Charlierobinsonbooks

Blog Tour

Esther Chilton – Myths and Magic

Today I am delighted to feature Esther Moonstomp (Chilton) on her blog tour. Myths and Magic is Esther’s second book in her children’s series Saffy’s Secret Quest. So, without further ado, I’ll hand you over to Esther.

Charlie has very kindly allowed me to take over his blog for a short while as part of the blog tour for my second children’s book, Myths and Magic. A huge thank you to Charlie for his support. I really appreciate it.

So here I am on stop two of my tour, with book two. The Secret Dragon was the first in the Saffy’s Secret Quest Series and was released last year. The second book is due out on the 28^th May but the paperback is available now to pre-order. The series is for 5-7 year olds, so it’s ideal for parents to read to children or for those that have just started to read on their own. It’ll make a great gift for any young children you know!

The Blurb:

Saffy has solved the first clue in her quest to save the magical world of Mandoreum from danger. Now it’s time to find the second. 

She isn’t alone. Her new friend, Lily, a dragon from Mandoreum, wants to help. Together they take a trip and uncover special stories and unexpected surprises.

But Saffy soon learns that first appearances are not always what they seem. And plotting in the background is a witch who will do everything she can to stop them…

Extract:

Saffy looked around. She had been to the museum so many times she had forgotten how exciting it was. Colourful posters hung on the walls and interactive screens flickered as they changed image. A brightly lit café was over at the far corner and there was a gift shop bursting with toys, pens, notepads and all sorts the other side.

“I wish I was playing football with my friends,” Harry said huffily. “Museums are boring.”

“It’s far too wet to play football. And you know how much you enjoyed it here last time. If you’re a good boy, perhaps you can have an ice-cream a bit later,” Mum said.

“It’s raining. I don’t want an ice-cream when it’s raining,” Harry grumbled.

“I’ll save my money, then.” Mum took a protesting Harry by the hand and walked over to the first display.

“Harry is being even more annoying than usual,” Saffy whispered to Lily. “We’ll let them go on ahead and follow.”

A few moments later, Saffy stopped by a collection of spears and ancient tools. “Look at these, Lily.” She smiled as her friend peeped out over the top of her pocket. “They’re hundreds and hundreds of years old.”

“What’s that over there?” Lily pointed to a little mud hut.

Before Saffy knew it, the dragon had clambered out of her pocket and slid down to the floor.

“Where are you going? Stop!” Saffy called after her.

She noticed a group of children walking towards them. Uh oh!

Author bio:

Esther has been a freelance writer for over twenty-five years, regularly writing articles and short stories for magazines and newspapers such as Writers’ Forum, Writing Magazine, The Guardian, Best of British, The Cat, This England, Yours and The People’s Friend.

Winner of several competitions, including those run by Writing Magazine and The Global Short Story Contest, she has also had the privilege of judging writing competitions and relished being given the role of head judge of the Writers’ Forum monthly short story competition.

Esther loves writing but equally enjoys helping others, which she achieves in her role as a tutor for The Writers Bureau. Always on the lookout for a new challenge, she is taking the distance learning college over at the end of July.

She has had two how-to books on writing published, with a third due out later this year, as well as two collections of short stories. Her second children’s book is coming out in May, where she writes under the name of Esther Moonstomp.

Blogs: https://estherchilton.co.uk

https://esthermoonstomp.co.uk

Buying links:

UK: Paperback: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Myths-Magic-Saffys-Secret-Quest/dp/1806342103

Ebook: details to be released soon.

US: details to be released soon.

Can You Do It?

Apparently I Can

Boston, that’s Lincolnshire, England, not USA. Its a market town, I know this because on Saturday the sat nav wanted me to drive through the Saturday Market. It became upset when I didn’t, so had to be switched off. I was in Boston for my first marathon of the year. It was going to be tricky as I’d missed nearly 8 weeks of training because of that broken rib, but the flattest marathon in the country? It’d be fine. Boston is quite nice, and the parking is cheap. We lodged at No 20 Hotel and Bar. It was a four minute walk to the start of the race. They didn’t do breakfast which was fine as I was leaving at 7am anyway. There’s a lovely church down by the river.

