A View From The Ass Hill

Tracing My Roots

2011-06-06T19:57:00.001+01:00

All I had to go on was my grandmother's name, Julia McNeil, and the story that she was illegitimate, which was only ever referred to a couple of times that I remember - I think because it was a source of embarrassment for my mother (her daughter). On one of those occasions my dad said my grandmother Julia's mother had come to the mainland from "the islands" because she was pregnant and unmarried. Before he was shushed quiet by my mum, he said she'd worked as a servant at a "big hoose" and that it was her wealthy boss that had got her pregnant. I knew from separate discussions about the family tartan, that the "McNeil" part of the family came from Barra, so "the islands" got narrowed down to one island in particular. And that was the sum total of my knowledge.

Last year when Peter and I were on South Uist and Eriskay researching book two in his Lewis Trilogy, we were staying with our lovely friend, MaryAlex, whose house looks across the bay to Barra, and I told her the story. "But Janice," she said, "you've got to find out more - you'll have relatives here!" and immediately she got on the phone to some friends on Barra, to get the investigation underway.

The scant information I had, provided little to go on, and what little there was didn't seem to make sense. On the mainland, "big hooses" - the homes of landed gentry - are everywhere. But on Barra...? there weren't any. There weren't even any big farms that might require domestic servants or staff. MaryAlex had the wonderful thought, at one point, that perhaps my great grandmother had been working for Compton Mackenzie, when he was living on the island! Could it be that there was another writer in the family? Was Compton Mackenzie my unknown great grandfather...? But sadly, no, the dates didn't fit.

The vague curiosity I had was nipped in the bud and we left the Outer Herbides last year without setting foot on Barra.

This year we were back for Peter's research for the last of the trilogy, and visiting MaryAlex again, and we decided to take a day trip to Barra. The night before we set off we decided to take a look at online records and see if we could find anything else out about Julia McNeil. Amazingly it was not a very common name and within a couple of minutes, I was looking at the entry in the registrar's records for her birth in Greenock. First, was her full name: "Julia Ann Ferguson McNeil". Next, the bald statement: "illegitimate". Not a surprise, but it was sad to see the label there and hard to imagine the stigma. Further along was the mother's name: "Margaret McNeil", and a blank where the father's name should have been - so that part of the story was holding up. Then something confusing... the entry seemed to read: "her + mark witness assistant registrar..." and then a name. The "+" was't very clear... was it a "T"? No, suddenly we saw what it was. It was an "X". "her X mark" had been witnessed by the assistant registrar. She was unable to sign her name. She was unable to read or write and the assistant registrar had got her to make "her mark" in the form of an "X".

Suddenly she came alive to me. This poor girl. Pregnant, banished from her island home, no doubt a Gaelic speaker, sent to the mainland, where she would have to learn English and learn to survive, all alone. She has her baby and goes on her own to register the birth but can't read or write, so she has to make a "mark" in the form of an "X". It was indescribably sad.

Then other things occurred to me. Most girls who were sent from the island in shame, expecting babies out of wedlock - for there were more than a few - were sent to convents and pressured into giving the children up for adoption. When they were at their most vulnerable, the babies would be taken from them and they would be parted forever. How brave and strong Margaret McNeil must have been that she was determined not to do that. She must have taken the decision to keep her child and try to survive somehow.

And in the name she gave her baby, she left clues. Julia Ann Ferguson McNeil. We found several Margaret McNeils born on Barra, who would have been the age to have been Julia's mother, but only one of those Margarets had a mother named "Ann". Could the John McNeil and Ann McKinnon we found have been Margaret's parents? On arriving in Castlebay on Barra, we went to the records office to find out.

Sadly, it proved to be another dead end. The physical record book seemed to be in conflict with the online records. But... the lady at the records office gave us a telephone number of someone who might be able to help.

MairiCeit, whom we arranged to meet in the tearoom at the heritage centre, has a passion for genealogical detective work. We told her what we knew and suddenly cracks of light appeared in the dead ends. It was true there were no "big hooses" on Barra. But there was a big farm, and a major employer of land and domestic workers on nearby Vatersay. Not only that, but the tenant farmer's name was... wait for it... Ferguson!

Julia Ann Ferguson McNeil - was Julia's mother trying to make a point? Furthermore, the McNeils were Catholics, but the Fergusons were Protestant. "If one of the Fergusons had got a Catholic girl pregnant, she would have been sent from the island, and never allowed to return!" said MairiCeit.

Fired up with enthusiasm, MairiCeit was going to do further researches using census records and church and other records. I can't wait to find out what she discovers, but already my great grandmother has come alive to me and the land and times she lived in are drawing me in. I need to know more.

It's something in the blood.

Sent from my iPad

The Keystone Kops meet the China Thrillers

2010-08-03T16:25:00.008+01:00

Working in this strange mix of French and English as we "negotiate" the script for the Killing Room with French film producers has really forced us to refine our linguistic abilities.

I've been going through our writing with a "fine-toothed comb" taking out phrases like "fine-toothed comb" and other colloquialisms that could throw a foreigner off track! Can't risk the hero having his "nose out of joint" (what happened to his nose?) or having anyone "smelling a rat" (how do rats smell?).

During the book tour in the US recently, we had a script conference by telephone. The producers were asking how things were and we said "very hot" as we were in Arizona at the time. Then they asked if there were a lot of fans. To which we replied, yes, they're on the ceiling of every room. "On the ceiling?" asked the producers, with a strangely uncomprehending tone. "Yes, we said, although we have air-conditioning everywhere, too." At which point they revealed that they had been talking about "fans" of Le Chef's books... Now if only we had been speaking in French...

Our French though is less than perfect, we recently mixed up Navet (turnip) and Navette (Shuttle), and enquired of the hotel receptionist when the next turnip for the airport would leave.

But even when you think you know the French words, sometimes you don't fully appreciate how they are used. At a book event in Lyon, Le Chef was delivering his spiel and at one point began to talk about having visited the Beijing homicide squad's HQ at Section One in Beijing - the department which deals with serious crimes, which he described as "les crimes serieux", because he had no doubt about the vocabulary:
- crimes = crimes
- serieux = serious.

No problem there one would think.

Except that the French interviewer on stage paused for a moment, looked at him with a puzzled expression, and then asked (in French, of course)... "Serious crimes? And is there a department for amusing crimes?"

At which point we both realised we were well acquainted with another word for serious... "grave", which we use all the time in the form of "c'est pas grave" meaning "it's no problem", or "it's not important", "or "it's not serious"...

What we hadn't realised up till that point was the subtle difference in French between the two forms of serious:
- serieux = serious as in 'not funny' or 'not amusing'
- grave = serious as in 'extreme or important'
and ne'er the twain shall meet!

