It’s just over a year since the lovely night of my Book Celebration – I know because Facebook Memories told me, but I also know because it was just such a special night that it is pinned in my brain.

That FB memory has prompted a couple of days of happy reverie, as I look back over what the sharing of Who Stole Grandma? has given me (and to us).

First of all, just to be up front and honest . . . what it hasn’t given me is millions of pounds, or even thousands of sales. It has, however, allowed me to cover all of my £700 costs (AND I have even made a few hundred pounds profit) and rather joyously WSG did top several Amazon best seller listings (for about 48 hours – in some very niche categories 🤣).

What WSG has given me, much more specially is a series of moments that I treasure and the awareness that there is a (very tiny) community of people with whom the book resonates, so I thought I’d share a few with you.

A few weeks ago, while we were still warm in France, a friend from our college days reached out and suggested a drink. I hadn’t heard from him for years, but we messaged back and forth and arranged to meet in a Birmingham city centre pub, revelling in the prospect of being retirees out on a school day.

When we got together, we chatted about work and retirement, and our different experiences of being in Anglo-Indian marriages, and lost friends. Then, without any preamble, he stunned me by saying, “So, Mark, your book . . . congratulations!”

I was rather taken aback! I had thought of taking him a copy, but I’ve sort of stopped carrying them round (not!). It turned out that I needn’t have worried, as he announced that: he’d ordered himself a copy; had read it, in depth; had found that it moved him and resonated with his own anticipation of imminent parental happenings. He then proceeded to quiz me about particular episodes and moments! You could have knocked me over with an infant Pygmy Shrew’s whisker!

This friend, who I hadn’t seen in years, managed to take me back to feeling proud that WSG has had the impact that I’d hoped, because in amongst the laughter and tears that it had provoked in him, it had given hope and optimism in the face of the sadness that he is expecting to come.

I have been grateful and touched each time people from my past, some of whom I have not seen for over four decades, pop unbidden into my Messenger feed to say, “I just wanted you to know that, I’ve been reading WSG and . . .”

Two of the most special were:

• “Hi Mark, My mum is dying from cancer. We are down to palliative care. Just to let you know that your book has been a great comfort to me in my care of mum in the time we have left with her 👍🏻” 💜
• “Started WSG this morning, while caring for my dad – not a well man. Am totally gripped. A great way of telling the harsh way life hits you. Due to my dad’s caring needs, I can empathise with you. On to the next chapter – pitstop for a sausage and marmalade sandwich now complete.” (Sausage and orange marmalade sandwiches were considered a delicacy at the boarding school we went to 🤣.) 💜

I have also been grateful for the special moments of connecting with people I only know because of WSG:

• People around the world that I’ll almost certainly never meet, but who encouraged me when I shared the draft of WSG on Facebook, and responded to my enquiries about how on the Earth they’d come across my tiny blog and crucially what they really thought of the chapters they were reading and whether WSG was ‘good enough’ – together, they gave me the confidence to publish it;
• The complete strangers, who joined a gaggle of friends to offer to proof read WSG (or coerce their partners into doing so), when I baulked at spending the necessary £3000; their generosity and intelligence allowed me to publish a much more polished version;
• People that I have actually met in the flesh, only because of WSG, sometimes warmed by Languedocian sunshine, sometimes on a doorstep in Birmingham or a front room in Smethwick, and in several places in between, but always with a sense of friendship;
• Ameesha at The Bookshelf Ltd, who helped me get WSG onto Kindle, who I never met until the Book Celebration, but who I connected with via Teresa, who had never met, but who knows Jill, who I know through being colleagues in Birmingham schools;
• Jenny at the truly wonderful Bear Bookshop (see below).

