A loving farewell

I spent three days of last week under a blanket on the sofa with a cold. I'm not very good at being ill, I get grumpy and miserable at not being able to do all of the stuff I should be doing (and the stuff I actually want to be doing). I'm in the middle of a demanding audio book project too, so getting a cold is the last thing I wanted. I suppose it was some kind of karmic balance in return for having such an ace time in London.

Anyway, moan over, I am almost fully well, the voice is almost back and I am at the computer again. And whilst the cold did stop me last week, it did let me watch more TV than usual, and discover the joy that is Batman Arkham Asylum on the Xbox 360 (only over a year late).

One of the gems waiting for me was the recording of the last ever Midsomer Murders with John Nettles playing Barnaby. Oh my. Reader, I confess, I cried.

That's not really saying much

I cry at everything, I really do. I think the peak was when I was heavily pregnant and just an oven chips advert with people singing like in a bizarre musical reduced me to a sobbing wreck. For heaven's sake, an oven chips advert! And it wasn't even a tear-jerker, it just set me off. Actually, it doesn't take much to do that in late pregnancy…

I suppose I empathise too much. And I fall in love with characters, so that when they're upset, I'm upset. But the biggest trigger is death or some other kind of ending.

Back to Midsomer

Luckily, there was only an ending and not a death when it came to Barnaby (or "my Barnaby" as he is called in my house) and I was so very relieved. My husband was tinkering on the computer as I watched, I could see his glances across the room as the end of the programme approached. With a heavy cold there'd been a lot of tissue use, but there was a significant rise at the end of that programme, I can tell you.

Wondering what Midsomer Murders is?

If you have no idea what Midsomer Murders is, bear with me. It's a TV show that has been running for many years (but I've only watched it for four years) and features the usual detective-solves-murder genre characteristics. But the reason I love it (and I don't watch any other crime dramas) is because it is so very quirky. The characters are lovingly drawn examples of distilled British eccentricity. Those characters, its gentle humour and Barnaby's brilliance have brought me through dark times indeed.

I discovered Midsomer Murders when I was heavily pregnant and already suffering from a mild depression that went onto to full-blown post-natal depression. When I was so broken I could barely speak, Midsomer Murders comforted me in a way that's hard to explain. It's not deep, it's not challenging and it won't change the world. But you know, sometimes that's just what we need, right?

Farewell to my Barnaby

You know, even writing this is making me well up. Tragic, isn't it? I just get attached to characters. I cried at the end of Shogun (the book) because I wanted to stay with Blackthorne just a little longer. I feel the same way about Barnaby.

The joy of characters

What power these characters have, these fictional people that we all love and root for! Or should I say, what power these writers have? You know, that's what I aspire to be; a writer who can make a person miss their tube stop because they are *there* with my characters, or gasp out loud in a park when one of my protagonists does something thrilling. What simple bliss to write something that reaches out and grasps a human heart.

So to Barnaby, I wish you a happy retirement in that little crevasse of my brain in which you will continue to live, and to John Nettles I say thank you for bring such warmth to the character, I will miss you. And to the person who created Barnaby, and Troy and Cully and all the others, I salute you.