BASKETTCASE

All the nativity books are sold!  Ruth rang up from Grreen Pastures on Thursday to say they had all gone, and was there any chance of getting some more, in particular for the church's Christmas Fair on Saturday.  It was very short notice and Mick had had three days of broken down machinery during the week.  He agreed to try, no promises.  Then he rang back to say the production price would be considerably more for such a short run (Ruth wanted 20) so Dave said he had loads of customers wanting to buy them so he ordered another 100!  We delivered 20 to the Christmas Fair yesterday morning, and for the rest Dave is now my distributor.  He'll have to get moving to shift them before Christmas, although I suspect Green Pastures may need some more.  They already have back orders, and various volunteers from the shop are saying they forgot to get theirs!

Bob e-mailed me with a copy of the letter he received from his father's agent, suggesting I should contact their children's book person, so I have e-mailed her to see if she will accept the pdf version of 'When Grandma was Little' to look at.  The instructions for submissions also mention a CV, so I have also asked what that means in this context, as I can't believe they want to know the history of my career in medicine.  I think the only CV I have ever produced was 8 years ago when I retired from Lakenham and was looking for P/T work.

It is all quite exciting and although I don't expect ever to make anything significant from it, it does give some point to my literary efforts and sharpens me up.  I have a problem at the moment with balancing my tendency to self criticism against the untempered approval of family and friends, and the view of an unbiased stranger will either stop me in my tracks or give me the confidence I need to go on.

We had a couple of days of thaw this week and nearly all the snow has gone.  I should really have got out and planted the Autumn broad beans.  Apparently they are only suitable for autumn planting, but my numb tingly fngers still don't like the cold.  There was a hard frost last night, so I expect the ground is not very workable.  I'll see how Dave gets on pulling up a leek for lunch - if he has to dig it up I doubt if the beans will do anything useful in the ground.