January - packing up and moving on!

I know, I know…. I haven’t posted since wishing you a happy Christmas but I do have a good excuse, honest! 

Just before Christmas we sold our cottage. We’d had it up for sale for almost a year but with the house market being in the doldrums, we hadn’t attracted any serious interest. That all changed very quickly indeed just before Christmas after a lovely couple came to view, loved it, and offered to buy it straight away!

You may wonder why we would want to sell our cottage, which we bought as a derelict shepherd's bothy twenty five years ago and renovated ourselves. Well, with our three lovely sons all grown up and seeing the big wide world as theirs for the taking, Mr JH and I have decided to sell up/downscale and age disgracefully by having some adventures of our own rather than putting our feet up by the fire.

We did manage to have a fabulous last family Christmas at the cottage. But the moment January arrived we were in packing mode. So now we have packed up and moved out - our exciting adventure has begun. We have very luckily managed to find a place to stay temporarily, until we decide where we’d like to base ourselves. We have moved from our cottage in the hills to a lodge house down by the side of the river. The river is one of the best in Scotland for fishing salmon and river trout and I must admit that I do love the sight and sound of the water thundering past us - from a safe distance of course - here on the river bank!

And the writing? Well, I’m just about to start writing a new full length novel for publication later this year and I can do that just about anywhere – same goes for blogging – so if I’m not here as much as you’d like me to be with my news then please do pop over and Like my Page or Follow me on Facebook or Twitter as you’ll find me online there most days and I’d be delighted to chat and share news.

So what’s happening this week…?

Award winning 'Innovative' Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine - for which I am an associate editor – has a fabulous third issue available now to read online or to download. I like to download it to read on my Kindle Fire in full colour. Find out how to get your FREE copy HERE

January 25^th is Burns Night here in Scotland and it is celebrated all over the world. I’m celebrating by offering my bestselling novel Bagpipes and Bullshot at a specially reduced price in paperback. Or you can download to Kindle at £1.90 or $3.00. A wee bargain!

Here’s the links if you’d like to check it out on Amazon UK or Amazon US. Other countries worldwide via Amazon are included in this offer.

You can win a copy of Bagpipes and Bullshot if you are my 5000^th Twitter Follower! I'm close to 5K lovely follower peeps and feeling so excited about reaching such a milestone! A copy of my bestselling novel Bagpipes & Bullshot goes to Follower No.5000!

Be a Tweetheart and Follow me on Twitter! https://twitter.com/JaniceHorton

Until next week then…..

Janice xx

First, catch your Haggis!

It’s Burns Night here in Scotland, when we sing and dance and address the white chieftain o’ the pudding race itself – the delicious Haggis. But first we have to catch the wee beastie!

The official Great Scottish Haggis Hunt website is fabulous fun. You can read up on old haggis myths, get some top haggis hunting tips, look up facts and find out about the zoology of the wee beastie. There is a haggisclopedia of common jargon and haggis spotting cams pointing to lots of beautiful and wild looking places all over Scotland. If you are lucky enough to spot the rare Golden Haggis, there are even prizes to be won!

On Burns Night in the Horton household we will be partaking of a wee dram and baking our haggis. The Haggis Bake below is my own (now famous!) recipe and if you want to try it, I can guarantee it’s absolute deliciousness!

 

 

Haggis Bake.
You will need:
One large haggis (I’m using a traditional Macsween of Edinburgh haggis).
1kg lean Scottish steak mince.
One large onion.
Two tbsp plain flour.
Tin of chopped tomatoes.
One and a half pints of beef stock ( I used OXO cubes x 3)

Potatoes (peel as many as you think you will need to cover a large shallow oven dish) then slice lengthways into medium thick slices and part boil.

Method:
Brown the minced beef in a large pan with the chopped onion. Add the flour. Stir and cook until the flour is absorbed. Add the tinned chopped tomatoes and the beef stock. Turn down the heat to a simmer and cover.
Cook the haggis by following the instructions on the wrapper. For this recipe I used the microwave method. Chop up the cooked haggis and add to the minced beef and gravy. Stir and add boiling water if more liquid is required. The oats in the haggis will absorb a lot of the liquid and you should allow for this. You probably won’t want to season the mixture as the haggis is well seasoned.
In a separate pan, parboil the sliced potatoes for about 5 minutes. You want them half-cooked and still firm. Drain in a colander. Transfer the beef mince and haggis mixture to a large shallow oven dish and arrange the slices of potato on top.
Brush with melted butter and pop into a moderately hot oven. This would be the middle shelf of the roasting oven for an range cooker or 190 degrees/ gas mark 5 for a conventional oven. Bake until bubbling and golden brown for approx 30-40 minutes. Serves 6-8  generously. Enjoy with seasonal vegetables like ‘neeps’ and carrots.

 

 Happy Burns Night everyone!

This Week’s Progress..!

This week I’ve been busily working away on ‘Voodoo Wedding’ the magically romantic sequel to my novella ‘How Do You Voodoo?’ and I’m trying hard to follow last week’s sound advice against procrastination from productivity ninja, Grace Marshall. This week, Grace has featured the topic (and my plea) on her own expert blog and she says it has resonated with many writers!

 

I was tagged this week by several lovely Facebook friends to take part in the 777 Challenge, which means you take page 7, line 7, from your Work In Progress and quote from it before challenging 7 other writers to do the same. You can check who I nominated on my Author Facebook Page HERE and here is an extract from page 7 of ‘Voodoo Wedding’ which I hope to launch on Amazon for Kindle on 1st March:

‘I know we wanted a small wedding at first,’ she explained, ‘but then my mother reminded me how I have lots of aunties and uncles and cousins in Glasgow. I want them to be there and I can’t invite some and not others, can I? That would be rude.’ She flicked a finger across her iPad again. ‘Now, how many relatives do you have?’

‘I don’t.’

My tag line for ‘Voodoo Wedding’ is: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something voodoo…!

If you haven’t yet read ‘How Do You Voodoo’ which is part one of my Voodoo Romance Trilogy – it’s available on Amazon for Kindle right now and included on Love Reading Love Books blog- Five Star Reads of 2012!

 

 

 

Thanks to my lovely friend and fellow author Gill Stewart, who blogs at Novel Points of View and lives not too far away from me in Dumfries and Galloway, for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award!

 

It seems I need to provide seven random facts about myself before passing it on. An excellent excuse for a little bit of self-indulgence!

So here we go – and random it is!

1. I have two white West Highland terriers called Polly and Ruby.

2. I keep four rescue hens - all named after female pop stars.

3. I lived in Scotland half my life but I was born in Widnes England.

4. I’m the eldest of five children. I have two brothers and two sisters.

5. I do not have a middle name but I’d really like one.

6. My favourite food is Scottish smoked salmon.

7. Mr JH and I will be celebrating our 30th Wedding Anniversary this year.

 

And I’ll pass on this award to: Linn B Halton. Grace Marshall. Facing 50 With Humour. Liz Harris. Celtic Connexions. Kenneth Rosenberg.

Until next week then – when it’s Burns Night - and we’ll be celebrating by taking part in the official Haggis Hunt. Not to be missed!!

 

 

 

 

Haste Ye Back!