Pain-free Publicity

Excitement grows at Hedges Towers. The Diamonds & Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery launch date is just over 2 weeks away. All over the UK and further afield, crinolines are being aired, etiquette books consulted and Ralph the Marvellous Performing Dog is practising his tricks for the BIG Party on December 3rd. If you follow me on Facebook, you are invited. If not, feel free to press your nose to the digital plate-glass window and one of the hired staff will endeavour to slip you a glass of mulled wine and a slice of cake.

Last week's blog debunked some of the popular misconceptions about publicity. Now I'm going to share some of the ways I intend to create a ''buzz'' around the new book. Hopefully then you'll see it coming and be able to duck! The first port of call for me is always local: we have a great local paper, The Herts Advertiser, and I hope to have at least one article on the book. Local papers love local stuff, so a well prepared Press Release emailed with a polite note and a good pic to the editor always gets results. It also helps if you have a ''story'' to tell - as most of you know, I am a well-known local activist and pain in the council's backside, so that should endear me to a few readers!

I'm also going to get myself onto local radio: Radio Verulam and 3 Counties. I have the perfect face for radio, as you can see, and again, the same ''local criteria'' applies. In a similar vein: the book is set in and around St John's Wood and Hampstead, where I lived and studied ... so I shall use the settings to generate interest and a press release will be winging its way to the Ham & High. I have already persuaded Hertfordshire Libraries to stock the book; a similar charm offensive will be launched on Camden Libraries. Libraries are always worth considering as you get PLR -  Public Lending Rights: the money paid every time someone borrows your book. It will probably only buy me half a brick in the Tuscan villa, but half a brick is better than no brick at all. And I shall visit every branch of Waterstones and small Independent Bookshops with a copy of the book to show them and smile. A lot.

I also intend to use this blog. Look out for some great posts on the Victorians and food ... sex ... clothes .... houses .... poverty .... manners .... did I say sex? The blogs will be a mash-up of pictures of actual locations, bits from the book, and original/modern interpretations. It seems a shame, having done all this research, that 90% of it will be wasted. I shall be doing some guest blogs. If you asked me, please remind me: the memory is not what it was.

I will also post some links on Twitter and my Facebook page - both to the book, and to the blogs and any other interesting Victorian stuff I think you might like to read or see. Recently, a couple of people on Twitter have introduced me to hashtags ## and if you are also intending to publicize a new book, I recommend you check them out. #bookplugs #writing and #ebooks are good. And there are many more; some will be specific to your genre. If you use them, make sure you retweet other people though. It's only polite. I have also learned a lot from studying other writers' promo tweets: how they set them out, make them eye-catching, so I hope to follow their example.

What I'm not going to do is inundate total strangers, or you with 'buy my book' tweets or Facebook messages. If you want to read it, great. If not, hey. I won't be constantly checking my sales figures or Amazon ratings either and informing you every hour of the day. That way madness lies. And somehow I am going to try to find time to get on with the sequel, so that IF you bought, read and enjoyed Diamonds & Dust, there will be another book in the pipeline for you to read very soon.

Reigning On My Parade

Excitement is building at Hedges Towers. It is three weeks until the official Facebook launch of Diamonds & Dust: A Victorian Murder Mystery (publ. Crooked Cat Books) and suddenly, the reality that it is actually going to happen is dawning. This book is special for many reasons. It is my twelfth published novel (I have loads of unpublished ones). It is my first adult novel, as opposed to the teenage and YA fiction I have previously written. It is also the 'unexpected' book - in that, despite writing a novel a year, I had not been able to break back into mainstream publishing since 2008, when Usborne decided not to publish any more Spy Girl books.

Unexpected also, as those of you who are aware of the back story know, because prior to placing it with Crooked Cat, I parted company with my agent, who had told me that there was no market for this book, so she was not going to bother sending it out to publishers; comments that resulted in my almost losing heart and deciding to give up writing altogether. Take whatever lesson you wish to learn from this.

So, apart from sorting out the party fairy lights and discovering they don't work because one of the bulbs has blown, ordering in crates of prosecco and wrapping crepe paper streamers round the PINK SOFA who has been in launch mode since the summer, I am also gearing up for some publicity, because I have promised the family that there will be a villa in Tuscany and a black Maserati from the profits.

