Yup, today's the day I take another step further into old-gitness.

I'm fifty-one for fuck's sake, I never imagined reaching twenty-one and after a really odd year, I look back in wonder as whilst some of this year has totally overshadowed the rest - the car accident and all - I've now got a house in France, published my first book and wonder what fifty-one's going to be like.

As you may have noticed, I posted a new story this morning, but I can't help thinking it had been posted here before.

Convinced I'd published this some four years ago, I searched through the stories here, but couldn't find it, so if you missed it, here it is ...

Nick

I'm less than a week from having been a member of this fine site for five years - can you believe it?

I just wanted to say thanks to Erin and her fine band of pixies that do their doin's keeping the place together. Also, thanks to all the kind people I have met, who take the time and trouble to read my gobbledegook, perhaps even clicking the Kudos button, dropping me a comment or both.

Here's to another five :)

Nick

I just wanted to say thanks to all those who have dipped into their pockets and bought A Witch in Time from Amazon.

Whilst copies are not exactly flying off the virtual shelves, the response has been much better than I thought it would have been - like, it's selling - and I have you wonderful people here to thank for that.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to France we go.

Sadly, it's not permanent yet, but we're not ruling that out for March of next year - maybe sooner if we can. Still we ARE going to do it, never mind how long it takes.

This time, we have the last bits of the flat's decorating and stuff to do so that we can hand the keys over to the letting agent for letting on our behalf. That way, hopefully, it will look after the cost of running the house.

At long last - and it's well overdue - we now own our house in France.

Our last trip over was a bit of a nightmare actually. The first day there was a Sunday and like England back in the deep recesses of the seventies, nothing was open. Fortunately we'd taken food and stuff with us and were looking forward to staying in our French home.

Things however, didn't turn out to be quite that simple...

Tomorrow we're off to France for just over a week to take possession of our new house.

Well, that's what we hope is going to happen. We'll have to see when we get there.

The house is ours - well all bar the shouting, but the shouting isn't over. At least it wasn't yesterday. The certificate d'urbanism, which basically means we don't get taxed for owning a commercial property wasn't changed as it was supposed to have been, so we're not 100% sure about what we're walking into.

Omigosh!

My Kudos is at 666 - The Number Of The Beast

Perhaps I'd better Run To The Hills or Hallowed Be Thy Name, I'll end up The Prisoner of The Children Of The Damned at 22 Acacia Avenue...

Sorry, just couldn't resist paying homage to Iron Maiden.

Nearly two weeks ago, I told you that Penny and I would be going to go on a lightning trip to France to look at a couple of houses.

The history is that we've been wanting to buy a house in France for years - literally and after the global financial collapse, the change in value of the Euro, life seemed to say that we weren't going to do it. This was after having been to Normandy and Poitou Charente to look at houses and being disappointed at what was really available.

I got the bloody job - Start Monday.

I can't believe it.

It's going to put a severe dent in the amount of time I can spend writing - like possibly leaving nil for the first few months and I'm sorry, but I don't care. It's the first job I've had in nearly three years.

In light of the fact that I was pretty much offered the job on Friday, Pen and I have been looking at houses and are possibly going to be buying ourselves a house in France over the Easter break as well. Of course, that was all banking on the job coming off and now it has, it's all systems go.

I'm probably well behind here and have missed something important, like the announcement that Kudos being interrupted for a while, which would explain where mine's gone. I've checked all the blogs back to before the New Year and haven't found anything. Have I not gone back far enough?

I just looked one day and there it wasn't.

Now compared to someone like Ang, whose Kudos looked like a phone number, mine just looked like loose change, but now I don't even have a zero.

Is it trying to tell me that I need to write something new?

I think that now makes me an old git. if not an old git, then a grumpy old bastard :)

I never thought I'd get this far and if I hadn't stopped riding bikes and driving cars like a complete maniac, I probably wouldn't have.

That means that by rights, I should now live forever...

God help you all.

Nick

On Joanne Barbarella's suggestion, I created a joke section on my new website, which because I can't use a database (it's the ISP, not my inadequacies), ten different subjects one on each page.

I'm quite chuffed with them and although there's nothing brand new there, there are some good ones.

However, they don't represent all of what I have, so having now got the bare bones down, I will be adding to them as often as I can and will be including a video section too!

Wow!

I am so pleased with the responses you gave me in my last blog that I now know what I'm going to write and that what I have already written fits.

What I would now like to ask is whether I can use what you have given me verbatim as quotes?

I will not use your names, unless you expressly want me to, they will just be used as personal opinions of those who have or are transitioning - or not as the case may be.

I've been working on this over today and would be really grateful if some of you would mind giving it a look over and let me know whether I've done it justice. Click here

I would really value your input here.

Thanks in advance.

Hugs

Nick

Hi folks.

It's me again and this time I'm after some help.

Today I had a brainwave.

I want to turn one of my stories into a screenplay.

The story concerned is only short, but I figure it might be able to be adapted to a screenplay, since there aren't too many actual scenes, few special effects and well, I'm sure you get the picture.

Even though I'm no Steven Speilberg or John Carpenter, I'd still like to give it a go and since I have absolutely no experience with plays--even those made for TV, I wondered if any of you good people may be able to give me some pointers.

No I'm not going to go through that old one about how you give a cat a pill, but for reference, you can find it here.

Instead, I'm going to tell you how yesterday I risked life and limbs (I have the gouges, scratches, lacerations and other abrasions to show for it) to take our cat, Sammo, to the vet.

Since I haven't managed to wow you all with another episode about Jamie, The Cliffside Heroine, which is in the offing, I have posted a new Sci-Fi story--just a short on Fictioneer.

You can find it here and I would be really, really happy if you'd leave a comment and let me know what you think.

FYI, Cliffside Heroine 6 is in the making and will be on the way soon--I promise.

Well we've just about got everything ready and will be leaving for the cross channel, high-speed ferry at 5:30 am tomorrow morning. The car's already packed and Pen's just vacuuming to leave the place nice for the cat.

We have ten houses to see, but our faves are on Wednesday's list of places to see, but whatever happens, I know it's going to be an adventure.

Hopefully I'll be able to regale you with some witty repartee upon my return--which would make a change eh?

Well folks, I'm just here to tell you that in just over a week, Penny and I will be packed into my little Peugeot and cruising down the boulevards of La Belle France - hopefully with the roof down - on our househunting camping trip.

We're really excited as we are going to be seeing about ten houses, three of which we are very keen on. The rest would be nice, but may need too much work to be within our grasp. The three we do like are actually habitable, one of which is more than habitable, it's perfect.

Oh well, we'll have to wait and see, won't we?