Greenish Fingers

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It is a fairly little-known fact that I am in possession of no less than three City & Guilds qualifications in Horticulture. Or, to put it another way, I have certificates in how to grow things. I acquired them when I left school at the delicate age of 16 with absolutely no direction or inclination about what I was going to do with myself other than get drunk, smoke fags, listen to heavy metal music and yank myself off every night.

And then a kindly man at the local Jobcentre suggested that I go on a Youth Opportunity Programme at Brooksby College where I would be taught all the finer things about Horticulture and gain said certificates. Well, it was better than sitting at home listening to Black Sabbath all day (marginally) and the princely sum of £25 a week would come in handy.

And no, £25 was not a lot of money back then, even in 1982.

But I figured it was a start in life so what the hey!

And I had fun working in Brooksby’s Horticultural Department. I made some good friends and had a few humorous mishaps for myself. It was my first proper job that involved me to work 8 hours a day 5 days a week. It gave me that sense of needing to drag my lazy arse out of bed every morning and go and earn my fiver a day.

After the initial one year on the course I sadly had to leave the department and find employment at other garden-based jobs, one of which was at a stately home where I had the time of my life blasting around 4 acres of lawn on a sit on mower every Friday. And yes, there’s a small element of what I used to do in Joe Wilkie’s Blessham adventures. Fortunately, unlike Joe, my employer was a rather kindly and dotty old lady, although some of her opinions on crime prevention mirrored those of Lady Stark-Raven. A harmless old girl though.

My career in Horticulture lasted until I was about 19 when I jumped ship for the food industry and I waved goodbye to my trowel and pruning knife for pastures new and greater fiscal rewards. Maybe it was a bit daft of me to take such a swift career curve and to forsake all I had learned; I don’t know. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I suppose, looking back, I made the wrong decision, especially when you see what a huge business gardening is these days.

I could have been the next Monty Don. Actually, if my man boobs are anything to go by I’m more Charlie Dimmock. But I digress.

Ah well. C’est la vie.

Over the years I’ve owned houses with differing levels of gardening required in them. Some with lawns and some without, some with trees and some with shrubs, some small and some not so small. The one thing that was the same was that I always enjoyed pottering about in them. Just pottering mind you, I was never a serious home gardener, despite my early leanings into that particular craft. And I now find myself at a place in life where I have a fabulous garden at home to go and sit in but someone else does all the hard work. Which is fine by me.

However…

Ange and I have very recently been given a raised bed at the local allotment. Not a huge great thing; approximately 1.5 metres across and 2 metres in length, but big enough to grow a bit of veg in. And I feel rather excited at the prospect let me tell you. The thought of munching on my own carrots, onions and cabbage really appeals to me.

And I’m hoping beyond hope that everything I learned in my salad days (pun intended) will come back to me. Will my fingers still be as vibrantly green as they were or will the passage of time have reduced them to a sickly, faded shade of baby-poo-yellow?

Time will tell.

The good thing about this raised bed is that it’s… well… raised! It stands at just under waist high to me which is perfect as I won’t be required to bend or kneel to work on it. It’s full of well worked and equally well fertilised soil and therefore won’t require a lot of physical effort to turn it. Quite the opposite in fact. It’ll be a breeze.

We’ve even invested in some hand tools and seeds. Yes, I know it’s a little late in the season for sowing but if we have a good Summer and a late Autumn we should be ok. And besides, we’ll have had the fun of trying.

Ange is just as keen to get cracking with it as I am and perhaps the best thing about the whole project is that there are benches and tables where yours truly can crash at if I find the old energy draining, which it inevitably will do.

I think the thing I’m most looking forward to is getting back to nature a little bit. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what kind of a crop we get, I shall enjoy getting dirt under my fingernails and feeling the soil on my hands. I shall enjoy the sight of the plants, the smell of the earth, the sound of birdsong as we spend time there and, hopefully, the taste of our own organically grown veg.

All five sense catered for!

The allotment itself is in a beautiful setting with some epic views in all directions and I’m looking forward also to just spending some quiet time there with Ange, taking it all in. After all, a bed of that size isn’t going to demand too much of our time and effort so we will have the opportunity to sit and admire the scenery. And you never know, wine might be involved as well.

So I’ll let you know how it goes. Will there be root veg a plenty later in the year or will it be slim pickings? We don’t really care at this stage; we just want to get on and have a go.

And as Lynn Anderson once sang – “I never promised you a rose garden.” So it’ll have to be veg!

Watch this space.

PS – I promised I’d write a blog this week and voila!

Tunnel Vision

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I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I’ve gone an absolute eon since the last blog post, which, if I remember correctly, was all to do with alpacas and cuteness. Nearly a month ago! I suppose I could throw myself on your mercy and say I’ve got no excuses and that I’m a horrible toad of a person who doesn’t deserve to have his blog read and that you should cross the road to avoid me; but actually, I do have an excuse.

I’ve been suffering from tunnel vision.

Not the actual physical condition where one’s eyesight is badly impaired by glaucoma, which sounds absolutely awful and my heart goes out to anyone with it; but more the metaphorical condition where one is totally focused on just one thing that everything else fades into the background.

Why do I keep saying “one?” It’s not like I’m royalty or anything.

Anyway, that’s the state of play and I have definitely been so focussed on one particular thing that it would seem that I have lost sight of all my other outlets. I refer, of course, to Substack.

Now I will be completely honest right from the off that I have become somewhat addicted to it. And I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that it has been a huge distraction from all else.