There is also a Mexican restaurant, if you’re a runner you’ll know how important carb loading is before a race, so I had no choice 😂

Sunday morning I found myself in the Market Place (the market had gone) 90s House Music blared out from some speakers, a man on a michrophone was sayin stuff (I think they were words of encouragement) Was I the only one shivering under three layers? It was windy! Gillian had her route map for photos, I found some friends, had a photo with one, wished each other good luck and waited until 8am for the start.

Boston Marathon — Trust me the sky is decieving

Boston UK Marathon — Trust me the sky is decieving

The flattest marathon in the country sounds great, but then there is a reason… the terrain is flat with no shelter. 😂

The first 10 miles were okay, averaging 5 min kilometers and looking at an overall time of 03:40:00, but it dawned on me, I had for the most time, a tail wind. By 11 miles the route had turned. 30mph head wind with gusts to 40mph, but I was still smiling when I saw Gillian and her trusty camera at a water station.

Around 13 miles the sciatica started playing up and the hips began to grumble, pace had dropped to 6-7 mins per kilometer, everyone was swearing at the wind 😂 I decided it wasn’t worth it, and the next time I saw her, I’d go home. The problem was I didn’t see her until 18 miles. Now, when you’ve run 18 miles in that wind and only have 8 miles left… well, you may as well carry on?

By 20 miles the rib decided it wanted to play too, I thought I’d broken it again😂 It was then I made some life changing decisions. I was going to sell all my races. Windemere Marathon, Hardwolds 47mile ultra, and 50k ultra, Jersey Marathon… yup, that’s me from now on, just your average fun runner. Spend the rest of my days, relaxing and not dragging Gillian round the country, carrying my gear and taking pictures.

I didn’t get the time I wanted it ended up at 04:17:00, I was in pain and a tad disappointed, but apparently there were 32 people who didn’t finish, I did finish at least.

Boston UK Marathon finish. — Smile or grimace?

But now I’ve slept, I’m warm, and I’m thinking. If I improve the hip therapy, reintroduce the sciatica exercises, get some good quality trail runs in, with lots of hills, Windemere Marathon is eight weeks away. I could probably do it 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began 6

What To Do When There’s No Fish?

We were having a great time in Portbou, but we were spending money with no income. Too early for the fishing season, we needed a plan. As luck would have it our new friends, Jamie and Josephine were heading for Perpignan to apply for work on Le Vendange (grape picking season).

This sounded like a good idea. Three days later Peter, myself, two Aussies, three Welshmen, Jamie and Josephine found ourselves at the counter of a French Employment Office. The girl behind the desk had work in a village called La Tour, for eleven people. Quandary! There were only nine of us. Remember?… Mudguts and I were only eighteen, so we had already spotted the two attractive girls in the corner. Two hours later all eleven of us were seated around an old oak table in an equally old farm kitchen chatting to to the vineyard owner. Well, Josephine was chatting, we were nodding. The farmer must have been impressed, as he took us to a house in the village, told us we could stay there during our employment, and produced a wicker clad bottle, a demijohn, it must have held 5 gallons. He said when we had finished it we could bring it to the farmhouse and he’d fill it. I was happy already!

He did a lot of back slapping, used the word “Bon” a lot and appeared very, very happy. It was sometime later that Josephine discovered from his wife that he had a bad back and took pain killers. The Dr had instructed him not to drink alcohol. His wife said, with a shrug and a wink, he was French and a vineyard owner. Mudguts, who was quite an expert on narcotics (one reason he left Australia) said it was equivalent to taking ‘speed.‘ Three days later we were woken at 5am, taken on a tractor to a field, and instructed how to pick grapes. Interestingly we were joined by a band of gypsies, and told they were fast. Ah, competition time.😊

A porter working during the grapepicking season, France 1976

I’m not sure how I survived the next twenty days. We worked from 6am until 1pm and then 3pm until 6pm. This was the heatwave of 1976 and it was hot! But, we successfully picked more grapes than our Romany friends, and secured extra work for the Mayor of the village.

