Change of location for Tottie's Book Blog

Just to let everyone know, who may be following this blog, that I will in future be blogging from the new website for the Sell the Pig series of books, http://tottielimejuice.com/. It will hopefully be an easier place to interact, so do drop in, say hello and remember to click to follow the blog, so you will be automatically reminded of any updates.

Thanks, and see you soon!

Tottie

Book reviews - have your say about Sell the Pig

I know it can be a real grunt writing reviews on Amazon. I've had some really lovely kind ones for Sell the Pig there myself and I'd really love to reply to them there but incredibly, although I've bought things from the site under my pen name, it won't let me post replies.

It's probably because I haven't bought Sell the Pig from there. I gladly would buy my own book, just so I could personally thank everyone who's taken the time and trouble. But although I have an account (several, in fact) and have downloaded a Kindle app, I somehow can't get Amazon to see the right Kindle for the right account. It's almost certainly my fault because I'm a muppet, but I still haven't found out how to overcome the problem.

So I thought it might be a nice idea to reproduce the reviews here on the blog and invite people to add their comments. It's a much friendlier forum here so if you're a bit shy, this is a great place to have your say. And don't forget, I really need your feedback so I can start working on the first of the sequels or prequels or whatever they turn out to be.

I did mention in Sell the Pig that I had a working title of Biff the Useless Mention, which is still a possibility, although at the moment I'm leaning towards Is That Billinge Lump?

So come on, all you kind and lovely people, what are your thoughts? What would you like to know more about? Which bits did you enjoy most and what were the bits you didn't like? One reviewer thought it was a bit boring in places. Did you? If so, which places? I need you to work with me if I'm going to do better next time!

Meanwhile, here's the first of the promised reviews. I'll reproduce them in the order they appeared on Amazon, and this is from the very lovely @BubblyNatz with whom I chat often on Twitter. It's a 5-star review posted on  20 Feb 2012 and entitled Sell The Pig - bugger!!!:


If you are an avid reader and an avid reader of true stories then you will love Sell the Pig! It is both lighthearted and heartfelt! The author regales you with her tales of her mother and brother, beloved dog and touches on earlier and later parts of her life too! Which all in all leaves you wanting more.Please do give this book a go you won't regret it and like me will be urging the author to write more!


Thanks so much, Natz. So, everyone else, do you agree? Please leave your comments below. Thanks.

Book bloggers of the world unite!

If you're thinking of writing and self-publishing a book, be under no illusions. Writing it is the easy part. All the self marketing you need to do if you actually want to sell any copies is the real grunt.

Thankfully for writers, estate agents and various others, there are not yet any rules on either Facebook or Twitter that prevent you from shamelessly promoting your wares. But take care - people will soon jump all over you and say you're overdoing it.

It's actually ironic as often the ones who do are those who are guilty of tweeting each and every bodily function (if only I was kidding!), or sharing their particular passion with you in minute detail. Honestly, if I was remotely interested in snooker I would watch it myself. Therefore there is absolutely no need to describe to me each and every frame, or whatever they're called.

So huge heartfelt thanks to Sandra, of the book blog SS Book Fanatics, who has kindly given some room on her site for a mention of Sell the Pig. It's a blog by a book fanatic, for book fanatics.

Thanks to all of you who have bought and read Sell the Pig - I'm pleased to report sales are creeping up slowly and steadily. Got some lovely reviews too on the Amazon sites. The UK site currently has 26 x 5-star reviews and one 3-star. Bit light on the .com site  and the .fr site so please, particularly if you bought through either of those, do leave even just a few words to say whether or not you liked it.

Please be brutally frank. If you didn't like it, say so and say why, as I'm already churning round sequel ideas in what passes for my brain so any and all feedback is hugely helpful. What would you like to read more of in Book Two? What didn't interest you at all?

Come on guys, it's not often you get to collaborate with a book, so give me your feedback and I'll do my very best to do it justice.

Moving to France - first views of the Pink House

If anyone's thinking of moving to France just for the weather, think again! Today is just like the weather we left behind in Wales, only with nicer scenery. It's cold, it keeps raining and hail-stoning, and the sun is nothing but a fleeting visitor.

Time to update the blog and probably high time you saw some pictures of the "pink house" as we saw it first, although it wasn't really pink at all, anywhere other than in the estate agent's online pictures!

"Both on paper and in the flesh, so to speak, this one looked very promising. According to the internet details, it had seven bedrooms and three bathrooms, was on three storeys and had a good-sized garden. We nicknamed it the pink house, as the photo showed the rendering as a pale rose pink, although in reality it was a lot paler and more washed out."

Our first view of "the pink house"

"They do warn house viewers to try to see past existing décor to what the place will look like once you've stamped your own mark on it. Sound advice. The decoration in the pink house was truly hideous. Very nineteen seventies. The sitting room had two very strong contrasting patterned wallpapers, which didn't go together, neither of which was very nice even in isolation and in unison presented a full frontal assault to the senses."

The retro sitting room

"But the layout was practically perfect for what we wanted. On the top floor was a bright, light three-bedroomed apartment with shower room and loo and some open space to create a small cooking and dining area. Ideal to let as B&Bs or a self-contained flat. It had very nice south-facing views, and the possibility to create a sunny roof terrace on top of the roof of the room below, which jutted out in front of it."

View from the top floor flat

And, Just because it's a very cold day today and there's still a lot of snow on the volcanic peaks all around, a view of what this part of France can look like in winter!