Publicity has become vitally important in today's frenetic book market. In the 1950s when I was growing up, there seemed no need for authors to get involved in marketing their books. Nobody was interested in them. I could have passed Ruby Ferguson, Primrose Cummings, A Stephen Tring, Pamela Brown or Don Stanford in the street and not recognised them. Now if you publish a book, unless you are happy just to have achieved publication, and content that only your immediate family, and close friends will buy it, you HAVE to put yourself out there.

There are a couple of myths currently going round about publicity. The first says that mainstream published writers don't have to do much if any publicity, as they have marketing wonks to do it instead. Wrong. If you read last week's blog, where best-selling author Kate Long talked about her writing, you will see I asked her that exact question. You can read her reply here.

My own experience, based on OUP and Usborne, my two previous publishers, is that at my level of importance, publicity wonks will send your book out for review, feature you in the publisher's catalogue, and produce press releases, but that's pretty well it. The rest you sort yourself, unless you are a 'famous or favoured writer' - of which more anon. Sometimes, they don't even do that - one year, I was told by OUP that they were going to spend the entire marketing budget on a couple of well known childrens' writers who brought in more money than a mid-lister like me. Seriously.

The bottom line is always money. If you don't sell enough books, and make sufficient money, big publishers will drop you. Actually, most publishers of whatever size will drop you - so those authors I recently came across on Facebook moaning that ''they can't do publicity, it isn't ''them'' and why doesn't X (their small publisher) do it all for them like big publishers do'' really need to wake up and smell the coffee.

The other myth is that 'popular' mainstream authors get taken on lovely trips and outings to promote their books. Hollow laughter. I recently caught up with one such writer, just back from the US. It was a nightmare. Meetings with publishers, followed by book talks, followed by signings, followed by working dinners, followed by total exhaustion. And one of the famous OUP writers I mentioned earlier didn't get to write a thing for two years, had a nervous breakdown, and had to force herself to inch back into writing again. So there you are. Myths well and truly busted. Next week, I shall explore some of the publicity portals just waiting to be explored, and how I hope to use them without annoying all of you too excessively.

***** I am currently up for Blogger of the Year 2014: If you would like to vote for me (or any of the other bloggers) please go to: http://www.skelat.com/voting.html  *****

The PINK SOFA welcomes Kate Long

Kate Long and I met on Twitter. Only I didn't realise who she was, as she tweets under a different name. We bonded over our shared love of wildlife: voles and hedgehogs in her case, Roman Snails in mine. It was only when she started tweeting links to her 3rd book, Bad Mothers United, that I made the connection. I have bought and read all her books - they are brilliant. So it is a great pleasure to welcome her to the sofa. I asked Kate to describe her writing route:

''Looking back, I can’t remember what it was about the story-idea of a teenage girl getting pregnant and battling with her mother that lodged so firmly in my mind. It was 1998, I had a new baby in the house and I barely had the energy to dress myself in the mornings. Yet it was during one of the long, sleep-deprived nights that I managed to sketch out the bare plot for my first published novel, The Bad Mother’s Handbook. I still have that set of notes somewhere, scribbled inside the pages of a book on breastfeeding.

Perhaps it was because becoming a mum had been so fraught with difficulties. I’d suffered two unexplained miscarriages and undergone horrid fertility treatment. Experiences like that go through you and colour you forever, and, post-baby, I found myself drawn to explore motherhood in fiction. So I imagined a schoolgirl, Charlotte, bright, ambitious and university-bound but nevertheless falling unexpectedly pregnant and having to navigate her way through the consequences. 

Then there’d be her mother, angry, thirtysomething Karen, who had herself dropped out of Sixth Form for the same reason seventeen years earlier. And, overseeing the family, eighty year old Nan, whose own journey to motherhood would have taken her through the route of secret, private adoption, with much heartache along the way. As the story developed, I became caught up by in other issues too: how had life changed for women over the last few decades? Did having more choices simply mean more pressure of expectation? Why did we repeat our parents’ destructive patterns of behaviour? How could we break out of unhappy family scripts? The more the characters told me, the more I wanted to investigate further their complex dynamics.

I’d come to writing via a lonely path. When I very first tried my hand, in the mid-Nineties, there was (for me) no internet, no online forums where I could ask advice, no Google for my background research, no time-swallowing social media. There was simply me, a freezing box room and my old Amstrad PCW9256. This machine was so basic that you had to insert a Start of Day disk every time you switched it on, as it was incapable of retaining instructions between sessions. Even the attached printer was a cranky dot-matrix contraption which took two minutes to print each page and couldn’t cope with continuous feed.