I now know that I can write and I also know that I’m pretty pants at promotion, but I have done some fun promotion things:

• Walked tremulously into Bear Bookshop, an honest to goodness, proper bookshop and said, “I wrote a book and I have a dream of seeing it on a bookshelf in a ‘real life’ bookshop,” to which Jenny said, “I’d love to make that happen for you!” WSG has been on her shelves for a whole year – and they have sold 😊;
• Held the Book Celebration, which was tearful and joyful and silly and immensely special, in that same bookshop (now, understandably, one of my absolutely favourite shops), surrounded by friends with the addition of a sprinkling of people I’d met through WSG;
• Been supported by a friend who took up the challenge of getting a copy of WSG to Graham Norton (because GN is a) a supporter of Parkinson’s UK, b) a brilliant author, c) just gorgeous!) * I have no idea if GN ever read WSG, but I like to think that he has held it 🤣;
• Sent a copy of WSG to Mike Tindall, prompted by a BBC interview in which he was talking about living with his father’s PD. * I have no idea if MT ever read WSG, but I know that it found its way to him;
• Had messages from friends, declaring, “Mark, I just heard you on the radio!” (The very kind daughter of a very special friend wangled me a slot, which gave me a very big head for a couple of days and led to some lovely enquiries);
• Had WSG added to the shelves of a couple of Smethwick Libraries;
• Held a book reading at Thimblemill Library, which is where Moosh used to take each of her grandchildren when they were small and she was in N°1. Childminder mode;
• Recorded a podcast for The Bookshelf.

I decided very early that I wanted to use the promotion of Who Stole Grandma? to raise money for Parkinson’s UK. WSG is not about Parkinson’s Disease, it’s about living that sad part of life as lovingly and as laughingly as possible, but PD is the illness that Moosh had in those seven years that the book is set in. We didn’t know about Parkinson’s UK when Moosh was alive, but I wish we had.

Supporting Parkinson’s UK put me in touch (via a friend of a dear friend) with Gayle (regional fund raising coordinator) and Barrie (ambassador). The first things Gayle asked me was why I’d chosen Parkinson’s UK, was it in memory of someone and did I know anyone who was affected. I spoke about Moosh, but also about Aly, who is intrinsic to the book and who had, herself, recently been diagnosed. Gayle ‘s focus switched away from fundraising and awareness raising to what support could be offered to Aly.

Both Gayle and Barrie, came to the Book Celebration and added so much content, knowledge and depth that I could not have given, but it was the quiet moment at the end, after publicity photos were taken, that I am most grateful for. Barrie spoke to me about his experience of PD and about Aly and offered to reach out to her. He did. And he has. And he continues to. And Aly feels blessed.

In the end we raised a smidgeon over £4500 💜

Somewhere in all of this, the generosity of people towards me and about WSG allowed me to see myself as an author, a writer, a person whose words are read by a small gaggle of people, whose words can move them.

A friend of ours is a well known broadcaster and a prolific author of fabulous books (I am a little in awe of him), so, I was a little too chuffed, when he said to me, “Mark, you can’t imagine how many people tell me that they want to write a book, but you told me that you wanted to and you’ve actually done it. Congratulations!”

Similarly the unexpected text from someone I barely know, but have great respect for, saying, “I was given your book as a present. Just finished it and I am in awe. My Mum died in September – I was both her carer AND her blue-eyed boy. Can we get together to talk?”

I do get a bit embarrassed talking about WSG in a group situation, so when a friend, who I admire for her intellect and unwavering feminism, appeared next to me at a dinner party, whispered to me, “Finally had time to read WSG. You write really well!” and then whisked herself away, I was relieved not to be the centre of attention, but touched by her approbation.

And then, last Saturday, I was talking about WSG and about capturing stories with a person I’d never met. When I was giving her my number, she popped it in her phone and tagged me ‘Author’. That gave me a silly / happy frisson of delight! HMW nudged me and chuckled, “You’re not a headteacher anymore, Mark: you’re an author.”

Becoming a writer was one of my three Retirement Dreams. If you are reading this, you’ve clearly found this blog, which keeps me out of mischief, but there is also a good chance that you are already a member of the community around ‘Who Stole Grandma’. If that is true, Thank You 🙏🏽

On a deeply personal note: all of this has helped me keep Moosh with me. It’s her story, after all, much more than it is mine. She would have loved all of this!

Sharing Who Stole Grandma has brought me so many very special days, but today might just be the most special, because today I managed to meet up with a woman who brought so much joy to Moosh’s last few years, through her kindness and care.