I think it's a good idea, though, to have a department for funny crimes. You could send cops to work there when they get worn down and depressed by all the less than amusing stuff they normally have to deal with.

Please ignore this

2010-02-23T12:31:00.001+01:00

I'm sing a new piece of uploading software, and just want to try it out. (Sadly it won't write the posts for me...)

Powered by Qumana

PP Webcon

2009-07-09T16:35:00.004+01:00

PP Webcon, I hear you ask, what's that? Well... it's the world's first mystery and crime writing convention to be held online. It'll take place on October 24th this year, and will bring crime writing authors and fans together online. Basically, it's the first convention you can attend in your jimjams and bathrobe. No travel costs. No hotel costs. Meet and chat to your favorite authors in the coffee shop chatroom. Interact with them on live video and live audio presentations.

Pretty neat, huh? It's being hosted by Poisoned Pen Press (the chef's US publisher) and he'll be there of course. The "guests of honor" are Dana Stabenow and Lee Child. Check it out at...
http://www.ppwebcon.com

Win a Copy of Peter May's China Thriller "Snakehead"

2009-06-16T07:28:00.001+01:00

S.Dionne Moore interviewed Le Chef for her "Novel Journey" blog, and there is a copy of Snakehead available for the person who makes the best comment!

Find the interview here

Le Chef's News

2009-04-22T15:17:00.002+01:00

Mystery author and reviewer, Carl Brookins just interviewed Le Chef, you can read it here...

Also, he's doing another live broadcast on the internet so join him if you can for stories and videos from my research, excerpts from the latest China Thriller to be published in the USA (SNAKEHEAD) and a live Q&A chat session. You can find it here:

http://www.mogulus.com/petermaylive

on
SUNDAY 26TH APRIL 2009

there will be two shows, at the following times around the world...

USA:
EST: 10am & 1pm
CST: 9am & Noon
MST: 8am & 11am
PST: 7am & 10am
---

UK: 3pm & 6pm
---

Central Europe: 4pm & 7pm
---

Bangkok, Thailand: 10pm & 1am
---

Beijing, China: 11pm & 2am
---

Perth, Australia: midnight & 3am

Sydney, Australia: 2am & 5am

http://www.mogulus.com/petermaylive
If you click on the above link at the moment you'll find some video clips of the last broadcast. And if you miss next Sunday's broadcast, you'll be able to catch repeat viewings afterwards - you'll just miss the live Q & A.
Let's hope it all goes more smoothly than the last one!!!

North Korea launches missile... but what kind of missile?

2009-04-05T09:12:00.003+01:00

Ballistic missile?
Innocent satellite?
I don't know - okay it's a bit blurry - but the photograph I've seen, I think, leaves us in no doubt.
What have the North Koreans sent into space?
Well, it looks to me suspiciously like a bottle of Guinness...

Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?

2009-01-06T13:36:00.003+01:00

So we had a foray into the world of live video broadcast which was....
interesting!

Considering we spent most of the 80s and 90s writing and producing
television drama, you would think it would be a skoosh to do a wee live video from the
comfort of our home. And it was... or at least half of it was.

A bit of backstory. Le Chef's writing schedule meant that a US book
signing tour was going to be impossible this year - so I came up with
the brilliant idea of a live video broadcast to talk about his latest
book Blacklight Blue and the other new editions in hardback and
paperback which are coming out in the USA this year. The only thing
was, to catch all the time zones around the world, I figured he should
do two broadcasts. So he recorded part of the talk in four clips with
some of his research video cut to music and we decided he'd kick off
with that then switch to live for the Q&A session at the end.

So - at 4pm our time, we set everything up and it goes like a dream!
Recorded stuff cross fades to live. Q&A is great, people online from
Lochgoilhead to Minneapolis! Cue a glass of celebratory bubbly.
Phone to order a pizza from Georges in Saint-Cere. Collect Pizza to
re-heat and enjoy after the next transmission... everything going to
plan... the time rushes by and suddenly it's almost 7pm our time and
we go to set up for the next broadcast....

With two minutes to go, we're sitting in Le Chef's study lining things
up when we lose the internet connection.
Nada.
Zilch.
Re-set.
Re-boot.
Nothing!
It's too late for us to try and get to another internet connection and a mailing has gone out to all his fans across the world, so it's really important that we go live without delay.... If we can't do it - someone else will have to do it.

We phone my brother in New York and do the old... "Okay, both the
pilots are incapacitated, you're going to have to land the plane, oh
and by the way, there's someone who needs an appendix taken out, but
don't worry, we have a pilot and a gastric surgeon here in the control
tower, and they'll talk you through it" routine.

So my brother logs in to the TV station online pretending to be Le
Chef, he locates the four pre-recorded segments, he presses all the
right buttons, cues up the first one and Bingo! Gets it transmitting -
only 3 minutes late! We give him instructions about how to do the
others, then start phoning friends trying to find somebody nearby who
has internet. We have 27 minutes until the pre-recorded stuff is
supposed to link back to Le Chef live for the Q & A. Of course the
nearest neighbours are suffering the same internet problem as we are.
We have to try further afield. Finally we locate a friend and try to
explain the problem - in French - he gets the point that it's an
emergency and tells us to come over.

A hair-raising drive, with laptop, in the dark through wee French
country roads, up across the ridge, and down through a jumble of stone
buildings (with a half an inch to spare each side of the car) to an 18
century converted barn which this photographer friend has converted to
a studio. In we rush! Of course he's French so we have to kiss and
shake hands and go through all the pleasantries. Then the wife and
the son and the daughter-in-law and oh look you haven't met the new
grandchild... all come out, to see us.... and they all have to be
kissed and handshook..... and do we want a drink?

NOOOO!

It's an emergency - urgence! Comprenez!

Damn, what's the French for "Live internet broadcast"?!!!!

So down we dawdle to the studio where the photographer says to Le
Chef, no problem - it's Wifi.

Yes, it's Wifi all right. Password protected Wifi. Can he remember
the password?

Mais non!

He never uses it himself, it's in his computer.

But, he says, we can use his computer. Le Chef says it's a live
internet VIDEO broadcast. So - he needs a camera. Is there an
ethernet cable and he will connect direct to the modem?

Oh yes, the photographer is sure he has one... Somewhere around
here...........? or here........... ? or is it here...........? Ah
yes... finally..... here it is!

Le Chef gets his butt on to the seat, and logged in with his camera
cued up just in time to hear his voice on video announce.... 'and I'll
answer all your questions, live"..... cue camera.... action!!! He
was on! Breathing heavily, but on! Answering questions from readers
from Fife to San Diego. Unbelievable!

Oh how we laughed. Well, afterwards, we laughed. Well, after our
second bottle of bubbly back home in front of the fire, we laughed.

And the best bit was three hours later.... the internet inexplicably
came back.

And just as we were going to say never again, all these E-mails came
in from folk asking - when is the next one?

