I finally got a job that my younger, teenage self has been waiting for. All those hours as a teenager I spent drawing space-suited damsels-in-distress (and, often, a mini-skirt) floating above massive planets, while heroes, ray-gun in hand, battled a slimey alien, have paid off.

The job is a poster for the musical Return to the Forbidden Planet. Rough sketches below... which one will they go for?

British comic collective Accent UK will be publishing Twelve, an anthology retelling the twelve tasks of Heracles in adaptations from a variety of writers and artists. Garen has written and drawn the ninth task, the Girdle of Hippolyte, as an early-days William Pickle adventure, renamed the Girdle of Polly Hipple.

This is Accent UK's fourth such anthology, each with its own theme (so far: war, phobias and pirates). Fellow contributors include David Hitchcock, Neill Cameron, Jason Cobley, Colin Mathieson and Dave West. Visit Accent UK.

Some sad news, Puss, our neighbour's cat was killed by a car on Monday. She had many years behind her, but was a lovely old thing, and even though we moved away recently, she'll be missed. Puss was the sometime adversary of our own Tansy, who spent many hours watching Puss from the safety of her window ledge. A new cat, Monty, was introduced a few months back from another neighbour, and though he quickly dominated the area anyway, he will now find his reign completely unopposed! I could only find one rather furtive-looking photo, but here it is all the same.

On house-move things, our new house fell through, so we are going through it all again on another one. Fingers crossed.

On Friday 18th February Elyssa and I will be moving out of our current house. Unfortunately, our new house is in stasis at the moment - it's been off, then on, then off, then on again... latest is it looks like we could still be moving into it, but not for a while, so we are putting almost all our stuff into storage, and living in temporary accommodation - perhaps for two weeks, perhaps for two months.

So... all my DVDs: storage, all my comic albums: storage: all my records and CDs: storage (glad there's iTunes), all my books: storage. Actually I'm kind of looking forward to being without them for a while and getting reacquainted on the other side of all this - it'll be good for me (but I'm already having a very strong urge to watch Kurosawa's 'Stray Dog'... perhaps I should just get it out of the box... must resist...)

I have updated various websites with a temporary postal address, and I am sorting out email today, but the address for that won't change. Apologies for any recent lack of communication, and apologies also for the definite lack of communication over the next week or so - I will catch up eventually, but next Monday I dive straight into quite a lot of work as well. I don't know what my internet access will be like, though I do need it for work, so will sort out something.

Please excuse the absence, I thought December was going to be a quiet month, and it was, work-wise, but then all the little bits and pieces that had been left behind because of work from the previous months caught up and December was quickly filled, meaning I actually had even less spare time to begin with.

By the time Christmas came around I took a couple of days off, and enjoyed it so much that I hardly did a thing for the whole holiday week - and it was lovely. I think I really needed it. I was quite sociable this Christmas, and even went out for New Year, which I tend not to do. One day my friend Jon and I watched all three Lord of the Rings films back to back (10 and half hours of viewing, his wife kindly took their children out for the day), which was highly enjoyable and I didn't fall asleep. Other films watched over Christmas include Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters (better than I remembered), Charge of the Light Brigade (Errol Flynn - fab, historical facts - questionable), Zulu (and Zulu Dawn earlier)... and maybe a couple more that don't come to mind right now.

My booklist on this blog is out of date, though I am still reading the Nausicaa volumes. I have bookmarks in a number of books, including 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell', on which I've ground to a halt about a quarter of the way through, and am not sure I'll strike up again. I'm also reading 'The Sepoy & the Cossack' and have just acquired Kurosawa's 'Something Like an Autobiography'. I got an intriguing banjo book for Christmas with about 75 tunes in it, so plenty to get on with there.

My final copy of The Rainbow Orchid sold on ebay in December, and went for £79, which was a nice surprise. However, it is outweighed somewhat by my own purchases, which have mainly been related to my Afghan war research. I have obtained some wonderful papers and books over the past year, some quite rare, and I'd dread to add up the cost of them all. I hope they will earn their keep in the form of my own book, which is also the result of many hours of newspaper research and some quite fascinating insights. The Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878 has amazing reflections in the recent Iraq fiasco in that most Britons thought it an unjustified war and an unwarranted act of aggression on the government's part.