I hadn’t seen Sabeen since the day Moosh passed away, over 10 years ago.

She was the carer who opened the door of the nursing home the night I went to ask, in desperation, if they would be able to look after Moosh.  It was her welcome and warmth that convinced me to take Moosh to look around the home (the fourth we’d visited).  And it was she, more than any other, who totally got Moosh’s individual quirks, her introvertedness, her wicked humour, her deep faith.

Although she left the home a little while before Moosh passed away, some mysterious force, or just good fortune, meant that she was walking past the hospital ward moments after Moosh faded away and asked if she could come in to pay her respects.

This morning I was sorting through my man bag and happened upon the carefully stowed away post-it upon which Her Most Wonderfulness had written Sabeen’s number, when they bumped into one another in Card Factory four years ago.

I’d thought I’d lost the slip of paper, but clearly, just like Moosh would have done, I’d put it in a ‘safe place’.

Suffice to say, there were tears.  Tears when I rang, tears when Sabeen reminisced about Moosh praying for her and tears when I explained that I’d like to bring her a copy of WSG.  

There were more tears when I visited, when I told her daughters how brilliant Sabeen had been with Moosh and tears when I showed her the excerpt relating our meeting on Moosh’s final day.

But, just as in Moosh’s life, the tears were chased away by laughter (at Moosh’s mischievousness) and joyful recollections of Moosh’s love of being a Grandma, and, most of all, by the certainty that Moosh would have taken some credit for the fact that Sabeen had been blessed with the babies she’d craved.

Between phoning Sabeen’s and visiting her, I recorded a podcast with The Book Shelf (https://www.thebookshelf.ltd) and was asked what was the happiest moment that WSG had brought to me.  I happily reeled of a long list, but shared with certainty that today’s chance reconnection with Sabeen, a woman who meant so much to Moosh and gave so much to her, was one of the highest of happy pinacles.

On 19th February, it will be the tenth anniversary of us losing my Mom, ‘Moosh’.

I can’t predict what the day will be like, because it is not normally her anniversaries that affect me and (almost all of the time) I’ve moved past the years of painful grief. On the other hand, I do know that there have been many ‘non-anniversary days’ when the loss has snuck up on me and hit me unexpectedly.

Sometimes it’s a memory; sometimes it’s a moment I’d love to share with her; sometimes there’ll be a moment triggered by a song or a film. Usually, in those situations, I’ll have a minor wobble, shed a tear and need a hug; very occasionally it’s a much more engulfing cloud of renewed mourning.

Despite the fact that Moosh’s last eight anniversaries haven’t troubled me (in fact I often only register on the day itself, or the day after) somehow, this tenth anniversary has been looming, so I’ve been preparing myself.

In an attempt to control my emotions on the day, and avoid the cloud, I’ve decided to be proactive and do two things. N°1: I’m going to go to the gurdwara with my mother-in-law, because: a) she reminds me of Moosh; b) despite my lack of faith, I find the peace of holy places a good place to gather my positive memories. N°2: I’m going do a final weekend of fundraising in Moosh’s memory. It seems to me to be better to be planning to do something, to be focussed.

Sharing our family’s story of losing Moosh, in my book ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ has been one of the most heartwarming experiences of my life – it has been uplifting and humbling to hear people’s responses.

One of the proudest impacts has been the donations made to @ParkinsonsUK, when I have given WSG away for FREE on Amazon.

So, on Moosh’s anniversary weekend (19th and 20th February 2022), ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ will, once again, be completely free to download on Kindle in the hope that people will choose to make a donation to Parkinson’s UK.

If you are on Twitter or Instagram or have any other favourite platforms, I would be hugely grateful for your support in helping me to reach people, who might want to download WSG, and who might consider donating, so please share with those contacts who you feel might be interested. 🙏🏽

You can find out more about ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ on my website. 

You can download the Kindle e-book from Amazon.

You can donate to Parkinson’s UK here.

