Nick McLoughlin

@nickmacwrites.bsky.social

3198 Followers 2175 Following

Reader, writer, runner. Tea, trees, and cats. My debut novel Slings and Arrows was published on the 28th March 2024. 📚💙

Kevin Keegan in a Liverpool shirt cirrca 1975. Great hair!
David Attenborough with a green frog on his hand.
Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer from the TV show ‘Gone Fishing’.
25 books laid out on my dining table in 5 rows of 5.
My black cat Jem almost invisible inside a cardboard box in front of the fire. A 2 foot model Father Christmas stands either side of the fire.
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.
A ‘mer de nuages’ sits below the Vanoise Express lift, looking across towards Montchavin/Les Coches from Vallandry.
A 1967 Penguin edition of Edna O’Brien’s novel, Girls in their Married Bliss, with funky cover art by Alan Aldridge.
A paperback copy of Birding by Rose Ruane.
A truck packed with labourers on their home from work on a road in Lombok, Indonesia, a moped on either side.
Border Crossing by Pat Barker.
Michelle Agyemang celebrating her goal tonight.
A copy of JB Priestley’s English Journey.
A portrait in pencil of Winston Churchill drawn by my son Noah, 17.
An image from the BBC adaptation of Middlemarch showing Juliette Aubree and Rufus Sewell as Dorothea and Ladislaw.
A short 360 panoramic video from the summit of Mount Coin in the Beaufort area of Savoie in France.
A copy of Middlemarch by George Eliot face up on my old, gnarled wood coffee table.
A copy of Paul Auster’s final novel Baumgartner, lying face up on my old, heavily grained and knotted coffee table.
Peony bush with deep pink petals unfurled to reveal yellow centres.
Grafton Books edition of An Unsuitable Attachment, by Barbara Pym.
A Persephone copy of Greengates by RC Sheriff.
A copy of Kudos, by Rachel Cusk, on a rust and white patterned outside mat, on gravel.
A deli in Banon, France with rows and rows of saucisson hanging from the ceiling.
Our VW camper parked with the door open and the roof up at a campsite in rural France.
Hey tech bros and fellow sycophants, yes he's very stupid, but sooner or later someone (Putin presumably) will tell him that instead of deporting poor people it makes much more sense to imprison rich ones and seize their assets.
A full moon (almost) rises above the snow-capped summit of Mont Pourri, pink from the setting sun. The village of Macot in the valley below.
A stack of books on my balcony rail.
An old apple tree in brilliant white blossom. The grass beneath is dotted with buttercups, and the odd red tulip. In front curves a foot-high Cotoneaster (I think) covered in tiny white flowers.
A picture of a colourful multi-tiered birthday cake, with glitter, balloons, and candles. A cut out of my novel Slings and Arrows has been cropped in at the top. 🎂
Charlie Brown walking with a Happy Birthday sign with 4 Woodstock dancing and flying around him.
A view of the sea from Hastings promenade.
Hardback copy of Claire Keegan’s So Late in the Day, face up on an on old, heavily grained and knotted wooden table. (Which I made from an old barn door.)
A pile of sticks on the lawn and another in a wheelbarrow. The lopped hornbeam hedge is behind with the branches of an ash tree strafing a blue sky striped with wispy high cloud.
Zelensky, Trump, Vance in the Oval Office.
Close up of a bookshelf. Two copies of my novel Slings and Arrows stand centre, between books by Ian McEwen and Rohinton Mistry. Partial view of other books on the same shelf with authors whose surname begins with M, N and O, as well as above (F,G,H) and below (S).
The front aspect of Plas Wilmot in Oswestry, where Wilfred Owen lived as a boy.
Two brown horses grazing in a field. Mossy boulders in the foreground, russet bracken, dry stone walls, and a tree covered hillside sit beneath a grey sky.
The front entrance to a shabby café in France with a sign above the door that reads ‘Le Savoy’.
My cat Jem lies asleep on the sofa in front of a copy of The Retun of the Soldier by Rebecca West.
View towards Mont Pourri, through the bare branches of a walnut tree.
A chopping board with the word Pain partially visible, a metal bread knife, two loose slices of brown, grained bread and a packet containing more bread with the words Batard Nordique written across it.
A track cuts through bare fields and curls towards a line of trees. A hillside beyond has a light covering of snow at its summit. The sky is a deep blue feathered by strips of white cloud.
My black cat 🐈‍⬛ Jem asleep with her front leg draped across a copy of my novel Slings and Arrows.
A copy of Tessa Hadley’s short story collection After the Funeral.
A black and white image of David Lynch
View from my garden, looking south at a peach and faded yellow sky, through the black confused branches of a greengage tree. The valley below is filled with an ethereal mist, with the ridge line of the mountains in the distance an uneven line against that beautiful sky.
Images on a pink background of the items mentioned in the post all currently available to buy on Amazon for less than a pound.
A bottle of Becks.
A hillside of snow-covered pine trees in blue shadow. Behind the summit of a mountain is lit by the morning sun.
The small wooden table on my balcony on which lies a copy of Tessa Hadley’s collection of short stories, After the Funeral. Two white porcelain mugs sit alongside the book, one with a blackbird and the other a thrush painted on them. A wonderful pink knitted tea cosy designed as a small cottage with lattice windows and a thatched roof stands behind. Above and just beyond the balcony rail, hangs a bird feeder in the shape of a small house.
Picture of my tv screen showing title page for the film Memento Mori.
View of Lake Annecy from the shore close to the village of Talloires, looking south.
The back cover of my book Slings and Arrows on a wooden table. A small image of the front cover is above with a tile advertising the Kindle version at 99p.
Image of Michael Van Gerwen and Luke Littler, finalists in tonight’s World Darts Final.
A long wooden table from above, upon which lie the 32 books I have read in 2024.