Gender: Female
Status: Single
Age: 100
Sign: Aquarius
City: London
Country: UK
Signup Date:
10/17/06
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Saturday, June 14, 2008
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39 and Still Holding
Current mood:  happy
Category: Writing and Poetry
'39 And Still Holding' is a new anthology edited by Robin Slick.
Still 40, still sexy. This second volume of smart, seductive fiction proves that love has no maximum age limit. Featuring the works of Barbara Foster, N.L. Belardes, Greg Boose, Santana Smith, Ansley Vaughan and more!
In 'Before I Die' by Ansley Vaughan, a schoolmistress facing retirement, decides to make up for years of austerity and sexual repression.
There's one experience, in particular, that she's determined to sample before it's too late.
Lust, longing, returned to her, sweeping in after such a long absence with a violence which struck her in her lower stomach like a physical blow.
Paul pulled at her dress.
"Let's get this off."
Immediately she reverted to being as tense as a board, like a corpse in the throes of rigor-mortis. He pulled back.
"Eileen, I know this is difficult. You've always been in control, an authority figure. But now, to enjoy this, you must let go. It's…" he cast around for the right analogy. "It's like being a sky-diver. Before the jump the kit has to be checked, you have to remember the routine, get into the plane. It's all tense anticipation. But once you jump that's it. There's nothing you can do until you pull the ripcord."
She gave a laugh. "I can assure you that nothing would induce me to jump out of an aeroplane."
"No. But you've done this. To get this far was brave. Now relax and enjoy it."
'39 and Still Holding' is available in paperback and Ebook, from Phaze Books.
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Currently
reading
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Vile Bodies
By
Evelyn Waugh
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1:00 PM
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Sunday, April 06, 2008
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Lost again -- this time in Paris
Current mood:  angsty
Category: Travel and Places
I’ve been posting, rather erratically, an account of my journey through France in February, during which many things went wrong. Towards the end of the trip, I managed to get back to Brittany, where I have an ancient and very primitive house. The story is based on emails I wrote to a long-suffering friend at the time.
Well, I’m back in the Bar Louna. I drove from Nice to a place called Chasse-Sur-Rhone, near Lyon. I found the hotel with some difficulty, by which time it was very dark. I ended up in a sort of cell, no windows, a loo in a tiled, enclosed area with a shower hose for washing, no glasses, no soap, and a lot of homicidal French truck drivers who said ’Bonsoir’ in menacing tones while sharpening their butchers’ knives. (No, no, they were outside...)
There were also no tissues and very little loo paper. I rummaged about in my bag, not wanting to brave the homicidal maniacs to get to the car. I found one of those small packets of tissues and seized it gratefully, noticing some writing. "Enjoy your purchase, with the compliments of James Lear." I experienced a moment of extreme panic at this inexplicable literary intervention, before remembering that the tissues were attached to a copy of Mr Lear’s book, ’Hot Valley.’ How they came to be in this bag on this journey, I have no idea, but I sent up a prayer of thanks to the urbane author. I know this was not what he intended them for, but to me they represented the ultimate in relief.
I got into bed, cuddling the Bitch, and attempted to read in the meagre light, drinking Famous Grouse from an insulated coffee mug.
In the morning the sun was shining, birds were twittering, and the truck drivers had metamorphosed into two small children and a Yorkshire terrier.
Drove on to Reims, and with a lot of manoeuvering between hotels, taxi driver, car hire places, garagistes and dogs, I managed to get my car back and all the luggage, bottles, computers, dogs etc. loaded in. The Garagiste, whom I had compared unfavourably to Vladimir Putin, turned out to be very nice; he kept saying, ’She is beautiful, she is beautiful again.’ And she is.
I drove out of Reims (in the wrong direction, naturally) thinking everything would be fine now. Turning round to get onto the motorway the right way, I was followed off by a truck, tailgating about an inch away as only the French can. ’Thank God it’s my own car’ I thought, and with that, wrenched the knob off the gear lever. It clattered off into the passenger side.
