Summer is upon us, and you know what that means: it’s time to soak up some sunshine and go on many, many road trips! However, before embarking on your next adventure, prepping the car is essential. Without the right preventive measures, your car is more susceptible to breaking down and suffering unexpected problems.

To lower those risks, check out these five ways to prep your car like a pro before a road trip:

1. Get professional maintenance service and a tune-up

Never leave for a road trip before taking your car in for a tune-up at the auto-shop. It’s imperative that you get an oil change, check the fluid levels of the coolant system, and test to see if your air conditioner, lights, turn signals, and general braking system are working properly. In addition, make sure the battery is securely in place, the tires are not under-inflated, and no serpentine belts are damaged. Not only does your car need to perform at its best, it should be unquestionably safe to drive. 

2. Read up on your car manual 

You should know your car better than anyone else. That’s why it’s imperative you take action to read up on car maintenance. In times of trouble on the road, a professional will most likely not be there to help us. But when we educate ourselves on basic car repairs and learn how to do them, like replacing a flat tire or jumpstarting a battery, stress and anxiety will be the last things on our minds during those scenarios. 

3. Clean everything inside and out

A clean car never fails to feel like a new car. Therefore, clean out your interior by throwing away trash, wiping grime off surfaces, and vacuuming dirt off the floor. Applying car interior dressing can help protect surfaces and keep them looking fresh, giving your car a polished finish. Being stuck in a dirty and messy vehicle for hours on end is just a nightmare! Regarding the exterior, give the car a good wash and wax to add an extra layer of protection against outside elements. Plus, in the long run, keeping your car clean combats premature deterioration and damage.

4. Organize an emergency kit and important documents

Put together an emergency kit if you haven’t already. You never know when unforeseen circumstances will happen. Within a car emergency kit, include basic medical supplies, clothes suited for all types of weather, a flashlight, flares, emergency money, and jumper cables. Subsequently, keep important documents in the glove box such as a copy of your driver’s license, insurance, and car registration. In the event that an officer pulls you over or an accident with another driver occurs, you will be prepared to immediately present your information to them.

5. Make accommodations to the passengers if necessary 

Consider the passengers riding in the vehicle with you: kids, a significant other, friends, pets, etc.? Each person will have different needs that must be fulfilled to feel at ease on the road. For example, kids are less likely to throw tantrums if they have some form of entertainment by their side, such as a book, game, or snack. A significant other, on the other hand, may spend the entire road trip in the front seat and would love to pack extra pillows to make themselves more comfortable. Pets should stay secure in place with a harness or reside in a crate; just like we need seatbelts, our pets require the same precaution of safety in the event of an accident. 

A road trip is by far one of the most fun trips you can take in the summer. What could be better than a promising open road, new experiences, and precious time spent with loved ones? 

But before you make this summer even better than the last one, make sure your car is 100% prepped and prepared for a road trip so you and your passengers are always safe and ready for anything that arises while having a blast. 

This delightful pull-along turtle is part of the Pepe & Friends series by Hape. As with all Hape toys, it is high quality and lovely to look at. For grandmas like me, the unique feel of old-fashioned wood, merged with a modern design is just perfect and takes me back to my own childhood (I find this is happening just a bit too often nowadays).

Its eye-catching light green body contrasts with the dark green ‘shell’ – which is actually a circle filled with green liquid, which turns. This makes the liquid splash into the different segments, creating attractive shapes, as the toddler pulls it along.

It is a nice size – big enough to catch the interest of your little one, but small and light enough for them to handle easily, when they have just got the hang of walking.

I know my grandson loves it – and that is the ultimate test, isn’t it?

www.hape.com/uk/en

By Dr K Thompson, author of From Both Ends of the Stethoscope: Getting through breast cancer – by a doctor who knows

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A7DM42Q http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A7DM42Q

http://faitobooks.co,uk

Ellie Holmes, 2nd place prize winner of the International Words for the Wounded Independent Author Book Award with he wonderful The Flower Seller tells Frost Magazine readers about her day – as an author.

When the sun is shining I like nothing better than to relocate from my study to the garden. I only have a small garden but I have worked hard to create a calming oasis full of colour and interest. It is a place for calm and relaxation, wonder and inspiration.

