What is a holiday?

Most people view a holiday as a time to get away from the domestic chores and routine. So did I until last week when we took a bus trip to Germany. I was away from the computer, away from the distractions of the Internet and e-mail and spending quite a lot of the time sitting on a bus.

It turned out to be a fantastic opportunity to just let my imagination play with the possibilities of 'Treasons'. The rest of the bus soon grew used to me scrabbling in my bag for the Moleskine notebook - thank you Writers' Forum - grabbing a pen and scribbling furiously. Quite often ideas came at mealtimes. The short-sighted obese man squinting at his food would make a wonderful self-important court official. The bent elderly eccentric, cutting up his food into tiny bites, the self-important woman preening as she looked around to see if anyone had more diamonds on than her. Once my bus companions found out I write, they did the usual 'don't put me in it' and 'there are plenty of people here for you to pick on'. I did listen with interest to one lady, whose grandparents had fled from Russia about how the Russians broke the spirits of the troublemakers in their prisons. That, too, will appear in some form in 'Treasons'.

The best bit about the whole experience - apart from the hotel pool and seeing the Mohne Dam - was the fact that I had ample opportunity to sit with Paul, drinking Stella and finally putting the bones of the plot together. Now I've done that, I need to concentrate on my 'family' of characters. So, here I sit in the Word Shed, the usual gales of the third week of September howling outside, Rufus asleep on the floor and I travel back to 1551, Hampton Court and Luke's apothecary shop....