The Grey Lady of York

There are that many “grey ladies” in York it is sometimes hard knowing where to begin. The Holy Trinity Church on Micklegate has one, so does The Theatre Royal, The Treasurer’s House, King’s Manor, Lady Peckett’s Yard… and I used to make up stories for American tourists when I worked at The Judge’s Lodgings regarding apparitions in The Tower Room – the more lovelorn and tragic, the better the tips!

It seems there is something as enticing about the spectre of monochromatic women as there is about the lost boys from my previous post. They really capture our imagination. Perhaps it is the tragic events in their lives that brings these ladies back, or perhaps it is the tragedy thrust upon them that makes right-minded (and somewhat romantic) folks like myself hope for their story to continue?

I find ghost stories are usually all stories of hope – a soul lingers due to unfinished business, to make amends, as punishment that will one day end.

Nearly all Grey Ladies share tragedy in common. Murdered by a jealous spouse, condemned for love, broken-hearted, betrayed, beaten. Very few of the stories of the Grey Ladies are cheerful (what ghost stories are?) but I particularly liked the one associated with the church on Micklegate. It was one of the first ghost stories I read about in York and I knew when it came to writing The Book and the Blade that I had to include it.

The white lady appeared. Tall, beautiful, and stern. She walked across the front of the church with a purposeful gait and only paused when she reached the end of the building. There she turned and beckoned for her daughter and the nurse that accompanied her; this was their nightly routine—the pattern they were forced to replay every evening.
The Book and the Blade.

Ah look, I know I changed her colour a little but there were so many Grey Ladies I had to mix it up a bit. In fact, by the time I was about 50k words in and drowning in research notes on the many many York ghosts, I had the inkling of an idea that would come to be one of my favourite parts of the novel…

The Council of the Grey Ladies

The Council of the Grey Ladies emerged out of a perceived necessity to “bring the dead together” and gave rise to lots of half-hearted jokes along the lines of “community spirits.” But, as ghostly councils go, it is a relatively new organisation. In fact, in living terms, the group has only been gathering for the better part of ten years. It took one Irene Napier to gather the disparate ghosts and bring them together as a collective.
The Book and the Blade

Because if you have a city with that many Grey Ladies wandering around, it makes sense they might bump into each other! It just took the right sort of ghost to get them organised. Enter… Irene Napier.

Busy was a word entirely insufficient when used to describe Irene Napier, and now that she didn’t have the need for sleep, she was a force of nature in her own right. The fact her husband had died two days after she, and then entirely failed to join her on this plane of existence, is a testament to that. He couldn’t live without her, but the thought of spending eternity standing in a corner figuratively holding the coats was enough to make him jump through the door at the earliest opportunity.
The Book and the Blade

A friend of mine – the talented Mark Boardman – who read the very early drafts of The Book and the Blade said he wanted to know more about Irene Napier. So do I when I look back on it now. Who knows, in the future, there might be some “Arthur Crazy” spin-offs.

Actually, I have written a Queen Katheryn Howard graphic novel tie-in but that’s getting way ahead of myself!

Anyway, the Grey Ladies. Bloody wonderful they are! Just don’t try and cheat at bingo. You’ll never hear the end of it.

Thanks for reading.

If The Book and the Blade seems like something you might like to read, please check this link for your best buying options (or ask your friendly neighbourhoos librarian). And if you have read it, please consider leaving a rating or review where ratings and reviews are left… they make such a huge difference.

Cheers folks!

Alex

The Sword and the Hounds – the who, what, when, where and why?

Tomorrow is the 23rd of July 2024 and the day my second novel will be released into the wild. To say I’m a little nervous would be an understatement, but I am also very excited. Quite a few people read The Book and the Blade (the first in the Arthur Crazy series) and the reviews are (mostly) positive… except for one bloke who took exception to the fact the main character smokes too much and drinks too much. I mean, that’s kind of the point, but reader spaces are for readers, not for writers. He is absolutely entitled to his opinion. But I digress. I wonder if he’ll read what happens next? Probably not.

The Sword and the Hounds follows directly on from the events of The Book and the Blade and tells the story after the story, so to speak. If The Book and the Blade was about Arthur getting to grips with an ability to communicate with the deceased, The Sword and the Hounds is about him coming to terms with the wider implications that the dead (and assorted bit n bobs n beasts) exist in the first place. It is the hangover after the big night out. There are… injuries. There are… gaps.

