Here I am again. I have been so buy with just....stuff! I have been writing another story and it is finished! Well, except for the editing bit that Alex, my wife, does for me. She has been busy doing a poetry course so I am in the queue for her attention, Anyway, it's written and I like it (I have to say, as usual!). I do like my own stories. It may seem strange but I do enjoy reading them. Must be my really rubbish memory!

About 3/4 of the way through writing it I became overloaded with the writing aspect and had to stop, I was drained. I decided to look for an image for the book cover and found this one. I think it's great and it ties in so well to the story. The book should be completed sometime next week (or before if I ask nicely). Enjoy!

I have been asked by a famous Sherlockian, David Marcum if I will publish all my stories as a rea book. The Julia Moriarty Trilogy is already available as a paperback with MX Publishing so that would leave me with 12 stories . David thinks would just about the ideal number so it is worth a LOT of thought. I may well do this so look out for further news.

The weather here is shocking, strong winds and now we have rain. We had ferries to the UK cancelled last week because of storms in the English Channel. Hey-ho, at least we don't get snow, it's 14 degrees Celcius here but the wind whistling past the door sounds really awful.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Dick xx

Well, here we are again. I keep neglecting to write stuff and time runs away with me. Alex and I had a great time in London at the launch of the MX Sherlock Holmes trilogy. We met quite a few fellow authors at a great location on the 35th floor of the Heron Tower in London. Fabulous view and we enjoyed seeing the sun set over the city from the highest balcony in Europe.

Whilst here we met Bonnie  MacBird, the author of several great Sherlock Holmes tales at The Sherlock Holmes hotel in Baker Street. Shout out to Anita, the manager on reception. She remembered us and we had a warm welcome from her.

Since our trip, I have written another story which is available from Amazon and (from today) Smashwords. The new story is called 'Sherlock Holmes and Miss Violet Dixon (deceased). This is based on a true and truly shocking scam that was centred on London but affected women all over the British Isles.  Here's the blurb from my Amazon entry....

"Holmes returns angry and disturbed after a visit to Hammersmith mortuary at the end of a particularly tiresome case. Whilst at the mortuary, Lestrade shows him the body of a young woman who has taken not only her own life, but that of her unborn child.

So begins a tale that highlights the exploitation of vulnerable women through quack medicine and blackmail in a scheme of unbelievable proportions. Julia Moriarty, the sister of the late Professor James Moriarty is suspected to have a hand in the affair and Holmes must involve Lestrade in a bid to apprehend the perpetrators. Lestrade springs the trap but in doing so, causes Watson to be grievously wounded.

Moriarty escapes but has she revealed to Holmes her Achilles heel? Whilst Holmes has seen that the 'Rule of Law' is maintained and the case concluded, Watson is in turmoil as he is unsure whether their investigation has inadvertently caused further harm to those they sought to protect."

I have to say I like it and as it is a true story that I have weaved Holmes and Watson into, it is even more exciting and poignant.

I am half way through writing my next short story, 'Sherlock Holmes and The Emerald Spirit' which is going 'so-so'. It's difficult to write with a young Lemon Setter wanting to join you by sitting between your legs on the footstool. I sit on the sofa with my feet up on my IKEA footstool and my laptop on my beanbag tray. She can't resist a cuddle and climbs up and I end up with splayed legs on the very edges of the stool. She is getting MUCH bigger and is well into teething!! She has most of her teeth now but will still chew most things!

Anyway, I will write more soon.

Dick xx

Well, I just realised that I haven't actually posted anything on here since January!! Where have I been? Well, Bulgaria for one... and several quite important things have happened in the run up to now.

Firstly, I am now the proud grand-father of a delightful little chap called Flynn. My wife and I flew over to the UK in May and Flynn was born whilst we were on the plane! Mum, Dad, Flynn and the two cats are all settled into a routine and he is growing up so quickly.

