SHOULD I TELL YOU THIS?

O my goodness! The next book has gone to print. Here's a pic of the cover

You'll be wondering, after the events of just one week in 'A Christmas Calling', what happens to them next. Well, here it is. On sale from mid-January. You can hardly wait! Believe me, you'll be surprised where it starts from, and where it goes to!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho chaps! Ho chapesses! Ho chapettes! Tis the season to get busy. Busy doing what? Busy putting reviews of 'A Christmas Calling' on the Amazon website. Just find the book and write a review. You don't need to have bought it from them. It doesn't even need to be a good review. All reviews help in getting them to increase the promotion of the book. Which means a lot to a new author.
So come along friends! Review, review, review!
Thank you if yo do!

Clear and clean

I just deleted about 5,000 emails. Might include some of yours! But it had to be done. I feel refreshed. Clean. Clean like this winter day (I'm playing with descriptions of the scenes I see as I'm out cycling, mostly):
"It was as if the air itself shone. Like every impurity had been frozen out of it and laid on the ground in the sparkling frost. Even distant trees, houses and fields stood out in stark, cold clarity. The sky above, stretched to the silver horizons, was a shining, blue dome of pale perfection. It was a nice, clear day. That is, an ice-clear day. The only clouds were my breath, suspended for a moment and then dismissed by air so invisible it could not bear them. It could not bear them."

Clear. Clean. Like being forgiven, really.

FAT GOOSE?

"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, let's keep preparing till we fall down flat!"
That's a bit how it feels at the moment. People sometimes say to me in the last few days before Christmas, that as a vicar, 'I suppose this is your busy time'. Actually, no. The last few days, with all the main seasonal services done, is often a bit quiet, giving opportunity for some nice visits.
No, the time when you start to feel you're coming unglued is NOW! Early November through to mid-December. It can easily become somewhat overwhelming with all the usual weekly stuff still needing doing and all the Christmas stuff pressing in, and over the weekend I realised I'd reached that point where you either stop voluntarily or you'll just drop down anyway. It isn't a pleasant feeling. Kind of like coming unglued. Hence my old saying, "I'd rather unwind than unravel."
So I took two days off. Yes, two whole days, like a normal person. Like a weekend, except it was Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I went out on my bike and watched some TV. Yesterday I went to London on the train and spent most of my time in Harrods. I love Harrods. I bought things.
In the evening I went to see a film with Tom, my elder son, then we watched a program at home about how the nation celebrates Christmas. It was really nice.
And today? I feel restored - enough for now.
Still trying to sell the first book, 'A Christmas Calling', which is doing quite well. Get one if you haven't already! It'll set you up for a festive Christmas. But also adding to the pressure is having to gear up for the second one, to be released in the New Year in preparation for all the hopes of the new-life season, called 'A Spring Awakening'. It shows us how David and Angela, the two characters from the first book, and their friends, go forward together.
In some ways, it's enormously hopeful.
But only because, in other ways, it's terrifying.

A BRUSH WITH NOT-QUITE-DEATH

I'm feeling glad to be alive and walking! On my bike trips to Hemel Hempstead I take a beautiful country lane of just over 2 miles, and at one point there's a fairly blind intersection. I was halfway across it doing about 5mph when round a bend to my right came a car doing maybe 50. The woman driver hit the brakes and it was one of those moments when you just watch it happening as if in slow motion. This large vehicle was heading directly for me and as the yards closed it didn't deviate. 
At about 10 feet out it was clear she wasn't going to stop in time, and I was actually waiting for the impact, but by the wonders of ABS she was able to turn at the last second and stop alongside me. Then, through her half - open window she began to abuse me for being in the middle of the road. I tried to point out that until that place in the junction I couldn't even see her, and she shouldn't be going that fast. I wasn't polite, I have to admit. Coming that close to being smashed and bent up on the road tends to have that effect. She drove off still telling me I was some kind of idiot, and I shouted after her to slow down.
The inevitable result of this is being reminded of the fragility of our human existence. Having been knocked off from behind by a car travelling at 40mph some 6 years ago, I know well enough that the danger is real. I could so easily be lying on a hospital trolley right now waiting for surgery and wondering how badly this will turn out. or unconscious. Or worse.
It makes me thankful, at the end of the day, which this is.

