A Guernsey Double is about to be published. This is a project I have dreamed about doing since I started writing over thirty years ago. And at long, long last it is happening, and endorsed by the Guernsey Arts Commission to boot.

Amusingly given the length of time I have been thinking about the project, it turns out I did not have quite enough material. So the last few months have been spent in a frenzy of writing new poems. And while I am delighted with the results, I find I am nervously tinkering in the last few days with the new ones, and still noticing infelicities, which is worrying.

The book is a two person collection of poetry about the island of Guernsey by Richard Fleming and myself. Professor Edward Chaney has been kind enough to write the introduction: “Not since the extraordinarily poetic Book of Ebenezer Le Page has a single volume made the soul of the island so unremittingly its focus”, he says at one point. This is clearly rather good.

I have briefed Betsy Alvarez who is providing some excellent cover ideas for us. I am having to pinch myself.

Note to self: do not have the launch event the same day as an England World Cup match.