A legendary romance and an unexpected shower

Book News:

Literary romance short story, Dido's Tale, is now published by Bluewood Publishing and you can find it at Amazon UK - for only 90p! - Amazon US and All Romance Ebooks. I hope you enjoy the read. Of course you can also have this story and indeed all my other Kindle books signed at Kindlegraph for free - so there's an offer you Kindle buyers can't refuse ...

Meanwhile, erotic gay short story For One Night Only gained a very thoughtful and pleasing review at Goodreads (thank you, JJ) and also a 4-star review at Goodreads (many thanks, Kris).

And fantasy novel The Gifting was showcased this week at Reading & Writing Daily by Fred Bubbers - so thank you for that, Fred. Here's another small section of the book:

... but Johan swallows the laughter out of respect for the place they are in.

This week's meditation poems are:




Meditation 561
When the shouting
is done
and the battles
are dust

the one truth
that remains
is to know
whom you trust.




Meditation 562
The place where sins
are forgiven
is quieter
than a feather
and wider
than the sea.

In these travels
through my life
I stumble on it
rarely
but still it calls
to me.




Meditation 563
Today behind the words
lacing this holy page
there is nothing

but silence and the sense
that God might just
have departed

before I even thought
to arrive.


Life News:

As the rain falls, still our living room ceiling leaks, sigh. I've had to put towels and buckets down this morning as it was so heavy but it's stopped now, thank goodness. In true recycling glory, I've poured the water from the bucket onto the garden so I feel I've at least put the rain where it was originally intended to go. Never mind though, only 1 week to go and we're moving so I'm hoping for a more reliable roof in sunny Elstead, hey ho.

This afternoon, the flat cleaner has come round to quote for the post-rental clean organised by the agents. What a very nice woman. If money allows, I might try to see if she'll come to Elstead now and again. Goodness, how very Surrey I am these days - my northern grandmother would turn in her urn to hear me. Though then again, I'd probably be fairly startled to hear her also.

Tonight, K and I are off to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford to see The Woman in White so we're looking forward to an evening of thrills and spills. Other excitements of the week are that I've finally, after three painful weeks of trying, persuaded BT to allow me to pay my new bill by direct debit once we're in Elstead. Lordy, but it was terribly complicated. They sent me a survey asking how they'd performed, so I told them. In no uncertain terms. At least today, the woman on the phone - once I'd spent ten minutes pressing all possible buttons in order to get through to a real ruddy person - was very nice and seemed to know something, hurrah.  However, even she couldn't tell me what my new phone number - of the three different ones they've so far provided us with - was actually going to be until they connect it. So it must be almost as much of a mystery to them as it is to me, hey ho.

And - at last! - the first of the glorious English apples are in the shops for the season, double hurrahs and put out the bunting. Well done to Waitrose for choosing such a classy crop too, English apples of course (says she, speaking as an apple farmer's daughter) being the only ones worth eating at all ...

Anne Brooke
The Thoughtful Corner