Pheeww!

Apart from that ... it was a breeze...

So now the show's had more than 3500 viewings, I guess it was all
worth it! If you want to see the recorded video, you can view it any
time at
http://www.mogulus.com/petermaylive

....and now he's thinking it would be fun to do another one!

Writers' Rituals

2008-11-03T16:50:00.004+01:00

Between travelling around France and the USA to book signings and finding the time to write each new book in The Enzo Files series, it gets less easy for Peter and I to find a space in the schedule to offer our Creative Writing Course in France, so in the meantime, as I've just been appointed Feature Writer for the Freelance Writing section of the online magazine, Suite101, I've got the opportunity to cover a wide range of topics of interest to writers. It seems like the ideal place to offer Tips and Advice.

Talking to some of Peter's fellow mystery and thriller writers, it became apparent that the secret to starting and finishing that book you want to write, is to develop habits, rituals and routines, which help to take the pain out of getting the words on the page - or into the computer. I've written a series of articles about "Writers' Rituals". Take a look at what they had to say, here...

Writers' Rituals - Peter May

Writers' Rituals - Deborah Turrell Atkinson

Writers' Rituals - Jane Tesh

Writers' Rituals - Jane Finnis

Writers' Rituals - J.M.Hayes

Writers' Rituals - Kathleen Delaney

Writers' Rituals - Mary Reed

Writers' Rituals - Mary Anna Evans

Writers; Rituals - Ann Littlewood

Writers' Rituals - Larry Karp

Writers' Rituals - Ruth Dudley Edwards

Writers' Rituals - Twist Phelan

Writers' Rituals - Beverle Graves Myers

Writers' Rituals - Vicki Delany

Writers' Rituals - John McEvoy

Writers' Rituals - Ken Kuhlken

Writers' Rituals - Betty Webb *Editor's Choice Award*

Writers' Rituals - Vicki Lane

Writers' Rituals - Elizabeth Zelvin *Editor's Choice Award*

Writers' Rituals - Deborah Sharp

Writers' Rituals - Rebecca Cantrell

Writers' Rituals - Deb Baker

Writers' Rituals - Carl Brookins

Writers' Rituals - M R Sellars

Writers' Rituals - Jean Henry Mead

Writers' Rituals - Michael W Sherer

Writers' Rituals - C J Lyons

Writers' Rituals - Sheila Connolly

Writers' Rituals - Rosemary Poole-Carter

Writers' Rituals - Janis Susan May

Writers' Rituals - Maryann Miller

Writers' Rituals - Maggie Bishop

Writers' Rituals - Beth Groundwater

Writers' Rituals - J.D. Webb

Writers' Rituals - Radine Trees Nehring

...and it won't change my life. Yeh right.

2008-10-15T14:42:00.001+01:00

First time novelist Aravind Adiga from India has won the Booker Prize worth 50,000 UK pounds (around 100,000 US dollars) and stated on BBC Radio that it won't change his life.

Oh Puhleeze.... Am I alone in thinking that this statement displays an extraordinary poverty of imagination?

What is he thinking? He's a first time author, and his book has just won what is possibly the world's most prestigious literary prize. That alone pretty much guarantees that his life won't be the way that it was, or would have been without it. Or maybe I'm missing something...

Maybe his face is usually filling TV screens and newspapers.

Maybe he's used to having a nice big pot of money in the bank.

Maybe he'd already sewn up his next few publishing deals, and had a guarantee in his contract that his books would be promoted and piled high in all the bookstores.

Then yup, you can certainly see how winning a massive literary prize wouldn't affect your life much.

Apparently his book centres on a man who dreams of rising up from his simple life as a teashop worker and driver, and bettering himself. What would that take, I wonder? Clearly a lot more than a bank account full of money and instant international fame, if its author is anything to go by...

"The pen is mightier than the sword"

2008-06-16T16:09:00.001+01:00

...wrote Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Today President Mugabe was explaining in the Zimbabwe "Herald" why he wouldn't be giving up power no matter what the ballot results show, "We shed a lot of blood for this country. We are not going to give up our country for a mere 'X' on a ballot. How can a ball point pen fight with a gun?"

So I guess the jury's still out on where this leaves the machete...

Cheez...!

2008-04-27T11:12:00.003+01:00

You know, sometimes I become aware how weird it can be, living here...

So we were at one of these book salons / festivals last Sunday. Every place seems to have one - from the huge ones like Paris and St Malo, to tiny villages. First of all I should explain - signing books in France is a lot different from signing books anywhere else. In most other countries you turn up for an hour or two at a booktore, maybe give a talk, sign books for a line of people, then sign a pile for the store to sell to collectors, then you leave.

In France, each book salon is a once-a-year signing-fest for that location. It can last anywhere between one day and one week. and fans arrive to meet many many authors, get a chance to talk to them one-to-one about their writing, then leave laden with enough personalised copies of books to last them till the following year. Whether it's a local village hall, or one of the enormous exhibition centres, the set-up is the same. A local bookstore or bookstores invite the authors and supply the books. The authors sit at desks piled high with their produce like stall-holders at a farmers' market. And often, they're expected to be "on duty" all day, or all weekend, to talk and sign books.

Last Sunday, it was just for a day. In a tiny village in the middle of deepest, darkest "La France profonde".

Le Chef only agreed to go because it was just 20 minutes away and it was a fund-raiser for a local organisation. Amazingly, the place was packed, people had traveled from miles around. They crammed into the village hall and squeezed along the rows, sometimes making five or six circuits of the hall to makes sure they got a chance to see all the authors and scrutinise their work.

But here's the thing that's really French... a priority here, is everyone's nourishment. So these things always close down for lunch. There were so many writers that the village's little inn had to take them in two sittings, but that didn't mean they were going to make lunch less elaborate. No no, oh no, not at all. We had soup, followed by a platter of cold meats and paté, followed by chicken casserole and rice, followed by cheese, followed by dessert, and then coffee to finish it off. Throughout the meal there was a never-ending supply of carafes of soft, quaffable red country wine. It was not "haute cuisine" but it was a fantastic example of real rustic, country fare, well executed.

The people at the table around us were rather shy and hesitant until they established...

1) that we could speak French

2) that we were Scottish and neither English nor Dutch (sorry to the English and Dutch out there, but according to the French you have a reputation for not integrating here very well - so other nationalities reap the benefits)

3) that le Chef first fell in love with the area 33 years ago and returned every year until we moved here full time

...so the door creaked open enough to let us proceed to Stage Two

What's Stage Two? Well we had to try to pass the "fitting in to France" quiz, during the meal...

What did we think of the bread at the restaurant? What did we think of the soup? Did we know what "chabrol" was? Le Chef poured some wine into his soup plate when he had finished, swirled it around to get the last of the soup, then lifted the bowl to his lips and slurped it up. Big smiles all around! He's a Chabrol Man! We were doing OK so far.