I really do like Substack you see. I like the whole ethos of independent writers getting paid for their work as opposed to giving it away for free, which is sadly so often the case. I personally give away more books than I sell, although at this stage of the game I look upon that as a marketing strategy, but it doesn’t alter the fact that we all like to be paid for the effort we put in and that’s what Substack is all about. Well, not all, there is the obvious benefit of simply being recognised as an author, which is worth its weight in saffron (Google it).

So yes, I admit, that all my energy (what little I have) has been poured into Substack of late but you can’t say I didn’t warn you; there was a blog post about it. As it stands I’m up to three Substack posts a week. Which usually appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So far at least. And the wonderful thing about it is that despite me not being paid a penny from it thus far I am being read quite widely. And to me that is a beautiful thing. Just to know that what I’ve taken the trouble to write is being seen by people who are taking the trouble to read. And that is what is so addictive about it.

Actually being read!

But, like all addicts, I do realise that I have a problem and that problem is the neglect of all the other irons I have in the literary fire.

However, there is good news as far as The Pheasants Revolt is concerned!!! I’ve finally finished re-working the blessed, wonderful, magnificent thing and I now consider it fully fit for purpose in the same way that Ah Boy! and Medicine Show are. It’s cleaned up, de-typoed and a much better read all round. Plus it has a sexy new back cover. So you see, I can break from Substack when I need to.

Also, I’ve begun work on Hot Eire in the same vein.

“Ah!” You may cry, “what about that new Archie and Aggie novel you promised us? Where’s that you lying little hound?”

Hold your horses a minute, it’s coming; for I have indeed found time to work on that as well.

And if you so desperately want a new novel from yours truly then you can begin reading one right away. For every Friday on Substack I publish a new chapter of a book I wrote in 2006, called ‘Take a Hike.’ That’s not the original title. The original title makes me shudder with embarrassment and it shall not be uttered here or anywhere else for that matter.

Being almost twenty years old does mean that its a bit raw and perhaps even a tad naïve in places but in it you can definitely hear the fledgling start to my career as an author as I try to find my voice. And actually, it is quite a compelling story as well.

It’s there for anyone to read for free!

And so can you.

Click Here to be transported to Chapter 1.

or…

Click Here to go to my Substack Home page.

I mean look, lets be honest, at least I haven’t been idle, have I? And the thing about being a writer in the 21st century is that you have to be flexible and fluid in your approach and be prepared to adapt to different outlets. That’s the absolute truth and it’s what I’ve been doing.

So to answer any burning questions you may have, here are the answers:

  • Yes, there will still be a new Archie and Aggie novel this year
  • Yes, I will do a damn sight better with the blog i.e. frequency
  • Yes, Hot Eire will be re-jigged/improved upon a.s.a.p
  • Yes, Substack will continue 3 days a week
  • Yes, I will give up all beers, wines and spirits

Just for fun, see if you can guess which one of those bullet points is false.

I do fondly and sincerely hope you will hop over to Substack and have a read of the output that’s on there so far. It’s all good clean laugh out loud fun apart from a rather sad and serious short story I wrote about a small dog, which is a bit of a tearjerker and a massive side-step from my usual scribblings.

If you’d care to subscribe to my Substack, you can still do so for free as it’s going to be some time before I start charging people (if ever) but you’ve got to start somewhere haven’t you? Also, please do leave a comment or a ‘Like’ as it’s the little things like that that keep us indies believing.

Have a gorgeous weekend everyone, enjoy the football, if that’s your thing, I hope the Sun shines wherever you are in the world and I will see you back here at Blessham Hall very, very soon.

I promise x

Marley and Us

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It’s been a very educational week here for Ange and I. Well, regarding alpacas that is. I thought they were just under-grown llamas and seeing as how I’d heard a lot of negative things regarding the temperament of llamas I didn’t have high hopes that alpacas were all that different.

How wrong I was.

But let me start at the beginning…

As you know the lady of the manor, my lovely wife Ange, has had some serious health issues in the last year and a half. To wit, a heart attack, diabetes and breast cancer. Without going into too much detail she’s been through the wars. A lot.

Well, it was her birthday on Saturday and I wanted to give her a bit of a treat. Partly because I’m crazy about her and partly because after all she’s been through I thought she damn well deserved one.

Anyone who knows Ange will tell you that she’s an absolute nut when it comes to animals. And I mean all animals. She quite literally wouldn’t harm a flea. I’ve seen her shoo a fly out of the car window with the words, “Off you pop sweetheart” when someone else would have been trying to swat the thing with anything that came to hand as if their life depended upon it.

Not Ange though. All living creatures are special and all have a right to live on this earth in her eyes. And I concur. Well, apart from that little bastard of a gnat that bit my left leg in July 2014 and made it swell up like a balloon. I wished all the torments of hell on that one.

But I digress.

Anyway, I thought long and hard as to how I could bless Ange with an animal related surprise on her birthday and then I saw an advert for the Wood End Alpaca Experience. It was a lightbulb moment! I knew instantly then that we would be going to see those wonderful creatures.

And what wonderful creatures they indeed are.

And what wonderful people ran the farm as well.

I had been stressing the few days before the Saturday we were due to go as the car suffered a major malfunction and I began to panic as to how we would get there. It’s not far from us, just over in the Forest of Bowland, but there is zero public transport there and there’s no way either of us could walk 18 miles. Heck! I struggle with 18 metres.

Thankfully we had the car back on Friday afternoon and so on the big day itself we set off for the farm with smiles on our faces. I had done a sterling job of keeping it a secret. All Ange knew about it was that I was taking her for a surprise day out.

I must add at this point that the scenery on the journey was enough to make a grown man cry and in fact, I nearly did. It was beyond beautiful and then some. And, despite a bit of a contretemps with a total idiot cyclist who wasn’t watching where he was going, we arrived in plenty of time.

