I love doing these. Let’s make it a regular feature here. Tell us your favourite:

winter memory

exotic pet

greeting

current tv programme

way to spend a rainy Friday afternoon

Here are mine:

Snowed in for a long weekend at my grandad’s cottage in Shropshire, a week or so before I went away to join the navy and three years before he died. We had all the food and firewood we needed, and nothing to do but enjoy each other’s company. It was quality time and I treasure the memory.

Tarantula. But I can’t have one because certain other people in this house would freak. 🙂

The hug and kiss my wife and I share first thing every day.

CSI New York. This franchise gets better and better, although I do miss Stella Bonasera.

A long luxurious massage in front of the fire.

Coffee Time Romance is giving away a signed copy of Danielle D. Smith’s action-packed erotic horror tale BLACK DOG AND REBEL ROSE as part of their Year of The Reader, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

I critted this book before Dani subbed it. It’s a great read for those who like a little badassery and forbidden heat in their fiction.

Make sure to pop over to the contest page and enter to win a signed copy!

Irish blues rock guitarist and singer Gary Moore died yesterday. He was only 58. He leaves behind a brilliant body of work, but it’s terribly sad that we’ve been robbed of many more years of his magic. The man was a genius. Today people are saying he was underrated, but that isn’t the case for those of us who’ve always loved his music.

I’ve also heard it suggested that the fact he wasn’t particularly pretty kind of took the legs from under the record company marketing department. Indeed, Ozzy Osbourne once quipped, “Can you imagine having a Gary Moore poster on your wall? You might as well have a picture of a welder’s bench.” (Yes, that famously pretty boy Ozzy 🙂 ). Gary loved the line and often repeated it.

My wise friend Kate’s response is that “this was one of his strengths. There’s no doubt that his music was good because it was good, not because we were being somehow fooled into thinking it was by a charismatic image.”

I’ve always thought the best word to describe his playing is pure. If you don’t know him and have never heard his music, you have such a treat in store. Search for him on YouTube and I promise you’ll find hours of bliss waiting to be discovered.

My favourite number of his will always be Parisienne Walkways. It graced the UK top 10 all through summer 1979, which was Janette’s and my first summer together. It’s a wonderful love song. Possibly my favourite love song of my whole life.

Thank you, Gary. I love you, man.