It seems so much longer than a week since I last wrote a blog – mind you, I have been back at work at my ‘day job’ on QVC this week, plus we have had two Father’s Day celebrations, both involving puppies… let me explain.
Meet Quin and Baxter – neither of whom belong to Chris and me!
Quin, who is a Dachshund/Jack Russell cross, belongs to our son, Dan and his girlfriend, Katie. They rather bravely got him two days after moving into their first home together! It wasn’t planned that way, but as often happens there was a slight delay on the completion of their house purchase and Quin was eight weeks old and ready to go to his new ‘parents’ on the Sunday after they’d moved house on the Friday. I must say, they were unbelievably organised by the time they collected him, and they’d only been home for around thirty minutes when we arrived with Wilfie, Dan’s cat. They seem to be getting on fine, although Wilfie is apparently not too keen when the puppy barks!
Quin’s first trip out, apart from a check over at the vet, was to our house last Sunday when his ‘mum and dad’ visited for a Father’s Day lunch. He was quite excited but didn’t have any accidents, instead weeing on his puppy pads. To be honest, I didn’t know such a thing existed. When we had puppies when I was a little girl, they made do with newspaper sheets on the floor. Mind you, there aren’t so many newspapers these days with most of them being online! Quin did a lot of playing too and running up and down the garden, which eventually tired him out and he flaked out on Dan for a good hour or so before they went home.
Then, on Monday evening we went over to our daughter, Sophie’s house for dinner. We didn’t see them on Father’s Day because they were picking up their puppy Baxter, a Labradoodle. Like Quin, he is very cute and playful and wasn’t at all shy with us considering he’s only arrived the previous evening. Again, he was very playful and lively before falling asleep under the sofa when he’d tired himself out. Sophie also has a cat, a ginger tom called Milo. He seems completely chilled about having a new family member and fell asleep on the sofa under which Baxter was sleeping on the first day they were introduced to each other.
I really enjoyed all the puppy playing and cuddling but, a bit like when you become grandparents it was nice to hand them back for the not such fun bits. No prizes for guessing who will be called on to ‘babysit’ the puppies if the need arises.
We’re still undecided about getting a puppy or kitten (or both). We’re quite enjoying the freedom of having no-one to look after but ourselves.
So, as I mentioned I’ve been back in at work this week for the first time in six weeks. It was pretty exhausting being back particularly as I can’t see my TV monitors as clearly as I should be able to, so I was a bit ‘headachy’ after my first couple of shifts. It did however give me the opportunity to collect the birthday cards that viewers had very kindly sent in. I have to say that I found this one particularly amusing – all the more so, because the viewer who sent it shares the same birthday as me, so understands my sense of humour. This is the last mention of my birthday this year… probably.
Talking of anniversaries (which birthdays are in a way) I love getting those reminders pop up on Facebook of things that you’ve previously posted. Yesterday, it flashed up a reminder of the launch party I held in 2015 for my first novel, Life’s a Beach and Then. It was at a lovely Italian restaurant in Chiswick called Villa di Geggiano which was just up the road from the QVC studios.
I held it there so that loads of my friends and colleagues could come straight after work. The wine flowed and some of us stayed on to enjoy a delicious dinner – I seem to remember leaving around midnight, pretty late for me! The only other book launch party I’ve had was at my house two years ago and was on Publication Day for my first Bookouture novel, Little Girl Missing. As The Woman on the Beach is my ninth novel, I feel overdue for another ‘book bash’ especially as we’ve been unable to celebrate so much over the past eighteen months.
Speaking of The Woman on the Beach, it’s now just under eight weeks until publication although you can of course pre-order if you would like to. This coming week it will be available for Netgalley readers to request ahead of publication in return for an honest review. I always get very nervous at this point as it’s the first time anyone who isn’t involved with the Bookouture team in the various editing stages has had eyes on it. I so hope people are going to enjoy Liv’s story.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before that the original idea started to form when we were on our last foreign holiday in January 2020. I’m going to be honest, Mexico seems like a million years ago, but who wouldn’t be inspired by this beautiful beach and the sound of the waves on the shore?
And on that note I’ll finish for this week. Check back next week when, amongst other things, I’ll be introducing you to author Karen King whose latest release is currently flying high in the Kindle Top 100 chart, in my monthly feature, Between the Lines.
Much love
Julia xx
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