cj
Sez: Today Lyrical Pens turns the spotlight on
South African author and fellow Mystery Thriller Week writer Robbie Cheadle.
When Robbie agreed to do a blog tour, you can be sure she didn’t expect these hurdles.
Read on…
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| www.mysterythrillerweek.com |
Tuesday, 17 January – the New Year starts
with a bang
The insistent beeping of my alarm clock
drags me from sleep. As the meaning of the beeping registers in my foggy, sleep
drugged brain, I jump out of bed and make a dash across the room to turn it off.
I don’t want it to wake up the boys, who can sleep late on this last morning of
the school holidays. I slip on the wooden floor which has turned into a sheet
of ice, and land on my backside. A splendid start to the day. Clearly the new
wooden floor cleaning fluid that I had bought in great anticipation of a lovely
shiny floor the week before was responsible for this ice skating rink floor. I
make a mental note to get it re-cleaned with a less lethal substance prior to Hubby
Dear’s great-grandmother coming for a visit on Sunday.
The time is 4.30am, and I am planning to
write a post for my blog. I creep across the room and out of the bedroom door and
out go all the lights. Damn! The lights have tripped for some reason. I make my
way down the passage, holding on to the wall. I manage to switch off the house
alarm and garden beams without incident, and feel my way along the kitchen
windowsill until I find the bank of rechargeable lamps. Miracle of miracles,
they are actually charged, and I have light. I find the stepladder in the
kitchen cupboard and climb up to flip the switch on the electricity board. The
lights flicker on, warm and bright, and immediately snap off again. I pull down
all the switches on the board, re-flick the main switch and gradually start
pushing all the switches up to determine which one is the problem. It is the
geyser – strange, the geyser is fairly new. I leave this switch down and set
about making some tea so that I can prepare the necessary blog post. I have
wasted a precious 20 minutes by this time.
One hour and one blog post successfully
finalised and posted later, a little note from the school communicator pops up
on my screen. The note reads “All parents are reminded to please park on the
main sports field when dropping off their children this morning.” What! School
starts tomorrow. I open the link and check the calendar. School starts today.
Freak! I stampede down the passage and wrench young Michael from sleep. “School
starts today and we are running a bit late”, I yell. “Up, up, up, you have 30 minutes
to get dressed, washed and eat your breakfast”.
Michael, my youngest, sweet little honey
pot boy, is not known for his speed. On the contrary, Michael is a bit sloth-like
in the morning and just about drives me insane. I rush about at the speed of
light, packing his lunch, filling his water bottle, dragging out his as yet
unlabelled stationery and chair bag and stuffing them into his book bag. I, of
course, have to do this while preparing Mike’s breakfast and medication and
maintaining an air of complete control and calm so as not to panic the child
who is embarking on his first day of Grade 5 in the senior primary school.
In the meantime, Hubby Dear has dragged
himself out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. He switches on the hot
water tap at the basin to run water for shaving. Nothing happens. There is no
hot water, but there is a weird burning smell. It is very strong and
unpleasant. The geyser has burned out, which is why it tripped the lights.
Painful but at least we now know the answer to that particular mystery. I turn
my back on that little problem and leave it to Hubby Dear to sort it out.
At exactly 7.15am, Mike and I are in the
car and on our way to school. We are actually on time so I am very pleased with
myself even if my stomach is still churning and I can’t face anything to eat or
drink, even my favourite cappuccino. I walk Michael into school as it is the
first day of the new school year. He wants me to come with him as he is anxious
and doesn’t know who his teacher is or what friends will be in his class this
year. He also doesn’t want anyone to think that he has a Mother. That would be
very uncool! He rushes ahead and zaps off into the crowd without a backward
glance but with the full expectation that I will compliantly follow. Fortunately,
Michael is very happy with his teacher and has lots of friends in his class so
the day is looking up, and I set off on the next leg of my journey to the
office. I am feeling a bit lighter and brighter.
Of course on days like this one, nothing
can go right. I make good progress, and the traffic is very bearable until I
get to the last suburban road leading onto the main road where my office is
situated. There has been an accident. A bad accident. The cars are backed up
for over thirty minutes and, as I drive past the scene which is being attended
by fireman and other rescue vehicles, I see the significant amount of dirt
thrown on the road to absorb the gore and also two vehicles, completely
scrunched and crunched. It is a horrible sight and it puts a damper on my
spirits.
I arrive at the office forty-five minutes
later, four hours after I woke up and started my day, feeling distinctly
subdued. At my desk with my computer booted up the real day starts and the
first query of the morning pops up in my email. I sigh and get stuck in to
sorting out another muddle that requires urgent attention.
The end
cj Sez: Whew! I
thought I had bad days. Robbie’s Sir Chocolate series is a collaborative effort
with her two sons. There are two books currently on the market, and the third
will launch in March 2017. Where to buy is listed below.
. . . .
In addition to working a full day as a
senior member of her company’s Capital Markets team, Robbie Cheadle writes
books for children together with her two sons, Gregory and Michael. Michael
helps with ideas and making fondant illustrations, and Greg helps by filming
and editing the baking videos. Works-in-progress include the rainbow fairies
from Sir Chocolate and the sick ice-cream rainbow fairies story and cookbook.
The Sir Chocolate books are all about a
little edible man who lives in Chocolate Land where you can eat everything even
the flowers and trees. Sir Chocolate and his lady friend, Lady Sweet, have a
number of adventures assisting their friends in Chocolate Land with various
problems and looking for interesting ingredients for the chocolate delights
they make and sell at Sir Chocolate’s Chocolatier. The illustrations in each
book are made of fondant, cake and biscuits and each book also contains five
simple recipes that children can bake under adult supervision.
The first two books in the series are Sir
Chocolate and the strawberry cream berries story and cookbook, and
Sir Chocolate and the baby cookie monster story and
cookbook
The third book in the series is set to
launch in March, 2017. In Sir Chocolate and the sugar dough bees
story and cookbook, a greedy snail damages the
flower fields and the fondant bees are in danger of starving. Join Sir
Chocolate on an adventure to find the fruit drop fairies who have magic healing
powers and discover how to make some of his favourite foods on the way.
The Sir Chocolate books are available at
these sites (cntrl click on the site name):
You can also buy them in South Africa
directly from the author by emailing Robbie Cheadle at sirchoc@outlook.com.
cj Sez: In the midst of her busy days, Robbie
came all the way from South Africa to visit us—please
drop her a comment and let her know you stopped by..
Okay, you-all guys keep on keeping on, and
I’ll try to do the same.
Coming 2017—“Bad
Day at Round Rock” a short story in The Posse, a Western anthology of
tales of action, romance, mystery, myth, and truth. www.facebook.com/thepossebook.1
Tomorrow, that’s Feb 20 on my calendar, I’m
doing another interactive event with Mystery Thriller Week. I’ll be live 9 a.m.
to 10 a.m. CST (that’s 10 to 11 a.m. EST). If you have time, stop by and chat a
bit. I’ll be giving away a prize or two. And I’d be real happy if you signed up
for my quarterly newsletter. 
The
Posse authors gave away a bunch of gift cards and books to
some lucky visitors to the cover reveal on Feb. 15. Now we’re gearing up for
the actual eBook launch. Mark your calendars for March 15 and come by to see if
you can claim a prize. https://www.facebook.com/events/218447238560116/