The nights were riotous, and we rarely hit the sack before midnight, often later. I recall a night when one of the Welsh chaps crashed early, a little worse for wear, and we manged to manoeuvre his bed down two flights of stairs and into the street. 😂 The following morning, as we gazed from the window, it was amusing to see the villagers starting their day. They sauntered by a bed in the street, with a snoring youth snuggled down, whilst chuntering to themselves. But all good things come to an end. In total we completed a 20 day stint at 10 francs per day, so with our purses refilled, we bid a fond farewell to our employer, and most of our friends.

Jamie and Josephine headed for God knows where, the Welshmen set off for Germany, while Peter, myself, two Aussies and the girls we found in Perpignan decided on Javea. Hopefully the fish had arrived.

Happy Trails, Folks x

I’ll Do It

Those three words have probably been the reason it took me twenty years to finish my first novel, there’s always someone, somewhere, wanting something, have you noticed that? If I’d ever had the misfortune to be caught up in a war, I’d more than likely be a hero or dead on the first day. It’s that moment when someone says “who’s willing to…?” You look round the room and all eyes are gazing downwards, bums shuffling uncomfortably on seats, or feet shuffling back and forth nervously. I’m not sure if I feel sorry for the person asking, or I’m just dumb. But uncontrollably, my hand shoots up. “I’ll give it a shot.”

It got me into trouble at school. You know when you’re in the playground with your peers and someone suggests setting the fire alarm off? After riotous laughter, followed by the aforementioned ground gazing, and uncomfortable shuffling, comes the question. “Who’s going to do it?” Yup, that was the second time I got caned. The first time was for calling the PE teacher a f****** bully, after he’d beaten one of us for not climbing the rope in the gym. C’mon! the kid must have weighed 12 stone, he was rotund, and I’m being kind, there was no way he could have climed that rope. The headmaster didn’t see it that way.

A reason I didn’t excel in sports at that particular school was because the PE teacher wouldn’t allow me to participate again until I apologised 😂That was never going to happen. So when I called from the bench, “I’ll do it, sir.” I got a contempuous sneer. Although he did relent the following winter for cross country running. I guess he thought I’d hate it. Once he had set us off running the 3 miles around Clock House fields, he’d retire to the boiler room for a cigarette, reappearing just as we finished. I can still see his expression when he saw me coming in first. “Take a shortcut, Robinson?” he’d shout in his sarcastic manner. So, I did what any normal person would do. I stopped, turned my back on him, ran back to where my rotund friend was, and trotted in with him. Apparently I was a, “Waste of space.” 😂.

All these years later I’m retired, all I really have to do these days is write and run. Life of Riley, eh? So, I asked myself this morning, how have I ended up in two running clubs. The cross country rep for one club and race director of a race. About to take a run leadership course, followed by a coaching course with another club, I’m in six WhatsApp Groups and on two committees? Yup, “I’ll do it!” I guess I’m lucky I’m not in an organised crime gang.

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began 5

Portbou

The ferry docked in St Malo, already Jersey seemed a long way back. Time was different back then. Maybe it’s because you’re only eighteen, and you have lots to spare? Eager to reach Spain, we drove the van through the day and night until we hit the Pyrenees. We camped in the heart of the mountains for a couple of days. I’d never seen mountains before. I have to admit come nightfall it was quite eary with those huge, black shapes towering above you. But over the next few months I was going to experience many things I’d never seen or experienced before. Kinda pinched these from the internet, in 1976 we didn’t have an iPhone, just an old Kodak camera, but they look familiar 😂

The first Spanish coastal town is called Portbou. Parked by the beach, and staring out over the sea I was looking forward to diving the following day. Suddenly a Volkswagon camper pulled up at the side of us and a large bearded man got. He ran round to the rear of his vehicle, lifted the tailgate, spat at the engine, kicked the bumper, and began to shout, inferring that the engine was a fornicating, illegitimate nuisance. Peter, my new mentor and travelling companion suggested I get out and ask if he was Australian. Remember, my first ten years were spent alone, on a farm with imaginary friends. Swiftly followed by seven years on a Bradford council estate where I had become feral and led a life not becoming of a young Englishman. There was no way I was getting out. So, with a sigh Peter went for a chat.

