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