The chicken casserole was a very traditional recipe, were we acquainted with it? Of course we were, we said, we ate it for the first time at a village party years ago. Oooh - points for knowing the dish and bonus points for attending village parties.

Then came the cheese test, how many local cheeses did we know? Well really, how could we live here and not have tried every cheese from this region and all the surrounding ones! We ran through them all. But did we like them? Mais bien sur! And what did we think of Cabecou? Ahhh... when it came to Cabecou (little round goat's cheeses) I had to express my preference, not just for the cheese, but for a certain local producer, Monsieur Estip of Autoire. Of course this meant points won for knowing and having a preference, but points deducted, because my preference conflicted with the questioner's own preference. His favourite maker, he explained couldn't produce Cabecou all year round as he refused to freeze milk! And since no respectable producer can have milk all year round, the others must be freezing theirs!

So we moved from local cheeses to cheeses from faaaaar away, i.e. Normandy. What did we think of Camembert? We said we liked it of course. At this point, one man at the table who had been silent, suddenly came to life - aaaah Camembert. You haven't lived if you haven't tasted the best Camembert. We said we'd tasted some truly exceptional Camembert. The main interrogator wasn't convinced. He told us you can only get the best by going to where it's produced. Aha not so, I said. When le chef was being inducted as a Chevalier for Gaillac wine (surely lots more bonus points for that one!), there was a banquet and one group of guests at the banquet was a delegation of Camembert cheese producers who had brought with them their best offering (la creme de la creme...?) for everyone at the banquet to savour. Touché! The Camembert lover thought, then, in that case, we had definitely been privileged. He then went on to share with us his secret source for the best cheeses in the area - which turned out to be our favourite cheese stall-holder at the Bretenoux market. Well! He could hardly believe it! I think that means we're friends forever! Not to mention getting record-breaking scores on the integration quiz.

Which made me think about those TV ads that we take for granted in France, which you simply wouldn't see in the USA or UK. No I don't mean the ones for shower gel or shampoo which show girls displaying an awful a lot more than Janet Jackson at the superbowl.

No no. I mean the ones where four or five extremely large and hunky man-the-hunter types are out in the woods together. Fatigued - presumably from stalking the deer and wild boar - they sit for a moment on some conveniently placed fallen tree trunks. They look at one another, and with no need for words, get out their Laguioles (fancy folding knives that all real men carry here), pull out their baguettes, and start to pass around the cheese.. creamy Camembert... crumbly Roquefort... whatever... they pop it into their mouths and savour it. With knowing smiles they chew and nod at one another. "Does life get any better than this...?" is the unspoken message... "Out in the woods with my mates. My baguette in my hand, and cheese melting on my tongue."

You know, now that I think about it... maybe they're not hunters... maybe they're lumberjacks... Whatever. Here's the really weird thing about living here - I watch ads like that, and they don't seem odd to me...

Tour Dates for PETER MAY - USA 2008

2008-01-11T09:31:00.001+01:00

What have I been doing lately?

Well this, mostly...

Latest confirmed dates for the PETER MAY - USA 2008 tour...

THOUSAND OAKS, CA: Saturday, February 16th: Mysteries to Die For, 11am
- talk & signing

Mysteries to Die For

2940 Thousand Oaks Boulevard

Thousand Oaks,

CA 91362

Telephone: (805) 374-0084

NEWPORT BEACH CA: Sunday, February 17th:
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Ê To be confirmed

SAN DIEGO CA: Monday, February 18th: Mysterious Galaxy, 3.30pm
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Mysterious Galaxy

7051 Clairmont Mesa Blvd.

San Diego,

CA 92111

Telephone: 858-268-4747

Toll-Free: 800-811-4747

ÊFax: 858-268-4775

SAN DIEGO CA: Monday, February 18th: Alliance Francaise and Mysterious Galaxy, 6pm
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Restaurant-Bistro Le Bouchon

511 West Valley ParkwayÊ

Escondido,Ê

CA, 92025,

Telephone: (760) 489-8666Ê

Fax: (760) 489-8663Ê

LOS ANGELES CA: Tuesday, February 19th: The Mystery Bookstore
- Drop-by signing

http://www.mystery-bookstore.com

The Mystery Bookstore

1036-C Broxton Ave.

Los Angeles, CAÊ 90024

phone: 310-209-0415 or 800-821-9017

fax: 310-209-0436

LOS ANGELES CA: Tuesday, February 19th: Alliance Francaise
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Alliance Franaise de Los Angeles

10390 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite #120

(Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Blvd)

Los Angeles,

CA 90025

ÊTelephone: 310-652-0306Ê

Fax: 310-652-0338

SAN MATEO CA: Friday, February 22nd: M is for Mystery, 7pm
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

M is for Mystery

86 East Third Avenue

San Mateo,

CA 94401

Telephone: (650) 401-8077

Toll-free: 888-405-8077

CORTE MADERA CA: Saturday, February 23rd: Book Passage, 7pm
- talk & signing

Book Passage

51 Tamal Vista Blvd

Corte Madera, CA 94925

Telephone: (415) 927-0960

SACRAMENTO CA: Sunday, February 24th:
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Ê To be confirmed

SCOTTSDALE AZ:Ê Tuesday, February 26th, 2008: Poisoned Pen with Barnes & Noble and Alliance Francaise
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Barnes & Noble

10500 N Shea

Scottsdale AZ

details from the Poisoned Pen...

Telephone: (480) 947-2974

TUCSON AZ:Ê ·ednesday, February 27th, 2008: Clues Unlimited
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Clues Unlimited

123 South Eastbourne

Tucson, AZ 85716-5317

Telephone: (520) 326-8533Ê

Fax: (520) 326-9001

HOUSTON TX:Ê Tuesday, March 4th, 2008: Murder By The Book and Alliance Francaise
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Alliance Francaise

427 Lovett Blvd

Houston

TX 77006

Telephone: (713) 526-1121

BOULDER CO: Wednesday, March 5th: High Crimes, 7pm
- talk & signing

High Crimes

946 Pearl Street

Boulder,

CO 80302

Telephone:(303) 443-8346

DENVER CO: March 6th - 9th, LEFT COAST CRIME

Left Coast Crime

Adam's Mark Hotel

1550 Court Place,

Denver,

CO 80202

Hotel Telephone: (303) 893-3333

Hotel fax: (303) 626-2542

DENVER CO: Thursday, March 6th: Murder By The Book
- talk & signing

Murder by the Book

1574 South Pearl St.

Denver,

CO 80210

Telephone: (800) 300-2595Ê (toll free voice)

Telephone: (303) 871-9401Ê (voice in Colorado)