It turned out both the bearded man and his younger brother were in fact Australian and the swearing was fury, aimed at an engine that was burning oil. We introduced ourselves to John Mulhall and his brother Peter. It might have been confusing with two Peters but luckily young Australian Peter was known as Mudguts, due to his strange dietry habits as a toddler. It was several months before I discovered this, because of the Aussie accent I presumed his name was Maggots.

When you’re travelling, apparently, alcohol is the key ingredient for getting to know people. So we set up a table, cracked open one of several bottles of wine, and began to wave complete strangers over to join us. Within an hour we had a company of: 2 Aussies, 6 Germans, 3 Welshman, and a couple, Josephine who was French and Jamie an Englishman. The couple had completed a tour of Australia including the 200 mile cattle train hike through the desert. We went down to the beach, lit a fire and stared at the sky. Jamie was aquainted with all the star constellations, and pointed them out to us. If this was travelling? I was hooked.

Happy Trails, Folks x

Strange Habits

I love people’s strange habits. Admittedly they can be annoying, but generally entertaining. Although, I’m told, my habits can be annoying, and I am a little mad. I will have a conversation in my head and then invite someone to join in half way through or even at the end. For example. I will consider going to the coast at the weekend, and weigh up the options/advantages/possibilities, maybe a long stroll on the beach, an icecream, some Fish & Chips. After due consideration I turn to my nearest and dearest and say. “It’ll depend on the tides. Not much point if high tide is in the middle of the day.”

Her response is usually. “Eh?” I then have to explain my thoughts. To which she will suggest I start a conversation at the beginning rather than the end. My other little trait is to say. “You know…” After a long pause she’ll ask me what I was going to say. But by then, I’ve either changed my mind or forgotten what it was. But it keeps her on her toes. 😂

Of course, there are good habits. Running for example, c’mon you knew I’d get there eventually😂. Three weeks to my first marathon of the year and I finally got my 20 mile or 32k (depends if you are metric or imperial) long run done yesterday. So, I’m buzzing. We have an old abandoned railway track here which is ideal for long flat runs, and guess what? Yay, the sun is shining, the daffodils are out and it’s Spring again! I wonder if you have any habits that either annoy or titillate you?

Happy Trails, Folks x

AI The Final Word

I once gave a carpentry apprentice a written task. Explain the four types of Construction Foundations. For the uninitiated they are, Strip, Pad, Raft, and Pile.

He gave me this:

Liquid Foundation, versatile and good for all skin types.

Powder Foundation, ideal for oily skin.

Cream Foundation good for dry or mature skin.

Stick Foundation, versatile and portable.

He said there were a lot more but I’d only asked for 4.

Trying so hard not to smile, I asked him where he had got his information, to which he replied CoPilot. Not entirely the robot’s fault, obviously he hadn’t read it, but I found that generally carpentry apprentices don’t edit. The worrying thing is; he hadn’t learned anything. This brings me to my real point.

Did you know the brain constantly improves through consisitent, new mental challenges and learning new skills? Plus exercise, sleep etc, But we’ll concentrate on the first two. If you’re writers you probably don’t sleep much anyway. So if we stop using our brain? All I see is a future of numpty’s. Take a look at Reddit’s Author pages. They’re all at it. “I did this with AI. I did that with AI” The last comment I made was to a geezer who posted that he had written a complete novel with AI. Isn’t that an Oxymoron? (Which as a youngster, on the farm, I believed was a stupid cow) How can a robot write a novel and you then say you wrote it? Anyaways, I replied with. “Did someone steal your imagination?” He came back with. “Why?” I gave up!