#parkinsonsdisease #parkinsonsuk #parkinsons #parkinsonsawareness #grandma #celebrationoflife #upliftingstories #nonfictionbook #nonfiction #nonfictionbooks #nonfictionreads #memoir #giveaway #bookgiveaway #fundraising #donations #giveback #freebook #freebooks #writingcommunity #writerslift #community #kindle #amazon

“Do you believe in messages?” was my sister’s slightly hesitant question, when she rang me last week.

Caught with my mind in the midst of other stuff, (probably pondering Steve Gerrard’s fit as Villa’s new manager, OR the doubling of thirty-year-olds amongst our offspring), I utterly failed to pick up on the nuance in the question, so my unthought-through answer was, “Erm, yes, WhatsApp? Messenger? Depends.”

“No, Al! I’m pretty sure you don’t believe in them, messages from people who’ve left us, but I wanted to ask.” She was still hesitant, but also undisguisedly excited.

She’s right, I’d love to, even try to, but, when push comes to shove, I don’t have that belief – the closest I’ve come is delightedly raising cocktails to a jaw-dropping double rainbow, over my cousin’s garden in Western Australia, as we told ourselves that our heavenly mothers were showing their delight in us meeting up for the first time (our only week together, ever, but one of blissful, cousinly bonding and raucous hilarity).

I have lots of friends who do believe and, when I listen to them sharing their stories (of a strangely mute robin repeatedly visiting Her Most Wonderfulness, silently cheeping, in the garden, following the loss of a dear friend, who had lost the power of speech; or a purple dragonfly appearing in the week after losing a parent – my cousin, above – who wore a tattoo of one), I fall somewhere between polite incredulity and downright jealousy at their good fortune (and their ability to believe).

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With my brain now tuned in, I grasped that my sister had something to share, something that had lifted her and brought brightness to her voice:

“I was getting Mom’s bureau ready for you, emptying it of my crap and giving it a good polish so that L can bring it down to you at the weekend.

“I’d opened up the secret drawer – do you remember it? And there it was. I thought it was just a scrunched up bit of rubbish, but something made me un-scrunch it.

“It was one of Mom’s God clippings! I haven’t seen one in years! It’s as if she is pleased that you are taking over looking after her bureau, now that I won’t have space for it!”

And so it is that we now have Moosh’s bureau in pride of place in the dining room at Memsahibjit’s Prosecco Palace (aka our house), all pristinely polished and containing just one item: a tiny, torn piece of paper, taken from a magazine or newspaper (not neatly snipped as was her usual M.O.) but showing the word ‘God’s’.

Those of you who have read The God Box in ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ will already know about Moosh’s unique act of devotion, which led her to snip (or tear) and collect every ‘God’ she found in print and store them in one of her succession of God Boxes (Missio charity box for the Catholics amongst you), so that they were not disrespected by being thrown in a bin.

The one that my sister found in Moosh’s bureau is almost certainly the very last one of her devotionary snippings. We think that she used to reverently burn them and we buried her last box of them with her, (along with many year’s worth of Palm Sunday crosses).

Whether or not it is actually a much wanted message or sign, it has had me smiling and I have opened the secret draw more times in the last 24 hours than I dare admit! Although if people are around, I content myself with stroking the desk lid 🤣

Our dining room only became what it is now, after it was no longer Moosh’s room, filled with her fab electric hospital bed, beloved wingback chair and tons of nicknacks, so it is lovely that her bureau (and her last God) are where she was when she lived with us for those five months.

I’d Love To Believe 💜

The God Box 🕊

Santé 🥃 (Moosh drank whisky & coke)

Facebook worked its magic on me a moment ago, when this picture popped up in my Memories.

This is me, three years ago today, perched on a hillside, looking out over the olive groves from the terrace of my sister’s little piece of Andalusian heaven, pondering, and determinedly typing . . . taking the very first steps in trying to put Who Stole Grandma? down on paper, or at least onto my laptop.

Our eagle-eyed eldest was most amused, piping up, “Still only typing with one finger!”

And he was right! After 19 years of being a head teacher typing all of my paperwork one-fingeredly, as a bit of a dinosaur, I couldn’t have changed even if I’d wanted to.

