There's nothing like watching a book go from idea, to page, to publication - even if you're simply standing in the shadows cheering the author on. This month sees the publication of two new novels, both from talented Scottish-based women, both set in Scotland: Ann Lilley brings us Vermillion Days, and from Sarah Clayton, comes The Wrong Daughter.

After competing local ly and then nationally, Bhola's Children was invited to send five of our talented young athletes out to the Berlin Special Olympic as a part of Bangladesh delegation.

Getting to grips with social media is like pushing custard up a hill with a rake. It’s so slippery that you just get to grips with, say, Facebook and suddenly that’s passé and everyone in the know is on Insta. You’re still looking at that – and calling it Instagram – with suspicion, when the young and the bold are on TikTok (not to mention its BookTok, spin-off)...

Authors are constantly  - if with trepidation – seeking reviews for their published work. The longed-for 4 and 5* variety can be re-tweeted, re-posted, repeated, all helping to bump up social media visibility of a book and, with inexplicable algorithms, encouraging more sales.

If I were counting writerly success in amount of original fiction written, then February would be anunmitigated disaster – I’m guessing my word count would be far below zero, when I take editing into consideration.