Crazy Paving

Hi All, For the last year I have been toiling away at refurbishing the bungalow that we moved into in January 2014. I have two rooms left to do but they will be easy compared with the landscaping that I have done in the garden.

Yesterday I finished the crazy paving so that is the last of the big jobs where bags of sand and cement are concerned. In my younger days I could carry bags of sand around without any problem but now that I'm 64 years old each bag seems to weight a tonne. I don't think the tablets that I am taking since my heart attack help either, statins seem to have an effect on my muscles.

I guess I'm starting to look a bit past my best because when I purchase the last bag of building sand from homebase, the girl on the till asked me if I wanted help to load it into my car. I guess that is milestone in ones life and a hint that it is time to take it easy and relax.

Anyway, this morning I lay in bed thinking nice thoughts about how that now the big jobs like the crazy paving were done I could rest my old bones and do a bit more arty crafty stuff. However, my dreams of relaxation were rudely interrupted by my wife as we ate our breakfast.

"I've been thinking," she said, "now that you've finished all the jobs in the garden, how about digging out a fish pond?" I don't think the female of our species likes to see a man with leisure time and it occurred to me that since I got married, my other half has thought up an endless stream of tasks for me to complete.

I haven't once and could never imagine sitting about thinking up jobs for my wife to do and perhaps that is the real difference between men and women.

Will she get a fish pond? I'll think about it.

By the way, the first of my books in the Fishing Detectives series, "Carp Rustlers" is free on smashwords.com until 4th of May. If you want a free copy details are on my website

Free: No Fishing In Here

Hi all,
I mentioned in my last post that I was hoping to make my book "Bossy Boots" permanently free on Amazon. I was under the impression that to do this I simply made the book free on Barnes and Noble, Amazon would oblige by price matching it if somebody e-mailed them to say that they'd seen a lower price. Well, I did all that and even got other people to report the lower price but nothing happened, so it was all a complete failure.

However, it did push me into reviewing who and where I was distributing my books with. I use Amazon for everything and have a selection of other books with Smashwords, D2D or both. Anyway, the upshot is that I have pulled some of my books, including Bossy Boots, out of Smashwords and D2D and have enrolled them in Amazon's "select" program, which will allow me to offer them for free for 5 days in every three month period.

To get the ball rolling, my collection of short stories will be available for a free down load for three days this week-end.

Some of the stories are sad while others are funny but they all involve emotions, including anger, denial and betrayal. So if you would like a copy, stick the dates in your diary and download a free copy sometime from the 17th to the 19th of April. I hope you enjoy its.