‘No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon. No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day…sic…No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease; No comfortable feel in any member-No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits no flowers, no leaves, no birds!  No-vember! {short-form}

So wrote Thomas Hood beautifully in this delightful poetry ‘take’ on the 11th month!

Following a brief sunshine ‘break’ early last month in Majorca I came back to the tsunami after the previous shenanigans of rogue scammers, fraud and even more dodgy ‘people!’ What a world we live in. I know it’s rife with the credit card industry but I now discover to my peril- the publishing one too!

With a mixture of set-backs, consequent frustration & anger since the June update I’m no nearer publishing dates for the last 2 books viz ‘Cloverdaisy 2’ & Richer not Poorer’ – their short titles

To cut a long saga short and acute loss of valuable time the Company I was ’dealing’ with (since April 2023) turned out to be a serious fraud scam. In legal terms it was a fraudulent misrepresentation which also left me £4k short which I paid in advance for a hybrid contract to cover the edits, printing, publishing & marketing etc. I was getting suspicious in the Spring after which the whole shambolic truth came out through various channels/media and personal endeavours.

With some help from Action fraud, an Enquiry agent & my then bank, HSBC they were nailed although the complete fall-out is not yet clear. However the Bank have done me proud & -bar 1/5 of the full expenditure-have already recovered the whole outlay. Another bank is dealing with the balance.

However the loss of nearly 2 years of my life has hit hard especially when you’re the wrong side of 60!! During this process my MasterCard was also scammed twice but the Halifax paid me out pretty quick on that- thank God!

Although I continued writing Children’s stuff-The Magical Pixies etc. this serious setback has left me reeling but life does go and so do I! Watch this space! That said there is very little social or literary news to report except…

10 new submissions have been lodged recently and so far 6 have already acknowledged positively. That said I keep muttering that famous football chant… ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go etc etc! There is no damage limitation but all this has meant 2 years of pre-Xmas trade lost completely as the new material would have ‘pulled’ my earlier books along and rekindled their own individual stories especially ‘Cloverdaisy I’ – the pre-curser to the new follow up-Cloverdaisy II- which is brilliant!

As for ‘Richer not Poorer-Death was the Start’ this huge masterpiece is a best-seller waiting to happen-if only…?

As Halloween & the Bonfire embers have all but gone out – I haven’t!

Back in Advent with a short ‘blast’ before Father Christmas takes over. If I don’t make it then have a good ‘un and a miraculous New Year!

Love & wishes.
David xx
Ps don’t write me off!