Sunday 29 July 2012

Still on the high seas - well the Blatic anyway

Still no serious news. I am still offshore and I will be for the next three weeks. I have now got the 5th book uploaded, it is called sad to be a zombie. It is an attempt to write a book about zombies where they are the victims. I am not totally happy with it, it was my first attempt at a totally made up story and I am not sure I put it across very well.
I also got my first negative review! It was for "down but not out", which is a book about my failure in business. The reviewer kindly called me, and I quote; "a sad pathetic loser" and his final statement was "who wants to read a book about failure anyway", well, obviously he did, as he paid for it. He also complained about my spell and suggested I either bought a dictionary or a newer copy of word. He also made a simple spelling error himself, writing "out" instead of "put", which I felt sort of weakened his position. However, he was brave enough to use a nickname rather than his real name, so I suppose that evened it out.
Oh, and just so you know, the book he bought and complained about with such vitriol cost him £0.77p. I full understand his displeasure, as 77p is such a huge amount.
Catch you all again later....

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Offshore

OK, yes I know, I have not been updating this regularly, but then I am offshore you see.
I work as a surveyor on a ship for a large survey company. On the ship we work 12 hours shifts, mine runs from mid night to mid day. Normally I am on the ship for 28 days and then I go home. Due to my dad passing away I missed 2 weeks of my last trips, so I am having to do a six week trip to catch up.
This is not how I would prefer to operate, I prefer the 28 days on/ 28 days off!
OK catch you later.

Sunday 8 July 2012

Olymipic Torch

I will be taking my grandsons to see the olympic torch tomorrow in Bletchley, they have been on at their mum for weeks to see it. She is working so she can not take them.

Going offshore again

I was supposed to go offshore a couple of weeks ago, but of course, my father died. I will now being going offshore on Wednesday (Probably). I had an email from the office on Thursday to say that they will not have any information on the mobilisation until Tuesday, which suits me as I will not be able to collect my medication until Tuesday mid day.

Funeral

We did not scatter my Dad's ashes, we are going to do it in a few weeks when the whole family can all be together.

Thursday 5 July 2012

My fathers Funeral

Yesterday was my fathers funeral. It went well. We held it at the Crematorium in Kettering, followed by a wake held at the Red Lion in Bozeat. He was cremated and on Saturday we will be scattering his ashes at a local farm. The ceremony is for Family and close friends only. We requested no flowers for the funeral, as he was not into flowers and Mum thought they would be a waste. Instead we asked for donations to Leukaemia CARE, we will have to wait to hear how much was paid into the Funeral Directors, and how much they collected at the Crematorium, but at the wake we raised £108.96 which we are sending to Leukaemia Care in a cheque. We actually made it up to £110 to keep the figures simple.
We had a non religious service, as my Dad was not a religious person, I gave a speech which was made up of what my brothers and sister remembered of my Dad. My nephew Bradley spoke for the Grandchildren and my niece Kelly spoke on behalf of the great grand children.
He will be sadly missed.
He was not the greatest man ever to live, but he was my father and through his children leaves a legacy that will live on. We will all remember his actions and behaviour and will smile when we do so. There was only one Les Skeats.

Monday 2 July 2012

New Books - under construction....

I am still working on the original book, about my brothers sculpture, and this will eventually be published.
But, (and I only start sentences with "but" to annoy people) I have two more books that have sprung into my head.
1. A zombie book. A new take on the zombie genre, with sympathy for the zombies. I have written about a quarter of the book and I think it is great. A bit slow to start, but that is on purpose, I want a bit of humdrum before the action starts. But you will love the twist at the end. The outline is complete, I am about a quarter through it, so it should be out in a couple of months.
2. Survey Tales, still a working title. It is about all the daft and weird things that have happened to me on surveys. It is shaping up well, I have used a lot more dialogue in this one. I tried dialogue in the original bin laden book, but felt it ruined that story so I took it out. Bin laden was originally 300 pages long, I cut it down heavily and turned it into a short story and I think it worked better due to that. Survey Tales needs the dialogue to explain some of the silly things that happened.
I have stopped writing one book. I called it "Death at the Games" and it was a terrorist drama set at the summer games in London. I have not finished it as I felt that what I had written was a road map for a serious terrorist attack. I have identified where three attacks could be made on aircraft at airports and written an attack on the underground, complete with a feasible escape plan to allow my protagonists to get out and perform more attacks. I will now finish it and publish it only after the games are over. Better safe than sorry.

Getting Married

This is an old chestnut.
I have been in a relationship with a wonderful lady since 2003. I want to marry her and would love her to come to the UK (she works in Oman).
Due to my awful finances, which is due to my company collapsing during the global credit crisis, I can not do either at the moment.
Well, my mother has said that she has no objection to her coming to live at the house. I know Abel will be quite happy with this, as her and Abel get on really well. I just need to shift about £10k of debt and I can bring her. This is great news and I should be able to do this early next year.
I want to do it sooner, but unless I write a book that takes off, this simply will not happen until then.

Radio Shack

Since my last blog quite a lot has happened and I will attempt to bring you up to date with this and the following blogs.
Sorry for the break but as you can guess I have been distracted.
My father cleared out his winter potatoes from the shed, allowing me to establish what we call the "East Wing", which is just a garden shed where I set my computer up and write. During the winter months I normally use one of the bedrooms but spring, summer and autumn I use the "East Wing".
This year the east wing has taken on a new role. In addition to the writing, it now also doubles as my amateur radio shack. I have been into Ham radio since I was a teenager, but could never afford to get onto the HF bands. Now I have every HF band, 50Mhz, 2m and 70cms all in once shack. I am short on antennas, but as time goes on this will improve. I won't be able to set up the antennas at home, as I will simply not allowed to put them up, but I belong to the Northampton Radio Club and they have a field I can use, that is where I will put my antennas. It is a bit of a drive out, but it will not bring down the wrath of the family on my head for turning the house and garden into an antenna field.
My call sign in G1GCB and I often monitor the Northampton Repeater GB3NH, give me a call sometime.

Update

On 22nd of June 2012 at approximately 0130 my father died. He had been unwell for 27 years and had many illnesses including 2 forms of cancer, diabetes and a range of other complaints.
He had kept an allotment for many years which had kept the family in veg and seasonal fruit.
He will be greatly missed by all in the family