You can drive a Fiat Punto with just a naked bit of metal sticking out. You can, if you’re being pursued by a truck and are on a busy interchange in the middle of a major French city. You can actually drive quite a long way along the motorway before you get to a service area, retrieve the knob from beneath the baffled dog, and fix it back on again. But I don’t recommend it.
I drove on, laughing to myself that at least I wouldn’t have to face my worse fear in the whole world -- getting lost in Paris.
Guess what?
The route skirted Paris, on the Boulevard Périphérique, which is the ring road, an eight-lane dual carriageway. It was lunchtime, and one sensed the other drivers were anxious to eat, and highly irritated by the heavy traffic. They zipped from lane to lane with complete abandon; signaling is for sissies. The only good thing about it was that, in the midst of all this, my nervous driving looked quite normal, positively Gallic. I went round and round on this horrible road, totally unable to understand the instructions. Eventually the Sat Nav man, who has been getting increasingly erratic, confused me so much that I exited the Périphérique and landed in the centre of the city. At which point Sat Nav man started saying insanely ’Go to nearest road’, with me yelling, ’Have you never heard of the Champs-Élysées you idiot?’
It was horrible. I’ve never been so close to getting out of the car and walking away. But eventually, with the help of the OTHER Sat Nav man I found my way back onto the motorway. And that was grim, because at one point both Sat Navs were turned on and they were giving me contradictory instructions. I could imagine them, communing in cyber space. "What is wrong with her? I said ’Exit left, keep to the right, make a U turn where possible.’ How could anyone fail to understand that?" "I don’t know," the other one would say, before they both chorused, "Women drivers!"
I had intended to stop in Chartres or Le Mans, but I got the bit between my teeth and drove all the way to the house, which is a long way west of Rennes. It was dark, the electricity was off, I couldn’t find the firelighters and there was further evidence of mice on the upstairs landing. But I had half-a-bottle of wine and there was a tin of baked beans in the cupboard.
Bliss. I slept for nearly twelve hours and feel like a new woman.
A few days of R and R here, then back to Londres.
12:00 AM
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
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Lost in France - The Negresco
Current mood:  sleepy
Category: Travel and Places
This is the fifth episode in my seemingly never-ending travelogue. Oh, and in the face of some scepticism about the giant white pussy-cat, I’ve found a bad picture and put it in the earlier blog. Oh, and pictures of the little pots of jam. And yes, I know it’s very sad.
I can’t finish my account of Nice without mentioning my evening at the Negresco. I trailed in there on Sunday to book dinner for the next night -- my birthday. The hotel is a Baroque masterpiece, built early in the last century.
Everyone has stayed there at some point -- everyone with pots of money, that
is.
 It
It dominates the Promenade des Anglais, and inside it’s marble floored and very museum-like. The attendants wear red knee-breeches, black stockings, a blue hunting-type jacket and top hats with plumes in them. It’s worth a trip into the hotel just to see them.
The man at the desk, plume waggling, told me the main restaurant, the Chanticleer, was closed, but offered the Carousel instead. He urged me to go and look at it although I kept shaking my head and indicating the dog, who was perfecting her rich-bitch insouciant look at my feet. Such is the power in Nice of ladies-of-a-certain-age with canine accessory that I believe they would happily have let me in with her. But good though she is (about some things) I’m not sure being in the vicinity of a lot of strangers eating tempting food would be conducive to her most sophisticated behaviour. I declined, but booked for dinner.