DENVER CO:Ê Friday, March 7th, 2008: Alliance Francaise
- talk & signing

Alliance Francaise de Denver

571 Galapago St

Denver,

CO 80204-5032

Telephone: (303) 831-0304

MINNEAPOLIS MN:Ê Tuesday, March 11th, 2008: Undle Edgar's
- drop-by signing

Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore

2864 Chicago Ave

Minneapolis,

MN 55407

Telephone: (612) 824-9984

MINNEAPOLIS MN:Ê Tuesday, March 11th, 2008: Alliance Francaise with Once Upon A Crime
- WINE TASTING + talk & signing

Once Upon a Crime

604 W 26th St,

Minneapolis

MN 55405

Telephone: (612) 870-3785

ROCHESTER NY: March 14th - 16th:
- WINE TASTING + talk & signings

Ê To be confirmed

NEW YORK NY: Tuesday, March 18th: Partners & Crime
- drop-by signing

Partners & Crime

44 Greenwich Avenue

New York, NY 10011

Tel: 212-243-0440

Fax: 212-243-4624

Brain the size of a planet...

2007-09-07T10:53:00.001+01:00

I really was working hard. Doing important stuff. Looking for ways to improve the websites, when I found this....

I'm sure there must be a pratical use for it...

Vote Now and Vote Often

2007-08-17T17:49:00.004+01:00

know googling yourself isn't good for you, but it's amazing what turns up when you do....

http://www.quimble.com/poll/view/7479

And this...

http://www.whosdatedwho.com/celebrities/couples/profile/janice-hally-and-peter-may.htm

is just plain weird!

All votes gratefully accepted!

Speechless!

2007-08-16T09:49:00.000+01:00

I'm speechless.

Well maybe I can manage a little rant...

I would always advocate supporting your local independent bookstore
where the owners and staff are passionate about books and their
special expertise and advice are priceless. They'll offer you works
by less well-known authors and small publishers and they'll always
take the time to recommend or track down a book for you.

If you haven't got access to one of these independent stores to
browse in, then the next best thing would be to visit Amazon online,
where you will be offered the ultimate choice, from huge best-sellers
to self-published books. No personal advice here, but lots of
readers' views - some brutally honest, others evidently fake.

But what I would never recommend is to support the big bookstore
chains. Come on, we've all watched "You've Got Mail". The truth is,
that putting a little bookstore out of business and re-employing
their sales staff, won't actually change the process by which the
stock finds its way to the shelves. Frequenting the big bookstore
chains limits your choice of books to those which are picked by a
handful of buyers country-wide. Often these buyers don't even read
the books but instead make decisions on the basis of "star names" or
promotional incentives offered by the publishers. It leads to fewer
titles and fewer authors on the chelves; and books stocked on the
basis of supposed sales potential rather than quality. But surely
this ingenious strategy must work for them, after all, compared to
other people in the field of sales, they have a lot of things to make
the job of making profit very easy.

What other store can you think of where...
- you sell things and put the profit in the bank, but you don't have
to pay the supplier of your stock until perhaps a year later...
- you can order any amount of stock, and expect your supplier to
produce it, but if you find you don't sell it, you can just hand it
back...
- you don't expect to pay delivery or return charges for any of your
stock...
- you expect your suppliers to provide all the advertising material
and undertake all the promotional work?

But guess what? Even given all of the above, it seems that some big
chains still find themselves in trouble and instead of questioning
their own business strategy, they come up with unique ways to make
other people responsible for bailing them out - such as asking
publishers to start to PAY the stores to stock their books! This link
has an amazing exchange of letters between a big bookstore chain, and
a medium-sized publisher in Australia...

http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/archives/undercover/014948.html?

page=fullpage#comments

Eeeeuwww!

2007-08-07T10:57:00.001+01:00

Okay, so le chef is deep into writing his next book and has politely
suggested that I might like to resume my blog. I think it had
something to do with me shouting at the TV set. (Well, really...
what did the reporter mean when she said that the people had come
from "all possible corners of the globe" ? Globe? Corners? All
IMpossible corners of the globe might have made more sense. But I
digress.)

I just wanted to say to someone - anyone - out there who might be
listening.... Eeeeuwww!!!!

Now I'm not the kind of person who screams when she sees a spider, but the spiders in this house are doing their best to get me to disturb le Chef. They're certainly disturbing me!

This one in the bathroom this morning looked like a scorpion! It seemed to have enormous pincers and a body which arches up!!!!

Very scary!

Is this normal?

Any arachnophiles out there recognize it?

trial

2007-03-18T16:06:00.001+01:00

Just trying out a new way to post my entries

2005-09-03T11:37:00.000+01:00

Well... que sera sera!

I picked up the box of stupid herbal stress remedy and two of the stupid glass ampoules dropped out onto the concrete floor of the kitchen, shattering into a zillion pieces. I've decided they are more bother than they're worth. So no more!

It's all too late anyway. The tour has begun, and it will move forward day by day through the schedule. For better or worse, there's nothing I can do. Que sere, sera...

The writing Course starts today and the group (a small one, just 5 since it's just me alone) will arrive at the Victor Hugo Hotel for dinner tonight. And, like the tour, we'll go day by day, step by step, through the process of creating 5 new works of fiction. And once that is underway it will have my full attention. No time to think about anything else. No time to worry about anything else.

Until, before I know it, it will be next weekend and I'll be travelling up to Paris, then flying out to meet up with Le Chef in Houston. I hope we find each other! There seem to be quite a few people descending on Houston at the moment...

2005-09-02T12:25:00.000+01:00

Well my lacerated thumbs - yes thumbs plural, I managed to re-enact the ampoule drama left-handed - are getting better.

But, I have to say I am feeling more relaxed. And I actually slept last night.

One worrying thing, though, this morning I visited Peter's Blog page to see if he had updated and to find out his news (because of the time difference, I knew I wouldn't get to talk to him till at least midday).

And then...

I went to visit my blog page to see if I had updated. And... um... presumably, to find out my news....

Uh huh... well... eh... I hadn't updated.

I have now, though.

So at least now I have something to read....

2005-09-01T08:29:00.000+01:00

What do you mean - the writing course is in September....?

It starts in two days' time... on the 3rd of Oct-

Oh, right. I see. Yes. Right. September. The month of the World Tour of America. THAT September.

ooookaaaay.

Got it.

Don't worry. I'll be there.

Stressed? Me?

2005-08-31T09:19:00.000+01:00

Stressed, me? No. No. I'm fine. Really.

And my thumb will heal in no time.

What? Where was I? Oh yes. Stress. Why should I be stressed?

I only have a writing Course to give from the 3rd to the 10th of October, then I get to join Peter in Houston.

And alongside the writing Course, I only have press releases to send out for San Diego, Bethesda, Oakmont, New York and Cambridge.

