Words you thought you’d never write. A big part of an elf’s job is stopping over-excited children being run over by Father Christmas. As you do it, you start wondering whose bright idea it was to make school coats black or navy when they could be a nice fluorescent lime green. Okay, the massed effect might need to be avoided by anyone who has a nervous disposition but at least it wouldn’t be so easy to flatten them.
Still, no child was harmed during my first evening as a stand-in elf and it was fun to walk along with my collecting bucket and catch up with old friends and new and feel part of a Christmas tradition that I’ve enjoyed for more than thirty years in an entirely new way.
And hold on, I think I’d better explain, preferably with a picture, so here goes.
.That's better, isn't it? So, our local Rotary Club have a model train, in the cab of which Father Christmas stands. It’s pulled by an estate car and is lit up and they play carols and drive around a different set of streets each night to collect money for charity. The money is collected by the so-called elves, and they were short of volunteers this year so last night I was an elf for the first time ever. Not with a cute green tunic and a hat, thankfully, but with a fluorescent jacket, a bucket and a mile-wide smile because I was a tiny, tiny part of bringing Christmas to the area, just as it’s always started for me when the Santa Train comes.
It’s a cliche to say that people’s faces light up, but they did when they heard the music and came out to see the train driving slowly past. Sometimes, it was followed by a line of bemused motorists because the area where I live was built long before cars were a thing and there’s no way anyone can overtake. Frankly, I think the driver who navigates it round all those tight corners is pretty amazing.
Best of all, I was able to take sneaky details of the children and relay them to Santa via the driver so I got to enjoy seeing the kids’ expressions when they were told, by name, that it was time for them to go to bed and they needed to be good for their parents and then he’d see them in a bit over 3 weeks time.
Did I get involved deliberately? Of course not. By now, you should know that I never do. Did I have a whale of a time? Yes. Will I volunteer next year? In a heartbeat!
So now down to business.
There are two new books out this week. First, there’s Another World, which is the latest Amy Hammond cosy mystery and was inspired by reports of crop circles in the papers, which we get a lot of. Not as many as Wiltshire thoiugh so obviously aliens prefer it there which is fine by me…
Then there’s ‘A Patchwork Life’ which is a Harbourside Cosy Silver Romance, and set around Christmas. Catch up with old friends, while the past catches up with them and Katie and George have to deal with Katie’s family’s feelings about their relationship, and see how Hannah and Liam are doing as their romance deepens. This one came about because as we live longer dating seems to get so much more complicated and so many people seem to think that they have a right to an opinion about what you ought to be doing. Which is odd, you know, because the older I get the less certain I am of what I should be doing.
On top of that, we’ve got the usual weeekly speical offers at 99p in the UK and 99c in the US. If you can’t get these, go and have a look at the anthology section of my books on Amazon where you can get 3 books for £2.00. I’ll be adding to those in the New Year.
To begin with, there’s ‘A Christmas Sampler’ which is last year’s book of short stories from all my series. Then there are 2 Amy Hammond mysteries, To have and to hold and Let the Dead. These are early in the series and I have a sneaky fondness for ‘Let the Dead’ because it’s set in a place I know and love as much as Dorset.
Finally, there are 3 books from my Shadows series, written as Eleanor Neville because they’re a little bit sexier and darker. These have bondage in them, because it struck me that it was such a good way to blackmail someone. They’re nothing like bodice rippers though, promise, and they are Knights Move, Knight to Pawn and Pawn to Queen. Spymistress Kim Kinsella also pops up in ‘Snakes and Ladders’ which is out in February 2025, which isn’t long away now, is it?
So till we meet again, stay safe, have fun, and thanks, as always, for reading.
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