I was so glad to take part in this amazing event, the purpose of which was to highlight the dreadful plight of Asia's remaining wild tigers.  It's estimated that there are only about 3,500 wild tigers left in the world today, which means that extinction looms for this most beautiful of creatures.  There are more tigers in captivity than in the wild.

World Book Day 2013 was on Thursday March 7th, but many schools celebrate for the entire week, and this year, so did I!

These are two men with a mission.  Mark Vine (right) is the author of "The Crabchurch Conspiracy", a slim but fascinating book that's now out of print. It tells the story of events in February 1645, at the height of the English Civil War, when the Royalists made an audacious attempt to recapture the twin towns of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis from the Parliamentarians. Steve Booth, on the left, is one of the people, along with Mark, heavily involved in raising money to renovate the Old Town Hall in Weymouth

I didn't quite manage to write a post on the first day of the year, but this isn't bad, is it? It's grey and dull outside now, but new year's day was glorious and we enjoyed a fantastic walk along the Ridgeway in warm, crisp sunshine. Look at this blue sky!

Way back in February at the fabulous party in the Natural History Museum (there's a blog about this in Feb's archive) I met fellow Orion author Essie Fox. I'd bought but not yet read her debut novel, a Victorian Gothic tale called The Somnambulist, and we had a chat, agreeing to read each other's books soon.  Our paths crossed again when we learned that Orion had given us both the same freelance PR lady (I think we also share her with Gregg Wallace); Essie and I decided to meet up in Windsor for coffee.

Yesterday I was the very lucky recipient of a beautiful bench to go by my new pond. Some of you may recall me writing about this pond earlier in the year - all that digging and emptying and lining and tweaking, mostly done by my son Olly. I'm very pleased with the pond, although Drax has taken a shine to the waterfall bit, imagining himself as Monarch of the Glen as he poses on top. This is with the pump off, which it's been ever since we brought him home five weeks ago. When we turned on the waterfall the other day, he almost toppled in!