#WeekendCoffeeShare: It’s been a stormy month!

This being the last weekend of the month, I thought that I’d use our coffee time to reflect on my January. It has certainly been an event-packed month and it has not just been the weather that has been stormy in North America and Europe!

For starters, have you noticed how many legendary stars have passed away since the turn of the year? The deaths of Alan Rickman, David Bowie and the Eagles’ Glenn Frey, three fan-favorites of Western pop-culture, prompted an outpouring of sorrow and disbelief online. Today, I woke up to the news that Sir Terry Wogan, top irish TV and radio presenter has also departed. The list of January 2016 celebrity deaths is long but these are a few of the people whom I will remember with fondness: Tony Lane, Tony Allin, Sian Blake, Otis Clay, Jack Bannister and Frank Finlay. There were many more.

My job has taken me travelling around England and to Paris, Barcelona and Utrecht. There will be no let up. I fly to Naples (Florida) tomorrow for the week, Paris again the week after and then either Milano or Madrid. Whilst I am very lucky to be able to visit so many places because I am passionate about immersing myself in different cultures, cuisines and languages, it isn’t all pleasure. It is hard work and the pressure is always on. But I like that too. I’ll be doing the final preparations for my presentations in company HQ today.

Clam Pass Park boardwalk

One of the big bonuses of visiting Naples is that I can enjoy on of my favourite early morning runs. It is wonderful to be able to run down the solid wood boardwalk of Clam Pass Park at a time when the beach is usually deserted apart from a few pelicans and other sea birds. In the low light of dawn, I sometimes fear coming face-to-face with a black bear or a cottonmouth snake, although I am told that this is very unlikely.

I have a tonne of family stuff to sort out before I take off from London Heathrow too, but I won’t bore you with the detail of that.

By far the most exciting event of this this month and this week has been the launch of my second novel on Kindle. The paperback version will follow in lulu.com, Anazon, Barnes & Noble and others within a few days. The final stretch was frantic. My fantastic editor and friend, Eloise De Sousa, was up until 1:30 am on Thursday morning completing the final little edits. I was up at 3:30 applying those edits to my manuscript and compiling for Kindle. By 6 am I was sitting in the cafe at Southampton Airport, uploading the file to Amazon’s KDP site. It usually takes at least 12 hours for the updated content to appear, but it was there one hour later as I sat on the plane waiting for the doors to close. I was so pumped up and telling anyone who would listen to me.

Two hours later, I was in line for passport control at Amsterdam Schipol Airport when I took the opportunity to check my sales. THIRTY-TWO!

So please check out my new novel, Knitting Can Walk!, and download it to your Kindle if you like what you see. And then tell all  your friends. Re-blog this post with an enthusiastic message about the launch of this book. I am relying upon you.

Please help yourself to another coffee and a slice of my Dundee cake while you do that.

Right! Off to pack my bag for Naples now. So much more to do. See you next week.

#weekendcoffeeshare

The pocket-sized flyers for “Knitting Can Walk!”

Front of Flyer