I am not blessed with a garden office – now there’s a tempting thought – but I do have a lovely patio table and chairs set in the shade of a red Acer with roses in bloom above my head.

It is the perfect spot to while away a few hours working on the plot of my latest novel. Although my wi-fi does reach this part of the garden, I try not to get distracted by the constant whirl of social media. I limit myself to having a quick look at Facebook and Twitter whenever I take a tea break. Writers need to be disciplined. You have to put in the hours whether you are feeling it or not, waiting for the elusive muse to descend is not an option for the serious writer.

When I need to refill the well of creativity I will take a break for an hour or so and take my longhaired Dachshund Willow for a walk across the nearby fields. Enjoying the countryside and watching Willow mooch along chasing captivating scents and bugs, allows my subconscious to work out any kinks in my complex plots. Often, I will come back from a walk with a fresh idea or an insight into what I had previously thought was an intractable problem without even being aware I have been thinking about it.

If the words are flowing I will work for as long as I feel comfortable but I never write myself dry. Ernest Hemingway espoused: “…never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.” I always work like this. It means that when you start work the next time you have something to say, you are never left staring at an empty screen bereft of ideas.

When I am writing a first draft I will write the whole thing from start to finish. Only once the bones of the story are down will I go back and start the lengthy process of editing and polishing.

I am pantser not a planner. I always know how my stories are going to start and how they are going to finish but I never know how I am going to get from the beginning to the end. It keeps the journey interesting.

Ellie Holmes writes commercial women’s fiction. 

http://Author.to/EllieHolmes

This is the inaugural year of the Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award for Independent Authors. Georgina died, too young, in 2017. As a senior editor at Arrow, Georgina was determined that her authors should fulfil their potential, and, more, she was also a great supporter of WforW. To commemorate her life, the three grannies who run Words for the Wounded determined that Georgina should be honoured. To this end Margaret, Jan and Penny renamed the competition and re-jigged its structure. So now there are four categories.

This year they are delighted  that not only are the entry numbers up, so too is the standard. ‘It is heart warming to see so many excellent entries, and a great treat to read them and Georgina would be thrilled.’ Of course, though, there have to be winners and ultimately the team led by Milly Adams, one of her authors, reached unanimous decisions. As in the Non-Fiction Category, the WforW judging team decided on joint 2^nd place winners: ‘Just too close to call’. These will be discussed on 12 June.

 Fiction Category

1^st Place: Little Mouse by Judi Moore

After Kristallnacht in 1938 Doktor Theodore Goldstein, his wife Lisl, and their small son Theo, flee from Berlin to Edinburgh, where they find succour with a relative and build a new life. But then a friend from the old days arrives, a friend who might not be what he seems. Or perhaps it’s what he has been all along?

Little Mouse is what any fiction judging team longs for, a book which is different, and it is one that this team felt was supreme. Little Mouse is succinctly written, structured perfectly, the point of view intact, the characterisation of all the characters spot on, even to the ‘voice’ of the almost four year old, Theo. Within a page it becomes unputdownable, and sustains the attention, leading the reader to the ultimate question: ‘What would I do?’

Judi Moore captures exactly, or so one imagines, the sense of peril felt by this Jewish family in Nazis Germany. She understands the historical perspective, and steadily peels back the layers to reveal the true nature of the friend, but can he really be as they suspect?

Moore’s understated style is multi-layered and subtle as we follow the passage of Theo’s young life as he is forced to burst into an early maturity. Decisions must be made, but what will be the cost to him?

Does this sound tantalising? Well it should. We were all left feeling thoughtful, stretched, enlightened, and moved. Such a novel, such writing and still that question: what would we do?

More about Judi Moore:

I’ve been a professional writer since 1997 producing poetry; long and short fiction; and reviews of poetry, books and music. Between 2006 and 2013 I worked as a part-time creative writing tutor at university level. In 2016 I was commissioned by the Open University choir to write lyrics for a 20-minute piece of music for choir, brass ensemble and percussion, premiered in November 2017.

As I have not, so far, hit the big time with my writing I’ve been living on fresh air and bowls of steam for more than 20 years. And I’ve enjoyed every day of it. I love being steeped in writing: making it, reading it, reviewing and beta-reading other people’s, and providing workshops and teaching materials to enhance other people’s practice of it.