We were warmly met by Alison, whose family have run the farm for generations, and sat in the tea room as the other guests arrived. I hadn’t expected so many people to be interested in alpacas but there were folks there from all walks of life.

After a pep talk and some alpaca information from Alison we were ready to meet our alpaca for the afternoon. I must say that Alison knows her stuff. Alpacas are curious little things. Yes, they do spit but not at people. They tend to spit at one another and the only time Alison has ever been spat on was when she was caught in the crossfire between two of them. They don’t like being touched on their bottoms though, but then again who does, and will kick with their back legs if you pat them there.

They don’t like you coming towards them from the side either. It’s best to approach them head on and then you can gently move to the side and put your arm around their necks for a cuddle which they seem to rather enjoy.

Another interesting fact is that alpacas communicate between themselves by humming and it’s quite an amusing sound to hear. I wonder if they know any tunes.

Everyone in the group was carefully selected an alpaca that suited them best. I’d chosen to not have one myself as I had visions of being dragged screaming across the fells by it, but Ange was given a very placid and friendly little chap called Marley.

We were given a few more tips on handling these lovely beasts and then it was time to set off. I quickly called Alison to one side to enquire how strenuous the walk would be and was a little alarmed at her reply. It wasn’t too bad but there was a fair bit of walking involved. I told her that I would most likely be bringing up the rear… From a good long way behind. Alison very kindly offered to let me use the off road vehicle that they have on the farm for such occasions but I declined. Rather foolishly in hindsight; I wish now that I’d taken her up on the offer.

Nonetheless we set off and Ange was soon in her element, bonding with Marley and enjoying the sunshine. And by gum the sun was certainly doing that. It was a grand day to be out and about. I’d wisely worn my trusty tarp hat but it rapidly began to form a thick band of sweat where it came into contact with my forehead.

There was fun and laughter aplenty and everyone got along with each other. All the alpacas were marvellously well behaved and I witnessed only one minor spitting incident when one of them got too close to another for comfort. Still, they are very much like sheep in that they like to follow the rest of the herd.

Marley was very well behaved although he did keep stopping for a scratch as he’d recently been sheared. Well, you know what it’s like when you’ve just had your hair done.

We reached the halfway point and I caught up with the rest of them. By now I was sweating like donner meat in a kebab shop and my heart was going like the intro to Overkill by Motorhead. My legs were threatening to give way from beneath me and my feet felt as hot and hard as flat irons.

However, I’d made it thus far by sheer Herculean will.

We stopped for a break as it was time to feed the animals and bags of alpaca food were distributed. I think this was the part that Ange enjoyed the best. Alpacas have very soft muzzles and no upper teeth at the front so the chances of getting an accidental bite are virtually nil. Marley certainly enjoyed his lunch and I was about ready for mine.

After the feeding we made our way back to the farm. I was particularly slow by now and I told Alison that I would go straight to the tea room rather than the alpaca shed. I knew that if I didn’t sit down very soon then the chances of me falling down were seriously high.

I had two pints of Vimto and a further two pints of water in quick succession in the tea room.

Eventually the rest of the group returned. Ange and I ate a really rather splendid cream tea with scones, jam and clotted cream and then it was time to leave. We’d had fun with alpacas, seen kittens, lambs and calves and Ange had held a collie puppy. But there was one more treat for her on the way out. Two handsome looking rare breed pigs. Ange loves all things piggy and so it was a nice farewell to the farm to see them.

So what a right good day we had. I still haven’t recovered and I know its going to take a bit of time before I do. But it was worth it to see the look on my Ange’s face when she was walking Marley.

P.S – I’d recommend alpaca walking to anybody and you could do no better in my opinion than Wood End Farm. Here’s a link to their website: Wood End Alpacas.

Hitting The Stack

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Ooh, I feel all invigorated gentle reader. Not physically of course; Lord no! Physically I feel like I’ve tried to stop a runaway train with my bare hands. Why only yesterday I came arse-clenchingly close to passing out and measuring my length on the floor of Trevor’s Discount Store in front of about ten people and had to go and stand outside and be supervised by a very helpful and concerned looking lady from Essex until I felt better whilst my wife made the purchases.

Now, that’s what I call embarrassing!

No, the invigoration I’m feeling is more of a sense of achievement and self esteem and, more importantly, an urge to get myself sat in front of the laptop more often and get some bloody writing done.

I mentioned on this ‘ere blog recently that I had signed up to Substack, I even left a link for you to check it out if you recall. I hope you did. Anyhoo, I’ve published my first short story on that particular platform and the feedback I have received from pretty much everyone who has read it has been 100% positive.

People have loved it.

So yes, I now feel like it’s given me something of a shot in the arm, or should that be kick in the arse? Either way I feel mightily inspired to get the next one written and to try and be as prolific with it as I can; especially once I start getting paid subscriptions – which is what Substack is all about at the end of the day – a way for writers to get paid for what they do as, contrary to popular belief, we don’t exist on fresh air and tap water.

The story is called Jessie. It’s about an old soldier who has his faithful old companion dog (the titular Jessie) cruelly taken from him and the retribution that he delivers to the perpetrator. I won’t go into too much detail other than to say you can read it HERE.

It’s not a comedy story by any stretch of the imagination and if you read it in the hope of getting some Joe Wilkie-esque style belly laughs from it then you are going to be crushingly disappointed my friend.

What it is is a 2500-word heart-wrenching tale with a bit of a shock at the end.

Why?