I wrote The Sword and the Hounds when we lived in York in 2019… just before COVID hit. If nothing else, it is a love-letter to the town of Richmond and the folklore of Yorkshire. As one of the characters expresses…

It’s Yorkshire. We’re all a little pagan around here.

But really it exists because I fell in love with Arthur and I fell in love with writing. Something clicked in me when I wrote The Book and the Blade and I knew I’d never look back. Even if they never see the light of day and no one reads them, I’ll never stop writing these stories. I’m not sure I can. Full disclosure… there are four complete Arthur novels, two complete tie-in novels, one obscure novel ‘set in the same world’, a script for a graphic novel, a half-written plan for the fifth, and a series of random notes for the sixth and seventh. If you’re along for the ride… it’s a long one… and it’s going to get bumpy! I hope you enjoy it!

But therein lies the rub… Amazon are not making it easy for people (mainly in Australia) to access my books. The price is astronomical and there is nothing my publisher and I can do about it… other than direct you elsewhere.

That’s the who (me), the what (The Sword and the Hounds), and the when (tomorrow) taken care of so now for the ‘where‘.

In a perfect world… your local independent bookshop. The more mysterious and confusing (and possibly a little creepy) the better. One of those old type of bookshops that vanishes like the emporium in the movie, Gremlins. You know what I mean… with corridors and stairs and hidden rooms that will eat you given half a chance. You go in aged 21 and come out with white hair and a sack full of books. Perfect. But if you don’t have one of them… please try my publisher… Parliament House Press. They distribute worldwide.

If you’re in Brisbane, I know Books@Stones have copies of The Book and the Blade in stock… and if they’re still there this time next week they’ll be signed (if they let me scribble in them) and they also have an online listing for The Sword and the Hounds. You’ll be able to order it in and support a local business at the same time. And THAT is the why! Galactic Overlord Bezos can’t have everything, surely!

Any local bookshop should be able to order The Sword and the Hounds… and in a perfect world, if enough people do, they might consider a permanent stock.

One last note for those in the U.K. – – – and this made me do a little happy dance. W.H. Smiths have an online listing for The Sword and the Hounds! That is an absolute dream come true for me! I loved shopping in Smiths when I was a kid (and an adult!) and the thought that you can order my book and pop in to pick it up is the stuff of “pinch-me-I’m-dreaming” fantasy. And I think it all has to do with one dude… the manager of Smiths in Richmond. He was really keen to get the book on the shelf and so we chatted a bit and he took my details. I called him yesterday to say thanks when I noticed the online listing (horrifyingly getting his surname wrong because I’m a forgetful nobhead) and, bizarrely, he said he wasn’t sure it was him. He has begun discussion with head office but couldn’t remember if he’d passed on my name or the name of the book. So… I reckon it is him… it must be… but if it isn’t, that means my little book got on the list at Smith organically. Which is also exceptionally cool. But I include this little anecdote because it illustrates something really important that hits every part of who, what, when, where, and why… every aspect of what I might call success has been achieved thanks to other people. People who read, who support, who encourage, who advise, who critique, and even people who tell me my characters smoke too much.

So, I’ll end this by saying a very heartfelt thank you to you all. If you’re reading this, I have no doubt that I owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you!

Here’s looking forward to tomorrow and all the days after!

Cheers!

(I promise not to be too needy and metaphorically read over your shoulder over the coming weeks. Well, I’ll try really hard!)

Last days of the sale…

The Book and the Blade is on sale over on Amazon, ladies and gents. For the rest of the month (admittedly, not long) it will only cost a few dollars/pounds. So, now is the perfect time to have a little read of my comedy/horror about a drunk loner who sees dead people… because the sequel comes out soon!

There are currently four books in the Arthur Crazy series, with the second, The Sword and the Hounds, slated for the end of July… and there is even a chance that the third, The Saint and the Shadowman, will hit the shelves before the end of the year! Fingers crossed!

After that… well, things get a little odd. The Arthur Crazy series was originally a trilogy, but then the fourth seemed to come from nowhere, and… it’s a bit different. The fourth novel is called, I Draw the Line at ******* Vampires, and I had so much fun writing it.