And more about Little Mouse:

The first novel I published (by no means the first I wrote) was Is death really necessary? It is set in 2038, as some of what happens in it is still beyond our current technology. I decided that Theo Goldstein should be a factor throughout the book. To fulfill that purpose the reader had to first meet him as a small child and then re-encounter him as an old man. The book needed to start with a bang, so I started jotting down dates, working back 100 years from various points in the future and seeing what was happening around then that looked bangworthy. And there was Kristallnacht, an event I’d always wanted to write about. So I set the beginning of the book on Kristallnacht 1938 and used their experiences in 1938 to show what had made the family so dysfunctional by the beginning of Is death really necessary? in 2038.

Unsurprisingly, all that luscious backstory completely overwhelmed the novel’s actual story. I cut. And cut. And cut. Which left all this unused good stuff in forlorn electronic piles. When the dust of publishing Death had settled I revisited those piles. I reckoned if I could develop a plot to weave through, something worthwhile could be made of it. In the interstices of other work I evolved the story about a villain from the war threatening the Goldsteins new life in Edinburgh. Herr Dr Schmeling (also cut from Death) immediately recommended himself as a suitable scoundrel. Et voilá.

http://www.judimoore.wordpress.com

Little Mouse by Judi Moore, pub in conjunction with Moo Kow Press.

Available from Amazon.co.uk in e-book and paperback: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Mouse-Judi-Moore/dp/1785100998/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528378014&sr=8-1&keywords=Judi+moore+Little+Mouse

Noah Charney aims to convince us that ‘it is important to study what has been lost, and why, to understand how art can best be preserved in the future, to appreciate what has survived and just how delicate is that miraculous fraction of mankind’s creative history.’ He is passionate and eloquent and persuasive.

Heather Benning, The Dollhouse: Dusk #3, 2007, printed 2011, Kodak Endura digital C-print, 50.8 × 76.2 cm (20 × 30 in) Picture credit: Courtesy of Heather Benning (page 204, upper)

How can art be lost? Quite easily, it seems. In sixteenth century Italy artists sought to have sprezzatura, a ‘studied carelessness’ which meant making the work look easy – and therefore it was the practice to destroy preparatory drawings. We know Michelangelo did this – and can only imagine what we have lost. Most losses, though, have their roots in natural disasters, human greed or  prejudice, or were simply collateral damage. This is, in many ways, a melancholy book.

Still from the film Le mystère Picasso, 1956, dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot. Picture credit: © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2018 (page 200)

After a comprehensive introduction the sections of The Museum of Lost Art are organised into types of loss: Theft, War, Accident and so on until the intriguing Lost, or Never Was. The conclusion which follows allows us some hope of future recoveries, and instances of earlier unexpected finds – and less unexpected negotiated ransoms. Charney also considers the value of 3D printing (the reimagining of Palmyra’s Arch of Triumph which was rebuilt in Trafalgar Square) and ends with a sad story of the ultimate piece of performance art.

Each section is enclosed  within the story of a work of art which was once lost but eventually found or recovered. Within each section is history, drama and exploration which gives the research an often gripping pace without losing contact with its evident scholarly roots. I found it fascinating. The story of art thief Adam Worth (apparently the model for Conan Doyle’s Moriarty, but far more engaging) is worth a film in its own right.

The high quality art work which illustrates this book is a poignant reminder of some of what has been lost. Read this book for the adventure and drama it reveals, but also let it make you grateful for what remains. And remember that one of the reasons for the founding of our National Gallery was to preserve artworks against the chances of loss through human carelessness or greed.

Museum of Lost Art by Noah Charney. Pub Phaidon £19.95

This is the inaugural year of the Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award for Independent Authors. As many of you will know by now, Georgina died in 2017. As a senior editor at Arrow, Georgina was determined that her authors should fulfil their potential, and, more, she was also a great supporter of WforW. To commemorate her life, the three grannies who run Words for the Wounded determined that Georgina should be honoured. To this end they renamed the competition and re-jigged its structure. So now we have four categories.

This year,  Margaret Graham, Penny Deacon and Jan Speedie are delighted to say that not only are the entry numbers up, so too is the standard. ‘It is heart warming to see so many excellent entries, and a great treat to read them;Georgina would be thrilled. Of course, though, there have to be winners and ultimately our team led by Milly Adams, one of Georgina’s authors, reached unanimous decisions. Unusually for WforW, we have joint 2^nd place winners in two of the categories, so close was the standard.’