And I only have follow up press and media calls to do for Chicago, Minneapolis, Boulder, and Denver.

No problem.

Texas I love you, we're all set there. The Texans have filled Peter's diary with radio and TV interviews already!

But that aside, okay, I admit it - I've been suffering from a few sleepless nights in the run up to sending Peter off on this tour. So when he left yesterday, I thought I would try a French herbal remedy for stress.

It certainly cured it! Here's how....

They sell it in little glass ampoules, you take one in the morning and the other at night. You crack off a little nipple at each end of the ampoule and pour the weird-smelling potion into a glass of water and drink it. So yesterday morning, the first one went okay. I didn't notice any significant effect on stress levels, though.

Then came the second one... I couldn't get the nipple to crack off. Eventually employing brute strength, I squeezed it tightly between my thumb and index finger and CRACK! It exploded into a thousand tiny pices and embedded itself in my thumb!!

With stress remedy and blood dripping all around me, I found that instantly... all my worries disappeared!

There's nothing like trying to focus on a bloody thumb with tweezers, picking out tiny shards of glass to take your mind of stupid things like a World Tour of Amercia and a few hundred press releases.

And Peter....? Just don't say a word, okay? It could happen to anyone. I'm fine. The bandage is holding.... My thumb is marinating in disinfectant cream.... And it's feeling strangely relaxed...

2005-08-01T17:01:00.000+01:00

Well, Peter May's World Tour of America looks like it's actually going to happen...

Just one date where I can't get the people to respond. Writers and Books in Rochester NY.

Ironically - the one place Peter will be visiting anyway, because our family is there.

The worst thing is, Writers and Books didn't even write to say they didn't want Peter. They just ignored my attempts to contact them...

I've tried E-mail, I've tried Fax. I've written to their Events guy, I've written to their Director. What is it? Well, they simply don't care to respond to me. Maybe my E-mail got caught in a spam filter. Maybe their fax machine isn't working.

Whatever... here are all the other people who DO think it's a good idea to have a visit from Peter May to talk about The Firemaker....

• CHICAGO, IL: Thursday 1st - Sunday 4th September
• Bouchercon Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers 301 East North Water Street Chicago, IL 60611 Telephone: (312) 464-1000 
• Bouchercon Panel with Peter May:  "Far Away Places" Friday 2nd September, 4pm - 5pm 
• ROCHESTER, NY - Tuesday 6th September 
• MINNEAPOLIS, MN: Wednesday, 7th September, 7pm
• Once Upon a Crime 604 W 26th St, Minneapolis MN 55405 Telephone: (612) 870-3785 
• BOULDER, CO: Thursday 8th September, 7pm
• High Crimes 946 Pearl Street Boulder, CO 80302 Telephone:(303) 443-8346 
• DENVER, CO: Saturday 10th September, 12 noon
• Murder by the Book 1574 South Pearl St. Denver, CO 80210 Telephone: (800) 300-2595 (toll free voice) Telephone: (303) 871-9401 (voice in Colorado) 
• HOUSTON, TX: Monday, 12th September, 6.30pm
• Murder by the Book 2342, Bissonnet Street Houston TX, 77005 Telephone: (713) 524-8597 
•
• HUNTSVILLE, TX: Tuesday, 13th September
• Sam Houston State University College of Criminal Justice Huntsville TX 77341 (Time and venue to be confirmed) 
• SCOTTSDALE, AZ: Wednesday, 14th September, 7pm
• The Poisoned Pen 4014 N Goldwater Blvd, Suite 101 Scottsdale, AZ 85251 Telephone: (480) 947-2974  
• SEATTLE, WA: Friday, 16th September, Noon
• Seattle Mystery Bookshop 117 Cherry St Seattle, WA 98104 Telephone: (206) 587-5737 
• SAN FRANCISCO, CA: Saturday 17th September
• China Books Time and venue to be confirmed 
• SACRAMENTO, CA: Sunday 18th September
• Book Launch Party Invited Guests 
• DAVIS, CA: Monday 19th September 7.30pm
• The Avid Reader  617 Second Street  Davis, CA 95616  Telephone: (530) 758-4040 
• SAN MATEO, CA: Tuesday 20th September, 7pm
• M is for Mystery 74 Third Avenue San Mateo, CA 94401 Telephone: (650) 401-8077 Toll-free: 888-405-8077 
• LOS ANGELES, CA: Wednesday 21st September
• travelling 
• NEWPORT BEACH, CA: Thursday 22nd September
• Book Launch Party Invited Guests 
•
• SAN DIEGO, CA: Friday 23rd September, 7pm
• Mysterious Galaxy  7051 Clairmont Mesa Blvd.  San Diego, CA 92111  Telephone: 858-268-4747  Toll-Free: 800-811-4747  Fax: 858-268-4775 
• BETHESDA, MD: Sunday 25th September, 2pm
• The Writer's Center 4508 Walsh Street,  Bethesda, MD 20815 Phone: 301 654-8664 Fax: 301 654-8667  
• OAKMONT, PITTSBURG, PA: Tuesday 27th September, 6.30pm
• Mystery Lovers Bookshop (Chinese Buffet before talk) 514 Allegheny River Boulevard Oakmont PA 15139 Telephone: (412) 828-4877 
• NEW YORK, NY: September 28th
• Mysterious Bookshop 129 West 56th Street New York, NY 10019 Tel: 212-765-0900 Fax: 212-265-5478 drop-in signing 
• NEW YORK, NY: September 30th (time to be confirmed)
• Partners & Crime 44 Greenwich Avenue New York, NY 10011 Tel: 212-243-0440 Fax: 212-243-4624 
• CAMBRIDGE, BOSTON, MA: Saturday 1st October, 4pm
• Kate's Mystery Books 2211 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA Tel: (617) 491-2660

2005-04-02T09:30:00.000+01:00

...and all before breakfast, at that.

So, this morning, in between having a shower and planning the WTA (World Tour of America), it was beholden upon me to go and feed the neighbour's cat. He's gone off on a trip and I've to look after Coco for 18 days. "He" being the neighbour and "Coco" being the cat.

But last night and this morning, we've been hit by some very high winds. And when I got round to the neighbour's house, after calling on the cat to come, I got to the top of the stone staircase to discover that the huge glass jar containing the cat biscuits, had been blown over.

So there we were. Glass and biscuits all over the top of the stairs, and one very excited cat bounding into the middle of it.

I don't have to describe what happened next, do I?

Yep - there I am.... trying to separate wild hungry cat from biscuitfest and potential internal laceration, while he's delivering some external lacerations to me. At least I think it was him, it could have been the shards of glass.

All the big bits of glass, I could gather up quite quickly - I soon got into a rhythm of throwing Coco down the stairs, and turning back to grab some glass while he bounded back up and leapt back into the sea of biscuits.