That morning, warmed by very welcome autumnal sunshine, I captured the 50 bullet points that were my starting point – 50 moments in Moosh’s life that I hoped to build into WSG, some of them joyous and laugh-inducing, others ranging from melancholy to heartbreaking.

For the next three weeks, I drafted a good chunk of my first draft in quite an unusual way: I wrote by mood or by measuring my emotional strength at the start of each morning. If I was feeling strong enough, I’d write the sadder sections. If I needed to be lighter, I focussed on the happy memories: it was all about emotion. At that point there was no chronology whatsoever. Some days I chuckled as I jabbed away, one-fingeredly; on others I shed a tear or two or simply broke down.

I was so taken by the idea of writing with a view that when, ten months (and many interruptions) later, I came to rewrite the ending for the gazillionth time, I asked friends if I could take my laptop to their Languedocian terrace overlooking vineyards and across at the Pyrenees!

It’s time to start my next book. Actually, I’m going to start writing two, completely unrelated books at the same time and see where my mood and my drafts takes me. So, I’m on the look out for somewhere quiet, with spirit-filling views – if you have any suggestions of where that might be, let me know 💜🙏🏽🍷

After the joy of our Book Celebration at Bear Bookshop, and the success of giving WSG away as an e.book to raise funds for Parkinson’s UK, I wanted to finish off with a challenge that has the potential to keep small donations coming in . . . all charities have been struggling through the pandemic as fundraising has been decimated.

So here is The Tunnock’s Tea Cake Challenge: replicating a joyous morning that Moosh and I shared in the nursing home.

Chapter 44, The Malayan’s In The House, end’s with the sentence, ‘Moosh and I were high on teacake and the anticipation of Sandra’s visit.’

We were both ‘high’ after playing the tea cake game, which the dyskinesia of her Parkinson’s made a real challenge for Moosh. When I showed her how to play, I made her cry with laughter by splatting myself just like in this video!

But that’s not how you are supposed to play. There are rules!

• You unwrap the teacake from its red and silver foil wrapper
• Place it on the palm of your hand
• Smack it on your forehead BUT . . .
• You have to use just the right amount of smack to crack the chocolate shell and reveal the gooey white centre, but, without getting even the tiniest smidgen of luscious marshmallow on your skin

There is no real winner only laughter! And mess!

So now (with your help) the invitation is being spread to anywhere that people are daft enough to take part and generous enough to make a donation: get some friend’s together, grab your camera, post the results, make a donation at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/wsg4puk . . . then invite others to do better than you.

I can just about do Facebook and Instagram, so friends like Ali (above) have already been joining in and posting and donating, but TikTok is many, many technological leaps beyond my technophobe-dinosaur abilities, so Ameesha (The Book Shelf) stepped up . . . https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8PLpfLh/

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When you take part, please find a way of letting me know 💜

You can download the Kindle e-book of ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ from Amazon completely FREE . . . but, while you are doing so, please consider making a donation to Parkinson’s UK here.

‘Who Stole Grandma?’ is my sharing of our family’s experience of losing my Mom, Moosh, to Parkinson’s Disease, but it is not a book about Parkinson’s: it is a celebration of the laughter and love that we squeezed into those years of incremental loss.

Thanks to very generous support, we have raised a little over £3,250 for Parkinson’s UK built around ‘Who Stole Grandma?’. People have made donations for signed copies and for a June weekend of free e.books and I donated my June and July earnings from Amazon book sales. Now, from 19th October we are holding my last five planned days of WSG4PUK fundraising.

On 19th October, we are holding a cosy, intimate Book Celebration at the wonderful Bear Bookshop (https://bearbookshop.co.uk/) with readings, a Q&A, talks by guests from Parkinson’s UK, a book signing, music, a special game, a raffle, cake, and samosas. (Regrettably, the guest list is now closed.)

But, hopefully, the best fundraising will be achieved by using my KDP promotion days to make ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ FREE again for 120 hours and urging people to make a donation to Parkinson’s UK instead of paying for the book – it worked beautifully in June, but I’m hoping to reach a much wider audience this time, so if you can spread the word, please share this post 🙏🏽

You can find out much more about ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ (blurb and reviews) elsewhere on my website.