Secondly and perhaps thirdly and fourthly, I have written three more Sherlock Holmes stories! 'The Angel's Trumpet' is a tale of German spies set in the early days of aviation. 'The Second Key' is a new story that involves a bomb plot and a train robbery. It also features the glamorous, but deadly, Julia Moriarty. I have to say that it does have a rather tantalizing ending. The final story I have written is entitled 'The Man on Westminster Bridge' and has yet to be published. "Why?" I hear you gasp! Well, it's because I sent it off to David Marcum for possible inclusion in the MX Publishing's latest and greatest venture, The Worlds Largest Sherlock Holmes Collection. This is a great project where 60+ of the World's Best Sherlock Holmes authors have generously written a story each for inclusion into a three book anthology. The royalties from the sale of the trilogy are going to support the restoration of 'Undershaw', Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's house.  You can read more about it here   http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/07/behind-worlds-largest-new-sherlock.html#.VcNCaXGqpHy

This project is the brainchild of a great Sherlokian, David Marcum. He has worked tirelessly to bring together and edit the 60+ manuscripts to produce three stunning volumes. You can catch up with David on his blog here   http://www.17stepprogram.blogspot.fr/

I am very pleased and proud to say that my story was accepted and has been included in Volume 2 of the anthology. If this project interests you, there is still time to back it on Kickstarter.   https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1229605719/the-worlds-largest-new-sherlock-holmes-story-colle?ref=discovery

On a very much sadder note, our beautiful, 6 month old Black Labrador Jess had to be put down last month after developing uncontrollable epilepsy. Even on the maximum dosage of anti-convulsive drugs, she was having 10 or more Grande Mal's a day. It broke our hearts to have her put down but we could not bear to see her in such great pain and distress.

On the upside, a little wriggling bundle called 'Laouen' (a Breton name and pronounced La-when) came into our lives 2 weeks ago. She is a 10 week old, Lemon English Setter puppy and she is gorgeous! She cannot, and we would not want her to, replace Jess in our hearts. She is quite a different character and I have to say that we have had quite a few sleepless nights as she got used to her new home.

This is 'Hermine', Laouen's mother with one of her pups.

Laouen in her crate.

Just lazing in Jean-Claude's bed (our Breton cat...he isn't impressed!)

Well, there's lots of news. I will try and write more frequently and please consider supporting the anthology project, either through being a backer on kickstarter or by buying the books. They can be bought as pre-release copies on the Kickstarter site (just follow the link above).

Enjoy August, I look forward to the official launch of the anthology in London on the 1st of October!

Dick.

Here we are in a chilly January! You find me freshly back from a trip to the UK to partake of a little culture. My wife had seen 2 exhibitions in London that were soon to close so we flew over to see them. As you will know from this blog, I am a Sherlock Holmes fan and what better place to stay in London than at the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes Hotel in Baker Street! A 50 minute flight from Dinard courtesy of Ryanair into London Stansted and then a coach ride direct to Baker Street.

The Sherlock Holmes hotel was full of charm and not full of glass and chrome. It did have a bit of a Gentleman's Club feel to it. The hotel has a reading corner and I presented the hotel with a copy of my paperback, The Julia Moriarty Trilogy which I signed for them. I don't know whether this helped but we were upgraded to an executive room :-) It was much appreciated! Thank you Anita!

The two exhibitions we visited were the Constable at the V&A and the Turner at Tate Britain. Of the two, I preferred the Turner which was superb! My wife and I had seen the great film 'Mr Turner' starring Timothy Spall before going and it certainly did give the exhibition a new dimension. Two nights at The Sherlock Holmes was not enough and a quick train ride up to Nottingham allowed us some time to see our children. Booking in advance for the train allowed us to travel first class for only £21, a real bargain! We had use of the 1st Class lounge at St Pancras for free tea, coffee, juice etc. and similarly on the train. A one way car hire from Nottingham back to Stansted brought us to the Radisson Blu at the airport and a really good evening meal in the Italian restaurant. A missed flight and 2 days later, we were back home!

More to follow, have a good week!

Dick x

Christmas is nearly upon us, the Christmas tree has been decorated and all the presents have been carefully arranged around the base of it. It looks lovely and has already had a small Breton cat deciding that it is a great thing to climb up and our black Labrador has given all the presents a good sniff! Trying to type with a cat lying on one arm has reduced me to typing with one finger!

