The full-day writing conference run by Jane Wenham-Jones and Maggie Harris was successful.  Chocolate eclairs were amazing!  They had to be.  "Mrs Corbys Tea Rooms" always offer high class old-fashioned food and good service.  You taste special ingredients in all her food - KINDNESS and LOVE!  Which is maybe why she won a 2011 tourism award and cafe employee of the year.  See www.corbystearooms.co.uk/reviews.php   This isn't tongue-in-cheek - it was tongue around the lips.

But to drag myself away from the cream cakes, the writing day produced significant applause at the end.  Over 20 budding writers had been egged on their literary careers in gentle, caring ways, and asked me about publishing their eBook for them.  I was pleased that Jane's hilarious book, "Wannabe a Writer?", sold out.  As did Maggie's insightful book, "Kiskadee Girl", on Caribbean life.   

My recent Caribbean adventures still turn up "co-incidences".  On the cruise I met Gaynor, who asked me to lecture at her April conference.  At today's event, I met one of her friends, who will also lecture there.  As they say, it's a small world, connecting us in ways we may only imagine. 

Perhaps I could pop down our writing tasks, to give a non-chocolate eclair flavour of the day?  

First, we had to write the opening of a book.  So the following may open Book 2 in my trilogy, "The Cosmic Corporation". (Book 1 is downloadable from the homepage.)  

"It was another one of those Monday mornings.  Michael hopped out of bed, smiling as usual.  Another happy day to look forward to, he thought.  His eyes sparkled like see-through azure sea.

"Texts and emails showed his first jobs.  A lady abused by her husband wants to kill him.  A mother whose child is out of control wants to throw him out.  And a couple whose baby died have entered a suicide pact. 

"Hmm, which to help first...

"As Michael started his God-given tasks for the day, he combed his sun-blonde curls, and unfurled his pale blue wings..."

Next we wrote 12 poetic lines about our family in 10 minutes, repeating part of the first line.  Here's my attempt.  

Mum (Channing) and dad (Sweeney) 
(a tongue-in-cheek poem of personal 'memories')

Channings made cakes to die for;
Sweeneys meals made you want to die.                     

Channings loved kids, as many as their stomachs could hold;
Sweeneys made kids their life purpose, but couldn’t stomach them.

Channings were Jews, but prayed to be atheists;
Sweeneys loved business, and saved pennies like Jews.

Channings were mostly happy, and gentle;
Sweeney’s almost learned genteel happiness.

Channings played games, sung and had fun;
Sweeneys fun came through games of life.

Channings taught lessons of nature;
Sweeneys fraught lessons of nurture.

(Tongue-in-cheek.  Really!)

‘Blue Curacao booze originated on this island’, said the owner selling booze at Memory Lane.  The man spoke Papiamento, a local language based on West African grammar, with English, Spanish and Dutch added.  ‘Red, green, yellow, and other coloured Curacao originated here too - dye is simply added to sun-dried Lahara citrus fruit, and rum.’  That’s probably nothing to do with this island having the largest synagogue in the Western hemisphere. 

This is the largest of the Netherlands Antilles islands, so Holland ensures Dutch goods abound in expensive shops.  Which gave me an idea...

I’d been wondering what New Year Resolution to make.  At my age, we should have made and achieved all the resolutions we need!  One year, I ran out of ideas, so resolved to give up smoking.  That was easy to keep.  I’d never smoked before anyway. 

 This New Year Resolution was framed by seeing Dutch Droste chocolate pastilles and Verkade chocolate bars. Here it is... ‘This year I’ll travel the world to taste the best chocolates this planet offers.’  That resolution should be easy to keep too.  Alongside trying to relieve suffering wherever I tread.

Today will have a happy ending - I've arrived in Odense, Denmark, Hans Christian Anderson's fairy-tale city. If you enjoy reading of fairy tale lives, humour and variety, these blog posts are written for you!  Today, as you will discover, really is the first day of the rest of my life...

Examples of strange tales you might expect from this blog...

My fairy tale life started when born 80% disabled and doctors said I wouldn't make 'old bones', or even teenage years. From that moment, my stubborn fairy godmother and guardian angel set to work to prove the doctors wrong.  

Joyful childhood fairy tales could be told of me singing in Canterbury Cathedral choir, playing piano, table-tennis, and snooker. Mystical fairy tales can be told of me aged 7 suddenly knowing healing methods to stay strong and alive. And horrid fairy tales could be told of the special boarding school for ‘delicate’ children where some classmates may have died, then a private boarding school where we wore black gowns and square mortar boards and childhood naughtiness wasn’t stopped by thrashings from the headmaster's bamboo canes. 

Despite often being hospitalised twice a year, I became a professional photographer in Germany, a UK government business consultant, vice-president of the Speakers' Society, enjoyed dangerous black run skiing, played international chess, and so on.  Being 80% disabled had wonderful benefits.  I had a brain to achieve excellent careers or hobbies, but always ended in hospital deciding what to learn next!

Like in a fairy tale, one day I expected to go into hospital, but unexpectedly met a wonderfully weird woman.  She put her hands on me, and almost in a wave of a magic wand, I was cured. 

Decades later, I’m like the wonderfully weird woman.  I’ve developed ‘magic’ cures for many conditions doctors cannot help; cured thousands of patients; constructed an anti cancer programme oncologists are dying to see; teach 63 psychic subjects; been complementary therapy tutor for UK prisons; taught thousands of students; pioneered effective therapies for 15 psychological conditions; lecture on angels and soul paths; and have written over 20 publications. I’ve co-presented a daily mystical TV show, and worked internationally with doctors, academics, governments, and three royal families.  And so on.  Nothing is more important than anything else.  Everything is intended to relieve suffering, improve lives, and help our needy world.

If we give ourselves unconditionally to help others, God gives back without being asked. So God-given wonderful adventures include climbing the foothills of Mount Everest to give money to headmasters to re-build 8 dilapidated schools, driving atop hot sand dunes in the Sahara Desert, cruising near blue icebergs in the freezing Antarctic, trekking through equatorial forests, and visiting cities, islands and mountains galore.  Imagine the contrast of finding an undiscovered pyramid in a Mexican jungle, with gigantic gold monkeys, and being gourmand secretary of a little society called ‘Chocoholics Unanimous’... 

As in a fairy tale, one shouldn’t only experience goodness, love and fun.  Balance should be in all things, otherwise how can we truly appreciate beauty and love?  
  
These few adventures are exactly that – just a few of my fairy tale adventures.  I’m told I go where angels fear to tread. But it’s just that the Gods guide me to the right place at the wrong time!!  I simply accept with unconditional love, and see no reason why they shouldn’t continue the fun.     

Today really is the first day of the rest of my life.  I was only based in England to try to help my daughter, despite our tough personal circumstances, and despite doctors saying for decades my health needed warmer climes. But at last I've rented out my amazing home on the beach, and given up all work.  It’s time to write as I travel, to share love and healing with other parts of the world, and perhaps to find love too.

Come and enjoy with me, fairy tale adventures along the way.  Everything will be true, but you may not believe anything.  And that’s exactly how life is in this weird and wonderful world.