The Carousel was reasonably full, for a Monday in February, but not packed. I should have been prepared for what it looked like by the name. It’s round, with tables in a circle round a middle point, then a circular walk-way, then a ring of booths, which is where I was seated. The room was decorated with fairground scenes, in a style reminiscent of the Second Empire. Between the tables of the inner ring loomed six life-sized carousel horses on poles. And in the middle, with her back to me, a simulacrum of a girl, wearing a long white dress, with flowing dark hair and a straw hat, her hand on the handle of a hurdy-gurdy. The whole thing was garish and unsettling, and reminded me of when our local pub in north London was taken over by a steak-house chain. They tore out the insides and redecorated in pantomime style, placing, as a piece de resistance, a leering balloonist in the centre of the restaurant. He was supposed to represent Phileas Fogg, but he always made me think of the dead parachutist tangled in the trees in ’Lord of the Flies’ which didn’t help my digestion much.
 The staff were polite, but not particularly pleasant, and I ran into a problem with the maitre d’hôtel when I ordered white wine with my steak. He looked pained. "But they will not go together. They will not taste nice." I started blithering on in my incompetent French about red wine giving me a headache, but pulled myself up in time. "I like white wine. I like it with steak," I said firmly. He retreated, muttering. I was distracted from the ire of the maitre d’ by a sudden wheezing sound which drowned out the faint piped music. The carousel horses began to rise and fall, in a slow and wobbly progress, twisting slightly on their poles. Hurdy-gurdy music filled the restaurant, and to my horror I saw that the mannequin in the centre had come to life, and the young girl was jerkily turning the handle on the instrument.
 It was -- there’s no other word for it -- grotesque. No-one else took the slightest notice.
Throughout the meal, without warning, the mechanism would suddenly crank up and the whole ghostly charade would be re-enacted. I found it profoundly disturbing.
When I’d finished eating, I called for the maitre d’ to bring me the cork. Bouchon. It’s an essential bit of vocabulary. (I know the word for ’corkscrew’ in about a hundred languages.) He corked the bottle of white for me, and I thought his lips quirked slightly.
He didn’t say a word, but I could see he was thinking ’Lightweight...’
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Currently
reading
:
The Cut of Men's Clothes: 1600-1900
By
Norah Waugh
Release date: 07 January, 1987
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4:43 PM
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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Lost in France - Even Nicer
Current mood:  relaxed
Category: Travel and Places
This is the fourth part of my account of the French trip. I know it seems to be going on for ever -- it felt like that at the time. But it does end eventually...
I spent the morning in the hotel room, drinking coffee, eating croissants and listening to the extraordinary raspberry-blowing noises of the street vendors on the Promenade des Anglais, getting ready for the Battle of the Flowers later today.
I’ve developed a routine. I have breakfast in my room. Mostly I just drink the orange juice and lots of coffee. Then I hide the croissants, baguette, butter and little pots of Bon Maman jam in the wardrobe. There’s quite a lot in there by now. Oh, and jars of yoghurt. I really don’t know why I do it.
Then I go out with the Bitch, and we promenade. A Cocker Anglais on the Promenade des Anglais. The weather is fine and the sun shining, which considering it’s February is pretty good. We find a cafe and sit and have coffee, progressing to a glass of vin blanc. I make endless phone calls to various bits of the insurance empire, wading through the multiple choice questions until I’m ready to scream, only to discover that it’s the wrong department, or they haven’t got my notes, or I’ve got through to Bangalore which is domestic only.
Meanwhile, the Bitch greets passers-by like the hostess of a smart cocktail party. "Dahling, dahling, how wonderful to see you. Kiss!" She gets a lot of attention. I’ve been counting dogs; poodles are off the scale, as are little terriers. Some Labradors, a Dalmatian... One lovely tri-coloured Cocker, whose owner could only say one word, pointing proudly to the dog. "English! English!" I thought I heard the Bitch growl softly. Can’t take the competition.
Then we might do a little light shopping before going down on the beach. Here in Nice, dogs are not allowed on the pebbly foreshore, but they are allowed in the restaurants just below the sea wall. We choose a different one every day and have something light like omelette or Salade Nicoise -- the ones I’ve had here are, not surprisingly, the best I’ve ever tasted.