Nevertheless, this is where I produced my first published work. For the next ten years I settled into a pattern where I’d always have a full-length work on the go, but alongside that I’d be producing and sending out short stories, perhaps three or four a year. I wasn’t in those days au fait with e-zines or lit-zines, and I’d sussed early on that women’s magazines are a terrifically hard market, so I sent almost everything off to competitions. That was the only other viable market I knew. As it was, a steady series of comp placings kept me buoyant as I slogged away on the novels.

It was 2000 before I found the time to sit down and write The Bad Mother’s Handbook in full. I managed to do it only with the aid of an Arts Council Grant which helped pay for childcare. Because by then I’d spent so long considering the plot and characters, the novel flooded out almost faster than I could type and I was able to complete the bulk of it within eight weeks. That taught me something about the way I need to work, which is that thinking/preparation-time is vital for me, and if I try and begin writing without it, I quickly dry up.

The novel was accepted in 2002 by Picador, came out two years later and did very well, reaching the Sunday Times bestseller lists and making Book at Bedtime on Radio 4. Later on it was adapted as an ITV drama. I was bemused, though, to see myself portrayed in the press as an “overnight success” and a “kitchen-table scribbler” who wrote “if there was nothing on TV”, when in reality I’d had ten years of slogging to find my style and voice.

Since then I’ve had six more books published, the latest being the sequel to The Bad Mother’s Handbook, Bad Mothers United which I wrote because so many readers emailed asking for it. I’d never imagined a follow-up, so that was a learning curve in itself. But as soon as I started planning out the narrative, their voices came back as strongly as ever, telling me how each thread would develop and how their concerns had changed. Because the book had been on TV, I even had moments where I felt the actors themselves were leaning over my shoulder and watching what came next. I do like to think they were all fairly satisfied in the end by their individual story arcs and resolutions. More to the point, the readers who’d begged to know what happened to Charlotte, Karen and Nan seemed happy.

Meanwhile I’m currently on the last chapter of my work-in-progress which is a tale of two sisters, one of whom is afflicted by extreme beauty. The novel covers eating disorders, sibling rivalry, family secrets, infidelity and friendship, and will be out next spring. You can get a sneak preview here of the images I’ve been using for inspiration: http://www.pinterest.com/volewriter/your-beautiful-sister/

So where next? I haven’t ruled out a third Bad Mother book, but again it’ll need time to percolate. I’d like to see Charlotte-the-teen grown up with a teenager of her own – then she’ll know what she put her own mother through – and I feel mum Karen could be on the verge of something really dramatic. She is, after all, entering her prime. Who knows? She’ll no doubt tell me when she’s ready. My pen is poised for instruction.''

You can buy Bad Mothers United here: http://tinyurl.com/cjjlytq

You can see images from the TV version here: http://www.pinterest.com/volewriter/bank-top-home-of-the-bad-mothers-handbook/

and here: https://www.facebook.com/BadMothersUnited?ref=hl

and here: http://www.katelongbooks.com/

Come and say hello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/volewriter

And last but not least – if you’re into wildlife, check out my nothing-to-do-with-books nature blog: http://staggsbrook.blogspot.co.uk/

Thanks Kate ... please hang around - I'm sure people have lots to ask. Actually, I'm going to start the ball rolling: there is this myth on social media sites that if you are published by a ''big'' publisher, they have marketing people to do all the promo work for you. Is this true?

Diary of a Mummy Misfit Blog: FUNKY FRIDAY - with author Carol Hedges

Diary of a Mummy Misfit Blog: FUNKY FRIDAY - with author Carol Hedges: Today I welcome my Twitter buddy and fellow lady Pope (we live in hope of a world of sparkly things, cake and bubbles!) Carol Hedges ... ...

Don't Do Anything Rash

A challenging week at Hedges Towers. I mentioned in my previous post how BH's absence had triggered a whole raft of small problems. The situation ongoes. On Saturday night, after a lovely day in London with DD, I developed a very extreme allergic reaction to something I ate and came out in huge itchy red blotches. In deference to the presence of small children, family pets and the fact that you might be eating breakfast, I shall not post a picture.

