...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?

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....

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....

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.

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.

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...

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...