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I received my first cheque for A Witch In Time last week and it made my day ... or rather my lifetime. I never expected to sell as many copies as I have and whilst it wouldn't make literary news anywhere but in my household, it's really put a smile on my face and Penny's too!
I know I have all of you out there to thank for that, so, thank you all!!
I have plans to release more books into 'E' format and hope those are as well received as this one has been.
In other news, I imagine you will have guessed that we're now on-line again - at last. It's taken some getting, but here we are and we're so relieved. We were on-line briefly at the end of last week, but the wiring was so old it blew the box and we didn't get it fixed until today. Anyway, it's fixed. We have phones and internet, so despite being in rural France, technology is still possible. We have been warned about Mondays and Wednesdays however, so contact then might be a little flaky.
Life here is odd as all the plans we had went out the window. Nothing seems to be going as it should. I suppose, it is an adventure and would best be described as running like one of my stories - twisted and mostly unexpected. Now I'm beginning to understand what my characters go through. I wonder which one or ones are behind it all and what fiendish stuff they have in store for us further down the line.
I'm beginning to get to grips with the language, but then they do say that immersion is the best way to learn. I wonder how some people learn it at all since depending upon context, so many words have different meanings. Each word can have about nineteen tenses and about the only one I get right is Merde! I can usually drop that somewhere, usually to black looks from Pen, but I am interspersing it with other new words I learn.
I have discovered that whilst I understand only a fraction of what's being said, French TV is far better that the crap we were forced to watch in England. The ads are far less intrusive, fewer and further between and as a result, despite having a Sky dish put up two weeks ago, in all that time, we have watched British TV just four times and two of those were for the F1 Grand Prix races. We're currently getting hooked on Roland Garros, though are sad to see that Andy Murray isn't playing. Just two days in and we've already seen some stunning tennis.
We are trying to plan a trip to Avranches later in the year to catch stage 11 of the Tour de France and if possible, get down to see my brother-in-law and his wife in Annecy to see stage 20. I think stage 11 is possible, but we might be asking a lot to see 20 as well.
Work on the house is moving ahead slowly and costing a lot more than we expected, but then again, we're finding more stuff that needs urgent attention too. I guess that's what happens when you have an old house.
Anyway, I guess it's back to work on some more stories, housework, DIY (Destroy It Yourself) and getting used to that Gallic timbre all around me.
Thanks again for the support!
Nick
Comments
So have you bought...
...a beret and a striped jersey yet? Even if you go native, remember you have an inalienable right for all Johnny foreigners to to understand English, remember talk loudly with a stiff upper lip, and if necessary shout at them so they understand better...that's the ticket, easy really.
Two stages of le Tour eh? (starts to salivate).
Glad to hear you're okay, just remember foreigners drive on the wrong side of the road and eat all sorts of unmentionable things, and you'll be okay.
Hugs,
Ang.
Angharad
Envious, Ang?
That we're right here for the Tour de France?
Don't worry. We've just been told that the work we're having done on our house may well be in swing right at that time, so nipping off to somewhere between Avranches and Mont Saint-Michel could be off and Annecy might as well be on a different continent!
So far, the only stuff of a questionable nature we've been given to eat was some goat's cheese that well, near blew my bloody head off and made me feel that Stilton might not be so bad after all.
The driving on the wrong side of the road bit has caught us out a couple of times, but not badly enough to cause an accident!
I'll keep my eyes open for a beret and hooped jersey, as I already have a string of onions ...
Nick
Do the French
broadcast any of the American or British series in French or American?
May Your Light Forever Shine
American, Stan?
Many American and British programmes are dubbed into French, but they also do simultaneous audio transmissions with English and German as alternative languages with some programmes.
No disrespect, Stan, but as I understand it, American is not regarded as a language, although I believe it should be as it does differ significantly in many ways from English.
Nick
Oh.
Oh, didn't you know... Home projects seem to always take longer and cost more than originally estimated. (Says one who lived through an update to her home.) But, if you perservere (and have sufficient budget) you'll get where you want to. Just watch out for the desire to make changes once you get started on a project... This is almost always guaranteed to increase both cost and duration! (Not to mention, once you almost get everything done, some of the things you did way back... Well, it's time for them to be looked at, again... If only in light of all you've learned since then. I didn't mention this, remember!)
Congrats on sorting the internet thing. Always a nice thing. :-)
Congrats on the sales, too.
Annette
Costs are already spiralling, Annette
We have already fallen foul of underestimating the cost of some things. It's already cost us 200€ for a piece of paper that says our Volvo can be imported into the country and we haven['t even gone through any of the other stuff the car has to undergo yet.
Our woodburner was declared far too small to heat our house and we had to buy another. That should have cost us about 1,300€, but we got a good deal and only paid 800€. That's still nearly double what we were led to believe it would cost. I'm sure we're going to add more to those totals before we're through.
The house is big enough that you may be right that we will be thinking of updating the first stuff by the lime we've finished ...
Nick