Here I am at the edge

My decade of writing short stories Writers rarely tell you how much they earn, other than the well-known authors we never break even. I will give you a ballpark estimate of what my decade has cost me, I can't do any better as I never kept an account book as it is hard to keep accounts; when you earn less than $1 a month it is not worth the trouble. I would estimate that taking into account the price of the editing software and the cost of running my blog on Weebly , plus the cost of my only book cover. I must have paid out close to $1,000 dollars, and what was my return, less than 5% of my outlay, is it any wonder I am giving up this year?

A big welcome to my new readers in Finland Welcome to my readers in Finland , next year it will be 50 years since I visited Helsinki on a school trip from the UK . I remember the date well because it was at the time of the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico . I have had the pleasure of watching several Finnish TV series on Netflix , in my opinion the best is  Sorjonen about a police profiler working close to the border with Russia . This series has been scheduled for a third series which should be shown in the UK around about March next year.

God of the Woods If you read the blog, you will know I watch a lot of foreign TV shows. Some of the shows from France , Germany , and Austria have pagan themes. One creature who appears a lot is Cernunnos or  Krampus . He is said to punish the naughty children, to maintain the yin and yang of the world, surely he would have to exist in opposition to Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus . You cannot have good if you have no definition of evil.

Not voting is voting FOR Labour Remember that if you do not vote, you are not voting for Labour and you are not voting against them. If UKIP was a realistic choice I would vote for them, as I dislike some of Nigel Farage's ideas as I am not anti- LGBT , I may not understand the people but I think we should be free to love who we wish to.

Southmead Hospital Another week has passed and still no news from Southmead Hospital , Bristol about my second biopsy.  The way I see it is one of three things has happened. A - The biopsy should I have cancer and the hospital is trying to find to tell me that won't scare me. B- They found I do not have cancer and are trying to find a way to tell me that won't cause me to waste five hours and £5 for a five-minute chat. C- Even after two biopsies and a scan they can't tell what my growth is, and they are trying to decide what action to take. The problem is as the information is private, they are not allowed just to phone me, or send a letter they need to speak to me in person. In the case of A & B just tell me, I can deal with the news. In the case of C, rather than have another biopsy which is NOT painful and will entail me waiting on a comfortable bed, I would rather have another scan even if it means spending four hours laying on my back in pain...

Today's big audience is in Ghana I know my blog has a huge following in Russia and the former Soviet Blok states, but it appears to be read as much in the state of Ghana in Africa more these days.

Brother Cadfael When you hear of Romania most people think of Bram Stoker 's Dracula , but did you know that the Brother Cadfael series was filmed there because there are such a lot of medieval buildings and castles intact. In the foreword to Dracula, Bram Stoker gives credit for his story to an earlier vampire story called Carmilla by James Sheridan Le Fanu . The vampire story I wrote Holding Richmond is my Amazon bestseller , though it did cause a stir when I wrote it as the height of the Twilight films, the reason is my vampires hark back to the original concept of being nocturnal creatures of the night to be reviled, not the sexy images that have spawned since the 1970s Hammer horror films. To get an idea of my vampires, one needs to go back 50 years to the German classic horror film Nosferatu . Though the film made his name in the movies of the late 20s  Max Schreck despised the role. In Germany , he was noted for his roles in operas for many more years.

South Bristol once thought of as a Labour stronghold could fall to the Brexit Party in December South Bristol once considered a safe seat for Labour having not changed hands since the end of World War 2 could well fall to the Brexit Party in December, people in the area are disgusted that nothing has been improved by Labour in over 40 years. The area has the largest amount of housing below standard in the UK and most students from here leave school with a lower than usual education.