Summer Holidays and assorted stuff

Hello Everybody.
Well I do try to be more efficient but somehow it never quite works out the way I intend it to. Hence another big lull in my blog! hey ho.

I have been busy though. What with the proofs of SHATTERED LIVES to check and a new synopsis and story-line to plan. I have so many ideas spinning around all the time that I try and write them down when I think of them but then when I need them I have to unscramble the crazy notes and make sense of them again.

So far I'm working with the title WHATEVER THE COST.... I like that. I really need a working title before I can get on with the actual manuscript, even if it changes further along the line. (And most of them do.) Its another of my writing quirks, like completely editing a chapter before I can move on to the next one. I just can't move on if its not right.

I'm also working on some short stories and travel features that I should have done by now. Will let you know what happens to them in due course.
Memo to self.... take a course in time management! I have the time, I just don't manage it properly!
memo to Chris my accountant. I'm doing it, I'm doing it!


If you've mailed me in the past few weeks and not had a response it is probably because I managed to lose an email file with them in. I now have it back (thanks to someone more techy than me) and I will be working my way through them all shortly. Big apologies for the delay. Also... could I ask that you put a title heading in the post? if its blank it sometimes gets whisked away by my super- spammer.

We went to McArthur Glen Outlet Shopping Mall a couple of weeks ago; it's a whiz down the M20 from here, there are lots of shops, easy parking and open-air. We really like it there. Anyway..... on the way down we were overtaken by a convoy of Bentley Continental Convertibles. Eight of them. Now this car is my my 'lottery' car, my 'one day maybe' car. I love it and lust after it but eight together? who was in them? where were they going? Any suggestions anyone? A clutch of premier footballers off on a beano?

We ourselves passed a convoy of classic cars (which I guess were off to a show) that included my all-time favourite the MGA. Aaahh, such nostalgia and envy. Not many of them around now. I looked it up in a car mag and they cost a fortune. Not as much as Bentley Continental though. (Dream on Kennedy-Dream on and Move On!)

Tis the festival season and accompanying camping. Not for me though. Unless I can be allocated a five star Winnebago in the VIP section with a backstage pass and access to the air-con marquee at the back.
The braver members of the family are off the V and Reading having already visited a couple of smaller ones. Fingers crossed for them for a lack of mud.

next month I have the deep joy of seeing the 'skin doctor' to see if I need yet another dubious surface lesion removed. This time on the front of my leg.
This is a legacy of my time in Singapore and Nigeria when I would fry every weekend in the hope that one day I would develop a golden tan! Wrong! I think I am on my last layer of skin now so I'm careful. Barn doors and bolting horses spring to mind.
I do however get tired of medico's remonstrating with me as if it's something I can back and change! Yes, I know NOW it was daft, but I didn't then!

Will list the second half of my 'Top Twenty things to do before I'm Pat It' list next time and I'll also tell you about my latest toy. The ASUS EEE handbag sized PC. very gorgeous.


On that note I'm off again. xx

Quote of the day: AGE AND TREACHERY WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER YOUTH AND SKILL.

STOP PRESS

MY NEW WEBSITE IS UP AND RUNNING AT: www.bernardinekennedy.com

do take a look and let me know what you think.

News And Catch Up

Well, I'm back from the annual RNA conference at Chichester University and what fun that was! Old friends, new friends, good food and nightly kitchen parties! How retro is that? Did I think I was 20 again? Oh yes!
Of course there were also very good speakers and a cross section of interesting talks in between the socialising.

A good time was had by all. Sadly I had to leave on Sunday (I had booked until monday but sometimes things happen to get in the way of FUN) so missed sunday night's revelries.

The weather en route home was horrendous; not since I drove across Alligator Alley in Florida on the outer edge of a hurricane have I had to negotiate such a nightmare drive. But Hey! I made it back though I doubt some of the lunatics who overtook me at ridculous speed did!

Same again on Monday on the road out of London. Thrashing wind and rain and idiot drivers; Are we going tropical in the UK? I have managed to grow a rather large and very gorgeous Palm in the garden so maybe we are.

Sadly came back to find our family of robins who were nesting in the holly bush wiped out by Ollie the kitten-cat. Mum, dad and fledgelings. I guess the torrential rain had them foraging on the ground for insects and he somehow got the lot of them. He is a very hunting-orientated feline, maybe because his mummy was a Siamese?? Sometimes I hate cats but, as Ian said, it's nature.
Okay. sometimes I hate nature then!

Of course the birds also come in for my wrath sometimes.... one minute the cherry tree was heaving with fruit then whoooosh, in comes a swarm of starlings! No cherries for us this year. I tried to hose them away but they pulled in their wings, closed their eyes tight and sat it out. Second year running they've caught me out! Must learn to pick earlier.

Currently reading the latest book by Andrew Gross who used to be a co-writer with James Patterson. AG's first book was brilliant and this one, 'The Dark Tide' is shaping up the same. I've brought a stack of books back from the conference to add to my already heaving To-Be-Read pile but must, must, get my new storyline going before I read anymore.

I would like you all to join me in wishing a pox on the thieving git who stole my credit card details from the internet and spent a heap of money on tools /mobile phones / having his/her car unclamped in Liverpool. Top marks to NatWest fraud department who realised and phoned me to check! Phew......

Must make a quick mention of Aunty G who dies recently aged 98. Great old lady, great old age. RIP.

Now I'm away to work on my new outline..........
Till next time

Bernardine xx