Latent ambition

One of the main impacts recently of starting my blog has been a kickstart to my writing ambitions. I have been faffing about for years with the idea of writing a book and regular input into a blog (OK 2 posts hardly counts as regular but is certainly diligent for me) has made me more motivated to commit to the regular discipline of putting something down on paper (or, more accurately, on dongle). I have been doing up my house for nearly two years, with most possessions in storage for over three, and now that the end is in sight, I can start to concentrate on some more abstract objectives and creative writing is right up there.

A very elderly lady called Kathleen Lees passed away last year. She lived in Jacketman's Cottage which is the only other house up our lane. The house has just been sold and we are awaiting the arrival our new neighbours. We befriended Kathleen when we moved in to our house and so remember the Jacketmans when it was full of her personality which was much more significant than her frail 95 year old shell. As she was housebound when she lived there, and now the house is empty, we have come to think of the lane as only leading to our house so things are going to change when Andrew, Michelle and their daughter, who's name I can't remember, move in.

I want to try and find out more about the hamlet of Whittlestone Head too. I know the main road to Blackburn was used as a smuggler's run from Liverpool and Jake, the crazy son of a local scrap merchant, lives in the house that used to be the Toll House along the main road. Still, this is just a snippet, absorbed along with a Bushmills on ice one night in the pub (yes there might only be 9 houses in the hamlet spread across 100 acres of wild moorland, but we do have a great pub). Check it out here - http://www.fatbadgers.co.uk/lancashire.htm