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Wednesday 30 October 2013

I'm an Aries

Exerpt from "Hunny Love" Book 3 in the "Hunny and Winnie Speak" series.

Aries born fur-babies are described as energetic, enthusiastic, independent, enjoy the outdoors, and are brave and fearless.

"I was born on the 29th of March," says Hunny, "so I should be all of the above. Let's have a closer look."

Energetic: In short bursts only. I'm not interested in sport much. I like a game of tug every now and then and tag occasionally. Chasing geckos in the backyard is about as energetic as I get. Basically I prefer the laid-back lifestyle.

Enthusiastic: For belly rubs, food, walks, swims, hugs and lots of kisses., and not necessarily in that order at any given time.

Independent: Yeeeeeees, but I like to stay close to mum.

Enjoy the Outdoors: Swimming, walking, the beach, the garden,sniffing new smells, checking out more geckos, echidnas, snakes (native Australian wildlife). Who doesn't?

Brave and Fearless: I bark at everything.

One-Person-Dog: I love my mum. I love to lie next to her, on her chair, on her bed, on her. I hold her hand, the hem of her skirt even.

Dignified: I always cross my paws. It's my speciality.


So what do you think? Am I an Aries? I suppose I am.

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Hunny Love

Now it's Hunny's turn. Her book "Hunny Love" is book 3 in the "Winnie and Hunny Speak" series. Of course, she only enters the scene at this point, Winnie being an only fur-baby until now.

Hunny's name comes from the Winnie the Pooh stories as well. Do you remember Pooh's honey jars and how he spells honey? Hunny. Winnie loves hunny (Hunny), and that's how she got her name. It all made sense at the time.

Hunny was born on the 29th of March 2012 so that makes her an Aries. She's enthusiastic, energetic, independent, forthright, enjoys the outdoors and is brave and fearless. All in her own unique way certainly. She loves my backyard pond. It used to have a fountain, waterlilies and goldfish in it. Now, because Hunny loved to swim in it so much it's completely dry. I tried everything to keep her out and eventually bought her a swimming pool of her own. I'm still deciding on the best strategy to keep her out of my pond.

And this is why she needed a pool of her own. Each time Hunny went in to cool off she stirred up the sediment on the bottom. The fountain became clogged, the water level dropped and she ended up being one very smelly fur-baby.







Monday 28 October 2013

Little Winnie

These days Winnie is really sporty. She began training at an early age. As she says...I love running and jumping. My all time favourite sport is fetch and catch. I'm very fast and accurate now and often get to the spot before the ball does.

First thing in the morning I get the ball ready for mum so we can begin our day of play, but she usually ignores me until after she's had her breakfast. Then if I'm lucky we'll have a round. Sometimes she teases me and only pretends to throw it. Being the athlete that I am, I'm all primed, concentrating, waiting for the moment when she first moves her arm.

"Are you ready?" she says.

I'm on full alert now, solely focused on the ball.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm ready, throw it, throw it." I can hardly stand it. If she doesn't throw it now I'm going to snatch it off her...

Of course, from my point of view, this is a great way to keep my fur-baby amused, happy and healthy. I can toss the ball over and over  without her missing a beat. I can sit even, it's that simple, ideal "sport" for me too! Often I get up and throw the ball though so it's not all easy! I do have a lot of fun with my doods.

And here's a cute photo of Winnie when we first started training, way back when.

Sunday 27 October 2013

Inspiration

Before I began writing the "Winnie and Hunny Speak" series, I had no idea the books would be a series. The 'doods' as I call them sometimes were on a long list of book topics I wanted to write some day.

One day about the beginning of August I was browsing Amazon's ebook section on dogs and came across one called "Archie's Diaries. Tails from the Dog House" by Jane Palombella.

Archie is a golden labradoodle, hence my interest, and he lives in Wales. WELL, I COULDN'T STOP LAUGHING! This book, with photos, was so funny in Archie's description of his life. I loved it and highly recommend it to anyone wanting a good laugh!

I immediately hit on the idea of writing something similar by Winnie and Hunny. After all, I had lots of material. So I read several more dog ebooks. "A Lonely Dog on Christmas" by Patrick Yearly is also very humorous and a good read, as is the lovely "Rescue Dog" by Alexander S. Bauer.

