At LAST – those three little words we have been
longing to hear – Your House Sold!!! On Monday of this weekend
after 2 years of trying we finally completed the sale of our house on
the Isle of Man.
But – of course – one door closes and another
opens wide – we now have to find somewhere to live in our dotage.
Perhaps fortunately we have the classic case of my parents as an
example of what NOT do do. Don't buy a cottage in a Cotswold village!
Finding one and doing it up may have kept Mum out of Dad's hair for a
couple of years, but after Dad died my non-driving Mum found herself
stuck in a village where, then, the bus service consisted of a
minibus running to Stratford on Avon once every Thursday on months
with an “r” in the name. To get a taxi to the Doctor would cost
her about £40.
So we are looking for a bungalow in York. Its
mostly flat, we can just about afford one, and there is a great bus
service in the areas we want to move to. Its fine now while I can
drive, but looking ahead.........
Did I mention that York has about 300 pubs??
Mostly good ones. We'll probably check out a few while house-hunting
next week.
On the Strictly front, its all kicked off with
much aplomb. Actually not a bad line up at all. My tips: - First out,
Vanessa Feltz or Tony Jacklin. Last 5? Rachel Riley, Abbey Clancey,
Susannah Reid, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Patrick from Casualty. The new
studio looks considerably bigger – probably because it is. We have
applied for tickets for the Blackpool show (without any expectations)
Having Strictly back on the telly means we also
get It Takes Two back as well. The evenings are a lot brighter on the
box as the night draws in ever faster.
I've been chatting on Facebook and Twitter over
the last couple of years with an expanding group of lady authors of
the romantic kind. This started off tweeting over Strictly and sort
of grew. Now you would think, in such a competitive field as modern
romantic fiction that a large group of competing females was a recipe
for a total bitch-fest – and you couldn't be more wrong!!!
Actually, they all appear amazingly nice and supportive, and
extremely chatty and friendly. Curiously, at their annual conferences
and various get-togethers, they are rarely seen without a glass in
their hands, so they'll fit right in with the rest of my friends.
Yesterday I actually got round to meeting two of them. Pia and Sue
are very much leading lights in the Romantic Novelists Association,
and they gave an entertaining and informative talk at two of the
Leicester Libraries of writing, both in general and from the romantic
fiction point of view. Delightful ladies both. Well done Leicester
Libraries for putting the lectures on.
We've both recovered from our holiday the cheese
has all been eaten, and most of the wine put away for a while. Autumn
is definitely with us, and its the jam and chutney season.
Fortunately we have a crab apple tree a few hundred yards down the
road, and as usual I took a brolly and my walking sick down to
collect a few – in this case a bucket-full. We now have 9 pounds of
crab-apple jelly adoring the larder.
We also have a litre of blackberry gin that will
be ready for Christmas. Lovely.
More soon!
John
Some Blogs I read:
Paul Woodford, the best blog on
Hashing! http://pwoodford.net/hashblog/
Guido Fawkes – the sharpest political blog
around http://order-order.com/
Anna Raccoon – always
contentious http://www.annaraccoon.com/
and several of my lady-writer friends sites and
blogs – good reads all!
No comments:
Post a Comment