{"id":1303,"date":"2018-01-01T13:07:15","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T13:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/?p=1303"},"modified":"2018-01-01T13:07:15","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T13:07:15","slug":"toasting-with-lemsip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/2018\/01\/toasting-with-lemsip\/","title":{"rendered":"Toasting With Lemsip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year!<\/p>\n<p>Goodness me, it&#8217;s been a while since I put fingertips to keyboard and posted something for you. Sincere apologies! But there are two fundamental reasons for my extended silence.<\/p>\n<p>The first, it&#8217;s all been bad news really and nobody wants to read about other people&#8217;s problems; most have enough with their own without having to listen to mine. 2017 was a tough old year &#8211; three hurricanes, the sale of Avocado Cottage falling through four times, banging my head against a brick wall against so many people and things in both Antigua and UK, finding myself with no money, not even enough to live on &#8211; and boy, did I then discover who my friends were! &#8211; and then finding a job on minimum wage only to come face to face with racism, ignorance, resentment and abuse.<\/p>\n<p>I think possibly the most difficult thing was the months when my internet connection was down 90% of the time. The isolation, not being able to contact the people I love was upsetting and depressing. I missed the Brother taking the lead in a play, too, which I was gutted about.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately the beautiful, kind, loving woman I am privileged to call my daughter got me a ticket back to England for Christmas and I can&#8217;t thank her enough. What a Christmas present it was to spend Christmas with her, the Sister, the Brother and the Nephews. We had a great time. And to catch up with friends &#8211; dear, dear old friends &#8211; and chat and share stories and laugh until we cry. Even having a nasty cold and toasting the New Year with Lemsip while high on Covonia didn&#8217;t put a damper on anything and hasn&#8217;t spoilt my enjoyment of the festive season.<\/p>\n<p>The second reason for my silence on the blog is because I started it primarily to communicate with my readers and give them updates on my latest books. This year I spent a total of time more than three months writing a cosy mystery and then left it. I was doing it half-heartedly and was getting tired of and bored with it and if I felt like that before it was even finished how would my readers react? I have now ditched it for the time being, and plan to produce the final Singles book this year &#8211; working title Singles&#8217; Sunset &#8211; and the Banjo, Book Two. \u00a0That is the plan&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>However, my year wasn&#8217;t a complete creativity wasteland; together with the wonderful Veronique Christie I co-wrote a short film, Only the Lonely, which has actually been shot and is now in post-production! YES! And I can&#8217;t wait to see it.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1304\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1304\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1304\" src=\"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_2538-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_2538-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_2538-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_2538-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_2538-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_2538-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_2538.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1304\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Only The Lonely &#8211; co-written by ME!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We&#8217;ve got a stellar cast and our director is Clare Holman and it&#8217;s produced by Julie Baines and her team at Dan Films. I&#8217;m so excited about it so watch this space for news.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know yet whether or not I am in England to stay, I certainly hope so, but don&#8217;t want to say too much in case I put the mockers on the latest buyers who are waiting for their mortgage application approval. In the meantime I shall be off to Ibiza next week to spend some quality time with the Daughter and see her beautiful beachside abode.<\/p>\n<p>To all of who stuck by me through a less than ideal year: THANK YOU. Your love and support mean everything.<\/p>\n<p>And whatever your plans are for 2018, I just want you to spend it doing whatever makes you happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy New Year! Goodness me, it&#8217;s been a while since I put fingertips to keyboard and posted something for you. Sincere apologies! But there are two fundamental reasons for my extended silence. The first, it&#8217;s all been bad news really &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/2018\/01\/toasting-with-lemsip\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,772,777,774,355,773,776,770,709,775,710,771],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-antigua","tag-clare-holman","tag-covonia","tag-dan-films","tag-ibiza","tag-julie-baines","tag-lemsip","tag-only-the-lonely","tag-singles-series","tag-singles-sunset","tag-the-banjo-book-two","tag-veronique-christie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1305,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions\/1305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}