Suffice it to say that last time I had this, it was traceable to a new soap. This time, who knows. The night wore on, the itchy patches formed, re-formed, itched and wondered round various parts of my body like unwelcome visitors who had outstayed their welcome but refuse to depart. At 3 am, I ran out of E45 cream and decided that I was probably going to spend the rest of my life in a small jam jar on the mantelpiece. Such are the thoughts that strike in the desperate and itchy small hours.

A visit to the internet informed me that these extreme allergic incidents can be exacerbated by stress - which is logical, and I could see how that worked, but it is very difficult NOT to be stressed when you are lying awake, resisting the urge to scratch. Other symptoms developed over the next few days. The dizzy spells and blinding headache that accompanied them were possibly attributable to a brain tumour, I decided, further evidence that self-diagnosing on the internet in the middle of the night is also not a good idea. Several days of misery passed. At one point, I had visions of BH returning to find a small dehydrated heap at the bottom of the stairs. Thankfully I have now recovered, and the PINK SOFA has withdrawn its offer of being buried with me in case I fancied a sit-down in the afterlife. We march on.

As does Badgergate, which is taking an interesting turn. Regular readers will know that one of our local Tory councillors recently made the unfortunate remark to me in public that if there were any badgers on the allotment land the council has earmarked for development, he'd go and personally put down cyanide. Subsequently, another of his colleagues tried to 'buy' my compliance in a council meeting by saying that if I'd be more ''co-operative'' in my ''attitude'' he'd make sure the development would be ''sustainable'. Enough already, so I decided to out both men in the local press.

Councillor A - he of the badger-poisoning persuasion, immediately wrote to refute my remarks, declaring that he loved wildlife, but added the rather telling rider that: 'If I did use the word cyanide in the context of badgers, it was purely a connotation, not in any way versed as a threat.' (Quote). Hmm. Upon such small statements do whole career empires topple. One is reminded of Clinton's elliptical:  'I did not have sex with that woman'.

I am baffled though: given the laws of libel, why on earth would I deliberately misquote someone in a letter to a newspaper? How stupid do they think I am? So a further letter of clarification wings its way, reiterating the validity of my original letter. Which may draw forth other correspondents on both sides with further reflections. Meanwhile the council has refused to comply with my latest FOI request to find out what they are up to behind the scenes. Go figure.

I am currently up for Blogger of the Year: If you would like to vote for me (or any of the other bloggers) please go to: http://www.skelat.com/voting.html 

Vote - Skelat.com

Vote - Skelat.com

To DIY or not to DIY, that is the question.

New book, & ebook.. new cover... see below

A troubling week at Hedges Towers. BH departed for his annual Italian Jaunt, upon which 3 fence panels instantly fell down, I mislaid my mobile and house keys and the car developed a 'no-don't-just-turn-up-the-music-sort-it noise under the bonnet. I believe this stare of affairs is called Sod's Law and I'm guessing that things are not going to get any better until he returns. Teeth are being gritted and loins girded in anticipation.

Added to this, the elderly cat (18 years old) continues to decline into furry senescence and needs copious care. I am putting up with the constant demands for attention, broken nights, having to spend a fortune on the only cat food he will now eat and letting him sleep under the radiator in the hope that when I am old and in my dotage, someone will do the same for me.

Meanwhile with publication day drawing closer, I have been asked by several people why I decided to go with a commercial publisher as opposed to self-publishing my book, as I did previously with Jigsaw Pieces Two reasons: firstly, it is all too easy nowadays to write a book, cobble together a cover and upload the finished product to Amazon (actually, it darn well isn't .. as you can read here:). Advances in technology have opened up enormous opportunities for self-publishing that were never there when I started writing books, and that is a good thing.

However, inevitably there is a lot of dross out there and it lets the side down. Poorly produced books with typos, badly designed covers, sold at rock bottom prices is not the way I want to go. Despite the many ''Hey, I produced a book for virtually nothing'' blogs, the writers of the best self-published books have usually used beta readers, then paid out for professional editing, proofreading and cover designing. Hats off to them. It is hard work and not cheap and having done it once, I'm not keen to do it again.