On the second evening, I had a shock when I went to my balcony to look out. We’re on the second floor, above the Casino, and there was a giant white cat staring in at me. Wearing a crown, and with a super-sized rat dangling from its raised paw. After a quick tot-up of the amount of alcohol I’d had, I noticed that it was moving, very slowly. Of course, it’s one of the carnival floats, which parade along the Promenade to the left, and turn round just in front of the hotel. This one is surrounded by people dressed as rats. I shall have nightmares.
When I go out to take the Bitch for her final promenade, I am covered with streamers, which have to be picked off my clothes and hair. The material is glaucous, rubbery, in day-glo colours and very, very sticky. Picking it off and rolling it into a ball to go in the bin is curiously satsifying. The Bitch retains a bit of lime green streamer on her bottom for several days.
I’ve been told that the car is repaired, so now I have to go back to Riems to collect it. I’ve booked into a hotel near Lyon for tomorrow night. Soon as I’ve got it I’m heading for Brittany -- no point in driving all the way back down south, so my nice trip to Carcassonne will have to wait to another time.
I’ve done nothing here at all. I’d really gone off driving, and the hotel and the area round it is so nice. I’ve just been eating and sleeping. Still, I need to get my strength up for the battle with the insurance company, car hire and Vladimir the Garagiste.
Tomorrow...
2:03 PM
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Monday, March 17, 2008
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Lost in France -- Nice is Nicer
Current mood:  tired
This is part three of my travel blog about a recent disastrous journey around France in the company of my dog. This was a much calmer episode, but regular readers should not relax. There’s more to come!
Yes, I am in Nice, sitting in the window overlooking the balcony, the Promenade Des Anglais and the Med... I’m feeling a lot calmer although the journey was very trying. I couldn’t get to the hotel because of Carnivale, which seems to have been happening right outside. I’m not sure what it was, but there are ranks of seating opposite and the police had closed the road. Now, the tank is parked in the (very expensive) garage beneath the hotel and casino. I’m having a day off driving tomorrow!
I didn’t go into the Palace of the Popes, and I’d like to go back to Avignon under slightly less trying circumstances. But I did walk around the old town this morning and took some pictures. What an amazing place.
Nice is incredibly lively, but I’m mostly struck with how Italian it feels (and Avignon as well.) There’s even a Venetian Mask shop near the hotel, with Murano glass in it as well, which doesn’t augur well for my bank balance.
I’ve been doing my trick of walking round the hotels I looked at but rejected, and for once I’m really, really pleased. Some of the more expensive ones are set back in the town; this is literally only a few hundred yards from the Negresco, and with the same outlook. And wifi!!!
I shall potter down to the Negresco tomorrow and see about booking dinner. This evening I went to a most peculiar Indo-Chinese place, where you pick what you want from a lavish display and a lackadaisical girl microwaves it for you. Sweet and sour chicken, boiled rice and a little carafe of rose for 8 euros 20. Why do these places in France always have red and rose but never white?
The garage is deep underground and reception proudly said I could come straight up into the hotel. True, but via about ten flights of stone steps. In the end I found it easier with my suitcase to come up in the lift to the public area of the car park, which is right at the back, and wheel it round the block.
The Bitch’s immediate reaction to finding herself in the safety of the hotel room was to vomit on the carpet. Usually this would send me into a blind panic, but it was small beer compared to everything else. She was very wary about the little balcony, through the rails of which she can see a dog’s-eye view of the sea. But she soon got braver, and been promenading up and down, watching the crowds below and staring rudely at seagulls.
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Currently
reading
:
The Lost Language of Cranes: A Novel
By
David Leavitt
Release date: 14 April, 2005
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11:38 AM
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Saturday, March 15, 2008
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The Grand Slam...
Current mood:  ecstatic
Category: Sports
I’m very, very happy...