The lethal stuff was all the little pieces, mixed in with the food, embedding itself in my cuticles.

Anyway, suffice to say that it took a while but it's over now. I think Coco got a portion of food without glass in the end.

And now, before I can get back to work on the WTA, e-mailing more bookstores and libraries, then updating Le Chef's website to announce the dates, the marketing of our extra writing Course this summer, the making of cups of tea, coffee, lunch and dinner for Le Chef, who is writing another book right now, not to mention doing a laundry so that he won't be writing in the nude tomorrow, and the hundred other things on the "To Do" list.... it's almost time for the Assembly General of our hamlet.

This is about the restoration of the bread oven. You'd think now that it's restored that would be the end of it. But no, now that it's restored we have to plan the grand opening and the firing up and the celebrations.... and there's also the matter of the annual election of office bearers. Which I suppose I should be excited to be a part of since it's the nearest I get to exercising my democratic right in this country which takes my taxes but does not allow me to choose the president.

Of course they arranged the meeting for a Saturday morning because, I guess, they thought nobody would have anything to do on a Saturday morning.

They haven't seen my "To Do" list.

2005-03-31T11:11:00.000+01:00

...of mice and men.

Actually, on behalf of pedants everywhere, I'd like to say that what Robert Burns actually wrote was..

"The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley"

But whether plans or schemes, it is not a comfort to me that I'm in the same boat as the mice right now.

I'm not likely to get too many words of advice from them. I mean, just how many mice have tried to organise a world tour of America? Why yes... World Tour of America... well if it's the "world series" of baseball, then I just thought...

Hey, I'm Scottish - I speak all that Robert Burns "gang aft agley" stuff - I've only just started to learn American - give me a break!

Anyway. There I am with my charts, and my maps, and my join-the-dots-with-drawing-pins-and-lengths-of-string to represent the flights zigzagging back and forth across the US... Chicago - Minneapolis - Denver - Atlanta - Houston - Phoenix - Etc - Etc - Etc... (That's Etc CA , Etc PA, and Etc NY, by the way. Yes. I'm also learning now why you have to get into the habit of tagging the state name onto every city name.)

So - I've got this tour beginning to come together like a military exercise.

Except that... yesterday, I encountered a problem that the military never have to contend with....

Labor Day. Labor Day?

Well, since to labor is to work, obviously I assumed that Labor Day would be the day when everyone works really, really hard....

But no.

It's the day when nobody works at all.

We were planning to be in Minneapolis, but it appears that Minneapolis will be closed that day. And since Minneapolis was right at the start of the tour, the whole schedule had be be pushed on and all the dates changed. But it's okay because it was one of the first places I had approached, so at least I didn't have to reschedule a whole lot of engagements, just a whole lot of string and drawing pin flight plans.

But can I just make a suggestion... for the benefit of us poor foreigners who don't speak your language, couldn't you re-name it "Don't Labor Day" or "Stay And Home And Slob About In Bed Day"? That way we might find it easier to get a picture of what really lies in store...

Of course, the whole thing was rendered all the more confusing by the fact that Bouchercon, the convention for mysteries which Le Chef will be attending is described as taking place on Labor Day Weekend.

Well really - Labor Day Weekend? Labor Day Weekend? I'm sorry - isn't that a contradiction in terms? In my country... oh, never mind the semantics. This Labor Day Weekend starts on the Thursday. That makes the weekend longer than the week by my calculation. And then it stops on Sunday - the day before what I later find out is Labor Day. But, wait a minute, if Labor Day isn't part of Labor Day Weekend then how come...

I give up.

"two countries separated by a common language" I'd attribute that quote, but its origin is disputed - some say Oscar Wilde, some say George Bernard Shaw, some say Winston Churchill.

Well, for your interest, if it had been Robert Burns, he'd have said...

"Twa landis teert apairt by ane toung"

So you can see where that leaves me.

Has anyone got an American-Scottish dictionary out there?

2005-03-30T07:05:00.000+01:00

Okay, so how many things did I get done off the "To Do" list yesterday?

All right... none.

But give me a break - item number one is "Organise an 18-city, month-long author tour of the USA for Le Chef". I think it may take me quite a while to finally score that one off the list - probably around October this year. When is the tour? September.

Anyway, I can at least report that we have lift-off. We have a confirmed booking.... The Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona on 14th September.

Now I just have to get some more....

2005-03-29T08:26:00.000+01:00

Since I know you're interested, I can report that my "To Do" list got shortened by three items yesterday and lengthened by about three hundred this morning

Confirmation came overnight that le Chef's U.S. tour will be going ahead. Well, that is to say, the plans for it will commence. The Firemaker will be released in the USA in September and so I start now to line up talks/signings/cookery demonstrations/whatever.

So one of the major items I was able to cross off the "To Do" list yesterday - updating le Chef's websites, http://petermay.co.uk and his new website for the media and organisers of author visits, http://www.petermay.info, was back on the list straight away.

So this can't be a long entry. Must get back to the "To Do" list....

2005-03-28T07:23:00.000+01:00

My "To Do" list just keeps growing.

It doesn't help that I got this great little program called "Dossier" by Vortimac which lets me not only create a "To Do" list, but allows me to cross refer folders and documents and link to any other document in my computer or a web page or anything. It actually lets me write this journal entry then post it in one wee click.

So I've spent a lot of time entering up my whole life into this program. All my projects. My writing projects. The Writing Courses we give each year. The websites I'm responsible for keeping updated. The publicity and promotion schedules for Le Chef and moi. Finally I've found a place where I can file all my usernames and passwords (and encode them!) so that I can remember how to access all those sites I need to access to get stuff done. I can note the things I've done, the things I'm waiting for people to reply to, the things I have to follow up, the deadlines. It's fantastic.

In fact, if Rob Minerick, the designer of Dossier is listening, I've thought of a couple of refinements for the next release... if you could just get it to load up the dishwasher and the washing machine, and fix it so that I can turn them on from my study it would just about have my life completely under control.

That's the trouble, you see. For a while I was overwhelmed with all the things I had to do and felt that everything was out of control. Then I discovered Dossier and it helped me to really get everything organised. Suddenly I had a "To Do" list that brought everything together in order of priority, and allowed me to click immediately to the relevant documents and get to work.

In theory.

In practice... the more I add to the list, the more I think of more things to add. In fact, I'm beginning to think that I don't actually do anything except add to the "To Do" list.

It's beginning to seem more like a "Wish" list. I think the tell-tale sign was when I noticed that item 45 on the list was World Peace. I know, now you're thinking I'm crazy. I can hardly believe it myself, but yes, it's true, there are actually 44 things in my life which take priority over World Peace. No-one understands the kind of pressure I'm under.

People think - yeah she moved to this rural idyll in France, I bet all she does all day is look out of the view across the valley from the window of the study at the top of her tower and drink wine.

