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Charlie's newsletter
May. 12th, 2018 08:01 pmWell, we had summer last weekend! Now the heating is back on an I look out of the window wondering if it’s next autumn already.
Looking for a winner
Are you the person I’m looking for? I picked the winner at my autism blog hop post, but they haven’t responded. If you commented a fortnight ago, can you just check if you won, please?
News
There’s a smashing review for Lessons in Chasing the Wild Goose in the Mystery People e-zine (also at Promoting Crime BlogSpot).
"Lessons in Chasing the Wild Goose is a delightful novel, showing Jonty and Orlando matured by time and war but still as charming and affectionate as ever."
The top, hot off the press, piece of news is the release of Pack up Your Troubles, which features three re-issued stories of love - won, lost and regained - against a backdrop of war.
Here’s an excerpt from the first story, This Ground Which was Secured at Great Expense.
Nicholas cast a sidelong glance at Paul, wondering what expectations he’d have. The estate manager wore his business face, a cool, clear eye surveying the fields, maybe weighing up the chances of the next pheasant brood surviving the depredation of fox or buzzard. Sometimes Paul spoke of his family, an occasional glimpse into a world not bounded by rents or yields; would one of his brothers or cousins be taking the King’s shilling? “Will Tom volunteer?”
“He’s not told me one way or the other. They’ll want medical men, of course, especially ones who know about bones.” Paul smiled, as he always did on the rare occasions he mentioned his older brother. Nicholas had often wished he’d been blessed with a younger sibling to hold him in such high regard. “They’ll want ones who know how to deal with heads. And what goes on inside them as well.” Paul scuffed with his boots at a weed which had dared to poke its nose up in the immaculate gravel.
“Do you wish that you’d been able to get over there?” Nicholas immediately bit his tongue. Why on earth had he felt the need to ask such a stupid question? But the words were out and beyond recall, maybe as lethal to friendship as a vixen among the nestlings.
“Good God, no. If it wasn’t for this,” Paul tapped his gammy leg, “I’d have to find some other way to avoid it. I’d drive ambulances, or crack codes, run messages night and day if I had to. I couldn’t go and fight.” The sea-green eyes looked straight into Nicholas’s deep grey ones, hiding nothing, baring Paul’s very soul.
“Why?” Relieved that their friendship hadn’t fallen at the first hurdle of his clumsy questioning, shocked at his friend’s uncharacteristic candour, Nicholas rushed in again.
“I couldn’t shoot another man, or bayonet him.” Paul’s face, normally ruddy from fresh air and exercise, had turned as pale as the hawthorn blossom they’d collected as boys. He ran his fingers through his fine, dark hair.
Nicholas tried to keep his eyes from admiring those long slender hands. Hands he’d seen wring the neck of a critically injured bird caught in the raspberry netting. Hands which could knock out, behead and gut a trout in thirty seconds. Hands which had tipped blossom into his, the gentle brush of fingers on palm remaining in Nicholas’s mind long after the flowers had faded and lost their odour. “I see. I think I understand.” He didn’t, but he wouldn’t judge out of ignorance or misapprehension. If Paul had his reasons, that was good enough.
“Do you? Then you see more than I do.” A sad smile crossed Paul’s face, like a cloud over the sun. They stood a while in silence, watching a kestrel quartering the field the other side of the beeches, both wary of words which could build a wall between them.
“I don’t believe you’re a coward, Paul. I’ve seen too much of your valour to make such a mistake.” The village bully thrashed because of what he’d done to a harmless tramp who’d been holed up in the woods behind the church. The dog which had gone wild and worried the livestock—confronted and despatched, almost clinically.
Paul shrugged. “Maybe it takes a braver man to stay at home at times like this. Don’t ask me to speculate on the nature of courage.”
And finally - mock dog fights over Duxford. One of those moments you think, "So glad I was there!"
Charlie
Looking for a winner
Are you the person I’m looking for? I picked the winner at my autism blog hop post, but they haven’t responded. If you commented a fortnight ago, can you just check if you won, please?
News
There’s a smashing review for Lessons in Chasing the Wild Goose in the Mystery People e-zine (also at Promoting Crime BlogSpot).
"Lessons in Chasing the Wild Goose is a delightful novel, showing Jonty and Orlando matured by time and war but still as charming and affectionate as ever."
The top, hot off the press, piece of news is the release of Pack up Your Troubles, which features three re-issued stories of love - won, lost and regained - against a backdrop of war.
Here’s an excerpt from the first story, This Ground Which was Secured at Great Expense.
Nicholas cast a sidelong glance at Paul, wondering what expectations he’d have. The estate manager wore his business face, a cool, clear eye surveying the fields, maybe weighing up the chances of the next pheasant brood surviving the depredation of fox or buzzard. Sometimes Paul spoke of his family, an occasional glimpse into a world not bounded by rents or yields; would one of his brothers or cousins be taking the King’s shilling? “Will Tom volunteer?”
“He’s not told me one way or the other. They’ll want medical men, of course, especially ones who know about bones.” Paul smiled, as he always did on the rare occasions he mentioned his older brother. Nicholas had often wished he’d been blessed with a younger sibling to hold him in such high regard. “They’ll want ones who know how to deal with heads. And what goes on inside them as well.” Paul scuffed with his boots at a weed which had dared to poke its nose up in the immaculate gravel.
“Do you wish that you’d been able to get over there?” Nicholas immediately bit his tongue. Why on earth had he felt the need to ask such a stupid question? But the words were out and beyond recall, maybe as lethal to friendship as a vixen among the nestlings.
“Good God, no. If it wasn’t for this,” Paul tapped his gammy leg, “I’d have to find some other way to avoid it. I’d drive ambulances, or crack codes, run messages night and day if I had to. I couldn’t go and fight.” The sea-green eyes looked straight into Nicholas’s deep grey ones, hiding nothing, baring Paul’s very soul.
“Why?” Relieved that their friendship hadn’t fallen at the first hurdle of his clumsy questioning, shocked at his friend’s uncharacteristic candour, Nicholas rushed in again.
“I couldn’t shoot another man, or bayonet him.” Paul’s face, normally ruddy from fresh air and exercise, had turned as pale as the hawthorn blossom they’d collected as boys. He ran his fingers through his fine, dark hair.
Nicholas tried to keep his eyes from admiring those long slender hands. Hands he’d seen wring the neck of a critically injured bird caught in the raspberry netting. Hands which could knock out, behead and gut a trout in thirty seconds. Hands which had tipped blossom into his, the gentle brush of fingers on palm remaining in Nicholas’s mind long after the flowers had faded and lost their odour. “I see. I think I understand.” He didn’t, but he wouldn’t judge out of ignorance or misapprehension. If Paul had his reasons, that was good enough.
“Do you? Then you see more than I do.” A sad smile crossed Paul’s face, like a cloud over the sun. They stood a while in silence, watching a kestrel quartering the field the other side of the beeches, both wary of words which could build a wall between them.
“I don’t believe you’re a coward, Paul. I’ve seen too much of your valour to make such a mistake.” The village bully thrashed because of what he’d done to a harmless tramp who’d been holed up in the woods behind the church. The dog which had gone wild and worried the livestock—confronted and despatched, almost clinically.
Paul shrugged. “Maybe it takes a braver man to stay at home at times like this. Don’t ask me to speculate on the nature of courage.”
And finally - mock dog fights over Duxford. One of those moments you think, "So glad I was there!"
Charlie
