Half full or half empty?

May 23^rd. 2020

It has been a week now since Pat was discharged from hospital and signed off from cancer treatment, but that does not stop her getting unwell. We have not slept in our bed all week, and last night was pretty torrid: the worse yet. At 2.30 Pat could not muster a sensible word or settle down. As a result I phoned the ECHO service at 4.30. That was followed by a phone consultation with a doctor, and a Paramedic was dispatched to check Pat over. We had the antibiotic in our hands at 7.30. So hats off to the NHS system; it worked really well. Now we have to try and get Pat stronger. I will be arranging a phone call with our local GP to talk about the problem and asking how we will be expected to deal with this now Pat is no longer a cancer patient, bearing in mind she still has the cancer.

Having got beyond the need for sleep, I enjoyed a Zoom meeting at mid-day with our family. This was for the Parker International Quiz challenge: a recently inaugurated trophy for the Parker family. It has to be international and at mid-day because of the Aussie grandson, Sam who lives in America, and the Aussie son, Stephen, who is Sam’s dad. There were three teams, and would you believe it? We all scored 21 points. Hmm! There is a plan to do this again in a couple of weeks. Must get into shape for that.

My reading this week is Glass Dolls by D.E.White. It’s a murder mystery. Looks pretty good so far and comes recommended from a good source. My book sales are still holding their own: I’m averaging two books a day on Kindle, and just over one a day on D2D.And now D2D have made all their books available on a new French site called Vivlio. Sounds good although I’m not sure it will make much difference to me. But it’s another outlet, so well done D2D.

Like many writers, I have faith in my own ability, but often come across books whose authors I would happily concede to. One that particularly comes to mind, from the moment I finished reading it a few years ago is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I watched the film this week. It’s the second time I’ve seen it and will probably watch it again some time. Sadly, the book’s author, Mary Ann Shaffer, died the year it was published. Her niece, Annie Barrows helped her aunt finish the book. If there was one book I wish I could have written (there are probably more of course), then that’s it. If you haven’t read the book, put it on your ‘must read’ list.

I’ve signed up for a cross-promotion with author David De Lee. The promotion will bring about seventeen authors together offering a book for free or $0.99, for four days at the beginning of June. I’ve been involved with David before, and his promotions usually do well. Naturally I’ll be sending the details out to my subscribers and will also mention it on my blog post for that week. Should be good. Wish me luck!