Sunshine again! Another sunny day but with a bit of a chill wind....may have to get the mower out and take a tour round the garden. Although it's a ride-on, there are 5 different lawns to cut! Some are quite small but fiddly with bushes and trees that have been planted in them. I have removed several since we bought the house as it was ridiculous trying to drive the mower round them!

Sherlock Holmes and The Zhou Bell has reached its final day as a free download at Smashwords so if you want a free ebook, pop along today before midnight (GMT+1). The latest story, Sherlock Holmes and the Lymington affair is hopefully going to be published next week. It is about 75 - 80% written then I have to fiddle with the language a bit to make sure that it is suitably Victorian. The new front cover is nice, it took me a while to find the right picture that I hope will give not too much away!

I'm struggling at the moment as I am reformatting my other stories to tidy up any spulling mistooks and grammar errors before resubmitting them to Amazon and Smashwords. This is OK except that both of these demand book files in Word format and I generally work on my Mac. I have to write and edit stuff on my little Windows Netbook which is giving me eyestrain! Anyway, all the Amazon ones are done and now show as a second edition. This will please the 'kind' reviewer who loved the stories but hammered me for my clutzy formatting and punctuation. I have also done the same thing for Smashwords but I'm awaiting for them to be reviewed before they can be accepted for their Premium listing. I had major probs. with inserting a hyperlinked table of contents and removing dodgy carriage returns. Should be OK...we'll see!

We were invited out last night by some French friends for a soiree. The evening started with a nice glass of sparkling Vouvray from the Loire with a dash of blue Curacao. Have to say it looked like a prop. from Harry Potter! Plus I read that Curacao is coloured with Brilliant Blue (E133 I think) which apparently makes your wee blue!! The meal was a Raclette, a do-it-yourself cheesy grill experience. Each person has a little 'shovel' which you pile up with cheese, ham, sausage, onion and tomato and then stick under a little grill in the middle of the table. It was yummy but very filling! Desert was something quite un-French, an apple and red-fruit crumble! Apparently, English crumble is / has taken France by storm! I have to be a tad careful as small seeds / pips aggravate my diverticulitis which is a very painful inflammation of the lower bowel.

Next week seems to be looking colder but perhaps drier. I have already had to grace the beach with waterproof / windproof trousers. It is getting colder, we had 3 days this week on our Red Tempo tariff (read the previous entries in the blog for further info. all the electric radiators were turned off and the wonderful log fire in the lounge was brought into use and kept us snug.

Watch out for Sherlock Holmes and The Lymington Affair, I will try my very best to get it out by next week. In the meantime, I will put the book cover on the top of the blog. Have a great week and think of me becoming Myopic on the Netbook!

Dick xx