Keeping warm here in France is not a problem with the big wood burner but in the UK, it seems that the power companies have their own agenda. Our tiny house, our 'holiday home' in the UK, has electric heating. We are only there for about 3 weeks a year when we go over to visit family and friends. Some time during the year the electricity meter failed....completely dead! Sooooo....after a very long discussion and 2 failed attempts to replace it, we finally have a new electricity meter. Hurrah! You say...but the electricity company want to charge me as if the house had been occupied 100% of the time. Here lies the problem, trying to convince them that if they look at, say, a month's usage when the house is empty, it is a true reading of our consumption. Hmmm... I think we have some more hard bargaining and a bit of jumping up and down to do. We will see!

I'm still running on empty for ideas for the next Sherlock Holmes story but perhaps I need to read some more background material. I really would like to get some flying stuff into a story and it is just the ideal time period for someone to challenge the Wright brothers. We will have to see!

Enjoy Chistmas, I wish all my friends and my readers both new and old, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Dick xx

Here we are, mid-December and the sun is out and it is really warm! When I say really warm, it's 10ºC in the shade but brilliant sunshine! Strange things happening in the garden, we haven't had a frost here and the grass looks like it needs mowing. The moles are still active under one of my lawns and I have to keep scooping up the fine soil left behind in their molehills. We now have a Rhododendron in flower with more blooms to come. I think the mild weather has confused it!

Exciting times here this week. A friend of mine asked if I would go with him whilst he mended the roof on his cottage. Thankfully, it only has a ground floor and he was working at about 3m (about 12 feet) off the floor when the roof ladder he was using gave way and he slid down the roof, with the ladder and landed flat on his back! Fortunately, he landed in the neighbours vegetable patch but he lay unconscious for a minute or so. I was just dialling for the emergency services when he came round and insisted he was OK. Obviously he was slightly concussed and didn't remember what had happened. I had to drive him home in his car and he gradually came back to normal. A trip to the hospital showed no damage apart from pulled, and now stiff, muscles.

My new book, The Bulgarian Clockmaker is selling well. In the last 30 days I have sold over 180! If you haven't bought yours, please go along to Amazon or Smashwords or any of the other ebook sellers. If you have bought a copy and you enjoyed reading it, please leave me some good feedback! I have lots of fragmented ideas for another story but nothing that will link together....at present. I'll let you know. In marketing the book I have used Fiverr again to promote it to 50 or so Kindle reader groups on Facebook. For $5 it is a great way to advertise and I definitely see an increase in sales.

Have a great week, we will be on the beach this afternoon for stroll with truffle, the black Labrador and her tennis ball called Spot....Spot the ball! ;-)

Dick xx

Goodness! I have been so busy that I have completely forgotten my blog!

So, what has been happening in my life? Well, a friend and I went out to Bulgaria to stay in our apartment in Kosharitsa, a small village with a holiday complex near Sunny Beach. Great weather and a fun time was had by two blokes on the loose. With a pint of beer for about 60p and a quadruple Gin and tonic costing less than £2, it was great fun!

At the beginning of July my wife and I went back to the UK for the marriage of our beautiful daughter on 4th July! A good time was had by all and we returned very happy to have Joe, our daughters new husband as part of our extended family. I am very pleased to say that Joe is a fellow Geek and we can happily speak Klingon to each other about new operating systems, Android stuff and general techy things. Wonderful!

Lovely reception at Cockliffe Hall in Nottinghamshire, the weather was kind except that it rained for the evening guests which meant that we had to eat inside but that wasn't a problem.














The well had been running a bit dry for my next book. I had a few ideas scuttling around but couldn't tie them together to make a coherent story. So, in the meantime, I decided to create my first 'real' book using the Amazon Createspace platform. I decided to publish the 3 stories that featured my new character, Julia Moriarty as a trilogy in paperback. I found it quite easy to do, the three word docx. were combined into one and then the front papers were created.

