach to my writing as I now have a copy deadline once a fortnight! Essentially, it will be more about my move to Oxford and the challenge and adventure that living here is turning out to be after being in London for eight years. You can read it here and all feedback is welcome so let me know what you think!

But, Bloomsbury Bell will very much remain alive and will retain its focus on books and general literary bits and bobs. The last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind - I went home to Chichester at the weekend for my mother's mouthwatering roast dinner (and to see friends and family of course!) which was lovely. It's funny that even though I haven't lived there for a decade I still feel a sense of homecoming when we arrive in the city. I know every tree, every road, every building and the familiarity is so strong that it induces a sense of ownership. I see it as mine somehow and I feel comforted every time I return. It's a similar feeling to revisiting a book that had a massive impact upon you when you read it for the first time. In my head I connect the feeling with reading Howards End. Perhaps because the feeling that Mrs Wilcox has for the house is exactly my feeling towards Chichester. Are there any places or books that inspire these feelings within you?

As the nights are drawing in I have been stockpiling books and I bought a new hotwater bottle as I am planning to stay in and spend the winter reading. I have fallen behind my reading target for this year as moving and all sorts of things have got in the way. But, wintry evenings are the perfect motivation for cosying up and hiding away from the world with a good book.