Is there anything better than stumbling on a cracking book from a new-to-you writer? Well, yes, actually, there is. It's discovering that the book is part of a whole series of stories.
When I was younger, I loved the 'Susan' stories by Jane Shaw (I still have my collection) and reading about the girls at St. Clare's and Malory Towers and life in a boarding school. Then, one of my school friends loaned me her copy of Mystery at Wichend which set me on the path of devouring as many Lone Pine adventures as I could get my sticky little mitts on.
As a teenager, I found Miss Marple and Poirot and worked my way through as many titles as the newsagent's shop (Tunnel's, where I'd also bought my comics and chosen a selections of glittery Christmas cards before those fab ones from Gordon Fraser hit the shelves) at the end of our street offered.
And these days, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a hardback of the latest in the Scarpetta series. I've read every. single. one.
Seems I'm the same with a television series. I never missed an episode of Bewitched, loved Morse, binged on Deadwood, still watch reruns of Friends and can't bring myself to tune in to the finale of Mad Men (just possibly my all time favourite).
Now there's Alan Bradley's brilliant series of books about Flavia de Luce (I didn't read the first two in order but I don't think that matters particularly). Eleven years old, living with her distracted philatelist father and two odious older sisters in a crumbling pile somewhere in England in the 1950s. A bicycle named Gladys, an inherited chemistry lab in the attic, a penchant for poisons and a nose for sniffing out a murderer. Such larks!
This weekend was also spent enjoying another activity I'm rather partial to - nosing around other people's gardens (right up there with having a neb inside other people's homes). This is an annual event (which included allotments this year) to raise money for the local hospice and well worth the five quid entry programme.
The weather wasn't the kindest but at least it didn't rain as we trooped the streets and lanes of the market town up the road, looking for the next garden on the map. Even the resident ducks joined in. With homemade cakes and plants ('Haven't a clue what they are so you can have them for 10p') to take home, I can think of no better way of generating ideas and inspiration. Along with maybe just a teensy bit of garden envy.