   Julia Moriarty is a flaming red head so I needed a suitable image for the front and rear covers. I searched Flickr for a suitable image as it is a great resource for public domain images. I found a fabulous image that really matched my idea of Julia Moriarty. It was made using an iPhone app called "Average Face" which gives you a single image as a kind of compilation. In my case, the average of 12 images of auburn haired ladies, Beautiful! The book cover was created using GIMP, the free Photoshop type program for the Mac and the stories and the cover sent off to Createspace. About 10 days later I had a delivery of the printed proofs and so The Julia Moriarty Trilogy was born! It is now on sale as a paperback at Amazon for $7.99  Have a look here...  http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Julia-Moriarty-Trilogy/dp/1500943029

I wasn't happy with the 2 black borders at the sides of the image as when the book was produced, it was not always precisely trimmed and this made the image not precisely central. To avoid this, I removed the borders.

With the new printed book on Amazon and a few copies given away to friends, I looked at what else to do. I had had an idea for a modern crime story but then I thought I might adapt it for a new Holmes story. The result of this was my latest Kindle story, Sherlock Holmes and The Bulgarian Watchmaker. Julia Moriarty doesn't feature in this one although I have purchased a domain for her and created a new web site www.juliamoriarty.com  Here I can promote my new books and also showcase the books in the trilogy.

The Bulgarian Clockmaker which was published on all the Amazon sites on the 5th November, includes a very strange custom that I found whilst I was in Bulgaria. This has has become a key element in the climax to the story. I won't reveal any more, you will have to buy the book! http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Bulgarian-Clockmaker-Gillman-ebook/dp/B00PAT9OGM

Alex says that she thinks that it is the best story yet... we will see!

Last week I discovered Fiverr as a resource. It is a great place where folk offer their services in so many different categories for $5. I used it to promote my book on Facebook and I have definitely seen an increase in sales. I also purchased an intro video for The Julia Moriarty Trilogy and I think it is great. I uploaded it to You Tube and I have included it on Julia's web page. See what you think..

I think it is breath taking and only cost me $5 for the guy to customise it for The Julia Moriarty Trilogy. Brilliant!

Anyway, I'm sorry to have neglected the blog for so long. Do have a look at www,juliamoriarty.com as you can read the dramatic first chapter of The Bulgarian Clockmaker.

Dick xx

Bulgaria calls!! I'm off to Kosharitsa, a small village close to the notorious 'Sunny Beach' on the Black Sea. I have an apartment in a complex about 1km from the village and I want to see how the complex has progressed since my last visit some years ago. It may be a tad uncomfortable as the apartment is not furnished and at 64 years old, I may have a problem sleeping on the floor on an air bed!

I think the first business to hand may be to buy a couple of single beds, mattresses and bed linen so that we can have a decent nights sleep. The first night may not be so bad as we are arriving on the red-eye from the UK that lands about 4a.m. so some sleep may have been had on the plane and when the shops open at about 7 a.m. in Sunny Beach it may be a dash to the furniture store!

Weather looks to be good and the swimming pools at the complex should have warmed up a fair bit. Car hire is cheap over there and are picking up a small car at the airport. The transfer costs by the airline would be half the cost of the hire for the week. Not sure of the age/condition of the car we get so it could be interesting!

Whilst wifi is available on the complex, I don't think I will be posting from there but I will take some photographs and upload them here on my return.

Have a good week,

Dick xx

After what seems like an age, I have managed, with the help of my dear wife, to publish Sherlock Holmes and The Severed Finger today on both Amazon and Smashwords! Phew! It was a labour of love to read it together and fine tune the grammar and the period speech. Please feel free to download it and leave me some feedback http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KJEKI1S

If you are not an Amazon fan and don't have a Kindle, have a look at Smashwords  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/441243

It is a good book, I really enjoy the writing process and I enjoy reading the end result! It's fun! Feedback is so important to me, not just in promoting the book but also in understanding what folk want from a story, what they liked, what they didn't like etc. etc. It's part of a learning process for me.

Anyway, see what you think. No new book on the horizon at the moment, I will have to wait for a flash of inspiration, a typical Eureka! moment. They do exist, an idea will come to me out of the blue. Sometimes it's a "Wow!", sometimes it's a slow idea that grows as an organic thing and then i develop it into a story. This one was a bit of both!