Don't forget, kind readers, I'm relying on you to tell me what photos you'd like to see. Hope you will enjoy these, will post some more on the next rainy day, which won't be too long, if the weather forecast is anything to go by! Do leave me your comments here, about the book, or the blog, or France, or Life, the Universe and Everything.

Moving to France - why the Auvergne?

For those of you who have read Sell the Pig and wondered why the fascination with the Auvergne, I thought I'd include some illustrations to show its beauty. Surprisingly, my own collection of photos is too poor to do it justice, so I'll include some links to far better pictures than I have taken.

As I explained in the book: "And then there was a song buzzing round in the back of my mind. Those of you who may remember an advert for Dubonnet in, I think, the seventies, with the strapline “Dubonnet - way up there,” will know the one I mean. It was the hauntingly beautiful shepherd's song Bailero, from Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne."

And for those who want to know what my brother looks like, here's a picture to show that he really did overcome his acrophobia and make it to the top of the Puy de Dome.

"We went for a run-out after that, westward to the Monts Dores then back via the Puy de Dôme and finally found the navette (shuttle bus) running, so took the white-knuckle ride to the summit for the incredible views.

The journey up certainly rattled my brother so he decided he couldn't possibly face the return journey on the navette. There is a pedestrian route up the Puy, an old mule track, but it brings you down to a car park a long walk from where we had left the hire car, near to the navette car park.

The direct route down to the navette car park is prohibited to pedestrians. The road is too narrow for more than one vehicle to pass at a time, so the navette drivers use what the French call talkie-walkies to synchronise their departures from either end, so they only meet whether there are designated passing places. And despite the steep gradient and plunging drop to the side, they rattle up and down as if they were in the Monte Carlo rally. Any pedestrian in their way would be toast, in very short order."

And here's an idea of what the Puy de Dome  looks like from the air - it's 1464m to the summit - and a side view. 

Do please let me know what else you would like to see photos of. Perhaps you might like to share which bit of Sell the Pig you find most interesting/amusing and I'll find some photos to go with it. Any and all comments always very gladly received and I always try to reply personally. Thanks for reading!

Leaving home in the UK to move to France

Just to prove I do listen to my kind readers and respond to their requests, here, especially for Carl, are some of the pictures of my "grottage" near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire.  Affectionately known as "The Hammer House of Horrors" when I bought it because it was in such an appalling state, having been largely lived in by animals for years.

As ever, photographs are accompanied by relevant text from my book, Sell the Pig, for the benefit of those who have not read it and to link things together for those who have.

"I wasn't particularly thinking of buying a property at this stage in my life, and certainly was not certain that that area was where I wanted to put down long-term roots, having been there barely six months. But, like the Elephant's Child, I am full of “'satiable curtiosity”.

"So when a neighbour told me horror stories of a cottage in the hamlet that was coming up for sale, I simply had to go and take a look at it. She told me it had been repossessed by the mortgage company when the former occupant, who apparently had some mental health issues, fell behind with payments and became unable to live there on her own any more.

"According to my source, the house was in very poor condition, as she'd kept all of her animals indoors for years – and I do mean all. Apparently the menagerie included dogs, cats, chickens and goats."

  Main bedroom

"It's hard to say which of our senses was assaulted first. The smell was indescribable. But my eye was immediately drawn to the tell-tale dark brown stains all over the floors and the door frames, wherever we looked.

"Before we'd even stepped over the threshold Mother was already saying “No, oh no.” But Auntie, who was surprisingly intrepid, was bumbling about peeping into rooms and cupboards and following me up the stairs and round the bedrooms – very brave, as parts of the upstairs floor boards had been rotted away with presumably several years' accumulation of animal urine."

First impressions on entering - the "kitchen"

...."I loved my cottage, now promoted from grottage, with a lovely garden, all created by my own hands. My predecessor there obviously had some very serious issues as, once I started digging in the mass of nettles and runaway lonicera nitida which was all there was of a garden, all I came up with was endless pairs of tights inside Walkers' crisp packets.

"Not sure which flavour. The blue bags. I only like the plain ones so I don't know the colours of the different flavours. But whatever the former resident had been trying to achieve, I can tell you that no matter what soil you plant that combination in, it simply doesn't grow into anything."

The garden, as I saw it first

That's your lot for today, but I promise to show you some of the "after" photographs, after the promotion from grottage to cottage.  Do please leave me your comments and as ever, this blog is driven by you.  What yea ask for shall be given unto thee, or something like that.

A book about moving to France

I know I said I wouldn't blog every day but here's a little bonus as I'm just off for a long weekend.

When I started this book blog, I was thinking of people who have already ready Sell the Pig, so they could leave their feedback and suggestions for a sequel. Then I realised that wasn't very fair on those who haven't read it. So I'll include a few excerpts on here to explain what the photos I post are all about.

Again, as Mother is so central to the book and is the reason behind its title, I thought you'd like to see some more photos of her.

"Then there's mother, now aged 89 and going through some glorious second childhood where she likes to say 'bum' and 'bugger' as often as possible." ......

'The fixation with bums is harder to explain. The other day when I visited the nursing home who are, allegedly, looking after her, I was most surprised to find her apparently absorbed in a rugby match on television, as she has never shown any interest at all in sports, particularly neither team games nor contact sports.

“Rugby, mother? You?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, without peeling her gaze away from the heaving flesh of the Australian pack as they went into a scrum. “Look at all those big fat bums".'