Getting back to the Rainbow Orchid, I have plans to put part one online for those who have missed it, and part two may end up being serialised there too. Whatever happens, all three parts will be collected together in one book as a complete adventure. I'm not quite sure when Fusion 4 will be out yet. Keep an eye on Baz's blog. The PJ Forum, where Orchid has a home, was hacked into at the end of last year, and disappeared, but PJ has resurrected it, albeit starting from scratch, and it is up and running again. Rainbow Orchid news will appear there, as well as on this blog, and bigger events at the King Rat Press website - which is due for an overhaul.

A quite disproportionate amount of time has been taken up by the flotsam and jetsam that goes with moving house. Elyssa and I are moving house, and we have been since, er, September I think. Fingers very tightly crossed, hopefully we will be exchanging next week, but it has been going so slowly I'll refrain from being too positive about it. Needless to say, when we move, I'll let all interested parties know. That has been one of the main reasons I have not been able to get going on my contribution to Accent UK's 'Twelve' anthology, so I am now late with that.

Highlights of 2004? The success of Rainbow Orchid has been wonderful, I won't be coy about it. Seeing Brian Wilson with 'Smile' at the Festival Hall. Starting to learn the banjo. Selling (almost) our maisonette. Buying (almost) a new house. Being in a band again for a short while (though I decided to leave it, which was the right decision to free up some time). Being interviewed for Radio 4's 'Making History'.

Lowlights? Well, mostly not for this blog because I'm not one for putting all my washing out in public, but a couple of family deaths (a funeral again to start this year), and I have to say - being in a play, which I didn't really enjoy in hindsight, and took up too much time causing a very busy time of it. Completely my own fault for agreeing to do it. It was, overall, a good year.

The very last copy of The Rainbow Orchid part one has been sold on ebay, and went for £79. As well as the comic, the package included some original sketches, a booklet of annotations, and some real photo prints of promotional artwork.

I am down to the very last copy of The Rainbow Orchid and have put it up for sale on ebay. As well as the comic there are some extra goodies, including a few original sketches and photo-prints.

Mark William Cameron was born at Parkhurst Barracks at the beginning of 1884, his father being a Sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, stationed there after seeing service in Egypt and Afghanistan. His mother was only 18 at the time, and had married his father just five days before he was born.

Mark joined the Royal Navy, possibly inspired by his father's tales of campaigning in exotic lands for the British Empire, and perhaps also by distant tales of his great-grandfather, who had battled Napoleon's forces at Waterloo. As the new century began, he found himself as a Boy, 1st Class, aboard H.M.S San Pariel after stints on the Caledonia, Minotaur and Agincourt. In 1910 he married his cousin Margaret, daughter of his uncle Donald who had served abroad with his father in the Seaforths. In 1913, with the British and German Navys trying to outbuild each other as European tensions grew, he was in the Gunnery School aboard H.M.S Excellent, before joining H.M.S Invincible - the world's first battlecrusier - at its commissioning on 3 August 1914.

"The First World War had begun. In the northern mists the Grand Fleet (21 dreadnoughts, 8 predreadnoughts, 4 battlecruisers, 21 cruisers and 42 destroyers) was at its war base in Scapa Flow, under the command of Admiral Jellicoe. Diagonally across the North Sea the German High Seas Fleet (13 dreadnoughts, 16 predreadnoughts, 4 battlecruisers, 18 cruisers and 88 destroyers) were assembling in the River Jade under the command of Admiral Von Ingenohl." - V. E. Tarrant.

