With My Writing Hat On…

I’ve been a hat addict all my life. In winter I’m usually seen in a beret, and in the summer a linen sunhat. People often say to me, “Ooh, I didn’t recognise you without a hat”.

I have two particularly fond memories of hats from my childhood. I loved my green Amish bonnet, bought at the age of 8 when my family lived briefly near Pennsylvania Dutch country. At that age, I considered the sect’s dress to be glamorous and desirable, which would probably have horrified the Amish if they knew, and I kept it for many years.

My smart red straw cowboy hat, bought a month later when we visited Yellowstone Park,  didn’t last me as long. To my family’s horror, as we stood on the boardwalk by the famous Morning Glory pool, a gust of wind lifted my hat off my head and dropped it into the deep blue waters. We fled in embarrassment as the red dye in my hat started to turn the pool purple.

Photo: Public Domain, via https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=289408

These days, as a busy multi-tasker, I often preface a comment “with my (insert current role here) hat on” – eg with my village choir hat on, my bellringing hat on, my Friends of St Mary’s hat on, etc etc, to make my perspective clear. Until now, all these hats have been metaphorical, as none of these involve actual hats.

We don cheerful red robes when singing with the choir. (I’m pictured on the far left here outside Great Badminton Church.)

Photo by Sir Ian Macfadyen

For bellringing, accessories are positively discouraged because they’re potentiall hazardous as we go about the robust business of heaving on the bell ropes. Scarves in particular are banned, because if it became entangled in your bell rope as it rises to the ceiling, it could strangle you. I even remove my glasses when I’m bellringing these days, having once caught them with the end of the rope, which sent them flying off the ringing platform and halfway down the nave below.

An accident waiting to happen! Photo by Anne Bishop

The closest we have to a Friends of St Mary’s hat is a smart red apron, which we wear when dispensing refreshments at fundraising events – modelled below by my friend Pauline and me at an outdoor event a couple of summers ago.

Up to mischief with fellow Friends of St Mary’s members Paulina and Pam (Photo by Colin Dixon)

So I was pleased to receive an actual writing hat last month as my Christmas present from my publisher, Boldwood Books. Boldwood takes great care of its authors, coming up with a fun Christmas gift each year, always in its distinctive corporate orange. This hat will go well with the previous year’s gift of a Boldwood umbrella.

Time to don my writing hat…

I suspect most writers have set rituals and preferred tools that help them get in the zone for writing, whether sitting in a particular place or using a favourite pen or notebook. I’m like that myself – I favour pen and ink for first drafts, ideally wielded at the oak pedestal desk in my writing hut at the bottom of the garden.

As I’m planning to spend the rest of the winter in my writing hut, working on the third mystery novel in my Cotswold Curiosity Shop trilogy, I’m hoping that donning my Boldwood Books hat at the start of each session will kickstart the creative part of my brain – or at the very least, stop it from freezing over.

IN OTHER NEWS

Speaking of Boldwood Books, I’m pleased to reveal the new cover for the second Cotswold Curiosity Shop cosy mystery – which by chance matches my new hat very well!

In Death at the Village Chess Club, the murder mystery revolves around old chess sets that Alice agrees to sell for her ex-partner Steven, once an avid collector. Several interesting new characters join those from the first book. I particularly enjoyed introducing Alice’s mother Wendy, staff from the village primary school, and a remarkable gang of bikers with a surprising passion for chess.

Death at the Village Chess Club will be launched on 3rd March, in paperback, ebook, audiobook and hardback. It’s already available to pre-order online here, or ask your local bookshop or library to order it in for you.

Meanwhile, the first in the series, Death at the Old Curiosity Shop, is still riding high in the charts, and the ebook ontinues to be available at a special price of £1.39 on Amazon’s UK site, and at various offer prices on other sites around the world. So if you haven’t already read it, now would be a good time! Order online here, or request at your local bookshop or library.

Now, back to work on the third book in the series – with my writing hat on!