Well, I wanted to stretch my literary muscles a bit and try my hand at something else for a change. I don’t want to be stuck in a rut or pigeon holed. I mean, yes, of course, I want to be known as “that funny bugger who writes comedy novels” but in order to make a living in the cut and thrust world of independent publishing one has to branch out in other directions as well. And that’s what I’ve done with Jessie.

As I say, the response has been overwhelmingly positive and one comment in particular from the wonderful blogger, Shannon Landers of Pages, Wicks and Sips, stated that even though it was a departure in genre it was still unmistakeably my style and that she would have recognised it was my work without my name attached to it. That’s one of the nicest things I think anyone has ever said about my writing style.

So please do have a read of Jessie. It won’t take you long – maybe five or ten minutes and I think you’ll be rewarded for your time by a short yet powerful piece of literature. And, whilst you’re there, subscribe to my Substack as it’s still free to do so.

Incidentally, if you’re ever in Settle town centre then do visit Trevor’s. It’s a terrific little discount shop with some incredible bargains to be had. Just do me a favour and try not to faint while you’re in there.

Getting Passionate (Oooh Matron!)

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I was watching the local news recently and a certain story caught my attention. Of course, when I say local I mean in the wider sense. Despite living in North Yorkshire we get North West Tonight news on the Beeb and so we hear all about what’s going on in Manchester, Liverpool, Cumbria and the surrounding areas. Even the Isle of Man. But that’s not the point.

The particular article I was watching was about Stockport County Football Club gaining promotion to League 1 from League 2. Now, far from it being the dizzy heights of the Etihad Stadium, Old Trafford or Anfield, nonetheless the cameras were pitch side at Edgeley Park to record this event and to interview players, staff and supporters of the club.

I follow Derby County (someone has to, may as well be me) and am not really all that fanatical about them although I do like to see them do well (which is rare these days). Contrast my nonchalant feelings towards my club then to the young man in a Stockport shirt who was interviewed by the news team.

He was an ordinary looking guy, mid-twenties I should say, and there was nothing particularly distinguishing about him other than the fact that he had tears running down his face and was sobbing with unadulterated joy at what had just happened on the pitch.

I was moved gentle reader, I honestly was. Here was a young fellow who was so passionate about his club that he was crying like a four-year-old that has just fell off its tricycle and needed mummy to kiss its boo-boo better. And I thought to myself, wow, to have that much fervour and passion over something like football. I know, I know, Bill Shankly said it was more important than a matter of life or death but to me it really is just a game that comes with highs and lows and disappointments and victories in much the same way as any facet of human life.

However, for some reason, even after the news had finished and I was watching Great Canal Journeys with Tim and Pru, I couldn’t get this young mans tearful response to his club’s promotion out of my mind. I mean, it wasn’t as if Stockport had just won the European Cup or the Premier League, but to him it was every bit as special. And as I pondered this I began to think to myself, Oh to be that passionate about something – anything!!!

That thought stuck with me for a few days until the Wednesday when my wife and I and one of our neighbours went to Sedbergh for the day. And then I realised, I am passionate about things.

Many things actually.

Not in a sordid, sexual way. No, more of a kind of can’t shut me up when I start talking about them kind of way.

Sedbergh is generally known as the book town of the North. It’s only a small town, barely more than a large village, but there are lots of little independent book shops. I was like the proverbial kid in the candy store from the moment we arrived. So much so that I made myself sick with over-indulging. I reached a point of starry-eyed bewilderment and if left unsupervised and unchecked I would have spent a lot of money on books. A silly amount probably.

I love books! I always have ever since I was a young lad and I could talk for hours with anybody about literature. I love to discover authors I haven’t heard of (the wonderful David Nobbs recently) and delve into any book that piques my interest. I tend to judge a book by the title and the blurb, not by the cover.

In the end I had to be taken for a sit down with a restorative latte and a posh but criminally over-priced cheese and chutney sandwich at a converted woollen mill to calm my over-stimulated little mind.

And I’m deeply passionate about my own books and the worlds of Blessham and Ingleby that I have created. I’ve populated them with great characters; heroes and villains both loveable and loathe-able, and I seize upon every opportunity to tell people about them, usually with a swiftly brandished business card pressed into their unsuspecting hands.

And, do you know what, when I sell one of my books or get a review online then I begin to feel a little of what that young Stockport supporter was feeling. Maybe not tearful to the point of looking rather silly on television, but certainly elated and filled with the urge to do a little jig of joy. I don’t do a jig though because I would probably end up in A&E or whatever its called now, but the urge to is there.

The more I thought about being passionate the more I began to realise that there are many things that I am passionate about. So here’s a bulleted list of the other things that I, Alan Leonard Stevenson, have a passion for:

  • My marriage/wife
  • My faith and beliefs
  • My dear friends and family
  • My home
  • TV Quiz shows
  • The Yorkshire Dales
  • Carry On films
  • 1970’s Progressive Rock
  • Tomatoes (seriously, I’m addicted to them)
  • Weight loss
  • Self-improvement

The list could go on but I don’t want to water it down. Needless to say that for all of us, there are many things that we all get passionate about. And for me, it took the sight of a supporter of a small football club weeping like a freshly lanced boil on North West Tonight to make me realise what it is for me.

Let me know what your passions are in the comments section, but keep it clean.

Round Up

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Well, it seems like forever since my last blog post doesn’t it? It has, in fact, only been twenty days and not as long as you thought. So, I decided that today, being a Monday and with it torrentially pis— I mean ‘pouring’ with rain outside, I would give you all a thorough round up of what’s been happening these last (almost) three weeks.