Frost Magazine  featured First Place on 9th June, so now we bring you up to speed on the Joint 2nd Place winners.

Joint 2nd Place (in no particular order) :

a Testament of Grief  – Jennifer Wilkin Shaw

A personal memoir exploring the passage of grief by a widowed mother who has lost her fourteen year old daughter.

No, it’s not an out of control reveal, but more a prose poem which explores and narrates the path of grief. On the one hand she talks to her daughter, on the other she compares her grief with that of Mary, mother of Jesus, who also experienced the horror of a lost child.

Judges’ Comments:

a Testament of Grief is written in short paragraphs, just like the fragmented thought line of a person in pain and despair. A painful but beautiful book to read as the author questions herself, her daughter, life.  For those who have lost a child, or wish to understand those who have, this is essential reading.

As Jennifer Wilkin Shaw charts her way through the treacherous waters of a bottomless grief, towards a very distant shore, we hope it it might make others feel not quite so alone.

Jennifer says: When my daughter Charlotte died on Dartmoor, it felt like my life was over. Having already lost my husband to suicide I was terrified. But strangely, and without realising it I was slowly  becoming fluent in a topic I would never have chosen; grief. In order to move forward I had to  accept these metaphorical lemons that life had given me.

It was then I  discovered that trauma is like compost. New life and creativity can spring from it. I was compelled to write about the grief in a new and surprising way. This gave rise to a book that doesn’t leave anything out: the truth about grief, warts and all, and I mean all!

From this – others who were suffering would have a companion and be spared the shame and aloneness of something  we find so hard to talk about.

Born to a sunny Sri Lankan secretary and a Canadian musician in a two room London flat, Jennifer attended one of the capital’s finest schools. A risk taker, she has owned/ run successful restaurants in Norwich, London and Devon and has worked for Devon’s Health Service co-ordinating Smoking Cessation services, creating breakfast clubs and reducing inequalities.

Winner of the Temull cup for English, Jennifer, a History of Art graduate understands suffering. Her constant smile belies her husband’s suicide and the sudden death of her only child Charlotte, on Dartmoor, which made international news. She wrote about the grief and ‘A Testament of Grief’ was born. Among the online reviews is the word ‘Masterpiece’.

Having staged her own musical, Jennifer has now finished writing a talk on Spider-Man, trauma and creativity. Her third play- about domestic violence, the protagonist, a 90 year old demented female killer, will have its second read shortly. She is also working on her second book.

Jennifer lives in Frithelstockstone, Devon which you can’t say after 10 Gins to a taxi driver. Luckily she survives on tap water and drives an old rust bucket.  She often writes in coffee shops with a sharp pencil and a macchiato.

a Testament of Grief by Jennifer Wilkin Shaw pub Simone Bluestock Publishing

Available as e-book or paperback from Amazon.co.uk.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Testament-Grief-Mothers-Story-Survival/dp/0995594902

https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.wilkinshaw

Joint 2^nd Place: Odd Man Out – A Motiveless Murder?   By Denise Beddows

The Words for the Wounded judging team could not separate  a Testament of Grief and Odd Man Out   so, as mentioned,  they’ve created a joint 2^nd place.

Odd Man Out is an extraordinarily well researched and, the judging team felt, empathetic sensitive exploration of a murder.

In post war Rawtenstall, a Lancashire mill town, an elderly woman, Nancy Chadwick, was brutally murdered 70 years ago. A transgendered conductress, Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen was arrested, and convicted for this apparently motiveless crime, though she barely knew Nancy Chadwick. Margaret  was duly hanged.

So what do we know about Nancy? She was an elderly woman, described by her own family as abnormal and was found beaten to death. Five days later a suspect, also deemed ‘abnormal’ was arrested. So was this a case of an easy ‘fix’ based on prejudice and ignorance? Or was it a correct conviction?

Judges’ Comments:

70 years on, Denise Beddows painstakingly explores the event, but never loses accessibility or immediacy. The wealth of research material never becomes heavy, just intriguing as Beddows reveals detailed information which gives body to the crime. Is that an unfortunate use of words? Perhaps, but it becomes clear that information was suppressed, so was this conviction in 1948, during a bitter winter and when Britain was still recovering from the war, a miscarriage of justice?

