IT MAKES YOU THINK

In 3 days time, on Saturday 28th July, I will be exactly the same age my dad was when he died. He was 64 and 2 weeks.
It was no age, we all agreed. He'd been in robust good health despite more than half a lifetime as a smoker of cigarettes and then cigars. About what would be 5 months ago, out in southern Spain in his divorced, retirement heaven, he thought he'd had a stroke. He flew back here and my elder brother and I accompanied him to a meeting with a neurologist who pointed out that as it had come on slowly, it wasn't a stroke. Turned out it was a brain tumour, which they removed surgically, but that was only a secondary to a terminal growth in his lungs.
All 4 of his children were at his bedside as he breathed his last, in the small hours of that quiet night. At least he'd had 3 years of happy retirement. But 64 was not enough. He was very brave  and even turned his back on a lifetime of atheism 10 days before, committing to Christ in quite miraculous circumstances.
He's buried in a still corner of an English graveyard, near Bedford. I have visited it. But not for a long time. And now I've equalled him. Very nearly.
Though we are driving down to Somerset on Saturday!

MAYBE A MISTAKE....

Dear all. I realise I probably made a mistake with my second book, 'A Spring Awakening', in that making it a follow on from the first book, 'A Christmas Calling', which had been so Christmassy and festive and in some ways light, it was too much of a change with the same characters in the same series to have a book so deep in dark and difficult things. 
Don't get me wrong! I'm happy with and proud of the second book as it stands, and certainly those who like a more gritty read and engaging with some real, difficult, current issues, enjoyed it - yet even if it haven't been a follow-on but just a second book by me from the same publishers, I think the unexpected change would have been difficult for readers to take. 
This is for me, I guess, part of the learning curve of my growth as an author and I have decided, for the moment at least, not to continue with that series into a 3rd and 4th as I originally intended but to look in other directions for what I should be writing next.
To my faithful and patient readers I say, bear with me, and even make helpful suggestions! 
Thank you!

BACK IN THE REAL WORLD?

Hi everyone! Back from a fabulous hot and sunny two weeks in St Malo, Britanny. That's our summer holiday for this year. Now trying to tidy up a new Christmas story manuscript for Instant Apostle #InAp Not part of the previous series - a funny tale about a curate.