What a Weekend!!!

Weekends like the one just passed don’t come around often. I celebrated ten years of being a published author and my football club, Crystal Palace won the FA Cup for the first time in their one-hundred-and-twenty-year history! 

To be honest, it’s been a pretty crazy last seven weeks which included the publication on my twelfth novel, Just Like Her Mother a little over a month ago. More on that later but first, I promised on my last blog that I would share a little about our holiday to Javea in Spain with my son and his family so here goes.

My husband, Chris and I had arranged to fly out to Spain a few days in advance of our son to ensure the heated pool at the villa we’d rented would be warm enough for the children to enjoy. We left the UK in brilliant sunshine and unseasonably warm April temperatures and arrived in Spain where it was several degrees cooler!

I’m not allowed to share photographs of our granddaughter on here or any of my social media platforms, a decision I fully respect, so meet Lollo our granddaughter’s favourite monkey. He was seemingly as excited as she was at the prospect of going on an aeroplane for the first time.

To be fair, Dan and his family brought the sunshine with them in more ways than one when they arrived three days after us. Many happy hours were spent in the pool and also on Javea’s beautiful sandy beach. All the children were impeccably behaved in the various restaurants we dined out at and enjoyed a little ‘retail therapy’ in a shop called Ale Hop on Javea’s Arenal promenade. The talking and dancing duck was a particular hit.

I’d like to say it was a restful holiday, but I would be fibbing. It was however filled with happiness and laughter and was just what we all needed after the preceding few months. I did manage to read a John Grisham book, Camino Ghosts, and Dan and his partner, Danielle were also reading in the odd moments of downtown from the children. Dan read Find You First by Linwood Barclay which he has passed onto me, and I must say I’m enjoying immensely so far.

Danielle was finishing a book called Why She Died by J.G.Roberts which apparently, she couldn’t put down. For those of you who don’t know, it is book three in my DCI Rachel Hart crime thriller series!

It’s difficult to choose highlights when we were just so happy to be spending time with people we love, although a hilarious game of Mr and Mrs when the children were all asleep would rate quite highly.

I also owe a big thank you to Georgie, Danielle’s seven-year-old daughter for posing with my new book – her fingernails are in much better shape that mine currently are.

So, Spain was a joy but of course, as mentioned in my previous blog I came back with a dreadful cough and chest infection which slightly put the dampeners on publication day. Thankfully, I’m now feeling much better, but it seemed to hang around for ages as you’ll know if you’ve also been struck down with it.

While we were away in Spain, the estate agent for my mum’s bungalow rang to say we’d had an asking price offer on the first weekend it had gone on the market. The lady seems to love it and wants it to be her forever home. I know it shouldn’t really matter but it does. I hope she will be very happy there once the sale has completed which will probably be within a month or so.

The speed of the sale has caught us off guard a little as there was still a lot of clearing of furniture and possessions, not to mention the ‘things that might come in handy one day’ that filled both the garage and the shed! Chris and I travelled up to Nottingham very early in the morning a couple of weeks ago to meet with the removal people who were transporting Mum’s piano to our daughter’s house. 

It’s something that had long been agreed between Mum and Sophie and I’m pleased to report that it arrived in one piece as you can see. I’m happy that Sophie will derive pleasure from playing it just as Mum would have wanted.

While we were at the bungalow, I selected a few plants in pots to bring back for Dan. One was a ‘daphne’ which flowers early in the year and is very fragrant. Mum had bought one for me and one for herself so I thought it would be a meaningful addition to Dan’s garden. 

She’d also bought three lilac plants, one of which she gave to me but had kept the other two. I brought those home with me too and have given one to Dan and the other to Sophie. At the end of the flowering season, I’m going to treat us all to new matching pots and we’ll transplant them into their new homes. I’ve brought back a few Lily of the Valley plants and a peony off shoot. Peonies are notoriously bad at being moved but this one was already in bud and has since flowered. Fingers crossed all the plants I’ve brought south will thrive.

While talking about Mum’s possessions, I received this photo from my niece a couple of days after publication day. Becky has always bought and read my books and she photographed this latest one on a chair that used to reside in Mum’s conservatory – it felt very ‘fitting’.

So, having reached the number two Hot New Release spot in the Amazon Mystery, Thriller and Suspense chart, I can report that Just Like Her Mother is continuing to do well. Thanks so much to those of you who have bought and read it so far.

The reviews continue to be a bit ‘Marmite’, but I thought I’d share this one with you as it is rather lovely and even mentions Wilfie the cat – to be fair, quite a few of the reviews do.

By the way, congratulations to the three competition winners from my last blog who have now all claimed their prize of a signed paperback of Just Like Her Mother. And do remember, all but one of my full-length novels are now available as audiobooks.

That leads me nicely into mentioning the Liberty Sands trilogy which have only recently been made available as audiobooks narrated by the fabulous Melanie Crawley. Sunday saw the tenth anniversary of the ebook publication of Life’s a Beach and Then, my first novel with the paperback tenth anniversary coming up on June 19^th, my late dad’s birthday. It hardly seems possible that Just Like Her Mother is my twelfth book and I’m currently working on my thirteenth!

Anyway, to celebrate I reduced the kindle price of Life’s a Beach and Then to 99p for a few days and, hopeful that you will fall in love with Holly and the rest of the characters and will want to read the rest of their story, I’ve also reduced the price of book two in the trilogy, If He Really Loved Me.

Currently you can download the first two books for less than the normal price of one of them. The third book in the series, It’s Never Too Late to Say will also be price-dropped from Sunday so if you’re going away on holiday for the school half term there will be plenty to keep you entertained for less than £3! The offers are all time limited though so don’t miss out.

The title of this blog is ‘What a Weekend!’ and it certainly was for me as the previous day I’d watched my football team, Crystal Palace win the FA Cup for the first time in their history. I became a Palace fan when I worked for a cable television company in Croydon, shortly before joining QVC and was sent to interview the fans at Selhurst Park Stadium as they waited for the buses to take them to Wembley for the 1990 FA Cup final. We drew on the day but lost that one to Manchester United following a replay. We lost to them again in 2016 but emerged triumphant against the blue half of Manchester on Saturday.

I could have gone to Wembley but there was only one ticket available, so I opted to watch it on television at home with my family including our granddaughter who was fully kitted out in red and blue… shirt, shorts and socks! So cute.

I’m not going to lie, it was a hugely emotional moment when the final whistle blew for a club who almost ceased to exist in 2010. Our players were immense, our manager is outstanding, and our fans are simply the best at creating an incredible atmosphere. A part of me wishes I’d been at Wembley to savour the historic achievement, but I’ve always put my family first and I always will.

After the euphoria of the football came the only downside of the weekend, Eurovision. I loved the UK entry this year, What the Hell Just Happened – highly appropriate in light of the Crystal Palace victory earlier in the day-  and the performance from Remember Monday was faultless. They’d have had my vote if we’d been permitted to vote for our own entry. Zero points from the public vote? Maybe now is the moment to call time on Eurovision as it’s long since ceased to be about the song in my opinion! 

So, a very long and rambling blog this month and the promise of more next month as it’s our granddaughter’s 2nd birthday next week and I’ll be entering my seventieth year on the planet with my 69^th birthday two weeks later. And as mentioned it’s the Life’s a Beach and Then paperback 10^th birthday a week after that. You’ll be pleased to hear that I’m planning a big giveaway to celebrate so remember to check back.

Until then, much love

Julia xx