Broth and Pine go Digital too!

Never let it be said that I wasted the long Diamond Jubilee weekend! Scotch Broth has joined Scotch Mist as an Amazon Kindle book and Scotch Pine  should be available within the next few hours!  I am really excited by this.  I'm also terrified that I'll have done something incredibly stupid and they'll come out all mangled and horrible!  If you are a fan and you want to leave an Amazon review, it would be gratefully received, by the way!

I've now spent the best part of three days on my laptop - time to give it a bit of a rest, I think!!

Mist goes Digital!

STOP PRESS!!!!!

'Scotch Mist' has just gone digital! 
I've just finished uploading it to Amazon - it's Kindled and ready to set the publishing world on fire! 
Well, maybe not the last bit, but certainly the first bit! 
Please spread the news!  Tell everyone you know! 
Grouse and Partridge should be available to buy from Amazon in less than 12 hours...!  Woooo hoooo!!!!

Right.  Now I've calmed down, I'd better get started on 'Broth' and 'Pine'!

The good news is...

I've been sitting on this news for over six weeks now and it's become a really badly kept secret, but I think I'm ready to face the world with it at last.  After 19 years in the same job I'm moving on to pastures new, to a brand new post in a not so brand new place - the school where I was taught from the ages of 11 to 18. 

Lots of people I know have asked me why I'm going and my answer is a simple one.  At the moment I commute upwards of 3 hours a day - walk, bus, train, long walk, work, lift to station, train, bus, walk. I am spending 35 days per year on public transport just getting to and from work.  Instead, I'm swapping for a ten minute door-to-door stroll there and another one back again.

I'll be sad to leave somewhere where I've been so happy - the place which was responsible for Grouse and Partridge existing in any form at all and which encouraged me so much when I started to write 'for real'. But I'm more than ready for the next adventure - and the fact that I'm gaining some 'me' time will be a huge bonus.  And I really won't miss the cold, decrepit and dirty trains, the delays and cancellations, the cable thefts, the germ ridden atmosphere, the horrid railway 'station' (and I use the word advisedly!) and the hours wasted hanging round Costa coffee till it's time to go home.

I've got half a term left to work: it's going to be strange.  But I really couldn't be happier about it!

I feel more creative already!  Cheers!

The wait is over...

And no news was very very good news after all.  Shows how much I know!!! 

Just waiting

I've been waiting all day, on and off, since I got out of bed and now it'll late at night and I'm waiting again and it is driving me mad.  What makes it worse is the fact that there is not much chance of anything happening for days yet: thewaiting game has only just begun. And although I know I cannot change the outcome of anything by waiting, irrationally I feel as if the longer I wait the less likely I am to hear good news and the more likely I am to get bad news: as if it is my mindset which is determining the nature of the news! 

I left a situation this afternoon feeling really almost positive.  Now, five hours on, I am as negative as I can be ( and, goodness knows, that's negative!) And yet nothing has changed except my state of mind... 

They say no news is good news.  Shows how much they know...

Some enchanted evening

My half-term break was most welcome: lots of uni work sorted out, a lovely coffee-and-stroll-catch up day, my kitchen chairs finally painted and a brilliant trip to London to see Les Miserables (again!) and the Dickens exhibition at the Museum of London.  Then, finally, on Sunday, we went through to Newcastle for the birthday celebrations of the Theatre Royal, which is probably just about my favourite theatre in the world after Sunderland Empire!  It was at the Theatre Royal that I first saw ballet and fell in love with William Shakespeare and the RSC - which quite literally, changed my life. I've met Charlton Heston, Richard Todd, Christopher Gable, Charles Dance, Michael Gambon and Jack Lemon at its stage door and once, covered in embarrassement, presented a rather sad-looking bunch of carnations there to a dancer I adored. (I was 15, he was kind and gracious - and now he's no longer alive, it's a memory I cherish!).
It's a jewel of a theatre and the recent renovations are simply stunning.
Anyway, this month marks its 175th birthday and so the Grand Old Lady of Grey Street (as she is sometimes affectionately called!) decided to have a party - a party which stretched  down the classically beautiful length of Grey Street, involved some spectacular street theatre (especially the dance elements!) and the whole neoclassical facade being turned into a light and sound spectacular, complete with fireworks set off from the roof!  Given that the whole place went up in flames  in 1900, this was a particularly brave thing to do...

It was a freezing cold evening, but the atmosphere was electric: like Christmas and Bonfire Night rolled into one.  The crowds were enthusiastic and the birthday cake (yes- we all got birthday cake!) was delicious.  We left with smiles on our faces and a warm, happy glow in our hearts! 
Happy Birthday, your Royal Highness, and may you have many, many more!

Another one bites the dust...

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2012/02/11/iconic-morpeth-bookstore-appleby-s-to-close-after-roadworks-cause-major-slump-in-trade-61634-30308368/

I love this bookshop.  It's independent.  It's quirky.  It's a little bit old fashioned. 
And it's closing forever...

That's another loss to add to that of Borders, Waterstones in the Metro Centre, The Book Inn in Billingham.

What's the difference between a dodo and a bookshop? Not an awful lot these days..

I went into Waterstones in Newcastle today - about half the floor space of the old shop - and tried with no success at all to buy a book which was published to some acclaim in September.  So I've resorted to Amazon. *

Amazon, reputedly, are considering opening high street shops.  If they do, I suspect it'll be the first nail in their coffin.  But we're desperate for GOOD bookshops so if they think they can make a go of it, then I wish them well.  In the meantime, the purchasing of books from places like Appleby's is becoming a rare treat, not the norm.  A sad day for Morpeth.  A very sad day for me!

*POSTSCRIPT:  Have since bought the Kindle version for £1.49 as opposed to £8.99 for the pb...!