Don’t think for one moment that yours truly has been sat idle. Well, now and then perhaps when the fibromyalgia has had it’s snaggled, plaque encrusted teeth into me but in-between all that I have been a busy little beaver.

For one thing there has been a plethora of medical appointments for both Ange and myself over that time. Ange, as you will recall, is currently in an ongoing tussle with breast cancer and we’ve been to St James’ Hospital in Leeds to have a consultancy regarding the radiotherapy which starts this week.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I would rather have my underwear infested with the fleas of a thousand goats than have to drive through that particular city and this time proved to be no exception to any of the other hellish excursions I have made there.

I don’t know who exactly designed the Leeds ring road. He (or of course she, we can’t be sexist now can we?) was either a sociopath or a psychopath; I can’t decide which. Whoever it was clearly has a deep-rooted hatred of the rest of mankind.

Then again, let us assume, perhaps, that it wasn’t just one person. Perhaps it was a committee, culled from the very utmost brainless and sick-minded of council employees, none of whom could agree on a single issue regarding the efficient movement of traffic around Yorkshire’s largest city. Honestly, it’s as if some monstrous giant has just lumbered around that area of the North of England dropping bits of road here and there willy-nilly. None of it makes any sense and even the most experienced and cautious of drivers takes his life, and indeed those of his passengers, into his own hands as he attempts to navigate the sheer unmitigated hell that is Leeds City Centre.

However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel as we’re going to be staying in Leeds for a few days whilst Ange has her treatment so as to cut down the amount of travelling we need to do.

One thing I will say about Leeds though is that its hospitals are fantastic. I mean compared to Bradford Royal Infirmary; St James’ is like the Ritz compared to BRI being some one-star B&B in Streatham High Street. Believe me, I know, I once stayed in one for a week in 1991 and still have nightmares about it..

Bexley Wing, where Ange is having her radiotherapy, is a sumptuous, almost luxurious building. There are delightful works of local art adorning the walls as you wander through, the lights are soft and easy on the eye, the seating is more than adequately comfortable and the lifts (scrupulously clean) actually take you to the floor you want to go to at the first time of asking. Bliss!

Also (and this was the best bit) there was a well-dressed gentleman playing relaxing classical music on a grand piano in the expansive foyer area. Beautiful it was.

The only music I’ve ever heard at BRI is when a busker playing a badly out of tune guitar asked me for money for the one-chord version of Lean On Me he was performing for the general public by the entrance. I felt I had to give the fellow a pound purely for his bare-faced temerity.

So that was Leeds but even worse was to come the day after. For it was then that I had to negotiate my weary way through the unadulterated driving war zone that is Bradford.

An 82-year-old neighbour of ours had been to St Luke’s for tests and, having been there all day with the promise of transport back to Settle, was told at the eleventh hour that it wouldn’t be happening and that he would have to find his own way home. So he rang me and I did what any decent Christian minded person would do; I drove over and brought him back.

If Leeds traffic system was designed by a psychotic sociopath then Bradford was designed by his evil mentor; for there is surely no other city in the whole world (nay, universe – known and unknown) as vile as Bradford for driving through. I include Birmingham, Leicester and London in there as well. Bradford is worse than any of them.

And, of course, I timed the return journey perfectly to coincide with the rush hour, didn’t I.

My knuckles were white on the steering wheel and a large vein had appeared and was throbbing violently on my forehead by the time I’d got even as far as Bingley and I still had thirty plus miles to go from there.

But, despite a near head-on collision with an idiotic van driver between Hellifield and Long Preston, I made it home again unscathed. Shaken and badly stirred, but thankfully unscathed.

Now then, on to jollier matters.

We’ve had two very special birthdays in the last couple of weeks. Firstly, my mum turned 92 years of age and we made the 150-mile (each way) journey to go and visit her. 150 miles might sound like a lot but not when you’ve driven through Bradford and Leeds beforehand. The motorway was a welcome reprieve.

It’s hard to know what to buy a 92-year-old as a gift so we bought a lovely potted plant for her and treated her to her favourite meal of fish and chips. I’ve never known anyone with such a fondness for that particular dish as my mother.

But it was a lovely day.

The very next day our unbelievably beautiful and talented granddaughter, Erin, turned 18 and reached adulthood. We just cannot believe that she’s all grown up. It’s only yesterday I’m sure of it that I was pushing her on the swings and playing practical jokes on her Mum and Nana with her.

Erin herself was very excited of course leading up to the event and as expected she was spoilt rotten; not least by us. We’re paying for her driving lessons as part of her present and I look forward to the day when she gives me a lift to the post office to collect my pension.

There were several events planned over the course of the week (why do birthdays last so long now?) and on the Tuesday evening we all convened in Skipton for a Turkish meal at the Efendy restaurant. I don’t usually go in for restaurant plugs but, seriously, if you’re ever in Skipton and you want a good feed of beautifully cooked food then that’s the place to go. We had a smashing time.

What else has been going on then?

Well, those who remember my last post will know that I have been working on cleaning up and re-jigging my novels. Starting with the four Blessham Books.

“Cut to the chase Stevenson,” I hear you cry, “what’s the state of play?”

Pretty good actually. Ah Boy! and Medicine Show are damn near finished to perfection. In fact I’m hoping to have the latter back online in all it’s newfound glory tomorrow or Wednesday. The only sticking point with Ah Boy! is whether or not to give it a new front cover. I mean, I like the previous two but I still don’t feel it’s got the right one yet. So a few days of work may still be required on it.

You might be asking yourself why I did it in that order. Surely it would have made more sense to do Ah Boy! and The Pheasants Revolt first. Wouldn’t it?