(For non-Rugby fans, the Welsh team has won the Grand Slam, the competition involving England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy.)
They’ve been brilliant all season.
Wonderful!
Cymru am byth
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Currently
listening
:
Bryn Terfel - We'll Keep a Welcome
By
Arwel Hughes
Release date: 26 September, 2000
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6:50 PM
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Thursday, March 13, 2008
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Lost in France - Part Two; things get worse...
Current mood: cantankerous
Category: Travel and Places
Yesterday I began an account of my journey through France, which ended last week. The plan was to drive via the Channel Tunnel to the South of France, stopping at various places on the way, and to return via the West Coast. I was accompanied by the Bitch, an orange-roan cocker spaniel. Things went wrong almost immediately, and continued to be alarming and difficult. This Blog is based on emails I wrote at the time.
I’m afraid it gets worse. I drove from Dijon to Avignon today – motorway all the way, and about 400 odd kilometres. All well except that I took a wrong turning on the Lyon spaghetti junction thing and ended up in the town. My Sat Nav Man went bonkers; he kept saying ’go to the nearest road’. I was stuffed. Basically if you rely on mechanical things and they go wrong, it’s tough. Of course, I have back-up – my PDA has the TomTom software on it. But when I switched it on, the battery on both the PDA and the satellite receiver thing was diminishing fast, and the Tom Tom man’s voice was getting fainter. I don’t have a car charger for this one, or the holder to fix it to the windscreen so I had to rely on what he said, and when he was silent for ages, I didn’t know if it was because the battery had died, or if he just had nothing to say. In the end, I more or less memorised the directions, and got myself back on the motorway. Lyon is lovely though, I had a great drive along the river. Sat Nav Man mark one sprang to life once we got onto the motorway; clearly his mapping information isn’t good for parts of France.
Got to Avignon quite late and went wrong again. Into some sort of shopping estate, where I got panicked by a group of youths and banged the front passenger wheel against a curb. I got out to find a shard of hub-cap stuck in it, and air escaping fast. It was getting dark. I started stabbing at my mobile phone -- the bill is going to be horrendous -- and got the usual run-around. In the end, the Hertz woman said, rather impatiently, why didn’t I just change the tyre myself, or get someone to help me. This was the point where I nearly cried. She said she could send a mechanic out, but I’d have to pay 100 euros. Fine, I said...
When he arrived, much later, he took one look at the wheel and said it was out of alignment and I’d have to have a new car. Many more phone calls and ALL that luggage was taken out of the car and piled up in the road. In darkness in suburban Avignon. A taxi arrived to take me to the station, where there was another hire car place. He made the Bitch go in the boot, which she didn’t like at all. She had managed to spill her water bowl over the dog bed, and the taxi man was deeply suspicious of its state of dampness. At the station, he piled up all my things next to some rocks near the car-hire place, in an area which seemed completely deserted. I felt just like an unfortunate refugee from some god-forsaken war.
You’d think, when I’d just wrecked one of their cars, they’d give me their cheapest, nastiest one. Oh no, I’ve now got a beautiful new Opel with tinted windows; much too big. I drove it very carefully into Avignon, getting very jumpy in those tiny medieval streets and at the sight of lots of dangerous bollards.
Finally found the multi-storey car-park. First, I went to the wrong hotel; there are THREE Mercures in Avignon. I had to move the car to the area which was allegedly nearest to my one, only to discover that you have to walk up six flights of stairs (with dog and assorted bags) to get to the square, then round in circles because of road works.
But I’m here, and will press on to Nice tomorrow. I must say, I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t actually be allowed out of the house without a minder.
I forgot to mention that during the previous crisis, when the taxi driver was waiting for me, I also lost my glasses. They’d fallen between two beds…
When I got in from my second trip this evening to the parking place, the receptionist was waiting for me. He’s one of those waxed, shiny, very French looking men, with an egg-shaped face and a slightly sinister expression. Like someone out of a novel by Stendhal. He handed over a really nice glossy guidebook to the Pope’s Palace (which is right next door) explaining – I think – that someone in a tour party had left it behind and would I like it.