If they let AI do everything for them surely their brain will shrink, or do whatever brains do when you don’t use them? Doesn’t that mean in years to come our civilisation will end, because as with my apprentice no one will actually learn anything? In which case they won’t know anything. So, I had a brilliant idea (score two brain cells, ka-ching) I asked AI. “If you let AI do your thinking would it cause brain deterioration?” The answer?

Yes, if you consistently rely on AI to do your thinking, your brain can experience a form of cognitive deterioration often referred to as cognitive atrophy or “use-it-or-lose-it” cognitive decline.

Recently there was a football match here in the UK. Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv. The Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned from attending by the Birmingham Safety Council on intelligence recieved from West Midlands police. After an uproar (obviously not from the crowd) it was discovered the police had used AI to conduct the risk assessment, and it was unfounded. Scary?

Happy Trails Folks x

TikTok and AI

For years I’ve heard about TikTok, but to be honest I thought it was young girls prancing about, putting makeup on, or sharing photos of Dua Lipa, Raye and Harry Styles. Having no interest in any of the above I’ve always dismissed it.

A friend informed me recently this isn’t the only option, and it’s great for publicising your book. This led me to the next quandary, what do you post? The same friend recommended ChatGPT. I do not like AI, and I’ve tried to steer clear of it. Some people use it to create a book and then say.

“Look at me, I’ve written a book.”

No you bloody well haven’t! You’ve got a robot to write it for you.

But… I wasn’t writing a book, just looking for advice on marketing. So I tentatively asked the question. “How do I market my book on TikTok?”

I was surprised at the outcome, it sounded like it knew what I needed, and I now have twenty pages of ideas. None of them involve makeup, dancing or mooning over young Mr Styles, so far so good. The only downfall was when I asked it to recommend a look. Probably need to tweak that a bit.

All I have to do now is create some twenty second videos, we’ll see how it goes. Has anyone else used ChatGPT or TikTok I wonder? Personally AI scares me a little, there are already 85 million books on Amazon, and I do wonder how many are written by robots. Although you can usually tell… They lack humanity and passion, but I could be wrong they may have been written by someone who has no humanity or passion, I’ve never read Mein Kampf, so I’m no expert.

On a different matter, as the broken rib is healing I’ve managed to get up to a 24k training run, next week I need 30k and I’ll feel more confident, as I have the Boston UK Marathon in 4 weeks and was hoping for 03:40:00 time which should give me 1st in my age group 🤞

Happy Trails Folks x

Where it All Began 4

Jersey

So there I was, seventeen-years-old, sitting on a plane heading to a far away island. My first view of Jersey didn’t disappoint, but I had just left a Bradford council estate where, after my first happy ten years as a countryboy, it had been cold, raining and totally depressing, so the bar was pretty low. I had become a different person during the years in Bradford, and not a particularly nice one. All it seemed to have taught me was how to fight and drink, but I had escaped.

I wondered what kind of reception I would get. I had some ideas. Fantasy Island wasn’t released until a year later but that it was the kind of image I had imagined.

There was a distinct lack of hula hula girls with flowers in their hair. No sophisticated, enigmatic Mr Roarke or a helpfull Tattoo, just a copper looking at me as I trudged past with my battered suitcase and an old guitar on my back. I left the airport, caught a bus into town and did what any sensible person would do. I went to the Tourist Information Office and asked if they had a list of B&Bs. There was one priced at £2.50 per night (remember this was 1976). When I arrived I saw an attractive brunnette leaning on the wall outside, she turned out to be the owner. I was 17, I wasn’t going anywhere else.