Au contraire mon ami, as they say in Burkina Faso (Google it), I chose to do it in that order for a reason and that reason being thus: Obviously Ah Boy! needed to be attended to first seeing as how that is the very beginning of the Joe Wilkie saga and therefore I wanted new readers to have the very best experience of that wonderful book as possible. Then Medicine Show, being the latest installment, needed to be in tandem with it’s forebear so that anyone who has read the other three can have the very best experience of that also.

Do you see where I’m coming from?

Well it’s done now anyway so there.

As I mentioned earlier, this Thursday sees the start of the radiotherapy which is going to last until next Wednesday and so it won’t be until then that I turn my guns onto The Pheasants Revolt and Hot Eire but I’ve got the hang of this rewriting thing now so it shouldn’t take too long.

I’m hoping then to return to the current WIP whilst working on the three Ingleby novels at the same time but to be honest Mutch Wants Moor requires very little adjustment and Vole just needs a big reduction in the swear word count. The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham may take a little while longer so I’ll leave that until last.

Ooh! One other thing before I go. I’ve signed up for something called Substack. And, whilst I’m still in the sussing out phase of it as there seems to be an awful lot to learn, you can subscribe to my page/site or whatever they call it, for free, HERE.

Like I say, I’m still sussing out how the thing works but basically it’s a way of writers getting paid for their writing (which is only right and proper) by way of subscriptions. My plan is to serialise a novel through it (separate from Ingleby and Blessham) and I believe that in doing so it ought to sharpen me up as a writer and help me maintain focus. Getting paid has that effect on me.

Phew! There you go then; it’s been a busy time here at Blessham Hall and we’re not out of the woods yet but the future is looking decidedly better than it was at the start of the year when Ange was first diagnosed.

Right, time for a Guinness Zero and a session of psyching myself up for Leeds again. Come to think about it, I may need something a lot stronger than that when it’s all over.

Review, Renew, Re-launch!

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Ee Gad!!! It’s been almost three weeks since the last blog post. I must be slipping into bad habits again. Either that or I’ve been so overcome with the busyness of life that I just haven’t had the time. Still, whatever the excuse its piss-poor of me and I apologise. Note to self – Must do better.

Actually, to tell you the absolute truth, the last three weeks have been punctuated with bouts of crappy health and soul-crushing lethargy mingled with liberal proportions of stress and haring around all over the place. It’s been a funny sort of time.

What I have been doing though is giving a lot of thought to my books.

A lot of thought as it happens.

At one point, can you believe, I even contemplated scrapping the lot of them and starting again from scratch. Yes, that’s where my head has been at.

You see, something has been nagging away at my mind for some time now and it’s this…

Is there really any need for all the foul language in my books?

That is the question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. And I’ve come to the conclusion that, actually, no, there is no need for it whatsoever. And I’ve reached the decision that it’s got to go.

I read an awful lot, in particular comedy authors such as Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, Douglas Adams and the unimpeachable Jerome K Jerome. They all have a couple of things in common.

  1. Their books are all arse-clenchingly funny
  2. They don’t use bad language.

And if its good enough for the likes of them to keep it clean then its good enough for me.

Oh, for sure, you might read the occasional “Shit” or “Bastard” in their novels but the use of the F word is virtually non-existent. Especially where Pratchett and Jerome are concerned. Jerome of course was writing at the turn of the last century and as such would never have even gotten into print if he’d used even the merest of cuss words. But I challenge anybody to read Three Men in a Boat without crying with laughter, especially the pineapple scene. All good clean fun and quite hysterical.

And as hard as it is to imagine Lady Stark-Raven not effing and jeffing I think the time has come to clean up my act. Not that I’m a great user of profanity myself; I’m not, but I now just feel that using swear words purely for comic effect is, perhaps, a tad puerile and rather akin to some of the utterly pathetic new breed of comedians that we now see who seem to think that shock value is far more important than actual good old-fashioned humour.

So here’s the deal…

I’m shelving the current work in progress for while and I’m going to clean up the existing seven novels and then relaunch them. I don’t want to be associated as a man who gets cheap laughs at the expense of good taste.

I mean, don’t worry too much, I won’t be altering the plots or characters at all. I’ll just be taking out all the unnecessary expletives and replacing them with something a bit more palatable.

I’ve always said that the use of profanity and bad language in my books is to highlight what a sordid little world we live in in the 21st century. But to be honest now, do I really need to highlight it. We all know, deep down, that we live in a time of sordidness the likes of which have never been seen before. Even in the days of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah.

I’ve mentioned before how influenced I am by the Carry On films and seventies sitcoms. Now, if you watch any of them you’ll come across plenty of innuendo and suggestiveness but very little in the way of actual blunt crudity. I personally think that seeing Sid James going “Corrrrr!” at a bikini clad Barbara Windsor is far less offensive than much of the sexual extremism we see today in the movies these days.

Likewise, I feel that Stan and Jack, from On The Buses, talking about “birds” with leery grins on their faces is far less concerning than listening to the likes of Jimmy Carr or Ricky Gervais making light of the holocaust or the cast of QI or 8 Out of 10 Cats giggling like naughty schoolboys over some sexual jibe that’s been peppered with expletives.

Personally, I believe if you’re prepared to censor the Carry Ons but endorse comedy that makes sick jokes about the holocaust then you really need to speak to a professional psychiatrist as soon as humanly possible.

Anyway, back to my original point, I’m going to remove all the F words, C words, many of the B words (not all) and anything remotely religiously or racially offensive.

I want to be known as a comedy author who doesn’t have to resort to violent language in order to get laughs. And it’s getting increasingly harder to do that in this day and age. But when I read one of the Discworld novels or re-read Three Men in a Boat (which I do every year) and I find myself chuckling away or laughing our loud at the brilliant humour contained within I feel more and more convinced that it’s the right (write?) way to go.

