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Humour - Children

The Adventurers of
Cecil the Scovery

Chris Southwood
Cecil. The Landrover with Attitude

A Collection of short stories for children and grown-ups.
The truth about the Beast of Bodmin Moor & cats. Swashbuckling stories from the jungles of south America to the shores of Cornwall. The Great Race of Penmucky village & how to win - plus everything you ever wanted to know about puddle squishing, beaches, muddy ditches, Australian crabs, lunatic Bishimatsus, Mercedes, BMW’s & Volkswagen. And Andopian Vultures, a Rogernoceros, Mklll Plodmobiles, nagging Christmas Trees & moaning Clonkmobiles.

Even how to be happy covered in mud, flies and green wriggly things...

Relationships - Self Help

Newly Single

Chris Southwood

Newly Single is about coping with the trauma of seperation and divorce. About self knowledge and self healing. About society and sexuality. An finally about where and how to find someone very special

"I know how much it hurts when you think about the person who was once your best friend; the person who was once your lover; the person who once shared your most intimate secrets.; how much it hurts now that person is an enemy, a litigant, and an adversary..."

"Whatever the pain, however sad or bitter you feel now, you realise that these emotions are transient and will eventually dissipate. But the lessons you learned should not be wasted. It is an internal discipline you must employ, a tidy and ordered way to separate the turmoil of events into those parts that can stay, and those parts that must go..."

"A lifelong partnership must be based on a spiritual bonding to survive and will be in defiance of our primitive instincts and not as a supplement to them. Without spiritual love the union will not last, at least not in a happy state..."

"So where do you go to meet other single people? There must be a better way. Where have all the other single people gone since I was last single? You will not find them sitting at home waiting for that chance meeting to happen. This is a romantic view that rarely happens in real life. You will have plenty of opportunities to dream when you have met the right person...."

   Parenting

The Weekend Daddy

Chris Southwood

As a follow on from Newly single this book is about the children of a broken marriage. The average father within a marriage rarely spends long tracts of time in sole charge of their children. A half day here perhaps, a few hours there maybe. Now facing divorce or separation the same fathers can be overwhelmed with the thought of sole responsibility of his children for days, or even weeks, at a time. (There is probably more `part time parenting' by fathers within a marriage than there is when they are separated or divorced.)  He is now going to have to cope on his own with cooking and nutrition: medical care, bedtime routines and discipline: what to do on a wet Sunday: what to do when a four year old has a temper tantrum in a supermarket.

Ousted from the family unit he has now to work and fight pretty damn hard to maintain a worthwhile relationship with his children....this book, written as  friend would write to a friend, will be a great help.

Fiction

The Smile Eyes Began

Chris Southwood

A love story, a ghost story set in Venice inspired by the immortal poem of W.H.Davies

What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.
No time to turn at beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance
No time to wait till her mouth can,
Enrich the smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Travel - Sailing

A Family Outing in the Atlantic

Jill Dickin Schinas

"Yes we were bound for Cape Horn – or, at any rate, Patagonia. In as much as we had a destination, this indeed was it. But we were in no great hurry, and even this goal was viewed as little more than a staging post on our journey, for we meant to journey indefinitely. Truly, it was not a place but a lifestyle which we were setting forth to find.
On the face of it, this book is a travelogue, but it is also a portrait of the cruising lifestyle – the hand-to-mouth lifestyle, not the early-retirement cruise..
There is much here that is of interest to other yachtsmen and other traveler, and heaps which will appeal to other families seeking to turn away from the nine-to-five motorway and tread a road of their own…”

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I first met Nick, Jill and family in Almerimar during the winter of 2006. And what a wonderful, free, individual and happy family they are. Nick certainly was not happy with marina life and Jill’s book is testimony to what can be done with passion and determination plus of course a thousand skills to be learnt on a sailing vessel. This is a fabulous cruising book – not a lone sailor’s hell-and-high-water macho account but a family; sailing and traveling and free.  CJS

Natural History

Two Gulls and a Girl

Roxanne Schinas

In the spring of 2008, while her family were cruising in southern Spain, Roxanne decided to make a survey of the seagull colony on an uninhabited island. The project began with a hand drawn map on which nests were plotted. Phase two was to have consisted in the study of birds growing on the island, but when a local nature warden told her that most of the chicks would die, Roxanne found that she had a perfect excuse for ´rescuing´ two and bringing them home. Mother was not impressed…but the deep was done, and now the young naturalist had the opportunity to study, intimately, the development of Larus Cachinanna, the yellow-legged gull.

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I met up with the Schinas family several times in the extraordinary inland sea called the Mar-Menor, southern Spain. Roxanne, Nick´s youngest daughter is, like the rest of the family, very talented. She is charming, well spoken but above all her enthusiasm for nature and the natural world is unbounded. This is a brilliant book. Her first at ten years old and certainly not her last.  CJS

Humour - Travel - Sailing

On the Nose

Bob Cooper

In the spring of 2004, Bob Cooper and his wife Liz set off in their 35ft yacht ´Yanina of Bosham´ to see how far round the world they could get without sinking, starving or pushing each other overboard. Yanina hasn’t sunk, they haven’t run out of food yet, and fortunately both bob and Liz are very good swimmers. For anyone who wants to explore the Mediterranean on their own boat, and who needs a seriously reliable, thoroughly accurate, technically challenging and totally unbiased guide to cruising the Med, this book is almost entirely useless. But for a cheap laugh it’s unbeatable.

.....................................

I first met Bob and Liz in Almerimar marina 2007. They are a friendly and very talented couple. The sort of people you want to meet when starting the cruising life.
Bobs book, with the help of Liz, is a fabulous account of such a life. Funny, witty and almost organized.
Well recommended, ideal gift for anyone who has a boat - hasn’t a boat yet or just want a brilliantly illustrated book that is fun to read and keep.    CJS

 Paper Back ISBN 978-0-9559256-0-3     £9.99

Humour

The Academy for Alternative Animals

With six billion humans on a very small planet the craving to be different, to be unique, to be a creature that has a direct connection to our true spiritual self  merits a visit to the Academy For Alternative Animals in London’s west end.

Scholarships and grants are available to become the animal you desire. After a free counseling by Jacob Scratchskin the chairman and managing director you will be advised on the availability of these transformations.

Some testimonials

"I never thought this was possible" Fred Inclestien former fishmonger now a geranium.

“Crikey! This seems to attract attention.” Doris Blots, librarian now a giraffe.

“Okay, being a copepod was not what I really wanted, but think of the advantages: no tax forms, no parking tickets; just total freedom.” Sidney Horaplant, former accountant