Cake Friday!

It's Cake Friday and it's also the last day of the Spring Term! For some time now, all the Science Teachers and Support Staff who work in Science have used their culinary and baking skills to produce wonderful cakes every Friday for everyone in the department. So here at morning break, is my mug (of cold water!!!), and Lucy's Chocolate Brownie and home made biscuit photographed to mark the end of what has been a very eventful term for everyone.

One of the achievements of this term has been research on my novel. I have been developing a story set in Hampshire around Alton for some time, most of which had remained in my head and always rather sketchy about the finer detail. Then it dawned on me that to set it in the background of a school would be ideal as I have plenty of inspiration day to day! The story is set in the present and concerns the lives of four friends between the ages of 28 and 40. Three are teachers and one is a Learning Support Assistant. Rachel who teaches History, Sarah who teaches Science and Laverne who is a part-time PE teacher are single and Miranda, the LSA is married with two daughters. These four women all live in and around Alton and with the all girls' state school being in Winchester. All four are bound in friendship through their jobs and despite being very different, they all get on very well. Their lives are changed forever when a Noblewoman from the 15th Century arrives in the present and befriends them! Only Lady Hawise can see the four and communicate with them but not with anyone else unless she chooses. When a fellow PE teacher is found strangled in woods between Alton and Basingstoke, the now five women all help the Police who have no leads or obvious motive, to catch the killers and discover there was much more to the crime than they had expected.

All this takes place against a background of busy days and hard work! Each character has their own personality. I'll finish by describing wacky Laverne, who lives with her parents at a pub. Laverne teaches PE part-time and is completely obsessed with hockey. The fact that she can teach the sport to the girls is a dream come true for her, as well as her club play at the weekends. Her obsession for the sport goes much further, for the walls of the pub are adorned with hockey memorabilia. Each time Laverne is behind the bar of The Seven Stars as barmaid, she always wears a hockey shirt and skirt! In Chaper 1, when Rachel has her friends round for a meal in the evening, it comes as no surprise that Laverne appears similarly dressed!