Did the wrong person hang? Read it and decide. Beddows has produced a cracking real life  ‘whodunit’.

Denise shared with Frost Magazine her reasons for writing Odd Man Out. which as titles go, is a cracker.

A couple of years ago, I stumbled across mention of a 1948 murder which had taken place in a law-abiding community in Lancashire. Former wartime bus conductress, the transgendered  Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen, had brutally slain a 68 year-old woman whom she barely knew. Surprisingly, perhaps, it was the first murder ever recorded in the town. Even more surprising was the fact that my mother, an avid fan of tabloid murder reports who had also worked on the buses in wartime Lancashire, had never once mentioned the execution of one of her fellow ‘clippies’. Press reports on the case were few and mostly inaccurate, so I felt I had to learn more. On scrutinising the police and criminal files, medical and prison records etc., I was shocked to discover that critical witness testimony had been suppressed by the police and vital lines of enquiry not followed up.  Described by the trial judge as a ‘senseless and motiveless killing’, the case had sunk without trace into the dusty annals of crime.  With the seventieth anniversary of the murder approaching, however, I felt it was time to take another look at this allegedly ‘motiveless murder’.

Chalfont St Peter based author Denise Beddows has lived, worked and played in 20 countries across several continents but has maintained a home base in Buckinghamshire since 1982. With a background in research, investigation and intelligence analysis, Denise nowadays writes biographical fiction, local history, true crime and screenplays, both under her own name and as DJ Kelly. A member of the Society of Women Writers & Journalists and of the Society of Authors, she has had over 100 articles published in local, national and international press and journals and she reviews books, films and plays for journals, societies and publishers.

A volunteer researcher for several history and heritage groups, she regularly gives talks to a variety of community groups. She is married with one grown-up daughter.

Denise, who also writes under the name of D J Kelly, has also written the well received Buckinghamshire Spies & Subversives, The Famous and Infamous of The Chalfonts and Gerrards Cross, Chalfont St Peter and Gerrards Cross at War, A Wistful Eye – The Tragedy of a Titanic Shipwright, Running with Crows – The Life and Death of a Black and Tan, Homes for Heroes – Life in a 1940s Prefab (ghost written with Joan Brant).

The blurb describes this book from Phaidon as ‘sumptuous’. It’s not wrong. From the deep orange and bright gold of its cover to the weight of its paper and, more importantly, the quality of its illustrations, Flying Too Close to the Sun, is a delight to browse. But there is far more to it than this, which makes it more than yet another glossy coffee table art book.

Twenty five of the most celebrated Greek and Roman myths are organised from the divinities (and monsters) of creation to the utterly human plaything of the gods themselves, Oedipus. Some, possibly all, will be familiar but the fascination is in seeing and comparing the ways in which artists from antiquity to the present have chosen to depict them.

Mat Collishaw Narcissus 1990 – print on resin coated paper

19.3 x 29.2 cm. Tate London. Picture credit courtesy of the artist and Blain Southern. (p 133)

Interestingly, the compilers of this book have chosen not to organise the illustrations of over 200 artworks chronologically. Within the compass of each myth you might see Velasquez beside Hirst (Arachne) or John Armstrong beside Canova (Icarus). We are not allowed to assume that there is a development over history in our appreciation of myth, although I began to be intrigued by what the unusual focus of a particular period might say about that period’s preoccupations. In the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first, there seems to be a marked emphasis on Narcissus.

This is a book to be dipped into, but it is also one which you will find absorbs you for far longer than you initially intended. Its scope is relatively limited (twenty five western European myths) but encompasses the whole span of human art. And, if your recollection of the relationships of gods, heroes, monsters and wars has faded a little, there is a very helpful appendix. The short texts that accompany each illustration reveal the fascinating and sometimes unexpected links between the artwork and the myth.

Holding this book (seat yourself comfortably, this is not a light volume in any sense of the word), you may be reminded, as I was, of the joy of turning actual pages and eventually closing real, glowing, covers. By the way, look closely at the detail of the sun’s image on the front, it’s worth it.

