I have lucked into some pretty much perfect writing conditions. Husband has taken the five year old out and here I am in the garden in the sunshine with an iced matcha, writing a story set in the desert in New Mexico. Glad I chose this particular story for this month’s Patreon!

Confession: I’ve sort of lowkey wanted a gingham dress ever since I left primary school. They seem to be in this year so I finally bought one!

Loki and I were out by the canal filming for this month’s Patreon video today and we got into a standoff with a Canada Goose. I’m ashamed to say the goose won…!

The trouble with a new YouTube channel is you notice every tiny movement. This week views plummeted and I lost a subscriber (noticeable when the channel is tiny!) and it’s like, did I say something wrong? Do people not like the story of Fionn and the Salmon of Knowledge? When it’s probably random.

Work uses multi factor authentication, which means I have to pick up my phone multiple times to get logged in to everything in the morning (email, main page, moodle - all separate) which is good for security but really really bad for my productivity…

Found an exciting new way to pretend to be on holiday - watching new and current affairs programmes in French on YouTube! :)

I used to have a video on the Battle of Badon Hill and King Arthur up on my main YouTube channel, but something had gone wrong with the filming so I’ve made it private! I’ll replace it eventually, but I talk about a lot of the material in my latest video at my second channel youtu.be/CPQygO26I0c?...

Selling my wares at the Book Extravaganza in Bingham Hall in Cirencester today, pop by if you’re in the area! We’re here till 4pm

Decided to set this month’s short story for Patreon in the New Mexico desert, where I did a road trip 10 years ago, so now I'm going through my pictures for inspiration and thinking darn it, why didn't I take more photos of gas stations?! 😆

Just realised that directly behind me in the profile pic on my Learn Irish and Welsh With Me YouTube channel is… a map of England! Doh! 🤦‍♀️😆 (It’s my English Heritage site locations map)

Our first Book Extravaganza in Cirencester is next week, I’m really looking forward to it, would love to see you there!

Catching up on Episode 4 of the final season of The Boys and it’s making me want to watch I, Claudius…

Something I’ve been thinking about lately open.substack.com/pub/juliette...

I’m at the Uffculme Centre in Birmingham until 4pm today for the Birmingham Book Extravaganza! We’re a bit tucked away in a corner in a small side room but we’ve got a lovely spooky book book going so do come and say hi if you’re in the area!

When you watch CBeeebies every morning, you just accept that the chickens in Hey Duggee star in their own telenovela in Spanish about chicken doctors and this week they went to space. Then you try to explain it to people who’ve never seen it and realise how bonkers it sounds!

Of all the Jane Austen fan fiction I’ve read or watched (Death Comes to Pemberley was fun) The Other Bennet Sister feels by far the closest to the works of Jane Austen. Could do without the Bridgerton-esque costumes though!

I don't recall any previous transformative technologies that had to be sold to the public so hard. No one in 1999 was going, "Guys. Cell phone? It's coming, whether we like it or not. I think it's important, FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, to learn about cell phone. So that we're not left behind!!"

New at my main YouTube channel: youtu.be/b1Pm6ROntLU?...

I can’t get to the hairdressers for a little while so I did a thing 🙂 (Don’t worry, I’ll get it fixed when I get a chance! 🤣)

New at my Irish/Welsh learn with me channel :) youtu.be/Mg8fr0dJq_Q?...

Ok I know this is a bit daft, but at the age of 43 and with the help of my five year old, I have just completed a Mario game FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME EVER !!! In fact, it is the very first time I have EVER completed ANY video game!!!!! I am very excited. Please clap. 😃🥹🥹🥳🥂

Took advantage of the gorgeous weather to visit Wroxeter Roman City so I can pretend to be on holiday in Italy! 🤣

Eastercon update: It’s a good thing I brought the car today!

My Eastercon so far: Missed my train but just made it to the Opening Ceremony. Had to run out of the very first panel when husband called needing to take dog to emergency vet. Poor 5yrold thought dog was dying (dog is not dying: has pulled off a claw). Luckily then I found coffee and good friends :)

Just found out that #PhantomsFriday is a thing, so here is my latest podcast episode, featuring two different ghosts (one of them also a witch) and partly set at #Easter :) open.substack.com/pub/juliette...

Missed my train and it looks like I won’t be in time for the Opening Ceremony at Eastercon :( Should be in decent time for the rest of the afternoon though!