Secondly, to be accepted by a commercial publisher is a sign that my work is of a certain standard. Very few writers are now being taken on by the ''big'' mainstream houses. You have to be young, connected to somebody, the possessor of a fabulously interesting/made up back story, or a celeb. Small commercial independents like Crooked Cat (my publisher) are now the first port of call for serious writers who find the big publishing doors slammed shut. The market is changing once more, as evidenced when Crooked Cat recently opened its doors for submissions and was totally taken aback by the inundation of manuscripts. They are in the business of making money, as are all independent publishers and they only take on a small percentage of the writers who apply. I am one of the lucky few.

With this in mind, I have uploaded the new cover(s) for you to see. It was created by Designer Dave, who is a friend, a professional graphic artist and designed the cover for Jigsaw Pieces. The full title of the new novel is Diamonds & Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery and the book and ebook should be available on Amazon at the beginning of December, just in time for Christmas. The cover reminds me of contemporary newspaper headings, or theatrical posters which is appropriate to the plot, although I have also been told it is reminiscent of very early Penguin covers. It is quirky and different ... just like the story itself .. and, dare I say it, like the author of the story herself!

Ropey Rhyme by The Waterloo Lasso: Merry Weather

Ropey Rhyme by The Waterloo Lasso: Merry Weather: Nights are getting longer Daylight passing quicker autumn winds are blowing cold as Bus queues groan and bi...

The Pink Sofa welcomes Paul Tobin, poet.

It's not often The PINK SOFA has a chance host such a talented and versatile writer, poet and photographer as Paul Tobin. He grew up in Widnes, but has lived in Somerset for 30 years. Paul has written poetry since he was 12, and thinks he's getting the hang of it now. He has published two volumes of poetry.
Paul has been Festival Poet at Purbeck Folk Festival (2011), the Accoustic Festival of Great Britain (2012) and Lechlade Festival (2013). He has also appeared at Wychwood, Bristol Folk Festival (2012) and Cock& Bull (2011). His blog, Magpie Bridge is always worth dropping in to. As The Pink Sofa is currently revising its first book of poetry: Upholstery Thoughts, it is agog to see how a professional does it.

''Every poem benefits from being revised and every poet worth their salt revises their work.  This is where the hard work comes in and where you develop your skill.

A little while ago, after I suspect a surfeit of apocalyptic reggae, I got to comparing the end of the academic year with the extinction of species - as you do. This is the poem I came up with:

 END of SPECIES EXAM

Now the jig is up, the experiment nearly over, it’s time for the exam. Please answer the following questions as completely as you can. Your answers may be of interest to some future species or some extra-terrestrial life form, if they can be bothered to come so far to see the pig’s ear we’ve made of this place.

Was the trek out of Africa worth it?

Agriculture, what was that all about then, especially when the big supermarkets started stuffing both the farmers and the shoppers?

As a species why were we so good at murdering one another?

What was so brilliant about privatisation anyway?

If “war is the locomotive of history” how much of a twat was Trotsky, Mao or Stalin discuss? (NB if these names do not appal then insert one that does, there are enough of them to choose from).

Why did we let some of the world starve when the rest of us grew fat?

How does David Cameron sleep at night?

Why did we spend billions of pounds on Trident and why is it still pointed at Russia?

How much blood to the nearest pint is on Tony Blair’s hands?

What was the point of Boris Johnson?

As a species why do we believe in ideologies over common sense?

How hard did the present cabinet have to work to look so bloody smug?

Why was the Daily Express not sold as a comic?

Did you really believe the Tories when they said the NHS was safe in their hands?

Why are no city bankers in goal or at least destitute?

How could anyone have believed all that other shit the Tories told us?

Why did we go into Afghanistan without an exit strategy?

Nuclear power, who did you really expect to clean up all the crap?

As you can appreciate, in this draft it is rather a formless diatribe, not that this stopped me from reading it out at an awards evening for a local poetry competition when it was barely a day old (mind the gap between what I say and my own actions…). Even as I stood there full of righteous ire proclaiming for all I was worth. I realised that it was far to hectoring.

So what is wrong with this draft? It’s too long, it pounds the listener into submission (or boredom which is worse). It repeats itself- which is something to be avoided. In short it is far too pointy finger.

On the plus side I liked the rambling introduction to the questions. I wanted my northern voice to set the scene and so used one of my mother’s expressions.

Several months later it had slimmed down and I think is a better poem.

END of SPECIES EXAM

Now the jig is up, the experiment nearly over, it’s time for the exam. Please answer the following questions as completely as you can. Your answers may be of interest to some future species or some extra-terrestrial life form, if they can be bothered to come so far to see the pig’s ear we’ve made of this place.