Flying Too Close To The Sun pub Phaidon   £39.95

As Frost Magazine have mentioned before, this is the inaugural year of the Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Award for Independent Authors. Georgina died, too young, in 2017. As a senior editor at Arrow, Georgina was determined that her authors should fulfil their potential, and, more, she was also a great supporter of WforW. To commemorate her life, the three grannies who run Words for the Wounded determined that Georgina should be honoured. To this end they renamed the competition and re-jigged its structure. So now there are four categories.

This year the grannies are delighted to say that not only are the entry numbers up which will enable them to do more to help veterans, so too is the standard. ‘It is heart warming to see so many excellent entries, and a great treat to read them and Georgina would be thrilled.’

Of course, though, there have to be winners and ultimately the team led by Milly Adams, one of Georgina’s authors, unanimously arrived at the winners of all categories – absolutely no blood on the floor. Unusually for WforW though, they  have created joint 2^nd place winners for two categories, so impossible to separate were those entries. Today Frost Magazine features the winner of the Non-Fiction Category. Tomorrow the joint 2nd place winners.

1^st Place: If It Wasn’t For That Dog!  – Michael Forester

A beautifully written exploration of a journey from sound into silence, and the subsequent arrival of a companion of inestimable worth.

From page one we get a handle on the man, his denial of his increasing deafness, the changes his loss of hearing brings, his humanity, his laugh aloud humour, and how Michael Forester made his life work with the help of his AD, (assistance dog); his pal, his companion, his Matt.

His Matt who gives him confidence, fills in for his hearing, and makes him laugh, usually.

Judges’ Comments: Forester drives a structurally sound memoir, enlightening the reader on every page – did you know that one should make sure light falls on your face, when in the company of a deaf person, so that lips can be read? Such practicalities leap off the page, as does the sheer fun of living with the beloved Matt. We become aware of Forester’s spirituality, his practicality, and the confidence that builds through his partnership with Matt. What a character – Matt’s we mean, but Michael Forester has a whacking dollop too, and a writing talent.

Read it, learn, enjoy. Not often the two come together into such an energetic satisfying whole. The judging team loved it.

But let’s hear more about Michael and of course, Matt:

Some are born with silver spoons in their mouths. Michael Forester was born with a pen in his hand.

Of course, it was immediately pinched by his big brother who put it on a shelf too high for him to reach. He got his own back though. He nicked his brother’s abacus and hid behind the sofa with it. Thus his accountancy and entrepreneurial career was born, but always clouded by a nagging suspicion that his true calling had something to do with writing.

By the time he was 30 he was finally tall enough to reach the shelf, and took down the pen. This induced a bout of split personality disorder in which he oscillated between pillaging the stock market and writing books teaching others how to make incalculably vast sums of money (one was called Going for Growth and the other, How to Make More Profit). Unfortunately, they didn’t make incalculably vast sums of money themselves.

The millennium year saw a complete volte-face (millennia can be quite feisty like that, Michael says – still, not to worry, he’s fully prepared for the next one) in which he determined to devote his life to poetry, fiction and life writing. The first result was If It Wasn’t For That Dog!, about his first year with his beloved hearing dog, Matt. Michael has been severely and progressively deafened from the age of 30 onwards.

Michael wrote the book during the all-important first year he spent with Matt,  living in the New Forest, learning how to work in a hearing dog partnership. Matt was trained to hear sounds around Michael’s home (the door bell, the smoke alarm etc.) and alert him. He ventures out and about with Michael, in a distinctive maroon coat, acting as a vital visible indicator of an invisible disability.

In 2017 Michael began travelling internationally, speaking inspirationally and signing books for his many international followers. That first trip, to the Philippines, was followed in 2018 by a second, covering Cambodia, Thailand and a return visit to the Philippines. Further tours are planned for 2019 and beyond.

Now at the venerable age of 62 Michael divides his time between Tenerife and the UK as wel as travels internationally in support of his work. He numbers dryads and angels amongst his closest friends.

His children look on aghast as he squanders their inheritance on such profligacies as A4 printing paper and laser toner cartridges.

They need have no concern. He plans to leave them the pen.

Michael’s web site, michaelforester.co.uk is regularly updated with details of his activities and includes a widely read blog at michaelforester.co.uk/blog

If it Wasn’t for That Dog! by Michael Forester: pub Paralight Press. Available from Amazon.co.uk  in e-book and paperback.

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