And you can find out more about the amazing work done by Parkinson’s UK here.

Thank you for your support.

It really is all a tad emotional here at Lanyon Manor (aka Maharanijit’s Prosecco Palace) this week.

We are a week away from the last week of my fundraising for Parkinson’s UK built around ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ and there have been sniffles, sobs and tears.

Tuesday 19th October is the rescheduled date for what we hope will be a cosy, intimate Book Celebration at the wonderful Bear Bookshop (https://bearbookshop.co.uk/) so, yesterday I was down at the shop with Jenny working on the programme and the organisation – there were moments of misty-eyedness as we discussed the chapters to be read, which only got worse when I jokingly suggested to Jenny that, if I choke while reading, she would have to take over.

At home, whenever there is an absence of people in the house, I take advantage by practicing my reading out loud, which is way, way harder than I remember from my teaching days. Recently, I was chatting with a friend who is a singer about the fact that there are lots of songs that I can’t sing without getting teary – she agreed and had a list of ‘can’t sing without gulping’ songs. It turns out that I’m a bit like that with reading my chosen excerpts of ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ too, so I’ve been trying to remember where the gulpy bits come, so that I’m ready for them.

Yesterday, Her Most Wonderfulness arrived home while I was in full-flow read-out-loud mode. I decided to ignore her and carry on. As I reached the last four words, I knew they were gulpy, but got through them, only to turn round to find HMW completely beetroot and crying . . . next Tuesday could be challenging, but I’m hoping that, if HMW is in charge of samosa distribution or raffle ticket selling, we can avoid setting each other off.

Other things are triggering our tear ducts: in one of the chapters that I chose months ago (The Malayans In The House) I reference my lovely cousin, who we lost last week, so every time I come to her name I have to breath, AND I talk about the Tunnock’s Tea Cake Game, which was taught to us by a dear, recently departed friend, whose family and friends are joining us. Just to add to the layers of lachrymosity, I’m buying the tea cakes from the corner shop just round from the nursing home, where I used to buy Moosh’s Saturday essentials (mainly biscuits and magazines) – I could just buy them from Aldi, but why not embrace the emotional deluge?

Lastly, there’s the music. The second chapter that I have chosen (The Birthday Breakout) ends with our eldest singing to his Grandma and I’d asked him to re-record the song that he wrote especially for her. Although he’s demurred about that particular song, he’s recording a cover of a family favourite, which made me decide to put together a playlist of Moosh songs to play while people browse (songs she loved, or which remind us of her). That too has taken us off into wistful reminisces, but it’s also brought giggles as we remember Moosh being highly entertained as she waved her diskinetic arms to Queen’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’.

In closing, I wanted to let you know that, along with our little Book Celebration, we will make ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ free to download as an ebook (from 8:00am on 19th to 8:00am on 24th October) in the hope that it might inspire a few more people to make a donation to Parkinson’s UK. So far we have raised a little over £3,250. I’m hoping to publicise this last fundraiser as widely as possible, so please bear with me, if you receive a message or a text asking you to help me to – I’ll stop soon.

People can download WSG for FREE from 8:00am BST on 19th October at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Stole-Grandma-Memoir-Laughter/dp/191689240X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=who+stole+grandma&qid=1633861540&sr=8-1

They can donate to Parkinson’s UK, anytime, at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/wsg4puk

Find out more about WSG at https://marklanyonstoryteller.com/who-stole-grandma/

And you can find out more about the work done by Parkinson’s UK at https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/

Well, we had just the fabbest Tuesday on the WSG Delivery Tour Of Languedoc, even though it wasn’t even Her Most Wonderfulness and I doing the touring!

When we were plotting the route of the tour, we had planned to meet Sally in Carcassonne to the west of Our Little Tin Shed, and Sylvie in Uzes to the east, but in Retirement World plans can be changed, swiftly adapted.