So wish me luck gentle reader as I embark upon this most personally important of missions. It just might be the saving of the Blessham and Ingleby literary worlds and prevent me from doing something incredibly stupid. It shouldn’t take me too long and then I can get back to the current WIP with a clear conscience and a new direction.

Intentional Update

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Have you heard that old joke that goes “I feel like a new man, the only trouble is that so does the wife!” Yeah, it’s a classic ain’t it? But don’t worry, my wife isn’t looking for a replacement husband but the one that she has is feeling a certain sense of improvement.

So much so that I thought I would post a bit of an update on what I was hoping to achieve in myself this year. Remember the post from January 8th called Full of Good Intentions You do? Oh, nice one. Well, it’s been sixty-five days since I started on my journey of self-improvement and this is how it’s going.

Let’s get the downside out of the way first.

I’m in monumental pain from fibromyalgia and having serious bouts of fatigue still. Really, it’s quite bad. And the sad thing is I can’t see that changing any time soon.

However, I do still find time to work albeit in short bursts, which are actually turning out rather well and the sequel to Mutch Wants Moor is progressing a damn sight better than my latest book, Medicine Show did at this stage.

Ok, now for the positives.

Well, for one thing, I haven’t had an alcoholic drink since New Year’s Eve. Yes, you heard that correctly. Not a single drop of the stuff has passed my lips and I must say that I feel much better in so many ways. I have a greater clarity of mind for one thing and the writing days I’ve had have been more productive and the output a great deal funnier.

I’ve also been watching the calorie intake and try to keep to around the 2000 mark per day; often less than that. Combined with the absence of booze it has resulted in a 12-pound weight loss so far. And the best bit is that I’m not finding it too difficult. In fact I haven’t felt this determined to drop a few clothing sizes in nearly thirty years.

I can honestly say that I’m not even missing the ale because I’ve found that Guinness 0% is quite the most delicious beverage and just as good as the regular stuff only without the alcohol and about a third of the calories. So if I do feel like a beer now and then that’s the road I take.

On the 8th of January I mentioned that I was on the very first notch of my belt. Today I can report that I am now comfortably on the second one and contemplating the purchase of a smaller size of jeans as it is getting embarrassing to keep pulling them up whenever I go anywhere.

I’m drinking about three pints of water a day, at the very least, and I’m still on the old rooibos tea several times a day, which is, of course, caffeine free.

Of those 2000 calories a day I mentioned, well over half of it is made up of fruit and veg with the occasional little treat thrown in now and then. Having a wife with type 2 diabetes is helping me to monitor my own sugar intake as well as I am acutely aware that I am at risk of it myself.

I’m still not great on the old pins and the other day my left leg went from underneath me as I tried to stand up which meant that I had to crash back down onto the couch pretty smartish. This means that I haven’t been able to walk as much as I would have liked to have started doing but I have consoled myself with making the effort to go outside every single day without fail; even if just to sit on the terrace and stare at the daffodils.

So the overall picture is a promising one. My internal organs feel a lot better and I had an extremely positive meeting with the respiratory clinic in January where I was told that I was one of the CPAP success stories and am doing great with my sleep.

The CPAP machine is wonderful but I’m also giving kudos to the lifestyle changes I’ve made in improving my sleep. Also, I’ve found these gummies called Ashwagandha which are brilliant little things. They help with anxiety and sleep and they taste quite nice too. I bought them by accident actually whilst trying to buy CBD on Amazon. But it was a most happy accident in the end.

Anyway, I thought I’d post this little update in the hope that it may encourage you if you’re going through your own health or weight loss battles. I don’t to be crass and sit here saying things like “Never give up” and quoting Churchillian style rhetoric but maybe say to you instead that just try and make a few small changes and do your best to stick to them. They’re working for me.

And I’ll leave you with a final thought, that as my dear friend and top bloke Kenny Scotland would say – It’s the small victories that count.

Remember that.

PS – The mouse jiggler is working a treat!

A Brief Explanation

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Greetings one and all and apologies for an overdue blog post but I’ve had a rather busy week writing that next novel of mine and I know how eager you all are for it.

Yeah, right!

Anyway, I’ve done four days’ worth of it and the word count is a little over 10,000 so progress indeed.

Now then, on to business.

On the 21st of January I posted a blog about my weight loss and whatnot and in that blog I mentioned that I had had a considerable shock and that there would be challenges ahead for the Stevenson household.

Well, I now feel in a sufficient place to explain what I meant by that. The short version is that Ange, my lovely, nay beautiful, wife who I adore the very bones of has had cancer.

Yes, that horrible, horrible, shitty little C word that seems to have impacted every family on the face of the Earth at some point has visited Blessham Hall and grown it’s disgusting self into my darling good lady. The good news, however, is that it has been caught early and is being treated by our incredibly wonderful and utterly gorgeous NHS.

Ange noticed a lump in her left breast shortly before Christmas following a walking netball accident where she collided with the wall after catching the ball, would you believe? Her GP sent her swiftly to Airedale hospital where it was confirmed, after a mammogram and other tests, to be cancerous. That was in early January. Hence my feelings of shock and dumbfoundedness at the time.

On 14th of February (yes, Valentine’s Day) Ange went in for an operation where a lumpectomy was performed and the tumour and lymph nodes removed. I don’t know how it must have felt for Ange but it was one of the longest days of my life waiting for news from the hospital.

But, thank God, the operation was a success and Ange returned home the same day.

