Cars, eh?!

I've come to think that the modern motor car is just too darned sophisticated. My Ford B-Max is a good car, and a max step up from my trusty old Honda Jazz - which I loved. But it seems that it's got many times more things that can go wrong. It's the same with Steve. Having driven old Fords for twenty years - and been able to service and repair them himself - he's now got an S-Max. He had to face the fact that his last car just didn't have the safety features - including the safer build - that modern roads demand.

So it came as something of an annoyance and disappointment when his S-Max developed an electrical fault which finally totally disabled the vehicle. It's been with the repairer for getting on for four weeks, waiting for the Engine Control Unit to be tested/repaired/re-tested.

My B-Max lost steering assist one morning. To cut a long story short, it turned out to be a failing battery, and didn't have to go in for repair. Though it almost came to spending £50 ("No sir, £49.99") on an "assessment".

Cars, eh? I can't help thinking what a good thing it would be for the planet and its population if we didn't have them.

But since I do have one, I drove us out to Milton Keynes the other day. Having been to the Whipsnade Tree Cathedral, we found out that there is one such in glorious MK (which is very nice to travel through by boat!)

It's very different from the Whipsnade one. It's more formal, more architectural, being based on Norwich Cathedral, with a west front, nave, choir, transept, alter, cloister, chapels, chapter house and so on, laid out to match the real building. This photo from the Parks Trust gives you the full effect.

The day after this, I published my novel on Kindle. It was a couple of months overdue, but it was worth it - well, I think it was! I'm really quite excited about it. It's my first published novel. (I still have two unfinished ones.)

As I write in the Foreword,

This is my first published novel. Having already published two travelogues – which are, of necessity, factual – I really wanted to move into the world of my imagination, and I had a great deal of fun writing it. Out of the Dawn is a fiction told against a background of narrowboats and canals. But they’re not what it’s all about. It’s about two people and a dog who choose to live on a boat. Well, the people do. The dog had no choice in the matter. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not he thought it was a good choice. They could have stayed in their jobs, with their flat and cars, and a cello and a tuba. They could have travelled the world, and their story would have been very different from this. But they chose a narrowboat, and canal life changes things. It changes people, too. And dogs.

 As with my other books, this one's available from Amazon for Kindle Readers or any other device (with the Kindle app). It costs less than a pint! (£2.50) You can read the first 10% (I think it is) before buying it here. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

(17th February - To latecomers to this post, I have had to unpublish the book temporarily while some issues are being sorted out. I apologise for this, and expect to be able to re-publish soon.)