WIVELISCOMBE author Charles Wood is back with another book after surviving another year in the county!

The author of ‘How to Survive in Somerset’ loves nothing better than to write about his county and the characters and language that go along with it – throw in gurt big shuvelvuls of yumour along the way and you have another hit!

Some of the topics you can expect to run across are Somerset’s continental drift, the naming of America, which has something to do with a camel from the county, and the strange grass that is growing as high as an elephant. The sheep are getting inferiority complexes from alpacas, an obvious reference to the small herds of this lovely animal which seem to appear almost anywhere nowadays.

In the towns, pubs are being replaced by coffee bars, and such is the cost of food that a security van might be a better option than plastic bags to carry your groceries home.

Out in the country, from upon high church towers, the ‘hunky punks’ are screaming, but still the owls hoot, dormice snooze and badgers bulldoze; spiders remain the webmasters and ‘deer always taste nice’.

He wonders at the landscape, sieged by snow, walking through the primroses and heather, the cider apple trees, unearthing local history and opportunities to put a few things straight.

Yes, Charles has had another year in Somerset and survived, with some old characters and some new ones introduced. The author gave up the legal profession and the stress of work in Libya and Hong Kong 20 years ago decided to go self employed in Somerset as a self-taught documentary filmmaker. He has made over 30 films and his ‘Somerset the Summerland’ and ‘Exmoor – an English wild kingdom’ sold in their thousands. In 1999 his ‘Dragons, the story of a country parson’ was broadcast on HTV.

You, too, can plod through your county laughing at ourselves, thanks to this comical glance at country life.

Charles Wood has also just published the ‘Charles Wood’s Somerset Quiz Book’, available now.

Surviving Another Somerset Year, by Charles Wood, published by Halsgrove, £12.99 (from local stockists or Halsgrove Direct on 01823 653777).

Charles Wood is doing book signings of 'Surviving Another Somerset Year' at WHSmith stores in Bridgwater on Saturday, November 28 at 11am and in Taunton on December 5 at 10.30am.