Have a good week, the weather here in Brittany is typical 'April' weather with sunshine and showers...just a month late!

Dick xx

So much has happened since I last posted. Having been to Barcelona  and enjoyed the sunshine, I've been back to the UK for 10 days and also written a new Sherlock Holmes short story! Phew, a busy time! Barcelona was beautiful, warm and sunny and in fairness, the UK was warm the whole time we were there. Stilton cheese, cheddar cheese, fish and chips... a gastronomic blow-out!

The new short story is a corker, a little over 11k words. Quite exciting and due to be published next week if I can do a final few tweeks to ensure that the 'voice' is truly Victorian. I enjoyed writing it (as I do every time) but there was a patch of about a month where the creative juices just disappeared and I couldn't move forwards. Took until this last seven days for me to be able to link the bits of the plot together and bash out about 5k words. I found a great Public Domain website for royalty free images and I chose one that has some resonance with the story. Using GIMP, the free 'Photoshop' lookalike for Mac I created the book cover yesterday. Yipeee!

I have also, since posting last, have decided to have a go at some jewellery making. Not just threading a few beads to make some earings, I have had a go at making some nice 'floating' necklaces. I think they have come out quite well. I'm going to have a bash at selling a few at the local indoor Christmas Market. By then, I will have sufficient stock and my knowledge of Excel will have improved sufficiently to allow me to sort the stock out properly.

Here's a selection of what i have been busy doing!

Got to get back to the editing, hope you have a great week!

Dick xx

Another windy, wet day here in Brittany! So... I have spent the day fine tuning the story and my long suffering wife (who is my copy editor) has read through it with me, line by line) and it is now in Amazon's 'meat grinder' and will, fingers crossed, be on sale world wide tomorrow so tell your friends! Not sure of the Amazon link yet but if you search for it on Amazon or me (P.S. I was amazed I was number 2 on the whole of Google when I searched for myself!!!) by name you will find it ...and all my other books ; )

Enjoy, it was a frantic three days blasting the story out but it's good!

Dick xx

Well, since I last posted I have been for a week in Barcelona doing a bit of culture. Gaudi was brilliant and the early work of Picasso was very interesting. What really blew me away was the fabulous National Museum of the Art of Catalunya, It was magnificent! A day trip out to Sitges from Barcelona was a nice relaxing time. The weather was superb, it was so warm that I had to move out of the sun to sip my ice cold beer served in a frosted glass! It was so nice to be in a climate that was free from wind and rain...and a stay at the Hilton and a corking rate through SecretEscapes was magic!

As you can see from the new graphic on the page I have been busy writing a new Sherlock Holmes short story. I think it is a cracker with lots of different threads going on and some surprises too! I will say no more! The book itself is at the copy edit stage so once it has been checked I will upload it to both Amazon and Smashwords.

Weather here in Brittany has been foul! Large storms with lots of trees blown down and lots of coastal damage from the high tides. A chap in a local village lost 5 metres from his garden in one storm! We lost power for almost 24 hours and also water (which was a bit worrying!). This is small beer to what folks are experiencing in the UK but it is the continuous rain, day after day that grinds you down. I know a few folk who are planning to spend next winter in warmer climes rather than suffer the wet weather here.

No ideas yet for the next book, it took me about a month to kins of blend some thoughts together but once that was done, I had 10k words written in 3 days, perfect for a short story. watch this space.

Hope everyone is looking forwards to spring, we have daffodils about to bloom and we have Primula's in full flower. Roll on spring.

Have a great week,

Dick xx

The book is well and truly launched and is now on sale at Smashwords that feeds Kobo which in turn feeds iTunes, Barnes & Noble Collins etc. etc. and at Amazon, worldwide. Took me a while to format it for both platforms but it's done. I do like it and if you are into an 'action' Sherlock Holmes story, this is the one for you!  I like it and I hope you will too.

