Success, Sales, Sorry and Solder

A bit of a mixed bag today:

I was fortunate enough to win Helen Yendall's mini-saga competition and you can read my entry and the runner-up on her blog here.

I've learnt that 100 Stories For Queensland has gone on sale in bookshops in Australia. It probably won't happen in the UK but it still gave me a buzz to see a picture of a book featuring one of my stories sitting next to the latest James Bond.

Next – an apology. For quite a while now Blogger has stopped displaying my Followers. I can't see anyone else's Followers either. The space is there but no icons with your lovely smiling faces. I know there are some new visitors who have left comments so if some of you have become Followers and are a bit miffed that I have not returned the compliment then rest assured that I have created a folder in the Favourites section on my browser for your links.

Carol of Carol's Corner has been giving me some tips, when we meet at NWC, on how to get my Followers back but so far nothing has worked. I've been on the Real Blogger Status site but that seems to assume I know all about domains and layered security (what?). It's not my computer because I get the same problem on my wife's laptop and the machines down the library. So if anyone out there has any ideas then all contributions are welcome. Being an engineer I'm a bit ashamed at my inability to sort out a technical problem. My excuse is that my degree in electronics was taken before all this computer black magic came along and when we were barely out of the valve era. Any faults could usually be fixed by a dab of solder. In fact, when my dad taught me how to solder, the soldering iron wasn't even electric. You had to place the tip in an open flame in order to heat it up. How I long for those simple days...