Marty

Nope, it means I am approximately three times your age. (Help her with the math, someone.) And I'm not lazily retired. On my old facebook profile I show myself as Busily retired.

And today I am 26,253 days old.

Oh! Did I mention that Chapter 6 of my The Charmed Life of Danny Murphy is up? https://gayauthors.org/story/marty/the-charmed-life-of-danny-murphy-working-title/6

Hey, Gary It was a great afternoon, thanks. I'm back home now. I've promised to bake some chocolate chip cookies for the 15th birthday of one of my friend's son. So that takes precedence this evening.

Hey, Drew-pi-doo! The sunrise is that early at this time of the year that the only way I'm likely to see it is if I've not actually gone to bed by the time it arrives!

Thanks, Tal! Let's hope it continues to be.

I have most of the next five chapters already fleshed out, and they will centre around Danny's trip back home to attend Speech Day at his old school, where he is due to receive his A-Level certificate. That means that we are unlikely to see Derek again until after those five chapters...

Things are good, thanks. Gotta head out now. Curating an exhibition for a few hours this afternoon.

Might make @Drew Espinosa happy as well.

Which means it's only 18 pages to Page 1111

It amuses me in a way how most readers seem to have written Derek off so quickly. He's only really been mentioned twice already in this story, and we are only seeing him through Danny's eyes. I'm not going to say whether he's going to play a major role in this story but, as I have already said, perhaps he has a reason for his current behaviour. Alison certainly does appear nice. But whether she's really the one for our Danny-Boy remains to be seen. But I wonder just how much Danny is really invested in the game of rugby. Perhaps he only really played it at school because his best friend encouraged him to. Just because he may be good at the game doesn't necessarily mean he should give up lots of time training for and playing the game... I'm glad you're enjoying it, as well, @Geron Kees. Not sure if I'm setting you up for the kill or not (unless it's Danny suffocating Derek with a pillow in the middle of the night eventually 😮). Actually, my biggest worry just at the moment is that I may be setting readers up for a long wait before we get to the central theme of Danny's story... Thanks for your comments!

I'm actually intending to do a road trip with a young friend of mine next month, through Britain and then on to mainland Europe. But, as the plan is to travel from England to the Netherlands, and then on into Germany (with Frankfurt being one destination), I reckon a detour to the west of France to pick up a jar of redcurrant jelly may just be a bit too far out of my way. But last year I came home with a variety of homemade fruit jellies that a friend of mine who lives near Frankfurt had made...

Amazon will post? https://www.amazon.fr/BALL-MASON-JARS-Signature-régulier/dp/B00YSMSYEA/ref=sr_1_26?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=bocaux+en+verre&qid=1563739044&s=gateway&sr=8-26 EDIT: I see "8,35 € pour l'expédition" on the page that I clicked on to get to the above link.... EDIT 2 I had originally gone to www.amazon.fr and searched for bocaux en verre

You have my mouth watering, clo...

The following song came to my mind when part of my reply to a reader's question about one of the characters in one of my GA stories finished with the words "Sometimes some of the questions we may ask in life just never get answered." The story of mine that I was commenting on is The Charmed Life of Danny Murphy:

You're welcome to some of the rain that has been falling in the West of Ireland for the past few days! 😛

And the Irish and Scots (and the Manx people in the Isle of Man) belong to the Gaelic branch, whereas the Welsh, Bretons (Brittany, or Bretagne, in northwest France), and the Cornish people belong to the Brythonic branch. The words celt and celtic officially start with a hard C sound (like the letter K). Oddly enough the Scottish soccer team Glasgow Celtic use a soft C sound for their name (like the letter S). Cornwall has an interesting history. In 1497 the Cornish people staged a rebellion against the English Crown, and an armed band of Cornishmen, some 15,000 strong, marched upon London. They were defeated at the Battle of Deptford Bridge (also known as Battle of Blackheath), which took place on 17 June 1497 on a site in present-day Deptford, in south-east London, adjacent to the River Ravensbourne. Henry VII had mustered an army of some 25,000 men and the Cornish lacked the supporting cavalry and artillery arms essential to the professional forces of the time. That was the culminating event of the Cornish Rebellion, but many Cornish people, even to this day, do not consider themselves English, and like to remember that theirs was the last foreign army ever to reach the Walls of the City of London.

Life is good thanks, Gary. Met an old friend for a long chat over breakfast this morning. Followed that with a visit to an Arts Festival in a nearby town. Then grocery shopping and home. Have bread rising at the moment, and the oven heating for the baking of same. Been raining almost all day, but it's summer, so at least the rain is warm. How's life with yourself?

Oh, how I just love to throw curveballs in the readers' directions, and leave some of them wondering! Maybe we'll find out what Derek's problem really is. Then again, maybe we won't. Sometimes some of the questions we may ask in life just never get answered.

Or are they both asleep? It does seem that Derek's snoring may actually be preventing Derek from actually sleeping all the time... Hopefully he doesn't decide to take too drastic measures if he tries to cure Derek's snoring...

He may indeed be deluding himself, @Daddydavek... But then again, maybe, as he himself observes in this chapter, he genuinely was a late developer. To misquote Shakespeare: Read on, MacDuff! (Well, when I get more chapters edited and uploaded, you'll be able to read on.)

Thanks for the vote of confidence, @starboardtack. I expect to be uploading chapters every week to ten days. Unless other things in my life get in the way. Hopefully, I'll not disappoint you, either in the frequency of updates, or your enjoyment of the way the story progresses.

Thanks, @dughlas. Who knows? Perhaps Derek has his own story that may explain his current behaviour...

As was I... Good evening, Xan. All well here, thanks. And good day to everyone else.

Get well soon, Albert! <Sending wellness vibes in your direction>