Watching the film version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and thinking about Sam Rockwell’s perfect trilogy of space movies in the late 90s/early noughties; Galaxy Quest, HHGTTG, and Moon. Two of the greatest space movies ever, and HHGTTG, which is just a cult classic in any form.

Between Sunrise on the Reaping and Z for Zachariah, my books for this year’s reading challenge are leaning way too dark at the moment. I’m in dire need of something more cheerful! Going for a Star Trek tie in novel next, that should be better…

Making a chocolate cake while wearing a cream Aran jumper went predictably badly. Have now switched to the cheap £10 knock off instead of the real Aran jumper!

This month’s short story for the Creepy Classics podcast is going to be from Laxdaela Saga, a medieval Icelandic saga - and I’m only sad I can’t get all of the glorious soap opera that is these characters’s stories into one short story!

Loki and I were out filming this month’s dog-walking vlog for Patreon today, and we got really lucky with the weather. It was so good to feel the warmth of the sun!

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit! Happy St Patrick’s Day!

Reading a book on horror literature in the ancient world and suddenly I’m learning all sorts of very technical terms for various types of cannibalism: anthropophagy, which means eating humans whether by another human or something else, and teknophagy, eating one’s own children. Aah, Greek mythology!

My latest ghost story for my Patrons is now up! This month's ghost story, The Maid near the Stones, is inspired by a story I remember my Mum telling me when I was a teenager and we were living in Kent, about the phantom hitchhiker on Blue Bell Hill. www.patreon.com/posts/maid-n...

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

Loki’s and my ghost tour of Aberystwyth is all edited and available now on YouTube! youtu.be/-eydJd1JG_k

Posted in the middle of the night, as per usual these days, some thoughts on Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”! youtu.be/dPktXCUKGFQ?...

My first Patreon-only ghost story is finally up! This story was inspired by accounts from late 19th-century Welsh newspapers. I will eventually publish these 19th and 20th century stories as books/e-books, but Patrons get access to them as I write them. www.patreon.com/posts/red-an...

Books I would totally buy and read if Suzanne Collins ever feels like writing them: - A book about Finnick’s Hunger Games - A book about the First Quarter Quell - Catching Fire re-told from Haymitch’s POV (how did he and Plutarch and Beetee all get back in touch?!) - Anything about District 13

I’m increasingly realising that I owe Suetonius an apology. I’ve been telling students for years that’s he’s gossipy and unreliable, but the more I listen to the news, the more I realise he was probably telling the truth about every one of those Caesars.

This month's Creepy Classics podcast episode is now up! This new story is based on The Pardoner's Tale from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: open.substack.com/pub/juliette...

Top 5 movie moments of “eucatastrophe” (coined by JRR Tolkien) 5. “Daddy, my Daddy!” (The Railway Children) 4. Emma Thompson bursts into happy tears (Sense & Sensibility) 3. “I am no man!”/“You bow to no one” (LOTR: ROTK) 2. Sunrise at Helm’s Deep (LOTR: TT) 1. “On your left” (Avengers: Endgame)

Got this posted up at 2.30am this morning and forgot to share it! 🤣 New at my YouTube channel: youtu.be/UdzKPSXNyb8?...

I have come up with a kind of bonkers social media strategy for 2026… YouTube: Folklore, classic literature, British history Instagram/TikTok: Cozy countryside content leaning towards history Substack/podcast: ghost stories, newsletter Patreon: 50% cozy, 50% ghost stories Threads/Bluesky: no idea! 🤣

Some actual news in this month’s newsletter - I’ll try to get back to interesting essays in mid January! open.substack.com/pub/juliette...

New at my YouTube channel, a look at four of my favourite versions of A Christmas Carol: the book (obvs!), The Muppets’ Christmas Carol, Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, and Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol! youtu.be/lquJzNYx9sM?...

We’ve been to a couple of Christingle services this year, one of the Church of England’s odder Christmas traditions! It’s pretty recent: although it has early modern roots it only goes back to the 60s. I made a video about it last year; I thought it was worth explaining! youtu.be/z6lGpoBWl6c?...

SALE!!! If you use Smashwords, all three of my books - including my collection of Christmas ghost stories, Creepy Classics: Haunting Tales for Winter - are on sale for $1.99 (that’s 50% off) on Smashwords only until January 1st - perfect Christmas reading! www.smashwords.com/books/search...

New at my YouTube channel - this is one of the simplest recipes around and I still managed to mess it up! 😆 youtu.be/hFGBNsfpwWs?...

I’ve probably cursed him to lose by putting this on. Verstappen is starting to feel inevitable…