Now they say you make your own luck, I guess that could be true. It turned out her husband was a self employed uphosterer and could do with some cheap labour. Even at £1 an hour I jumped at the chance. He was also a sports diver/competition spearfisherman. Now we were talking. I had been watching Jacques Cousteau for many years, so diving was right at the top of my list, even after experiencing Mr Spielberg’s Jaws.

One day a friend of my new employer turned up, Peter. He’d heard I wanted to learn how to spearfish. “Jump in the van.” he said. “Why?” I asked. “You’ll need some gear.” He drove me, one by one, to each of his friend’s houses. He told each friend which piece of equipment they no longer used or had never used, and they were to give it to me, and by lunchtime I was fully kitted out. The next few months I was in the sea at every opportunity. In a spearfishing competition you enter the sea at 10am and have until 4pm to catch as many fish as you can. I was hooked (maybe that’s a pun).

One Saturday after a gruelling six hours in the water we were relaxing in the Yatch Club when my employer told Peter. “You should take young Charlie on your trip.” Apparently he was planning to head to the Canary Islands in September living out of a camper van and fishing to survive. The trip would last seven months, returning the following March. “Wanna come?” he asked. Did I want to come? 😂

So it was arranged, six months after arriving on the island and three months after my 18th Birthday I was going to be travelling 3,000km and spearfishing in the Mediterraen and the Atlantic while living out of a camper van. The plan was to take the car ferry to St Malo, drive through France to Spain and fish our way down the Spanish coast to Cadiz. A ferry would then take us to our final destination. A small village called Mogan on the island of Gran Canaria.

Felices senderos mis amigos 😉x

Where It All Began 3

Bradford

I’d had ten years living on two farms until one day it all changed. We were moving to a place called Bradford. I presume this came from mum as I later found out she hated the countryside. As for dad, he’d spent six years fighting the Germans, mostly in the desert with Montgomery and Rommel. Although I don’t think he had much of a relationship with Rommel. He just wanted a quiet life. So, off we went to a council estate in Bradford, the accommodation wasn’t quite what I had been used to.

It was all very exciting for the first week as I started exploring the council estate, but I soon discovered it was more or less the same wherever you went. During the second week I was beaten up by some other boys. After the third time I was beaten, I took some advice and joined the school boxing club. Drummond Road Boys School was a hell hole and features in the opening of my first book, The Siege of Mr Khan’s Curry Shop.

Mum and dad were working most days and nights in a Working Men’s Club at the other side of town. I became self sufficient by my twelfth birthday and I was feral 😂 I was smoking at fourteen, left school, started work and by my fifteenth birthday I was drinking regularly in Bradford city centre. I had certainly changed.

At seventeen-years-old, I’d had enough. There were several reasons for this. Looking around me I could see my future, and it was grim, but then one day I was chatting to an old bloke at work. I was an apprentice engineer in a factory. He told me I had a job for life, and he had been coming through those gates for fifty years. My first thought was, Ronnie Biggs only got thirty years, and he’d robbed a train. What had I done wrong?! The way it was back then is where I got the original idea for my first novel. The racsim especially from the skinheads was rife, and as ‘rockers’ we were firmly against it. There were often tussles (polite description 😂)

Dad died when I was sixteen-years-old and a year later mum wanted to go and live with one of my elder sisters. I decided to travel the world, and started to save for a Landrover. Sadly I was an impatient seventeen-year-old and so, with the few pounds I’d saved, I bought a cheap Austin 1800. I met a man at the back of some garages, who said I couldn’t test drive it. “It ain’t taxed, mate, and I still own it until the papers go through. You can drive it away though, if you give me the dosh.”

I paid him and drove away only to find it jumped out of third gear, of course, he’d gone when I returned to the lockups 😂. A mechanic friend informed me it was going to cost more than the car was worth to fix it.

Plan ‘B’ it was then! I decided to purchase a one way ticket to an island called Jersey. I was seventeen, had £70 in my pocket and I wasn’t coming back!

I wonder how many of you good people set out to do one thing and then ended up doing something completely different?

Happy Trails, Folks x