Mr Tumnal

Everyone has an idea of their ideal family. Not everyone’s become real

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T E Shepherd Official Author Photo - Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike BY+SA
About me

Derbyshire born. Suffolk bred. Lives in the shires.

T E Shepherd is an author/illustrator. He writes magic realism set in our, or closely-related, worlds. His debut novel, The End Of All Worlds, was released in 2012. His second novel, and the first in the Imaginary Friends trilogy, Mr Tumnal, was published in 2014. The second in the series, The Imaginary Wife, was published in 2018, and he's currently working on the final instalment, Forgotten Friends. He is also a landscape artist, and is currently working on a project with Erica Smith aka. the Bookshop Blogger to illustrate his way round the country to produce The Booklover's Guide to Bookshops. You can find out about upcoming releases by following on Twitter, liking on Facebook, or by joining the mailing list.

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  The Imaginary Wife

The Imaginary Wife

How would you feel if you discovered you were the imaginary creation of your best friend?

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journal

Woken With a Glass of Cold Water

We had – or rather more precisely Emma had – a rude awakening to her day, the first day back at work. I think how it happened was that Bella, pleased to be home again, spent a good part of…

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journal

Watching Arthur Watch Springwatch

I had been thinking earlier this evening about how Bella usually loves to watch Springwatch. She weould get up as close as she could to the television and even look round the back of the television to see where the…

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journal

Nineteen Days In The Wild

Bella’s back! She’s home, and she’s safe! We left it until after dinner to go out for a walk around the estate so that it would be that bit quieter about the place. The plan was to walk back round…

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journal

Like Weather Like Mood

Okay, so I almost didn’t grab my waterproof as I left this morning to go and sign on. I’m glad I did tghough because the rain started almost immediately. It felt weird to be going somewhere in the car without…

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journal

A Return To Home

The last leg of our 1,439 mile road trop to Scotland and back was uneventful. We arrived home at lunchtime-ish to be greeted by four loving cats. Sadly, only four though, with still no sign of little Miss Bella. We…

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journal

At Home With The Shaws

Our journey across the Yorkshire Dales was sublime. From as far back as Carlisle the electronic signage was warning us about horse drawn vehicles on the A66. What we discovered was a horse fair finishing up and on a couple…

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journal

From Underground To England

At 15:14 hours we crossed the border into England for the first time in over two weeks. Still, and crucially, on the the road trip part of our honeymoon, we spent the morning back in Edinburgh on the Mary King’s…

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1000 Miles to a Royal Mile

Breakfast in Edinburgh started with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon; very nice. We didn’t get going quite as soon as we thought we might’ve, having slept very well in the cosy hotel bed, but when we did get going we…

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From Island To Edinburgh

Packing and cleaning goes swiftly this morning and we are ready ahead of schedule to leave our little red-roofed cottage in the woods with the gurgling pipes and the peat-brown water. We walk down to the jetty as Paul goes…

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journal

The Best Last Night Meal

At around 5 o’clock I headed down to The Bothy to collect our venison stew. It’s actually turned out to be a pie as Rose discovered that she didn’t have any suet but it looked delicious none-the-less. Whilst there, I…

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Thrice Visited

This evening we were visited by at least three different pine martins, all as greedy as each other. I say ‘at least’ because we didn’t see which one of them snuck in at the beginning of the evening and stole…

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To The Lighthouse

After yesterday’s exploits, I am sitting writing these pages now in front of a warm coal fire that Emma has succeeded in keeping alight since yesterday evening just by stoking and loading and tending it in the right way. Today…

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The Day Off

No boat off the island today; not even if we wanted to. Not that we actually wanted to – preferring instead to have a quieter day. Not that the day was any less nice. We had a bit of a…

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journal

A Walk To The Beach

After the *early* start to the day yesterday we had a bit more of a lie in and a leisurely start. When it came to the business of the day I was glad of the egg for breakfast for today…

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The Road to the Isles

An early start today; we are down at the jetty in good time to get the 9.30 boat across a loch of flat calm and low-tide-shallowness. We get the impression that Allistair is a little unimpressed that we have chosen…

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journal

The Time Was When

13:40:55 is sitting, reading, with the glorious view in front of me… 🙂 17:15:08 and Emma are standing on top of 250 feet of private mountain… 😉

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The Time Was When

13:40:55 is sitting, reading, with the glorious view in front of me… 🙂 17:15:08 and Emma are standing on top of 250 feet of private mountain… 😉

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journal

Settling Into Island Life

With a bed that looks straight out through a large front window at a view across the loch to the east, we slept with the curtains open. So we woke several times during the night as dawn came early. We…

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journal

From Crowded City to Deserted Isle

Another scorching day in Scotland. We have a full breakfast before checking out of our hotel and making our way pack-horse-style to the car again. Escaping Glasgow proves to be not as hideous as I feared after the arrival. An…

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