Of Plumbing, Advertising, Wine and Other Things

But first of all, the obligatory picture of cats!

Just checking before going out onto the balcony...a.k.a. spying on the neighbours!

Russ, the complex manager, caught up with me the week before last and asked if I'd noticed any leaks anywhere.  You know, wet patches in inexplicable places.  No...he wasn't insinuating I was incontinent; apparently there was water leaking through the ceiling of the unit directly under mine.

Consequently, a plumber arrived a few days later and one of the valves on my hot water cylinder was leaking.  I don't know how long it had been going on but the tray on which the cylinder sat was completely rusted through.  

On Monday of last week, the cylinder was emptied, pulled out and the extent of the damage was laid bare.  It had been leaking for so long (long before I moved in) that water was actually going right through the unit below to the basement carpark!  

After a couple of hours the rusted tray was removed, the faulty valve replaced and arrangements made for a replacement tray to be made up and installed later in the day.  Fortunately Russ had warned me the day before that the water would be turned off so I was up early to have a shower and get a load of washing done.  Oh, I also made sure the jug was filled as I'm not nice to know without my morning coffee.

Now that's been all fixed up I'm hoping my power charges will drop.

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As you may or may not know, I had the launch for "Old Age and Villainy" last month.  It went very well and there was a gratifying number of attendees a lot of whom kindly bought copies which they then asked me to sign.  I felt a little bit famous.  Nerida, the facilitator of the event and our writers' group, said nice things about me and also presented a bottle of wine.  She knows me well.

As I have booked a table at the Carnival of Words being held in November, the proceeds from the launch were invested in some advertising material, shown below.  The annual event is to showcase Gold Coast authors and their work.  This year's theme is multicultural and as well as book sales and author talks, there will be various activities including multicultural group displays.  It runs from 9 am to 3 pm and will be a great positive energy day. 

I plan to wear this T shirt on the day.  I wanted a picture of the book cover but I couldn't upload that onto the particular graphic supplied for the T shirt.

I also designed the banner for my table. Again, I wanted the cover of the book, but the printing on the banner went right across it, as you can see with the Phyreupp logo.  I ended up using that as my work will be published under Phyreupp Books, to keep proceeds separate from my everyday banking.  Makes it easier at tax time.

When I say I designed the banner, I had my printing done through Vistaprint, an online printing company who have a large range of templates for users to design their own advertising and merchandising products or for an extra charge they will do it for you. They were recommended to me and I must say they are very good.  Reasonable prices, timely delivery of goods and generally easy to deal with.  Very important for us Indie authors!  Unfortunately, I found limitations as with the T shirt and the logo but in general, I'm reasonably satisfied with the results.  

Oh dear, I've just noticed the blog URL is incorrect...it should be oldageandvillainyv2, rather than just "2" at the end.

I haven't done a lot of writing although I managed to get my two Winter Snap competition entries in, two days before the comp closed (you may remember both stories I submitted last year were successful, one being a finalist and the other gaining second prize), and I wrote another short story for our annual anthology, which comes out in November.

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Last week I made my usual trip to the our local shopping village for groceries.  I also needed some facial moisturiser but saw some anti-ageing serum and bought that too.  When I tried to use the serum that evening, the pump top wouldn't work.  I retrieved the packaging and receipt and a couple of days later went to exchange it for one that worked only to find there were no more.  With the refund I bought a bottle of wine instead.  Priorities...or moisturising from the inside.

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Book Review:

A Father At Last by Julie Mac  (Escape Pub 2013)

I love a book which causes a strong emotional reaction and this poignant story did it for me.  A contemporary romance set in Auckland, New Zealand, A Father At Last tells of Kelly's shock when she has an unexpected encounter with Ben, her childhood sweetheart.  She tries very hard not to succumb to the familiar strong attraction as she has a secret that she doesn't want Ben to know.  Ben, however, has his own dark past and because of this Kelly feels she can't allow him back into her life.  There are other issues causing Kelly anguish and it is during the resolution of these that I found myself reaching for the tissues.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book...it's a good one for a lazy weekend or holiday reading.

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That's all for this post, it's time for my second and last coffee for the day.  Enjoy what's left of the weekend and have a great week!