Invincible was involved in three actions. It had a small part to play at Heligoland Bight later in August, and then in December was involved in a naval battle against Vice-Admiral Graf von Spee at the Falkland Islands. But the Invincible will be forever associated with the Battle of Jutland, on the last day of May in 1916, when at 6.34 p.m a salvo from the Derfflinger penetrated the 7-inch armour and causing explosions in the gun-house, turret and the magazine, rent the Invincible in two, sinking it and killing 1,019 men. There were only six survivors, and Mark Cameron was not amongst them.

To boys who had grown up with the heroic deeds of their grandfathers, fathers and uncles, or the gallant officer adventurers in the novels of G. A. Henty, who had read of the brave thin red or khaki lines defending outposts against Zulus at Rorke's Drift, or Afghans at Kam Dakka, and where casualties rarely exceeded 50 on a bad day, or 800 on a disastrous day, the Great War will have come as a shock. Over 21,000 Britons killed in the first day at the Somme in 1916, and 6,000 Britons and 2,500 Germans lost to a watery grave at Jutland is a severe lesson indeed. Today's remembrance focussed at the Cenotaph, 'that mass of national emotion frozen in stone', I always find poignant, but no lesson has actually been learned, it seems.

Recently I've had a couple of people ask me for some advice on working for yourself as an illustrator or designer. While I have learned a couple of really useful lessons, especially in the past couple of years, I thought I'd give you a taste of a typical day here...

Get up at 7.45 a.m just as Rabbi Lionel Blue is about to issue forth his 'Thought For the Day' (a spot that always makes me switch off the radio and therefore have to get up, despite working until 2 a.m the previous night). Shower, then tea with optional breakfast. Having a cup of tea means you don't have to start work just yet. Play 'You Are My Sunshine' on the banjo. Twice. Ponder bookshelf in search of inspiration to kick off work. After twenty minutes of Rider Haggard's 'Diary of an African Journey' having no effect in firing up the creative juices for today's job (drawings for a training course on the Freedom of Information Act), realise the horrible truth and sit down at the drawing desk, pencil hovering above paper. Think about making another cup of tea... resist, and start drawing.

Half way into listening to 'Woman's Hour' and thinking how the cartoon man you've just drawn holding up a a sign saying 'Qualified Exemptions' looks a lot like that Robert Robinson off 'Call My Bluff', answer the first phone call of the day. Is it the offer of a fantastic design job? No, it's Ellie asking for the telephone number of a surveyor. This precipitates three more calls - one to our Estate Agent, then back to Ellie, and then, while I'm on the phone, Allspeed to arrange my M.O.T for next Monday. Cup of tea. Back to the drawing table. Just about to go online to get reference for a hard hat, when the doorbell goes. Let in the gas man to read the meter. Discussion with gas man, on his way out, about buying postcards off eBay (as he's noticed my small collection in the hallway of early 1900s East Grinstead cards). Try and remember what I was about to do. Think about making a cup of tea. Get onto internet to find reference picture of a hard hat. While on, get email and quickly check Tintinologist and PJ's comic's forum. Resist answering emails, download suitable hard hat picture, get offline, make tea, draw hard hat.

Answer phone. A computer is asking me if I want the opportunity to win a holiday to Florida. Back to drawing table. Door bell goes. Tell double-glazing salesman that we're moving house soon and yes, thanks, the new house already has double-glazing, and in fact so has the house I am now in. Back to drawing table. Chainsaw starts up outside and continues for most of the rest of the day.

Have usual 3 p.m lunch while listening to people's mortgage problems on the radio and decide to look up, in my little Anglo-Afghan War library, what was going on 125 years ago on this day in Afghanistan. British were moving into Sherpur. Half hour lunch turns into hour lunch - just one more chapter. Tea. Drawing table. Phone. 'I'll Fly Away' on the banjo. Drawing table. Chainsaw. Banana. Work will have to go on into evening. Again.

My radio spot on Making History came out okay, which was a relief. Interesting to note the editing and what was cut (less waffling from yours truly). You can hear the programme (programme 2) on the Making History webpage (skip to about the 24th or 25th minute to hear just my bit if you want). See also my 'a-few-late-nights' updated Anglo-Afghan War site.