A trip to Manchester City Art Gallery happily combined with a ride on Wiggins, our Triumph Bonneville counted as a morning's work. Oh the freelance lifestyle!

I needed to conduct some research on Dutch Art and Constable in preparation for my next mystery, which will be called "Artful Designs." It seemed a shame to let the opportunity pass so my husband rearranged his work rota and took me out for the morning. It's really interesting getting into all of the art history and seeing art from different cultures - there'll even be some spray can art going on in the story too! Whenever I'm reading a book I find that it's the background details that keep me hooked, just as much as the plot itself - sometimes more so. I think it's because I'm intrinsically a very nosy person and I like to look into people's everyday lives - even if they're fictional. I like to know what they eat, what their interests are, what their house and their lifestyle are like. It surely follows that these same things are what I'll like writing about. It just so happens that my current characters are affiliated to the art scene and so I'm enjoying getting inside their world.

Not surprisingly my next novel will revolve around an art theft, though some of the characters from the first novel "Fête Fatale" will be making another appearance. I'm nearly ready to launch the first mystery "Fête Fatale" and also small biographical work, "Letters from the Broom Cupboard" as I begin to scribble away on the next mystery. I'm just dotting the last few Is and Ts…