So began a book that turned into a series. I have now begun the final book in the series "Chalk and Cheese."
It will be out in a week or two.

Winnie and Hunny are giving me lots of hints that it's dinner time. ie they are being very naughty.

Saturday 26 October 2013

Winnie's World

Winnie has written her first ebook, isn't she clever, seeing as she is a 2 year old Labradoodle! Now, she's written her second, which is about some of the daily challenges she faces.

For example, when she first came to live with me, her mum, she was barricaded into a small area of the backyard. There was a fence challenge that needed completion before she was allowed onto the BIG grass.

Next was a water challenge. Winnie loves water, as most fur-babies do, but for some reason what came out of the hose or the sprinkler caused epic warfare.

And what fur-baby and mum or dad don't have obedience challenges?  Winnie and I had a mostly smooth ride through this time of trial in life except on one very notable occasion. It occurred at the beach and involved a whole lot of running.

And after all the talk of running, Winnie and Hunny are having a quite rest, and I'm about to. Yesterday Hunny finished her first ebook, "Hunny Love", the 3rd short ebook in the series "Winnie and Hunny Speak". That's why we're all exhausted.

Little by little, and making sure I rest, I'm finding I can write with CFS. It is my personal challenge at the moment, as I am following a writing course with a wonderful coach. The course is intense, but extremely valuable. Thank you Angela.


Wednesday 23 October 2013

Third Time Lucky

Third time lucky they say. Well by now I should be an expert! Here it is at last, sorted, done and dusted, the link to Winnie's book. Do I hear cheers and loud clapping? Thank you, thank you.

I have to say, I've used a computer for years, but never had to make links until I began a blog, which was  VERY recently. So I'm just a baby blogger learning a whole bunch of new tricks.

I have now finished the third book in this series as well. "Hunny Love" will be available from Amazon next week. But first I will post about the second book, and I will do that over the weekend as I work "out" tomorrow, Friday.

I must also say that it has been an intense month (not over yet) on the writing front with all the new things I have learnt. Moreover, I have had to look after myself especially so as not to become over tired, which I came close to on one or two occasions.

It's all about balance after all, and knowing ourselves.

Monday 21 October 2013

Excerpt and Fixed Link

After I posted yesterday I realised my links didn't work. It had been such a day, so I drowned my sorrows in Pinterest and I felt much better! I LOVE Pinterest!!

Today I've done some more writing on the third book "Hunny Love"...didn't do any book writing yesterday hence my frustration. Never mind, yesterday is done and dusted.

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of "Hi, I'm Winnie". Enjoy.

...The story goes, mum told us, that one day about two years ago, she was having lunch with her friend Elaine. They were joking about being "techno-grannies" which is a bit of a joke really. Mum and Elaine are alternative lefties into natural ways of doing things, not mainstream at all.

Elaine is a granny to a fur-baby too, and they were having fun at their own expense as they often do when together. At about that time Elaine had just bought a new iphone 4 and mum had a new android phone and they were comparing notes. They were talking texting and things techno which I'm not really interested in, but since this story related to me, I was all ears. One thing lead to another and next thing they were talking about having "designer" this and that.

"Haha, as if that was them!" I've only met and sniffed Elaine once and I knew something was up....

Hopefully, the link to the book works now :) You can find it on the sidebar. Next time I'll talk about Book Two.

EDIT: I noticed straight after posting this that if you highlight either today's or yesterday's link then right click on the link it will take you to Winnie's page on Amazon. If someone would be so kind as to let me know if this is how it should work :) I'm new to blogging and it's taking me forever to sort this out. Thanh you very much xx

Sunday 20 October 2013

Hi, I'm Winnie

It's been a while, but I'm back with very exciting news! I've settled myself down and have published the first short ebook on Amazon in the series "Winnie and Hunny Speak" Its called...."Hi, I'm Winnie." Winnie tells the story of the first day in her forever home. It starts with talk of "things" designer, and ends with a big bad smell. 

All of the books are told in Winnie's and Hunny's voices and are amusing and engaging tales of their everyday lives.

In my next post I will talk about Book Two in the series "Winnie's World or The Fence and Other Challenges.

My memoir "Broken" is not forgotten either. It is still forthcoming. News on that shortly.