Hello everyone,

General:
I remember my aunt telling me that the first thing that went, when she retired after 40 years of teaching, was all sense of day and date; having worked for so long to a rigid routine. Let me reassure you, I know it isn’t the right day or date but it IS a day when I am able to get to a computer to send out mails to everyone!

I’m guilty of not entering Chris’s haiku challenge, I knew when he spoke about looking up web sites before starting the challenge that I had no chance. But I hope you’ve enjoyed his challenge and I look forward to reading the results. Thanks Chris. And talking of results, between Olaf and I, we’ve cobbled together the running totals for the first four challenges and all the additional points for stray questions, quizzes and so on.

I am thrilled to see a BLOKE at the top of the league table. Chris has 11 points and two stars; Rosemary 9 *; Christine 8 **; Margie 8; Sally 6 *; Clare, Margaret and Tara have 6; and the rest of us mere mortals four or five points and an assortment of stars.

Group story:
This has kicked off and the first story in the pile is an absolute gem. The next is due any day and I shall do my best to keep that rolling on.

Mailings:
Not that I’ve been able to do much about it, but I’ve had two mails from organisations eager to involve us in their activity. In each case, I’ve looked at the sites and simply pass to you the basic info and will leave you to decide if you wish to follow anything up.

mfpublishing@ntlworld.com mailed me. They are looking for people to write (mainly) reviews for a site. Pay seems to be involved. Who/what beyond that I know not. If anyone does decide to make contact, by all means mention that the link is through me/alphawriters.

shortstoryradio.com can be googled and it shows a site where they are looking for stories. But they also have competitions and groups and so on. Once I’m back in the land of the (internet) living, I may well submit an entry to their section about writing groups.

Finally...:
Once I am back in the land of the living, there are all sorts of notes that I’ve been making that I want to send round about the challenges and some of the scrapes we’ve got into this season. But until I can respond to any responses to those jottings, it’s unfair to send things out.

Now the good news is that they start to put the floor back down in the house “soon” and that once that’s done it’ll only be a matter of weeks before we can move in! And then we have to open the boxes and get furniture in the right room and paintings on the wall… So by Easter!!!!!! No, no. I hope to be back in the swing of things by sometime in March (and now someone will tell me that Easter is in March this year!)

And I guess I should breathe another sigh of relief (following the one for selling the house in France and not making too much of a loss; and getting the Euros back to the UK when the exchange rate was favourable). This sigh is because I’m not in Lot and Garonne right now with 100mph winds whistling down the river valley and causing mayhem. I’m pretty sure that at least one of the trees in the garden will have ripped itself out of the ground and that we’d be without electricity and phone, like many others in the area. There’s only snow up here in County Durham!

Apologies for the continuing lack of proper service and my good wishes to all

- David David