Now my silly brain is even working on the fifth! Nothing is on paper yet, apart from a smattering of notes on Google Keep and one or two post-its shoved in a diary, but I have this ridiculous plan where all my books tie together in one glorious whole!

And with that, here are the links for The Book and the Blade should it strike your fancy…

Australia – $2.92 United Kingdom – £1.49 USA – $1.99 Canada – $1.99

Cheers folks,

All the best,

Al.

At least when I write stories I (mostly) control what happens…

It has been an interesting few weeks to say the least… Arthur was published on 28th Feb, we had an amazing book launch on 11th March, I threw Albert into the world on the 26th March, work ended on Friday, and I got sick Friday night (this is like the shittiest version of that Craig David song).

On Saturday, I am heading to Emerald to hang around the wonderful new bookshop, Highland Books, and talk a little bit about Arthur… but this morning, I received notification that Australia Post, in their great wisdom, have decided to delay the delivery of my author copies by a week. No reason. No explanation. Just a mocking little green badge that says ‘On Time’. On time, my arse! So, there’s a very real chance I will be heading to a book signing with ONE copy of The Book and the Blade (the reason for the signing in the first place!) and ten copies of Albert the Great Australian Dragon (the daft, local story I self-published for a laugh).

When I ordered author copies in the past, they have always arrived within a week. This time, I placed the order over two weeks ago… so there is still a small chance it’ll work out… but it’s also Australia Post, so who knows?

For those of you in the UK, Australia Post is basically the same as Royal Mail… in EVERY way.

All I can do now is… wait. What’s that old poem? Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to not jump on Twitter and call Australia Post a bunch of twats…

There is literally nothing I can do to make things work out. So, I might as well write, right? At least I can control the things that happen on the page… but even that isn’t entirely true. Yesterday, a main character in my wip died under my tippy-tappy fingertips and I didn’t see it coming. It is a very strange moment indeed when your brain slowly catches up with the words appearing on the screen and you realise where the end of the sentence is heading. I didn’t plan on killing he/she/it. And I certainly didn’t plan on it happening in such a brutal and sudden fashion (I’m pretty sure I used the words fucking eviscerated). It really works though. It’s a good scene, it made me chuckle, but honestly, it’s really buggered the rest of the story. Where the hell do I go now he/she/it is dead?

So that’s what I’m going to focus on today… where to take a 50k word story now one of the main characters is spread all over the ceiling… you know, the things I can (mostly) control.

But if anyone knows the secret cheat code to make Australia Post work more efficiently, I’d really appreciate a whisper in the ear.

Cheers!

Fly my pretty!

Reflections on launching a book into the ether

At one point on Saturday I found myself sitting on the floor of a raised stage while all around me people I knew, people I’d just met, and people I’d never seen before talked and laughed and drank together. The pub was full, a long narrow hall of arcade machines and graffiti-covered walls pressing folk together to share tables and seats… something that could not have happened a year or so ago. Another book was thrust under my nose by a workmate whose grin told me he thought the whole thing was just as ridiculous and surreal as I did. We both laughed and I took another drink… a pint glass in one hand… a pen in the other. That was my name on the cover. My book.

“Sign this for me, mate!”

“Happy to!”

“Book wanker.”

“Yep!”

Saturday saw the launch of The Book and the Blade, and it was absolutely magic! For a few hours I stood, or sat, or leaned against Street Fighter II in a packed pub and talked about a book I wrote. I was surrounded by amazing people, and we were all there for something fun… and creative. The walls were covered in art, arcade games and pinball machines offered a nostalgic soundtrack, and for a short while I lived a dream.

In hindsight, I should have prepared. The writer should at least have written a speech, right? But I didn’t, and so when my friend, Mitch – our impromptu and excellent MC – introduced me to the crowded room I took hold of the mic in what might have been nervous fingers. But they weren’t… not when I got going… not when it mattered. It felt like the most natural thing in the world and I loved it! My wife and friends had made magic happen! I stood on a stage and looked out at the faces of people I knew and loved… friends and family from all over the country who had made the trip, new acquaintances I met in an online writing group who were even more awesome in real life, lovely guests, lovely strangers, and even a few amazing ex-students. Complete magic! It was a whirlwind. I started by thanking everyone but then gave special thanks to my wife… I read the dedication from the start of the novel and explained the truth behind it… the facetiousness… the tongue-in-cheek-ness.