DOGGEREL

I sometimes worry that my poetry is just doggerel. When I get a dog in my retirement, I may name him Erroll (as in Flynn). Dogerrol. But I comfort myself that it must satisfy at least 5 requirements. 1. It must scan and rhyme (if intended) 2. The words must be smooth in mouth and mind (C. S. Lewis hated to type his manuscripts as it made it hard for him to 'hear' the sound of the words) 3. It must have something to say. 4. It must suggest something more. 5. The suggested more must be partly hidden. 

With that in mind, here's today's doggerel:

PREMATURE THE BIRTH

Premature the birth begins, 
Impossible, the day it seems, 
Full - formed the face with shining eyes, 
From each shop window, Santa beams. 

September 25th the date, 
Full three months to the day, the birth, 
The term all new, still summer shines, 
Unready yet is all the Earth. 

And welcome, is He, so ahead? 
And welcome, was He, in His day? 
Unsure the greeting in the shops, 
The seasoned finance, start to pay? 

A card, balloon, a reindeer mug, 
A light - up pen with cheery elf. 
So buy it, wrap it, make it nice, 
And think of what you want yourself. 

We're never ready for His birth. 
But over - ready for the day. 
And we don't know when He arrives
The simple manger where He lay. 

PRESS RELEASE!

What happens when we are called to face the past and the darkness within ourselves? How do we respond to the challenge to change? An engaging story in an evocative Christmas setting that will make you laugh and cry A respectful but provocative reworking of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in modern clothes

A CHRISTMAS CALLING by Chris Cottee please see below for our latest release available now.   A recent article in The Observer revealed that the friendship between renowned English author Charles Dickens and fellow literary giant Hans Christian Andersen had been killed when Dickens found Andersen to be a ‘bad house guest’. Christmas, a time to celebrate the peace and joy of Christ, is, ironically, often a time of irksome house guests as families come together to celebrate. Chris Cottee’s A Christmas Calling features a protagonist who, like Scrooge, in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, has cut himself off from other people to protect himself from his own crippling issues. Like Scrooge he has to face his past through encounters, not with ghosts, but with a mysterious companion whose voice is but one of many he might be influenced by In the hustle and bustle of modern life we are constantly exposed to all manner of ‘voices’ inviting us, beckoning us to think, act and believe in a certain way. Yet how many of those ‘voices’ are authentic and calling to us with only our ultimate good in mind? How do we know whom to listen to and, if a voice for our good calls to us, will we recognize it for what it is? Will we respond positively? Do we believe that change in us and in other equally unlikely people is possible? In A Christmas Calling Chris Cottee captures these questions in a tense drama strongly reminiscent of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but with a more sensitively worked main character and a differently drawn hope of reclamation. The book heralds all the things we associate with Christmas: fun, snow, excitement, children, lights, parties and celebration meals. We meet David Sourbook, a callous man. Locked inside his sneering heart, Christmas jollities and festive cheer leave him cold, stone cold. This year though, a chance encounter with a mysterious companion, Angela, could herald a change. But can she be trusted?  Was she a friend or an angel? Angela guides him through the town, immersing him in an alien world he has not known, and, as she seems able to keep on loving him with enormous patience, his frozen heart begins to melt. They run across violence from a local gang, along with failure, death and sickness, and even trouble with the police, making David question whether this woman is really a bad influence on him. Is Angela human or an angel?  Yet he experiences the redemptive power of simple kindness. He halts and hesitates. But deep and dark secrets from his past, hidden even from himself, have to be released, with shocking effect. We experience with him a powerful sense of yearning, pulling both from deep within and from inestimably far, felt through the simple medium of watching the dusk from his seat at his cottage, looking across the fields and the distant sky. There is an intriguing question throughout - who is it that's speaking to David, and how, and why? Is it God or something darker? Will David listen? Will he experience redemption? About the author Chris Cottee is a vicar in Watford and previously studied clinical psychology. He has a passion for the outdoors, working with children, and writing poetry and fiction. For review copies and media enquiries contact Manoj: info@instantapostle.com Tel: 07932 463 951.   A Christmas Calling ISBN: 781909728707 by Chris Cottee is published by Instant Apostle and available now from Christian bookshops, bookstores and on-line retailers. Fiction. 304pp £8.99