These small things lift one’s spirits.
Just before I went to sleep I remembered that I’d left some loose cocktail sausages in the back of the old hire car. I’d been giving them to the Bitch to tempt her to eat. Whatever will they think?
Onwards to Nice.
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Currently
listening
:
75 Chansons
By
Edith Piaf
Release date: 09 May, 2001
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4:11 AM
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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Lost in France - Part One
Current mood: relaxed
Category: Travel and Places
As promised, here’s an account of my misadventures in France. The intention was to drive, with the dog for company, down to Nice, and back along the West coast of France to my house in Brittany. It’s a long, long story, so I’ll post in installments. And it’s contemporaneous -- based on the emails I sent to a friend as the events unfolded.
Well, here I am in Dijon, but there has been a series of disasters. I’m going to have to edit this severely, or you’ll lost the will to live...
I had about three hours sleep -- my ability to mobilise seems to be getting worse. Drove frantically to Folkestone and got to the Channel Tunnel terminal just on time. The instructions said you had to use in the check-in machine the card you’d used for booking. I drove up to the machine, dug about in my bag. No card. No purse! I’m assuming (because if I didn’t I’d go completely mad) that I’ve left it in the house. I back out, severely annoying the people behind me, and got out of the car, looking wildly for a human being to talk to. A nice man appeared and said, "You look lost..." He got me through, but I was in a complete funk, because all my credit/debit cards were in the purse, except for a few I’d shoved into my Euro purse. Cards without PINS which renders them useless... For some reason (anticipation of madness?) I’d grabbed a new Halifax card AND the new PIN information as I left the house. Sitting in the car, waiting for the train to leave, I phoned Halifax to get the card activated. Phew...
It was a very long drive to my first stop, Reims, and when I got there I was exhausted. When I finally found the hotel, there was nowhere to park. I drove round and round before seeing someone driving into an underground carpark at the back of the hotel. In a moment of madness, I followed. It was like something from a World War II bunker, and clearly wrong. As I registered this, the metal door closed behind me.
Panic, panic, panic. The Bitch was squealing, always a bad sign.
I approached the doors and they began to open, but it was because someone had triggered them from outside. I tried to get out, he tried to get in. Something scraped against my passenger side. I got out, the car was rattling.
I wish I’d taken a picture. The whole of the left-hand side had been stripped away. Yes it did look like an opened sardine can, and the whole of the engine was exposed. I got out into the street and parked (illegally.)
Long story; the people at the hotel were wonderful; I phoned my insurers who were not... phone calls not answered; I got put through to medical emergency, to domestic accidents (who took all my details, something lasting half-an-hour, before telling me I’d have to start again...)
This morning, a cheerful little man came and towed the car away. Of course, I’m here for three weeks, and was intending to go to the house at the end of it, so I had massive amounts of luggage, three suitcases, food, tea, coffee, three computers, two cameras, birthday presents, whisky, sherry, champagne, ginger-ale, books, CDs, dog food, dog bed - you name it. All of this had to be removed from the car and carried by me several blocks away into the hotel. Then a taxi arrived to take me to a hire car place. Fine, but they have no English, my French has deserted me, in my state of panic. Eventually, I walked out to pick up the car, aware they were watching me from the panoramic windows. I got to the car, stepped off the curb, and fell. All they would have seen was this weird woman going between two cars and disappearing...
Yes, it’s a nice car, but it’s a left-hand drive and the gears are on the wrong side. Weird driving my me in the BIG city of Reims, and later on the motorway.
I got all the bags out of the hotel room and into the hire-car. Began to set up my Sat Nav, which with great presence of mind I’d rescued from the car. And realised I’d left the power lead, which connects to the cigar lighter thing, and without which it won’t work, in my own car...
