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Today is the launch of Rhoda Baxter’s new book, Please Release Me. I was ready to blog on the theme of being stuck as it’s related to her book, but I didn’t realise how apt my choice would be. I couldn’t post my blog until just now. In fact, I couldn’t do anything online at all. We’ve had no internet connection all day, so I was well and truly stuck, until Plusnet got their act together and I got back online!
So here, a bit later in the day than usual, is the news about Rhoda’s book, Please Release Me…
What if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you?
Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up.
That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question.
In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate.
But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after …
To find out more, go to http://amzn.to/1MdM4wA.
And now here’s my free ramble on the topic of being stuck…
Losing contact with the outside world is a regular thing when you live where we do. We’re stuck in the middle of a Gloucestershire wood, and more than half a mile from the main road. March winds, summer storms or heavy winter snowfalls can, and often do, disrupt the power. When we first moved here, going to bed by candlelight was fun—and who wants to get up early, when you’re newly married? When the children were tiny it was even better. We could all be children together, playing snowballs, building snowmen and tobogganing the length of the steep lane which usually connected us with civilisation.
It was when the children started school we discovered the downside to being stuck out in the middle of the countryside, especially in winter. During the Christmas holidays of 2011, a blizzard lasting thirty-six hours presented us with three feet of snow. For the first few days, we were without electricity, broadband, and the landline. It was freezing! We only went outside to feed the hens, top up the bird tables and thaw out their drinking water.
Carving out paths to the bee hives and poultry was fun, but getting back to school after the break wasn’t. The bus stop for the school coach is exactly two miles from our house. It’s a lovely walk, when you’re empty handed and without a deadline. When you’re weighed down with school books, gym kit, and sports equipment with the bus arriving at exactly 7:55 on the dot each morning, it was torture. We left home in the pitch dark, to trudge for three-quarters of an hour along barely cleared, and rarely gritted, lanes. Then whichever parent was driving the walking bus had to trudge all the way home again. The one left back at base spent the time making hot chocolate and bacon sandwiches ready for the frozen traveller’s return, which is why neither OH nor I lost any weight during the week we were making all those journeys (worse luck).
Being stuck miles out in the English countryside, especially when you’ve got no power or telephone coverage could never be called a good thing, but there are advantages. It’s so quiet, you don’t get distracted by news and the internet, so you can get lots of writing done. And the scenery is amazing!
