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One Day - eat your heart out....

22/8/2014

David Nicholls' One Day was the main inspiration for Farewell Trip. (For me anyway, Karin never read it, despite pestering!)

I'd enjoyed his two previous novels and may well have been the first person to buy One Day. And I liked it a lot. And its big incident caught me completely unawares, unlike those who read it later when the spoilers were rife, not forgetting the film where impending tragedy is announced in the opening scenes, (and no I don't mean Anne Hathaway's rather charming tour of northern accents).

But I wanted to write a novel that answered the question - what if they'd been together all that time, from university onwards, and then one of them died? What then? So to say I'm humbled by this lovely Amazon review is an understatement.

"This is the book One Day can only aspire to emulate. Where Farewell Trip blows One Day out of the water is in the sense of emotional truth, in the way difficult subjects are not shied away from, but faced head on with humour and poignancy. Yes, this is a book where the hero is dead before it begins, and we journey with both his and Ruth's grief at his untimely death, but despite requiring three lots of tissues, it is never maudlin or sentimental. The writers have such a sure touch - they never let the reader down. You feel all the time that you are in safe hands, being drawn through a story that is moving and funny, romantic and realistic." Ally Kessler

You can buy it here, (Farewell Trip that is, not One Day).

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It's Getting a Bit Sticky...

14/8/2014

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It's hard maintaining a blog. Particularly when not much happens. It was much easier when I was a successful gambler, when my daily tips and tissues attracted The Racing Post and MSN and several hundred deeply disturbed followers. Sadly, so far, in my new incarnation only one person stalks me and she works with my wife (hi Redeye) and I probably actually spend more time thinking about her than she does about me.

Anyway, I was musing on this, back walking Bobby after a few pleasant days working in Swansea. And I was thinking, god I need to write something, my website is dying. Think, man, think. Bobby meanwhile had found a big stick, well more of a trunk really, and with no little effort had settled upon it as his trophy for the day. It was at least 4 feet long and 8 inches round. He struggled with it three miles home, for he is nothing if not a trier.

And I thought, yes, this is it. Damn, why don't I ever have my phone with me when I need it. A blog post created itself in front of me. Instagram look out – twitter retweet-tastic – my moment in the social media spotlight. “Things are getting a bit sticky...”

First a selfie of me (my first ever) holding a small stick in between my teeth. The caption - “Call that a stick?” And, yes, I know you're ahead of me, but here the brilliance of the moment comes not in the solution but in its appreciation, then a photo of Bobby with a tree trunk in his mouth captioned - “This is a stick”.

Alas, my fifteen seconds of social media fame, this very blog post, was ruined by Bobby who, as I ran into the house to get my phone, spat out his tree in blessed relief of a good job well done and simply refused to put it in his mouth again...

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The Road Less Travelled

7/8/2014

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In Sardinia, we had dinner at La Pelosa (with the hills and the poem, blah blah). Driving home towards Stintino we got stuck behind the coach to Alghero (our destination). Mark, all holiday, had been doing a pretty good job imitating an Italian with his fondness for that chicken-lane thing that has me pressing imaginary pedals on the floor, hanging onto the passenger grim-death handle and shouting for my mother, but this road, this bus, this dark, dark night was one manoeuvre too far.

All was not lost though as there are two roads from Stintino towards Alghero – an old turny-wurny, sicky-wicky one and a new(ish) straighter(ish) one, tarmacked even. In a moment of consensus (minus a sleeping Karin, a negroni beyond caring) we took “the road less traveled”.

A diversion. An old road. Longer but freer. A byway, not a highway. Other than us, it was devoid of cars for fully thirty minutes of twists and turns through the darkness. It was a glorious distraction. And proved so when we arrived at the roundabout to rejoin the new road. Five seconds later than the coach.

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The Key Rule of Vegetable Gardening

3/8/2014

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Here's the key rule of vegetable gardening. Once the fruit of your labour has grown, you need to harvest it.

If you don't - maybe because you foolishly went on holiday at the end of July - your lettuces are going to bolt, your artichokes are going to become purple thistles, those cute little courgettes are going to be marrows, and your cucumbers are going to mutate into unfeasibly large comedy dildoes.

The kinky one on the left has an eight and a half inch girth (insert own joke here).

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One Day - eat your heart out....

It's Getting a Bit Sticky...

The Road Less Travelled

The Key Rule of Vegetable Gardening

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