And so it was that, at 11:30am, I was walking from the marché in Marseillan (where we go every Tuesday so that HMW can visit her favourite dress stall) to Le Marius in the Marseillan’s pretty port (where we end up every Tuesday so that HMW can celebrate her purchases with a kir or a cheeky cocktail). The important difference was that, this Tuesday, I was looking for a woman I’d never met with the key clue being that she would have, not a red carnation, but a little white dog.

I now know that little white dogs are even more common in Languedoc than I first thought. While HMW had been dress shopping and then stall hopping for impulse buys, I whiled away my waiting-to-nod-approvingly time surveying the market throng for LWDs and then gauged their owners against the partial image of my never-before-met blogfriend, Sylvie, wondering whether she might be having an explore of the market before our rendezvous.

By the time I approached Le Marius, my 30 minute LWD count was in the 40s or 50s. As soon as Le Marius came into view I searched its port facing frontage, but couldn’t see a LWD waiting outside the bar helpfully sitting next to a woman who might be Sylvie.

Fortunately, there was a much more easily spotable clue in the three smiling people waving from a table at the back of the outside.

And that is how a truly pleasurable afternoon began. What might have been just a quick coffee and a ‘Hi’ turned into six of us connecting and lunching and hours of flowing conversation in which I inadequately marvelled at the fact that amongst the six speakers there were five different mother tongues. We fluidly shared life histories and travel stories and whale watching tales (and whale not seeing) and the life choices that found us in neighbouring departments in Occitanie. We talked about WSG and loss and grief and the gift of time. We puzzled over nationality and national identity. We unpicked the differences between writing for reading and writing for speaking. We railed against dog abandoners while passing tidbits to the very loved, happily rescued LWD, who sat patiently allowing us all to natter.

I think we may have still been sitting there now, still chatting and steadily working our way through the menu of cocktails and glaces, if HMW and I didn’t rather delightfully have a second WSG get together in one day.

As we were enjoying that rush of new connection in Marseillan, Sally was heading our way with her husband and a campervan full of fur. Importantly, Sally was one of the first people to be willing to suggest corrections as she read WSG in its Facebook form, despite never having met me. I am enormously grateful to her for that.

Between Sally and I, taking into account the needs of tired canines, we decided on a get together at the Tin Shed, with a hastily pulled together table of pizza and salad and nibbles and wine.

For the second time in less than half a day, HMW and I were enjoying meeting completely new people and their dogs.

Once again the conversation flowed – from the iniquities of dog breeding (they are fostering a traumatised chihuahua bitch, who has spent 6 years captive in a cage forced to have litter after litter but never been allowed to walk); to the joys of dog breeding (they have reared a litter of Griffon Bruxellois); to the plight of dogs simply discarded by owners.

And then we talked life stories and campervans and explorations and love of the sea and where in Occitanie would be the perfect place to live; and then about friendship and loss and grief; and then writing and capturing stories; and then the joy of port at the end of an evening. And ours was a lovely evening.

When I say to friends at home that Her Most Wonderfulness and I had this notion of meeting up with my never-before-met blogfriends, I’m sure that some of them think we are crackers, but just as our travels have brought us many new friendships some of which have massively affected our lives, so too the sharing of ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ has brought wonderful connections, some of which might only be fleeting fun, while others may blossom into new friendships.

There is a type of bravery in reaching out and saying, ‘Do you fancy meeting up?’ HMW and I share a willingness to do so and it is continually enriching our lives.

As I sit here writing, a part of me feels that these special moments and new connections are Moosh’s last gifts to me – I’m very grateful to her for them.

The Joy Of Connection 💜

Gratitude 🙏🏽

Santé 🍷

Without expert help Who Stole Grandma? would still be largely unseen on my Facebook blog and sitting unpolished and unread on my laptop.

Fortunately for me, the support of friends and of complete strangers encouraged me to self publish and (absolutely crucially) to seek that expert help. In my case the expertise came in the shape of Ameesha, the friend of a friend of a friend.

Ameesha is the founder of The Book Shelf (https://www.thebookshelf.ltd/) and, through her team, provided the guidance and impetus that I needed to get WSG out into the world.

