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

At last I have re-sized the giant front cover for my book for this blog and I've managed to get it published on both Amazon and Smashwords! I have to say that I thought that the formatting was interchangeable....hmmm...dream on Dick. So, after a major wrangle with the formatting of the table of contents, I have managed it ...and very good they look too!

The trouble with a Mac is that you have to lash out shed loads of money to get Word onto it. I usually bumble along using the freebie software Libre Office but when it comes to uploading ebook files, it has to be in Word format, not ODT. Having said that, Smashwords will not accept .docx so you have to upload your file for publishing as a .doc file.

Enough of this techy stuff, just go out and buy the book, it's good! I have generated a 50% off coupon for Smashwords if you want one. Just enter the discount code DX59S at the checkout. The link to the book on Smashwords is https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/367656
The code is good for 5 days so it runs out on the 20th October.

If Amazon is your thing, I'm sorry there is no discount code but here's the link

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes-Zhou-Bell-ebook/dp/B00FVYVVVC

If you like the book, leave me some feedback and tell your friends. Drop me a line here and tell me what you thought of it.

Have to say it is warmer here in Brittany than in the UK but I'm missing the food already! The choice of flavours, the variety of fresh food and the freshness...and of course the prices! One thing I did discover when I was in the UK was the teabags from Lidl. I had heard on a blog that they were good and so I bought a packet of 'Knightsbridge' black label tea bags and they are superb! I usually drink coffee but these teabags are magic. I am having to restrict how much tea I am drinking as we only bought a box of 50. Must get friends to bring some more over when they visit : )

The dampness of Brittany gives us the gorgeous greens of the countryside but this is the first place that I have lived where things start growing on my car! I have lichens on the bumper! Just shows how good the air quality is here! However, on the outside of our house is a coarse render between the bits of exposed stone. This is a great place for moss etc to take root. Every so often you need to have your house de-mossed and pressure washed...not a cheap hobby when access is difficult and you have to hire a cherry picker for the job! This task SHOULD have been done whilst we were in the UK but wasn't...the guy doing it blamed the weather! All our neighbours said that there was glorious sunshine whilst we were away...grump...grump...grump. Still, he is coming back on Thursday (weather permitting) to spray on the 'anti-mousse' which needs 2 weeks to work before being power washed off. I hope the house will be sparkling!

Anyway, have a great week, we have friends coming over from the UK overnight Thursday so a fun time should be had by all!

Dick xx

Well, I am home safely in Brittany after the madness of 10 days in the UK. What a change from the rural roads in Brittany with the odd tractor in front of you to the madness of big city driving! The noise, the number of people and the incessant music blaring out in shops! Wow, I had forgotten!

I drove down overnight from our home in The Midlands, setting off at midnight for the 250+ mile drive to the ferry port at Plymouth. Good journey, our black Labrador snoozed most of the way only to grumble at the port security staff as they checked our car before we boarded the ferry. Crossing was good, it was smooth despite 2 metre waves. Heads down in our cabin and a good sleep meant that the 6 hour crossing passed very quickly.

Food choices and prices in the UK always amaze me. In Brittany and France in General there seems to be a reluctance for hot, spicey foods. We had both Indian and Chinese food whilst we were in the UK and they were delicious. Chinese food is available in France but it tends to be quite bland with a lot of influence from Thai and Vietnamese cooking. Indian food is much harder to find and the level of spice is much lower.

My favourite eating out experience was at our favourite pub in Denby village (famous for its wonderful stoneware cookware and dinner services ). I had a fabulous fillet steak with a Stilton (a delicious traditional British blue cheese) sauce. Yum!

Today finds me in the UK stocking up on all the yummies that you can't buy in France....but that is not the only reason I am here ; )

My grand daughter had her fifth birthday and so we came over and as a present, we were requested to buy not something high-tech but something that has it it's origins that probably go back hundreds of years...a rocking horse! A bit of assembly was required and said horse was presented. It was an instant success and our grand daughter has been glued to the saddle ever since! I have never seen myself as an Ostler but I when she wanted to show her horse to somebody else it was a case of shouting to me over her shoulder "Bring the horse!". I felt like part of a 17th century period drama!

This week has been a flurry of activity seeing friends, getting my 4x4 repaired (bit of a trauma driving through a large city after being used to the country roads of Brittany), buying stuff...but...I managed to finish off the first draft of my latest Sherlock Hollmes story, SH andThe Zhou Bell.

I have already created the book cover using the excellent free program Gimp (a bit like Photoshop) on my Mac and now I have to learn how to REALLY format and edit my book properly. The feedback that I have had has been very positive, folk loved the plots but the formatting needs attention. Something for me to work on once we are back in France later in the week.

As this is being typed on my iPad whilst sitting up in bed, I will leave any further news until I can access my laptop.
Enjoy your week.

Dick xx