All the best ideas are Kels. Including, and this cannot be stressed enough, to actually have a book launch in the first place!

It almost never happened.

I’m one of those strange characters who can seem a complete extrovert but will quite gladly do nothing if that is an option. I’d already written the book. Hell! It was already published. Doing nothing seemed to be a viable option to me… not to Kel. Only a month or so earlier to this mad day she convinced me to say yes to a launch. I remember the look on her face when I said, ‘Okay, babe. Make it happen.’ There was that smile I love so much followed by the frown of business and she got to work. She called Amy and that was that… game over, Al. Just turn up and do as you’re told!

(If you were there you would have met Amy! She was everywhere! A total legend! I hear her and Mitch even walked through the airport yesterday carrying a poster, still advertising my book!)

So, I did just that… as I was told. I stood up in a room full of people and spoke about my first novel… and I had a bloody great time! When there were gaps that threatened to spread into awkwardness, they were jumped on by Mitch and others who threw questions at me and the whole thing seemed so natural and wonderful that, honestly, I can’t quite believe it really happened. We sold every book and every single bit of merchandise (we had merchandise! Ridiculous!), we gave novellas away, and I signed my name wrong a hundred times, and it was just bloody lovely. People laughed and smiled and even applauded! (madness!) And then it just kept going… social media exploded (in a safe, localised and contained kind of way) with people saying the most wonderful things, and as much as I’m usually reluctant to write stuff like this for fear of tooting my own horn and sounding like an arrogant twat, I figure there are some instances where it’s okay, right? This was one. It was magic. And I loved every second.

My little book is in the world now. Officially launched. In the hands of the gods.

Kel tells me I have to stop being so self-deprecating when I finish these things or when I create ads on social media. “Stop saying I hope you enjoy my book… unless it’s shit”. That sort of thing. So, I promised her I wouldn’t. Not this time. This time I will absolutely not end by saying I hope people don’t think my book is shit.

See.

Much love!

What a week!

This is the week it finally happened, folks… I became a ‘writer’. Oh, sure, I’ve been writing like an addict for years, and I’ve been telling stories since before I could read them (just ask my mam), but on the 28th February my debut novel was released into the wild. For me, that is a dream come true.

To be clear, I don’t simply define a writer as someone who has been published, but in my own worldview, I could never really consider myself achieving that lofty and ambitious title until it happened the old fashioned way. And on Tuesday, it did. The Book and the Blade is out now, ladies and gents, published by the wonderful people at Parliament House Press.

It's real! You can buy it, you can touch it, and if you feel that way inclined, you can even read it!

It has been a surreal week, so I thought I’d give you a bit of a run-through of events so far. Here’s a list:

1) Woke up Tuesday to a message from a lady in Canada who was feeling unwell, so she stayed off work and read half the novel before lunch. She was loving it. I was buzzing before I even got out of bed.

2) I went to work with a copy of the book in my bag and showed my mates like a proud dad.

3) Throughout the day, Instagram and Twitter went a bit nuts with the MTMC book tour under the hashtag #TheBookandTheBladeMTMC. This has been going on all week and it has been so cool to read people’s thoughts and first impressions.

4) An interview with my hometown newspaper was published. It was great. I chatted to the lovely lady via Zoom on Sunday, but for some unknown reason, reading it bummed me out. I don’t know why. Peaks and troughs, I guess. I felt like a fraud.

5) I drank some English ales as the sun set and a box of books arrived at the house. I talked to libraries about adding my book to their list.

6) The lovely Canadian lady finished it, said she loved it, and is waiting for the sequel.

7) Congratuwelldones from all over the place! Photos from friends and strangers holding the book (or screenshots of Amazon saying there’s a delay in delivery 🤣).

8) An interview published by my University Alumni – LOVED this.

9) The book bizarrely ended up on a list alongside my idol, Sir Terry Pratchett and I momentarily lost my damn mind!

10) My mam sent me a photo of me in the local paper.

11) My amazing wife has gone above a beyond organising a book launch this Saturday at one of my favourite bars… Netherworld in Brisbane.

12) And today, as I started writing this, I received an email rejection for another novel. What a bookend to the week!

I must really be a writer now!

