Happy New Year!

With 2024 upon us, it’s time to take a look back. Not over 2023, just the past 24-hours.

First and most important:

I am looking for Beta Readers

The Talisman series is nearly complete. All the books have been removed from Amazon (don’t look for them, they are gone) in preparation for the new covers and the grand release, and I realized this would be an ideal time to give them a final once-over. They have all been proofread a number of times, so I don’t expect too many errors, but I would like some fresh eyes to look them over for residual spelling errors, awkward syntax, and misplaced punctuation.

There are currently six books ready to read. They are all around 60 thousand words, so reading them would not take much time. Also, you don’t have to read them all; one or two would do. I am hoping to spread the load around.

So, if you would like to help me out by reading my books, and letting me know of any errors, confusing passages, or plot holes you find, please let me know.

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The Miracle of the Christmas Lights

I have a string of naff icicle lights. I’ve had them for years. They take three AA batteries in a plastic tube. You press a button on the tube, they come on, you press it again, they go off.

This year, as others, I hung them on the balcony and, for the first few days, turned them on and off manually. Then a strange thing happened.

One day, about a week ago, I went to turn them off before we went to bed, and they were already off. The batteries had likely gone dead, so I thought nothing of it. The next day, I forgot to change the batteries, but then, as dusk settled, the lights came on. By themselves. All I could think was that the batteries had found some residual charge and began lighting the lights again. When I went to turn them off later that night, however, they were already off.

Again, I thought the batteries were dead, but the next evening, they came on—by themselves—again. And again, turned themselves off at 10 o’clock.

This has continued all week. So, yesterday, as dusk approached, I went out on the balcony with my pipe, just to see what would happen. Sure enough, as darkness settled, the lights spontaneously came on. During the evening, I kept an eye on them and, at ten minutes to ten, they winked off.

My wife continues to insist there must be a timer or light detection device attached to them, but this is simply not the case. They are a cheap, no-frills set of lights. But they continue to come on and turn off by themselves. Additionally, in years gone by, I have had to change the batteries several times by now. And yet, I have not needed to.

The best, the only, explanation I have, is that it is a Christmas Miracle.

I should start a new religion.

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The Pipes, the Pipes are Calling

Longtime readers of this blog will know of my love/hate relationship with the bagpipes. I took them up in June 2000 (after having noted in my Journal in September 1999: “Who in their right mind takes up the bagpipes?”) and by May 2001 was playing them.

I practiced a lot in those early years and, when I came to Britain, was good enough to join a pipe band. I was able to hold my own, but after a while it got to be too much, so I dropped out.

Over the years, I pulled them out occasionally, to do exhibitions or play for friends, but gradually found it harder and harder until, in May 2020, I found I could not play them at all.

No matter how hard I huffed and puffed, I simply could not get any sound out of them.

In desperation, I bought a set of small pipes, and wrote a few blogs about them, wherein I compared switching to them to “an aging biker who rides a trike and tries to convince himself it’s the same as when he was on two wheels.”

This year, having agreed to play at a New Year’s Eve party, I found myself unwilling to settle for the small pipes, but unable to use the big pipes. Until I found Easy Reeds. The blurb read: Easy Reeds are the perfect reed for the beginner, child, or, (ahem) ageing piper.

Long story short: I bought one, it works a treat, I am able to play the Great Highland Bagpipes once again, and I am very happy about that, even if the neighbours are not.

And the best thing is, I’m no longer an aging biker settling for riding a trike; I’m an aging biker, still riding his two-wheeled Harley Davidson that, unbeknown to anyone else, has a Honda engine in it.

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So, one request, one miracle, and one pleasant surprise: bring on 2024.

_{And, as a bonus, my somewhat rocky New Year’s Eve debut.}