The big trek out of Africa- was it worth the effort? Discuss.

Agriculture-what was all that about then? Pay particular attention to the supermarkets and how they set about stuffing both the consumer and the producer. Illustrate your answer with drawings of supermarkets burning.

Did you really believe the Tories when they said the NHS was safe in their hands? Answer yes or no.

To the nearest pint estimate how much blood is on Tony Blair’s hands.

State, to the nearest year, when you came to believe that we should pay for our own education, then comment on the fact that the people who told us we had to pay benefitted from free education themselves. Pay particular attention to their moral bankruptcy.

How long, in weeks, did it take the Tory government to look so bloody smug?

And finally, why did we allow them to get away with it for so long?

I think this version works better. What do you think?

I’d like to leave you with a couple of writing tips:

Always revise. Evaluate every word-does the poem still work if you remove it? If it does-leave it out.

Join a writing group, develop analytical skills.

Read you work aloud, it will sound different. Better still get someone else to read it then you can really hear how it sounds.

Read as much poetry as you can. Look at the structure of the poems you like, what makes them work?

Leave your poem alone for a couple of weeks-time will grant you a more critical eye.

Never be too in love with a specific line-remove it if it stops the poem working. You can always use it again somewhere else.

Lastly keep on writing.

Thank you.''

Paul's steampunk novel, The Jowler is available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jowler-Adventures-Captain-James-ebook/dp/B00AP5CSZK/ref=la_B00AKYRL7Q_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381560777&sr=1-2
His blog is at: http://magpiebridge.blogspot.co.uk/
His Amazon Author page is at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paul-Tobin/e/B00AKYRL7Q/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0 

Those Little Moments

Who was it said they wished there was a stair lift that reached the top landing before you'd forgotten why you wanted to go up there in the first place? No, I don't know either, but the first three words of that sentence are currently proving to be rather a leitmotiv for my life. Do not get me wrong: I love being 64. The hair has never been redder, the attitude sassier or feistier and as for caring what the world and its partner thinks of me, I'm so waay ahead of Rhett Butler.

And yet, over and above all the feist and sass and damn, there are moments when stuff .... well ... somehow eludes me. A realization that was brought home vividly the other week as I stood outside a John Lewis store cursing because it was shut, and suddenly perceived the reason I couldn't get in was because I was pushing a door marked pull. Similarly, when I arrived back home minus the things I'd bought as I'd managed to mislay them somewhere between the counter where I paid for them and the homeward journey. And again the time I had a full-on public row with the Automated EE woman because I dropped my credit card while topping up the mobile on a moving bus and she didn't do ''hang on, just got to pick up the card''.

No, I am not going gaga, to use the medical terminology. Just getting a little .... what's the word I'm groping for? Yes, that. Like the other day I was waiting at the bus stop to catch the Luton bus, when I was actually supposed to be catching the St Albans bus which comes on the opposite side of the road and goes in the opposite direction. Fortunately remembered just as it turned the corner. Poor bus driver nearly had a heart attack as I dived in front of his wheels, arm outstretched.

Then there is the mobile phone. I put it down. Somewhere. The number of times I have had to ring it from the landline, having looked up the number beforehand because I can never...umm...thingy...what it is. Thank goodness it's only a cheapo Nokia, suitable for the technically challenged and easily replaceable if I ever flush it down the loo. Which is always a possibility. Gawd knows what might happen if I had one of those bendy i-Phone 6 things.

My best friend Elissa and I have these ... whatsits ... every time we go out together. Sometimes we find ourselves driving along somewhere without the slightest clue where we're supposed to be heading, though we knew when we started out. Or we can't find her silver Toyota in a multi-storey - though in our defence there are always so many silver Toyotas in multi-storeys, silver being the go-to colour for most modern cars that it isn't really our fault. We have been reduced to pacing the aisles clicking her key fob in the hope that the car will respond eventually.

It's infuriating, but there appears to be nothing I can do to prevent it happening. And it does seem to be happening with alarming frequency.Whatever it is. So there you are ...who are you again? Anyway, you'll have to excuse me now: I have an elsewhere to be. Or I will have, once
I can remember where it is.


SEE ALSO: Aldi Antics  http://carolhedges.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/aldi-antics.html
                     Transports of Delight http://carolhedges.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/transports-of-delight.html