A SOMETHING of SOMETHING and SOMETHING

I feel like I’ve missed a trick with The Book and the Blade. It would seem that I did not get the memo regarding the standard structure of novel titles in the contemporary market. Absolutely everything seems to be some combination of A____ of_____ and _______ , and with less than ten days to go it is probably a wee bit late to change things.

A Book of Shadow and Blades?

A City of Drunks and Deceased?

A Blade of Sharp and Pointy?

A Man of Inebriated Regret?

A Midnight Panini of Cajun Chicken and Cheese? (Now THAT’S an in-joke I squeezed into the book for a small number of people!)

Well, folks, regardless of marketing reservations it is officially too late to do anything about it now. The Book and the Blade will be released to the world on February 28th of this year… just 9 short days away at the time of my writing this! To say I’m a tad excited would be like saying Trump was a little bit controversial, but it is an excitement heavily tempered by a creeping pessimism. Imposter syndrome really is a kick in the tits. If it wasn’t for my best friend and amazing wife (same person…also my biggest critic…in a good way!) I would have already closed the door so to speak. It is a really odd thing to write a book…to put everything out there, to create something new you hope people love, and then to tie yourself in knots at the thought of people actually reading the damn thing! With that in mind, it is perhaps no surprise I have let things get this close to release day without doing a damn thing about it.

Kel has different ideas.

Last night, while we waited for our daughter on her first official date no less (where did that time go?!) I officially gave in to my wife’s polite suggestions for a launch party…so now things are going to happen. It’ll be in Brisbane…somewhere. The Saturday after the release date…sometime. And I promise I’ll turn up…maybe.

All jokes aside, it has been an amazing (and stressful) few weeks…writing, editing, doing interviews, checking final proofs, panicking, hyperventilating, drinking…and, of course, unboxing my debut novel!

I hope that if you buy it, you enjoy it, or at the very least, don’t hate it so much you start a campaign against the author that goes viral and he never works in this town again and gets sacked from his day job for bringing the English language into disrepute and is then bundled out of Australia by immigration because they just can’t tolerate such amateurish shite on these sun-drenched shores and then his wife leaves him for being such a failure and his kids change their names to completely disassociate and he ends up selling moody-gold from the back of a car on a racecourse market where he rummages through the discarded betting slips for that one small glimmer of hope (or because he can’t afford toilet paper and needs must) and then he wanders off into the mountains only to be found in a bush hugging a tattered copy of the Beano that reminds him of his shattered hopes and dreams.

Something like that anyway.

Cheers folks!

PARLIAMENT HOUSE PRESS / AMAZON / BARNS AND NOBLE / BOOKTOPIA

I have news!

What a crazy end to the year it has been! My first novel, THE BOOK AND THE BLADE, was originally slated for release in September of this year but of course that didn’t happen for a myriad of reasons. The new publication date is the 28th February, 2023, which bizarrely means my “debut” novel will in fact be my third!

That’s right, due to the self-publication of my ridiculous christmas horror novel – REINDEER GAMES – and the news I just received that ROCK ZOMBIE will be published at the end of January 2023, it turns out I’ll have three books out in the wild before I turn 41!

I know what you’re thinking, Oh bugger! That’s too much Al in such a short space of time! Well, now you know how my poor wife and kids feel! 🤣

In all honesty though, I’m chuffed to bits. I never thought Reindeer Games would get much traction (and by big boy standards, it hasn’t) but I was really stoked when it sold over 100 copies. Right now, that number is slowly creeping towards 150. So, thank you to everyone who downloaded and read it!

The Book and the Blade is the story I’ve had in my head for over 20 years and I can’t wait for you to read it. The basic premise is a guy gets drunk and sees ghosts but he’s so drunk he doesn’t know they’re ghosts. There’s obviously a lot more to it but that’s the start 🤣 It is being published by the wonderful people at Parliament House Press in the US and is part of a four book series.

And Rock Zombie is a story about a young man who dies and comes back as a ghost AND a zombie. That’s right, his body reanimates and his ghost has to follow it around trying to stop it from eating people. This one has a killer soundtrack as it’s set in the 90s. In fact, each chapter is the title of a famous song from the time. Here’s the playlist…

There is a mock-up book cover but the real deal has yet to be finalised. Rock Zombie is being published in the UK by Britain’s Next Bestseller who are based in my hometown of Redcar where the story is set, which is wonderfully serendipitous. I’m kind of hoping there’ll be time to arrange a book cover design by the amazing Hello Moon Creative, who is a tattoo artist from Redcar. Keeping it local! (But available everywhere!)