Well that's just not true. I drink wine out on the terrasse, in the garden, in the dining room, in the sejour, but never in my study.

The truth about this damn list is, I think it's really an... "I Wish Someone Would Come Into My Life And Do This Stuff For Me" List.

So I wondered... if I used my journal to keep tabs on what I did each day, would I achieve more? Because then I would be able to look back and see - oh yes, that's where the last year went...

And that's why "Keep my Journal up to date" found it's way to the top of the "To Do" list. So there we have it. And at least that's something I can score off the list.

And with a sense of real achievement I can also report that World Peace has now moved up to Item 44.

2005-01-03T14:30:00.000+01:00

Pretty grim start to the year as the death toll mounts daily after the tsunami.

I heard one British politician saying that the British public ought to donate enough money to match the British government's contribution. Well fine, we've exceeded it with our donations. But hold on just a second... where do governments get their money? Em... oh, yes, that's right... WE give them it.

Ah how easily the American and British governments make decisions about allocating OUR money for bombs - but not for aid.

2003-11-28T11:00:00.000+01:00

DANCES WITH VOL-AU-VENTS
Struggling to make a decision about a change in career direction, a friend of le Chef's had a vivid dream. In it, he was face to face with a wolf on the edge of some woods. Suddenly, he turned into a wolf himself and the two of them ran off into the woods together. He woke up and decided to take the job which meant moving his family from Scotland to Seattle. After a short while there, he happened to meet a wolf-tracker and mentioned the dream. The tracker explained that the wolf symbol was very important to Native Americans, and the dream had been a 'sign': "Run with the wolves," it was saying. He had done the right thing taking the job. He subsequently went on expeditions with the tracker, and bought a piece of land deep in the woods where he built a house, in which he now lives with his wolf and two cubs... sorry, his wife and two kids.
So ever since we decided to move to France permanently, I've been on the look-out for a 'sign' and last night I think I got it. I had a very vivid dream about vol-au vents.
Yes, vol-au-vents.
Yes, little bits of pastry with savoury fillings. In this particular dream, I had a revelation about the Perfect New Filling - but as with all great ideas that you come up with in dreams, it evaporated as soon as I woke up.
I think it involved anchovies.
I told all this to Le Chef, and asked if he thought it contained a message about my future. He said he hoped not, because if anchovies were involved, we were probably staring separation in the face. He's not a big anchovy fan.
But before I let it go completely, I remembered something else about the dream. It was in French. People around me were talking French and there was I, completely fluent. "Bien sur... des anchois!" I was saying, "Des tomates... des poivrons rouges..." it was all rolling off my tongue like a native. Okay, so vol-au-vent fillings aren't exactly stretching my vocabulary. But I've started dreaming in French. This is definitely a revelation.
I think it's the yoga that's responsible. I go every Friday morning to a class in the local market town. It was my next door neighbour's idea. "It's great!" she insisted. "If you want inner peace and serenity, you've got to go. I'll pick you up." I agreed, knowing she wouldn't allow me any inner peace and serenity if I refused.
As it turns out, it has been relaxing. And I've noticed lately that when our teacher talks us into deep relaxation, I've stopped translating what she says and started simply to understand.
"That's what the dream was really saying," I said to Le Chef. "I'm dreaming in French - and it's thanks to the yoga. Orteils, chevilles, mollets"
"Mollets?" he asked.
"Calf muscles," I explained smugly. He looked unimpressed.
"Very useful," he replied, "I think I'll stick with Bertrand's 'phrase du jour'."
Bertrand runs the local gym. For some reason men don't do yoga. Men do gym. Le Chef decided to build some physical activity into his writing schedule and has been going every day before lunch. And Bertrand's been teaching him things like, "Quoi de neuf?" (What's new?) and "La vie est trop courte pour boire la piquette" (Life's too short to drink plonk). Useful stuff.
So off he went today, wearing tennis shorts instead of his usual jogpants partly because the sun was shining and partly because I was interpreting dreams when I should have been doing the laundry. And when he came back I asked what useful phrase Bertrand had come up with today. Le Chef's eyes narrowed. "He didn't have one," he replied. "He got sidetracked..."
"What do you mean?"
"He watched me walking across the car park, and when I got in, he spoke to me for the first time in English, well partly in English, he said, 'Please geeve me your mollets! They are so beeg!'"
"So...?"
"So - don't you think that's weird?"
"What, mollet envy? I don't know. You have got big mollets."
"But isn't it weird that he should use the word, the very same day you told me it."
"You mean... the very same day you said it would be of no use to you?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's obviously a sign."
"A sign?"
"Yes - telling you to... 'Run with the mollets' "
Obviously the move here was the right thing...

2003-11-27T15:11:00.000+01:00

In other news, our hamlet had an "assembly generale" of all twenty inhabitants (half of whom only own gites and don't actually live here!) to discuss the state of the bread oven. The what? I hear you ask. Well, the villagers used to share a bread oven - it's situated in what would be the Village Square if only we were big enough to call ourselves a village and if only the bulge in the single track road could be considered remotely "square".

It's a little stone built thing with a tiled roof and a chimney, wood fired. Every village used to have one, and our neighbouring village, a couple of kilometres along the road, keeps its oven in working order and has a village party every year where they bake bread and pizzas and quiches and tarts and drink a lot of plonk.

Anyway, ours is a few hundred years old, and it's falling down, and a recently retired schoolteacher who has too much time on her hands and owns a gite here, has decided to make it her "project" to restore it to its former glory. Naturally this takes effort and cash and so the assembly generale was called where everyone had to come up with fundraising ideas. So they decided to have a barbecue and dance, and a couple of musicians who live here have offered to give a concert for free, (they play "Techno" music.... which should entertain the octogenarians who populate the neighbouring villages).

Anyway, eventually all eyes turned to Le Chef and I with an "ask not what your hamlet can do for you, but what can you do for your hamlet" sort of look. So Le Chef had the brilliant idea of holding a raffle.... Hmmm - he had fun explaining the concept of a raffle in French. Anyway, he convinced the owners of the gites to donate a week's off-season holiday as prizes and then he turned to me and said... and my wife will do a website!

What?

Yes, a website for the hamlet where we could invite people from all over The World to contribute to our cause! People could pay online to buy raffle tickets.... etc etc... and win the chance of a week in paradise here.

Well, this idea was a huge success. All the gite owners, and the wee couple who do B&B suddenly saw the potential for their places to be on view to The World!!! The musicians wanted a mention, and an advert for their CDs. The artist wants all his paintings up on their own pages. And the everyone's digging in their attics to find photographs of Puymule through the ages, which The World is - I'm sure - just dying to see. The web pages will have to be doubled up in French and English versions and so I will not be at a loss about how to spend the winter evenings!

And to think I used to be a writer...