What could possibly go wrong with a walk around the lake?

Answer: PLENTY.

‘Isn’t it strange,’ says H as we sit on the roadside by the lake, about four miles from our house, waiting for the daughter number one to arrive with the spare set of car keys, ‘how when we try to do a small thing, a simple thing, something regularly goes wrong?’

‘Very strange,’ I reply with feeling. A lot of ill feeling since I was the one who boobed and guilt is not a nice feeling especially when H is being very nice about my little mistake. It has been half an hour since I locked the car keys in the trunk and I’m not wearing my happy face.

The pic at the top of the page is why we were there in the first place, doing our regular two mile trot around the lake and admiring the views and how the sun shimmered through the trees.

I bet we’re not any different to you guys, we’ve all had our little vehicular mishaps haven’t we? I remember a time H left his wallet on the roof of the car and drove off without a care in the world. Fortunately, or more like miraculously, the car at the time had a sort of edge where a roof box could be fixed and the wallet was still there when we arrived at home.

A memorable car incident was when daughter number two and I went to collect a Christmas tree from the garden centre, which is just up the road. My brilliant idea had been to open the car windows and tie the tree to the roof with rope. That car didn’t have roof bars. We wondered why a handful of men in the garden centre car park were watching us with big eyes and grinning. Then we realised why when it became obvious we’d tied the doors closed, which meant climbing in the windows. Which we did as the guys howled with laughter - we were undaunted and waved as we left. But my daughter’s face was radioactive with embarrassment and she’s never come with me to buy a tree again.

Then there was the time we went to visit my late mother-in-law in Oban and as we left the town driving up a steep hill we looked down into the road where she lived and found her doing a sort of crazy jig in the front garden. We’d left the dog behind. And since my mother-in-law had not a lotta love for the dog… And the dog had not a lotta love for her… You can imagine the jig.

So I wasn’t in the best frame of mind when we got home, but then something happened that made my day!

In recent weeks I’ve been working very hard with a cover designer called Gabrielle Prendergast (who is simply awesome, patient, great sense of humour) of Cover Your Dreams to re-brand my contemporary romances and she’s done an awesome job of the six covers. Only four are published so far and here are the new covers for Reckless Nights In Rome, A Stormy Spring , and Run Rosie Run.

I’ll add Coco when I receive it, then I’ll do a cover reveal for The Fall of Jacob DelGarda. The colours are amazing when they’re all grouped together.

You know I love hearing from you!

Share with us your car incidents - can’t wait for these!

Christine XX