So that’s it, exciting times ahead but of course the year is not over yet. There are a couple of days left where REINDEER GAMES is still available to download for free! That offer runs out at 7pm on Christmas Day if you’re in the AEST zone… 8am Christmas Day in GMT… and 1159pm on Christmas Eve for PST. The link above will take you to the right page (I hope).

Thanks everyone for reading this and reading my silly bollocks. It’s really fun to write such nonsense and send it out into the world. Thank you all and Merry Christmas!

Flibbertygibbets and jiggerypokery

A lot has happened in a short space of time so I thought I’d write a little post to let everyone know what the flibbertygibbets is going on.

– The Book and the Blade has a new release date – February 28th, 2023. I’ve known for quite a while that this was going to happen and I’ll be honest, I was gutted at first, but it is for the best. The reason is due to some jiggerpokery at the publishers that meant the original schedule couldn’t be kept. Not really a problem, my debut novel will still come out in my 40th year and I think that’s pretty cool.

– About that ‘debut novel’ thing. Well, The Book and the Blade might not end up being my debut after all. I still have a publisher interested in getting Rock Zombie into print… there’s a small chance it could happen before February, but who knows?

– I finished another book. This one is set where I live in Australia and is called The Last Witch in Brisbane. There is an uncomfortable number of people beta reading it for me. I’m scared.

– Speaking of other books, there are four Arthur Crazy stories in total and they are all complete. In fact, it’s really surreal to me that no one has read Arthur’s first adventure and I’ve finished a whole story arc!

– The cover for the second book will be announced sooner than you think and hopefully, the release of the four books will be more condensed than first planned.

– Each book will be available in eBook, hardback and paperback formats from pretty much anywhere you can buy books. There is also a possibility of an audiobook release but I’m not 100% on that just yet.

– Last but not least, following advice from people I really respect, I have delved into the young person’s world of TikTok. I don’t know what I’m doing and honestly, once I’ve waded past all the shiny young people waving their tits at the camera I feel more than a little uncomfortable being there… so I’m going about it with my usual sense of professionalism and attention to detail.

Oh, and I’m writing. In fact, I’m writing the story I’ve wanted to write since before I could read (🤔, but more on that later.

Cheers folks!

A few things…

There are now less than seven weeks to go until The Book and the Blade is released into the wild so I thought I’d write a little post in order to give some updates.

– pre-orders for the ebook are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Booktopia, Kobo and more

– pre-orders for hardback and paperback are available on the Parliament House Press website (though I think these are US only at the moment)

– there will be ebook, hardback and paperback available eventually but there are some fun issues in the publishing industry at the moment so physical copies might take a wee bit longer

– I forgot about the merchandise stuff… my bad… I’ll make sure shirts and whatnot are available for those who might like that sort of thing

– I have a marketing meeting at the beginning of August which is extraordinarily grown-up and I’ll have to try my best not to giggle like an idiot all the way through it

– there is a tenative venue for the book launch – Netherworld Arcade and Bar in Brisbane – but I’m not entirely sure when the launch will be. There isn’t really much point in doing a proper shindig unless I have physical books to flog so that is a work in progress. Also, the book is released on a Tuesday and I don’t think anyone will show up to an event in the city on a week night like that. The next available date is the following Sunday… which is 9/11… so that’s a solid no

– there are sequels… they are finished

– a very kind person invited me to speak at a small event in September because, and I quote, “you’re an author” and honestly, it took me a moment to realise they weren’t taking the piss!

– a good mate of mine who is a wonderfully talented photographer is going to take ‘author photos’ of me in August. It is going to be… chaotic. We were just about crying laughing coming up with ideas. Sure, I could take it seriously, or…

– I found out Lord Bezos and his Amazonian Algorithms are making books vanish from lists if they get less than four stars… so please, if you do review my little book, give it 4 or 5 stars on Amazon… and then 1 on Goodreads ;-D

– I’m writing again. Averaging a thousand words a day

– my mam is very proud of me… for now… she won’t be if she ever reads the bloody thing! 😀