☆📚~A Magickal Book-Blog Featuring A Free-Spirited & Custom Made Bibliophile ~🔮
Posted on June 4, 2019 by Dani☆Touch My Spine Book Reviews☆
Mum is waiting for me outside the school gates and is surrounded by several other
mothers who, like hyenas, all seem to want to devour her. How do they know who she is, I
wonder? They’re all talking to her at once and Mum is gamely trying to smile and engage in
several simultaneous conversations. Mum, as always, looks like a million dollars. The other
mothers, dressed sensibly in beige, look like loose change collected from underneath the sofa.
Mum sees me and waves, extricates herself from her tormentors, and ushers me quickly
towards her car which is partly parked on the pavement and mostly on a pedestrian crossing.
‘From now on, Emma,’ she immediately says, once we’re safely inside and buckling up
seatbelts, and before she’s even asked me how my first day has been, ‘I will either meet you
further down the road or leave you to walk home. I do not want to go through that again.’ She
looks in the rear-view mirror, just in case the hyenas are snarling and whooping and giving
chase.
It turns out that she’s already been asked to join the Parent-Teacher Association and, being
a parent, has felt obliged to accept. But, in the mêlée outside the school, she’s also been asked
to be honorary chairperson of something else, and didn’t really hear what she was being
asked to be chairperson of, or if she’s said ‘yes’. It happens to her sometimes. Her mind just
goes blank, thoughts and words wafting around her head and then drifting from her ears.
Mum’s worried that she might inadvertently now be in charge of the North Berwick &
District Paedophile Society, or something worse. It turned out that she hadn’t said ‘yes’, but
hadn’t said ‘no’ either, so the Pottery Club assumed that she meant ‘yes’, which amounts to
the same thing. She did attend a couple of their throw-downs, an expression that neither of us
had heard of before, coming home with a well-turned if rather wonky bowl, with only a
couple of small cracks, and decorated with painted flowers nicely arranged in a vase: Mum’s
presidential way of neatly killing two birds with one stone.
From then on, I generally walked home after school.
I was born in Paisley, central Scotland, which wasn’t my fault. That week, Eddie Calvert with Norrie Paramor and his Orchestra were Top of the Pops, with Oh, Mein Papa, as sung by a young German woman remembering her once-famous clown father. That gives a clue to my age, not my musical taste.
I was brought up in the west of Scotland and graduated from the University of Edinburgh. I still have the scroll, but it’s in Latin, so it could say anything.
I then worked briefly as a street actor, baby photographer, puppeteer and restaurant dogsbody before becoming a journalist. I started in Glasgow and ended up in London, covering news, features and politics. I interviewed motorbike ace Barry Sheene, Noel Edmonds threatened me with legal action and, because of a bureaucratic muddle, I was ordered out of Greece.
I then took a year to travel round the world, visiting 19 countries. Highlights included being threatened by a man with a gun in Dubai, being given an armed bodyguard by the PLO in Beirut (not the same person with a gun), and visiting Robert Louis Stevenson’s grave in Samoa. What I did for the rest of the year I can’t quite remember
Surprisingly, I was approached by a government agency to work in intelligence, which just shows how shoddy government recruitment was back then. However, it turned out to be very boring and I don’t like vodka martini.
Craving excitement and adventure, I ended up as a PR consultant, which is the fate of all journalists who haven’t won a Pulitzer Prize, and I’ve still to listen to Oh, Mein Papa.
I am married with two grown-up children and live in central Scotland. And that’s about it.
Website: https://www.charlielaidlawauthor.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charlielaidlawauthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/claidlawauthor
Giveaway Details:
I have 2 signed copies of The Space Between Time to giveaway, 3 fun coffee mugs
featuring all 3 of Charlie Laidlaw’s books, and 3 digital copies of the book in the winner’s
format of choice! Amazing right? Click the link below to enter!
*Open Internationally – Giveaway closes June 30th
Category: author, bibliophile, blog blitz, blog tour, blogger babes, blogosphereTags: ARC, author, bibliophile, blogosphere, book blogger, book reviewer, book-blog, giveaway, I follow back
Hey everyone! I'm Dani and I am a free spirited bibliophile!💖 I love meeting new people and being a part of this community. I have met the best people in the world being a book blogger and love them as family.😍 Here's some words that describe who I am in a nutshell: Book Nerd Girl, Custom-Made, Hippie Chick, Empath, Open Minded, Spiritual(but doesn't push), A Random Rambler, Loves Humor, Pansexual, Poly, Animal Lover, Book Molester, Life Coach, Psychology Major, Dyslexic That Was Self Taught With Books, Inspiring Author, Loves Others to a Fault!💖😍 The only thing I ask for on this blog is respect! Craziness and dirty joking welcome.💯 Discrimination and disrespectful comments can hit their asses with the door!💯📌📝
Nice promo for the book, Dani. Charlie seems like a real character! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks so much, Pete! xoxo! I agree, he definitely seems like a character. I love his bio. lol
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I like the bio!
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I agree, Fraggle! His bio rocks! Just like you rock. 🙂
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😘
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😘🤗
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This looks good! Best of luck to Charlie, his bio rocks!
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I agree, Jacquie! Thanks so much for your support. You rock!
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Ohh that cover is so pretty! I like the sound of the teaser as well.
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Hey there, yvo!! I love the cover and teaser as well. Thanks so much for stopping by and showing some love!
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Yeah, Charlie’s bio is awesome and so are you, Dani!
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You are so awesome, Jennifer!!! Thanks so much for stopping by and showing some love, girl!!! Yay!
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I want to meet Charlie!
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Same here! Love his bio!😀🌟📚
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