I spent the whole morning, sitting outside the hotel phoning around. Finally tracked down the garage where the car had been taken -- somewhere out in the suburbs -- but of course, I dont have my Sat Nav, so almost impossible to find. I got there eventually. The man was charming. "Oh no, your car has been moved to the Fiat garage." The Fiat garage is the other side of Reims, and I’m supposed to be halfway to Dijon. And my driving is getting more and more erratic.
I found the Fiat garage. The proprietor reminded me of Vladimir Putin only rather less charismatic and attractive (!) He gave me a lecture about not having my ’carte gris’ the car’s documents, which is a legal requirement in France. "If the police stop you," he said (in French, all these conversations were in French, which is why I’m so unhinged...) they will think you’ve stolen it." Which given that the car looks like an opened sardine tin, actually made me laugh. Anyhow, I got my lead, and I’ll worry about how I’m going to get the car back later. Tomorrow is another day, right?
Drove to Dijon; nice motorway driving, but I keep going too near to things on the right. Drove round and round the hotel trying to park and the Sat Nav started saying "go to the nearest road" which was frightening. Turns out the card with all the French maps on it had been dislodged.
I found a parking space a long way away, ferried half of my bags and the increasingly querulous Bitch to the hotel. They have some sort of a deal with the Gare, which is opposite. I went out again, moved the car into the multi-storey, brought back some more luggage.
Now I shall sleep. Avignon tomorrow.
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Currently
reading
:
Arkansas: Three Novellas
By
David Leavitt
Release date: 03 April, 1998
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5:07 AM
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008
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’The Price of Gold’
Current mood:  chipper
Category: Writing and Poetry
'The Price of Gold' is my latest novel, and it's just been published by Freya's Bower.
I had great fun writing this one. It's a light-hearted fantasy although there's a serious element. Here's the blurb.
"Alex Westgate is a man who has everything. A successful trader in the exclusive London gold market, he possesses a smart flat, a fast car and a fashionable girlfriend. But something is missing, and one person is worried about him—his mother.
On the way down to the coast to visit his parents, Alex is involved in an accident that brings him into contact with someone who will shatter his preconceptions and turn his ordered existence upside-down. The goddess Freya, confined to earth because of a malfunctioning chariot, introduces him to her own kind of mischief and zest for living.
Alex is plunged into a nightmare world of sea-monsters, belligerent Valkyries, man-eating wolves and shape-shifting cats. As he learns some hard lessons about love and relationships, it becomes clear that Freya's presence on earth is more than just a coincidence. It's a matter of life and death.
Will he survive the experience to learn the final lesson; that there's more to the human journey than worrying about the price of gold?"
Do have a look at the Freya's Bower website and read the excerpt there. And if you wanted to buy it, that would be good too! That's 'The Price of Gold'...
While I'm here, I'd like to thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes. I was stunned and so pleased, when I saw them. It was very kind of you all to take the trouble. Thank you.
For those who don't know, I've been on the road -- literally for the most part -- for the past three weeks, travelling around France. It was a most eventful and character-forming journey (that's code for 'a lot of things went wrong') and I'll blog about it soon.
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Currently
reading
:
The Mission Song
By
John le Carre
Release date: 14 November, 2007
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4:02 PM
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Thursday, January 24, 2008
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Chihuahua
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Music
Sorry about this, guys! But it's for your own good.
A friend has been singing this song for days; it was recorded a few years ago by a Swiss performer called DJ Bobo.
We discovered this version, which always cheers me up when I feel a bit down...
http://www.thebluething.com:80/media/Chihuahua-Song
The whole song, should you want to hear it (there's more!) is here http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dj-bobo-...ahua/1456494601
But DJ Bobo himself is not as cute as the doggies...
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Currently
reading
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Maybe the Moon: A Novel
By
Armistead Maupin
Release date: 04 August, 1993
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11:28 PM
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