After a few beautiful days of sunshine with the temperature up to 15ºC, we are back to grey skies, wind and temperatures in single figures.We had some horrendous storms and some of our beaches here are sand backed by very large, rounded pebbles which can be up to the size of a flattened rugby ball. These had been tossed up onto the road by the beach and all over the car park. Didn't bother my 4x4 but other folk were a bit wary! I have heard lots of folk out with chain saws, the upside of a storms that blow over trees. Plenty of wood to be stacked away to dry out for their wood burners, still a major source of heating in rural Brittany and sustainable too!

Christmas saw our daughter here and me and my future son-in-law sailing my R/C yacht. I'm not sure what I will be doing this winter as a hobby, last winter saw me down the cellar building the yacht and jolly cold down there it was too! I think his winter I may be writing more Sherlock in the lounge with my laptop on my beanbag tray, sitting with my feet up in front of a blazing log fire. Seems much more attractive! Large glass of Scotch is not required but a very welcome accessory!

'Bable', our weekly Monday evening trip out to a gathering of French and English folk has started again. I really enjoy chatting in English and my poor French to different folk, sharing conversations and culture. It's fun, the folk are very nice and as 'the English' we seem in great demand as there are always more French than English and we have to ration ourselves out a bit. We sit around in groups of four and take i in turns to produce some written text to discuss and translate...usually with much hilarity! I have to say that my accent is improving as is my pronunciation.

At Christmas we had an end of year Bable get together and we introduced the French to Christmas cake, mince pies, Stilton and Cheddar cheese. Cheddar is something that is difficult to find in France (Stilton is impossible to find) and if you do manage to find a tiny pack of it, it costs an arm and leg! French folk who have tried Cheddar have loved it and whenever we go back to the UK we come back with loads and pass the odd pack on to both English and French friends.

Have a great week, read some Sherlock...especially MY Sherlock! ; )

Dick xx

Great news, my next book is almost ready to be published! On Monday this week I finished it and have been madly editing since then, reading it through, moving bits around and updating(?) the language to fit the Victorian period. Then...I watched the first of the new Sherlock series last night and spookily, my book has some of the main elements of last nights premiere...bizarre! The BBC had kept the plot a tightly guarded secret and I was on a parallel course! I find that both weird and mind blowing!

The book SHOULD be published by this weekend, I like it. For the folk who like a bit of action then this is the Holmes book for you! I will try and publish the book on both Amazon and Smashwords by the weekend...more work!

We have had storms and flooding just like in the UK for the last couple of weeks although the power has stayed on. Christmas eve was a bit worrying when the water was turned off and we had our daughter and her fiance staying with us for Christmas! Fortunately, it was back on by the morning. Phew! The town is upgrading its water supply so we have had a lot of digging of trenches and stacks of large bore pipes gracing the footpaths of the town. I think one must have sprung a leak for them to have switched off the water on Christmas eve as this is the time when the French have their big Christmas meal. I would imagine that the emergency switchboard for the water company was red hot with irate french folk who were trying to cook their Christmas meal with no water!

Our biggest town of Morlaix did not escape the floods and on Christmas eve there was a storm surge and the centre of Morlaix was flooded to a depth of 1.5 metres ( about 5 feet). There is a yacht basin in town and I am surprised that there were no yachts to be seen in the central car park! The weekend before Christmas was the 150th anniversary of the building of the huge brick viaduct that crosses the valley in which Morlaix sits. There were laser shows projected onto the viaduct and a load of fireworks, it was quite a show! Fortunately, the rain held off for the most part.

More wind and rain at the moment as a storm travels past Brittany towards the UK, the shipping forecast for the crossing between the UK and France was really bad with winds up to severe gale force 9. Not the time to be crossing as it takes up to 9 hours, depending on the ports and the time of day.

Anyway, look out for Sherlock Holmes - The Shadow of James Moriarty, it will be available VERY soon!

Have a great week,

Dick xx

This is new for me, two blog sessions in consecutive days...must be because I've finished writing and it's a Sunday and so I can't use the mower!