As a novice writer, I had a book that I believed in but no idea what to do next. Ameesha took me from that point of unknowing past the point of self-publication, the point of accepting that I am now an author, with people reading turny-page copies of Who Stole Grandma? or the e.book version.

Crucially for me, Ameesha is a great communicator – a superb listener and a clear speaker. She showed interest in my book and my motivation for writing and took note of my strengths, weaknesses and needs, and we agreed to work together.

In the weeks that followed, she guided me through an action list to prepare my book for self-publishing with KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). She explained, nudged, reminded, and encouraged me empathetically and constructively.

The first task was to load my book from Word A4 pages to Reedsy Editor, which gave me the format of the book and, incredibly helpfully, access to online support. I began firing ‘Help!’ questions to Dari, who I thought, at first, was a Siri-like, AI ‘robot’, fount of all knowledge, until Ameesha assured me that Dari is a real person.

Then she coordinated the input of her excellent designers to deliver key elements that I could not: creating the cover I had envisaged and creating a perfect graphic solution to a unique formatting request.

I had mocked up two ideas for the front cover: one using a bright, colourful piece of art created by a dear friend on the other side of the world and the other based on a favourite colour photo of Moosh on one of her favourite nights ever. Ameesha’s designers came back with a black and white cover using the photo in a range of gradations of greys and with script layouts and font choices. We batted ideas back and forth with never an ounce of impatience shown at my newbie queries or my pernickety insistence on details that were important to me.

I had already set my heart on a launch date and Ameesha was coordinating her designers and our conversations to realise it, even when my inexperience threw stumbling blocks into our path. As my dreamt of front cover was delivered, Ameesha also pointed out a blindingly obvious fact that I had neglected, that a book’s cover is also the spine and the back cover (derrrr!), but she had matters in hand and already had her designers on the case, and delivered that too.

The graphic solution that I needed in the body of the book hinged around Scrabble, the board game. Scrabble featured hugely in mine and my mother’s last few years together and I felt a need to illustrate the frustration she experienced on one particularly significant day, when she could not orientate her letters. I had tried and tried to manipulate fonts and symbols and even photographs to depict her situation, but all in vain. I never actually asked for The Book Shelf team to solve this problem, but one evening a WhatsApp message popped up with the solution in Scrabble tile font. It is a tiny fragment of the book, but it finished it off for me in a far better way than I had ever envisaged.

I was both gratified and stunned that The Book Shelf would not take money from me for proof reading services that they knew they were expertly placed to provide, but knew also that, with my anticipated book sales of less than 1000 books, I simply could not afford. Understanding this, Ameesha suggested the strategy of recruiting a team of willing and capable friends to undertake the task: 33 of them did, in anonymous pairs, each pair taking a minimum of four chapters . . . and it worked, brilliantly! Without Ameesha’s prod, I would never have dared to put out an appeal to friends, or been offered support by people I have never met, or their partners! I am incredibly grateful to each one of them.

As the launch drew near, Ameesha spoke to me in detail about my book to identify Amazon keywords and categories, which were an unknown mystery to me but are vital to the marketing of a book. The success of this element of The Bookshelf Ltd’s service was evidenced in my book (entirely unexpectedly, but rather gorgeously) spending part of a weekend at #1 in six of the categories that we identified.

As a technophobe, I was pleased (and utterly relieved) to have The Book Shelf team upload my book to KDP, secure additional Amazon categories, and coordinate marketing strategies such as free promo days on KDP.

At each step, Ameesha ensured that I would be able to attempt it next time myself. Out of lack of innate interest in that part of the process (or innate idleness), I might still ask The Book Shelf team to handle things for me, but she has trained me, so that I don’t need to.

The ‘after care’ has been a residual bonus, with congratulatory messages from Ameesha about reviews, and Twitter invitations to take part in writing lifts to publicise Who Stole Grandma?, and the shared knowledge that the promo days that Ameesha set up for WSG have helped me to raise over £3000 for Parkinson’s UK, a charity very close to our hearts (https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/WSG4PUK).