Happy New Year, and let’s all hope for a better ’24 than ’23 has been.

A slight hiccough in the writing – no new book in December, the first I have missed for a few years.

January sees ‘The Last Campaign’, Thomas Stark bringing his weary bones to Burma in 1943 and ’44 in the final book of the Innocents series.

I shall miss Tommy and Thomas – they have been enjoyable characters!

My health has let me down, hence the absence of the December book, and no guarantee of one in February, though I expect all to return to normal thereafter. A slight tickle in the chest transpired to be asymptomatic heart problems, a cardiologist gravely declaring I have ‘a bunch of tatty arteries’.

I have experienced a successful angioplasty and am due a second later this month or next. After that, I can expect to be fully functional again.

For the moment, I have the joys of modifying my diet, indulging in more frequent exercise and losing weight!

I tried to argue that ten-plus hours a day at my desk was hard labour but was persuaded that I must discover time to walk and ‘enjoy’ exercise.

The moral is simple – Don’t grow old! Unfortunately, the alternative to growing old is less pleasant.

I shall persevere.

Enjoy your reading this year. I shall, again, be enjoying writing.

Andrew