True to form I managed to balls things up by pushing her down a corridor in a wheelchair with the handbrake on but the least said about that the better. I called myself all the berks under the Sun for that one. I’m just glad no-one else noticed.

Since then Ange has been recuperating at home and is still quite emotional and prone to bouts of feeling really very poorly. But, not withstanding, she is making excellent progress nonetheless and we are going back to the hospital on Tuesday for a follow up to the operation where the next stage of the treatment will be discussed.

The brilliant news is that Ange won’t have to undergo chemotherapy, which she was dreading, and instead will have sessions of radiotherapy at St James’s Hospital in Leeds.

One amazing thing that has come out of this for me is just how courageous my wife is. I’ve always known that she is kind, warm, generous, funny, inclusive, caring, welcoming and loving. But until now I never realised just how brave she is as well. She’ll tell you herself that throughout this whole episode she has been absolutely terrified but who wouldn’t be? The fact is she’s faced it all with good humour and a determination to beat it and my, already high, admiration of her has increased as a result.

There’s still a long way to go but Ange and I are prepared for the challenges and will face them together as husband and wife as is right and proper and I’ll keep you updated from time to time.

So that’s just a very brief explanation of what’s been going on. There’s been a lot of tears and a good many sleepless nights during the last couple of months and if I were to go into precise details it would require me to write a whole book on it. But anyone who has battled this awful disease will know what I’m talking about.

As a conclusion I’d like to say that the NHS should be the envy of the whole world and I can’t thank them enough for their rapid, professional and sensitive intervention at this time in our lives. I can’t remember at what point during the pandemic that we stopped clapping for the NHS but damn and blast it we shouldn’t have stopped at all. We should be out there every night applauding them until our hands ache from over use. And what’s more, the hapless, hopeless, dishonest liars that run this country should be pouring ten times the amount of money into our hospitals as what they currently are but see fit to waste it elsewhere.

The NHS saved my life in 2003 when I was quite literally at death’s door and moments away from joining the old choir invisible. I owe my life to them and now they’ve taken that vile lump out of the person I love the most in this world and given us both hope for the future.

God bless the NHS and long may they continue.

Stop The Delitake Misberate

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Did that heading make any sense to you? It wasn’t really supposed to. It’s a cryptic conundrum you see. I’ll let you work it out.

Got it yet?

No?

Some of you have!

Ok, for the rest of you, it’s just a play on words for – Spot the deliberate mistake.

Sorry, I thought it was funny at the time of writing.

Anyhoooooooo… The reason for it is because to my abject, shameful and total horror I have made tons of them. Mistakes I mean. Honestly, there’s so many of them I hardly know where to begin. Typos I mean, loads of ‘em!

When I publish a book I always do several proof reads to iron out any glitches and then when it’s out there for all the world to see I read the finished article again myself just to be doubly certain. And I thought I was getting good at it too. Mutch Wants Moor for example only had four typos and grammatical errors in total and I think Vole had even less.

Medicine Show, on the other hand, has fifteen at least (maybe more) and that is the horror I’m referring to. I’ve just finished reading it on Kindle and it is peppered with typographical and grammatical mistakes. Bristling with them in fact. They mock me from the pages like sooty faced street urchins. Sticking their disgusting tongues out at me and jeering crudely at my gross ineptitude.

I’m shocked gentle reader; I truly am. How on Earth did those literary abominations get past me?

You see, the thing is, in an ideal world my books would all be published by Hodder and Stoughton or Penguin or Random House and as such a professional proof-reading team would be employed to ensure that no typos or grammar cock ups occur. As it is, I have to do my own proofing and I’m now feeling a great deal of admiration towards those professional bods. They really know their game.

I suppose I could pay a professional proof-reader to do it for me but I just don’t have the old fiscal clout to do that as they don’t exactly come cheap and they charge by the word. THE WORD I TELL YOU!!! Fie, fie and Gadzooks!

Anyway, the damage is done now and it’s up to me and me alone to rectify the awful situation. Ergo Medicine Show will have to go offline for a brief spell whilst I right the terrible wrongs I have committed. Plus, it will give me the opportunity to have a word with Amazon about it because there’s something else I’m not happy with which I won’t go into here. Let’s just say they’re not doing their job properly and leave it at that.

Ooh, I could kick myself in the underpants I really could. Fortunately, I know that even attempting such an intricate manoeuvre would probably dislocate both my spine and hips and leave me in traction for many months. So I won’t do it. Still, the thought’s there. Actually, if I’m thinking of paying for a proof-reader could I also pay for a professional arse-kicker?

Just a thought.

So sincere apologies to anyone who has paid good money for Medicine Show and has had to endure the aforementioned affrontery to literature. But look on the bright side; you’re copy of the book is a limited edition, so hang on to it.

In other news: I have begun writing the next novel featuring Archie and Aggie Stone and am up to chapter 7 already. A month of planning went extremely well and I feel very confident about this one. I’m also working on the principle of doing approximately 1000 to 1200 words a day, which is comfortable and do-able for my current physical limitations and as such should see me finish the first draft some time in April.

I hope that’s not a case of famous last words.

So if there’s anyone out there reading this and you have experience of proof-reading copy and you’d like to help out a struggling but brilliant independent author at vastly reduced rates, then do get in touch with me at contact@blesshamhall.co.uk or reply to this blog post. Your services and mates rates will be greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, I will endeavour to remove the flies in the Medicine Show ointment and make it right and proper. It’s a crackling little book and deserves to be shown at it’s very best.

Watch this space for further updates.

PS – I have read this blog post through twice and I just know that as soon as it goes live I’ll see at least one typo in it. HELP ME!!!