My husband told me that since this was to be the Year of Renovating the House, that it was also to be the Year of No Writing.

But alas - one cannot stifle creativity! Once the ideas take hold there's no stopping them. So this year we've pretty much had triplets: one new house and two new books.

I'm very, VERY excited about the two new publications: How to Blitz! General Knowledge and How to Blitz! Sight Reading. There is nothing else like them on the market, and it’s very exciting to think how much these publications will help students to prepare for their practical exams.

How to Blitz! General Knowledge is a ‘one-stop shop’ reference book that is designed to be a student’s and teacher’s best friend leading up to an exam. No more searching through bits and pieces on the internet – it’s all there in one book. My own children used it this weekend as they had their practical exams, and apart from Thomas picking up that ‘Bossa Nova’ was not in the Index (which has now been fixed) they thought the book was very helpful!

 How to Blitz! Sight Reading is the first book of its kind that will make children actually WANT to pull out the sight reading book and practise from it. That’s right... you can actually practise sight reading – a concept not really understood by lots of students. What’s the point of practising if you don’t know what you’re going to see on the day of the exam?

I like to draw the analogy of what it was like when we all learned to read English in Kindergarten. When we were little, we learned to read by taking home different readers every night. We didn’t know what the words inside would be, but the more we did it the better we got at reading. We would not have improved very much if we had read the same reader every night for 6 or 8 months!

So it’s the same with sight-reading. You don’t know what the notes will be when you open the music, but the more you do it, the faster you get at transferring what’s on the page to what your fingers do.

Both of the books are co-authored with dear friends of mine. And yes, we are still talking to each other! It has been an amazing ride and we hope you will reap the benefits. The two new babies will be on the shelves by the end of the month.

As for the third baby – the house... well, the main part of the labour is over, the pain is receding, and we’re very happy!