I was moved to write some more as I found the 'The Room 2' the fabulous follow up game for the iPad had been released. If you have not been wowed by 'The Room' then toddle over to the Apple store and download it for your iPad. It's now free (as 'The Room 2' is now out) and the graphics are mind blowing. I really, really recommend this puzzle game. It is not one of your cheapie "Escape the Room' type games, it is a wonderful use of the iPads interaction with its owner.

We have a 'stealth' cat who is coming into our house at night an stealing our cats food! Grrr, we have had to close our bedroom door at night (after 40 years of leaving it open) as our new cat jumps on the bed and snuggles down and it un-nerves me to be just dropping off and have something leap on the bed! Our black Labrador, 'Truffle' sleeps on her duvet on the floor at the end of the bed and would see off any 'foreign' cat but with the bedroom door closed, she doesn't hear it padding past. I am attempting to put in place a high-tech solution, I will move the wireless security camera from the garage and install it temporarily to watch the food bowls. It is motion activated so we will see who is coming in!

The best solution to all this is to install a cat flap in the garage door that reads the cats micro-chip. All cats and dogs in France have to be tattooed inside their ear with their pet id number or be injected with a micro-chip. These new fangled cat flaps read the chip id and only allow in the cats with the PIN that it 'knows'. They are a tad expensive, about £80 ( $140 ) but might be worth it in the long run.

I was looking for some interesting facts and background for my next book and there are some really interesting places with write ups of everyday events in Victorian times. One of them was in Ryde on the Isle of Wight where there is a monthly record of events that goes back into the 1850's. The language form is interesting in itself but the reports presented are fascinating, e.g. revolver practice on the pier by the Coastguard!

I will, honestly, try to post on my blog more frequently. It is just that once a new book gets underway I tune in to it so much that I exclude stuff unintentionally...a bit like Holmes...but I don't forget meal times ; )

Enjoy your week,

Dick xx

Well, it's windy as a windy thing today...and looks like rain for the next two days. Hey-ho, that's what a Breton winter is like!

I released Sherlock Holmes and The Lymington Affair into the World on Friday morning...and no complaints yet! It is a nice 'people-y' book with Holmes showing (for once) that he does have a softer side and that Watson has a sweet tooth! If you haven't bought it yet it is for sale on Amazon (everywhere). I have gone with the Amazon Select option which means that Amazon prime members can borrow the book for nothing and also they run promo's etc. We will wait and see, it is only on Amazon Select (exclusive to them and not available elsewhere) for 3 months. I will then launch on Smashwords.

Christmas is nearly upon us and Alex is writing cards and wrapping stuff. I write cards to colleagues and distant family members, all good stuff. A little bird has told me that I might be getting a deerstalker for Christmas! I'm sure that it will go down a storm on a windy beach on Christmas day! we have our children joining us for a few days over Christmas via Paris. Ryanair are going to pull the plug on flying into Dinard in spring next year. I think they are arguing that the E. Mids route is really a summer route. Hmmm, flights have always been pretty full when we have been on them.

Joining Linkedin has been an interesting thing to do, I have had such great interaction with other authors. I have had loads of advice and links to really useful places. It is a great way to join in with folk who have an interest in your area (not just writing, ALL areas of work and leisure). It is a superb networking tool, I heartily recommend it.

Hopefully, my model yacht might get an outing at Christmas when the 'kids' are over for Christmas, my daughters fiance is a keen radio controlled flier. Our town has an old, covered Lavoir, a small communal washing 'baths' about 8m x 3m made from stone. It is about 60cm deep and should be ideal for a quick sail for the yacht. The electronics are now installed to control the sails and the rudder, just need a nice gentle breeze.

A friend of ours came back to Brittany for a few days from the UK last week and very kindly split some logs for us. We are working our way through the logs from 2 years ago. We have had 7 'Red' days lately and the big log fire in the lounge has been getting some hammer. The stone fireplace keeps the room warm overnight, just like a storage heater. We burn mainly oak and chestnut, I don' mind burning the 'butt ugly' pieces but I keep thinking that I would like to have a go at carving some of the nicely figured stuff, not throw it on the fire!

Anyway, have a great week!

Dick xx

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

It's a  gorgeous, sunny warm day after about 5 really grey and rainy ones. The sun is so warm on my terrace I may sit out there and have lunch! Yippee!

The sale of my new book Sherlock Holmes and The Zhou Bell is increasing slowly. I have given away about 90 so far so if you want a copy, nip along to Smashwords. It's free until the end of November.

I had a greal email from the editor and secretary of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India a couple of weeks ago. They would like to showcase my books in their December issue of their magazine! They will also include an interview I did for Smashwords too. All very encouraging plus there is a possibility of getting my books into print in India and also worldwide through MX Publishing. This is something I will follow up.

Speaking of ebooks, a friend of mine alerted me to the fact that Rick Steins's cook book about his journey through India is currently reduced from a staggering £25 to a miserly 49p as a Kindle Ebook. I have to say that the photographs are superb. I use the free reader app. on my iPad and having the hyperlinks within the text is really useful.

This seems to be a totally book related post, I saw today that Amazon now have an Australian site www.Amazon.au.com and my books are already on sale there. So, if you have some 'rellies' down under, please point them towards my books on that site : )

The fine weather has meant the guy who we have employed to clean the outside of our house has been able to come and jet wash off the moss/algae killer that he sprayed on a couple of weeks ago. It's quite labour intensive as the algae has been on there a looooong time and doesn't want to let go, even though it's dead! It will look good when it is done.

Still not been cold enough to light the fire here in Brittany, a friend of mine in the UK said that they had had frost and it was crunchy under foot. I must say that the very clear night that we had last night meant that the air was quite cold this morning about 7:30 a.m.  The car was covered with condensation but no frost. It is extremely rare that I have to use de-icer, perhaps once per year! Sometimes there is little light front on the windscreen but I reach for the IKEA family membership card which makes a terrific little ice scraper for the car windows.

Anyway, have a great week. Sorry for all the book related stuff but I'm pumped!

Dick xx

Just decided to do a Halloween marketing offer! I'm now offering my very latest ebook 'Sherlock Holmes and The Zhou Bell' for FREE!! Yes, absolutely for nothing! Pop along to Smashwords and download it in whatever format you like and enjoy it! Let me know what you think and leave a review!

 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/367656

Dick xx

Beautiful day here in Brittany, typical weather, a superb contrast between bucketing it down with rain and beautiful sunshine with temperatures reaching 18°C. Some friends of ours came over on the Plymouth to Roscoff ferry on Friday and we have been having fun ever since. Today we went to an open air market in Plestin-les-Greves which was fun with on and off showers and then back home for lunch before we visited a local Breton Museum which was holding a cider festival (I was driving!!).

The cider festival had lots of exhibits on show as well as cider making, model railways, livestock, crepe making etc, but in the courtyard there was a still making Calvados. Now, Calvados is to cider as brandy is to Champagne. The still was in production (legally) producing a firery clear, colourless spirit. Quite a few of the locals were trying this really high strength stuff straight from the still....brave folk! Other folk were watching the traditional method of producing the apple juice using an apple mincer (a scratter) and then a traditional apple screw press with layers of oat stalks between the layers of apple purée. Folk were buying the freshly pressed apple juice and also the matured cider from last years pressing. A good time was had by all, I particularly enjoyed the clog (sabot) making demonstration where you could buy a pair of children's clogs for €5.

I have to report that the sales of my new story Sherlock Holmes and the Zhou Bell are proceeding and I look for more folk to buy it as it is a cracking story. I am waiting for it to be vetted by a human at Smashwords before it is accepted onto the Premium list and then it can go live at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes etc.

My next story is in the works, I wrote some of it some time ago when I was building my pond yacht. I hope to have it published before Christmas. Just as a tease, the story finds Holmes having one of his rare breaks from being a detective when he offers to teach Watson how to sail at a south coast town. There Holmes falls ill and it is up to Watson to nurse his friend back to health. Others around Holmes have fallen ill and he must find the source of the malady, is it natural or man made? Our detecting duo must try and solve the case.

Well, as it is now 11:30 pm after a tiring day I will say goodnight and try and post a little more as the week progresses.

Have a really good one,

Dick xx