Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy what you find here. Whilst you may not agree with everything I post, if you respect my right to my opinion I'll respect your right to disagree with it and we should get along just fine. :)

Disclaimer: the views expressed by the characters in these works may not necessarily represent the views of the author. Got that? Good.

Right then, on with the blog...

Monday 10 May 2010

Happy Birthday Future; Nostalgic!


How did that happen? It's not like me to forget a birthday, let alone the first anniversary of my own blog. *Hangs head in shame* The eagle-eyed among you will no doubt have noticed that Future; Nostalgic celebrated its first birthday on 6th May, 2009 but, I hear you ask, where was I during the festivities?

Well, the truth of the matter is that I was up to my armpits wrangling software onto a new laptop and completely lost track of the time, or the day come to that! You will also have noticed there has been a dearth of posts over here lately, apart from my #FridayFlash stories.

There are a number of reasons for this, most notably that we've had the builders in (and no, that's not a euphemism for something else!) to have our bathroom re-modelled, and Our Skiing Correspondent (OSC) has been in hospital for surgery on her knee.

The bathroom work took longer than expected and, whilst the end result is spot on, two weeks of building work is enough to try anybody's patience.

Our Skiing Correspondent's knee has been causing her problems for quite some time, to the point that, during our recent Slovakian trip, very little actual skiing took place. OSC's grandfather kindly paid for her to see a surgeon privately, the rest of her treatment was on the NHS.

The whole thing was a bit of a whirlwind - after OSC had seen the surgeon one Monday morning last month, an NHS MRI Scan was arranged for the following evening and she only waited a fortnight to discuss the results with the surgeon in his NHS clinic. None of us were expecting him to ask her what she was doing the following day, or for him to operate at 8.30am the day following the clinic appointment.

The surgery was, thankfully, a complete success, so much so that OSC frightened the life out of the nurses by wandering about the ward an hour or so after the operation (sans crutches for the first time in months I hasten to add); they didn't think she'd be up and about that quickly. Nor has she needed any of the large bag of drugs the hospital sent her home with. For the first time in months she's pain-free and looking forward to skiing again. Talk about a weight off all our minds.

Anyway, all of this has rather put me off my game and I have a few posts in the works now things are starting to get back to some sense of normality – there are some reviews, and the rest of our Slovakian travelogue to post for starters; apologies to those of you who've been waiting patiently to find out what we bought on our trip into town. I'll try to get these up as soon as possible.

In other news, I have received confirmation that one of my #FridayFlash stories, Twist in the Tale, has been accepted for inclusion in the 2009 Best of FridayFlash Anthology, and another story, Driftwood, got itself an Honourable Mention in Laurita Miller's recent story contest. I guess that means I can call myself a published author, right?

Also, we have finally received details of MIL's military service during World War 2, so now I can begin the somewhat mammoth task of attempting to document this turbulent period of her life. It's going to take me some time as additional research is required, but rest assured, I will post the results in due course.

And now, a Giveaway...

By way of a thank-you to all of you who've supported Future; Nostalgic through it's first year, I feel a giveaway is in order, so I've put together the following small goodie-bag of items I hope you will all enjoy:


By the way, the laptop is not included in the giveaway!

The goodie-bag contains:

1. a Fountain brand “Daisy Bundle” A5 lined notebook (256 ivory lined pages).
2. a pocket-sized Asda Executive notebook (80 sheets squared paper).
3. a Parker Jotter fountain pen (blue with one blue Parker cartridge).
4. a Staedtler triplus mobile office set (fineliner, ballpoint, 0.5mm mech pencil and highlighter all in a handy plastic carry case, which doubles as a desk stand).
5. a Maped twin tip 4 colour ballpoint multipen (blue, black, red and green 1.0mm tips).

To have a chance to win the goodie-bag, please follow these rules carefully:

1. Leave one comment on this post by midnight, GMT on Saturday, May 15. You are limited to one entry. Please feel free to link to this giveaway on your blog, or Tweet about it on Twitter; neither are required but either or both would be very much appreciated.

2. I will use the True Random Number Generator over at Random.org to pick a winner (comments will be numbered in the order in which they are received) from the comments section of this post, and will announce the winner on Sunday, May 16. [edit: I will announce the conest winner in a new post.]

3. The winner will have one week to contact me via email. Please use my Contact page.

4. Should the winner not contact me within one week, I will choose a new winner from the other entrants.

5. I will ship the goodie-bag internationally as I know Future; Nostalgic has many overseas readers and fans.

Good luck and thank-you for your support and encouragement through this past year.



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22 comments:

Carrie Clevenger said...

Oh Sam! I thought about doing this for Mindspeak as well, and my, they do grow up fast, don't they? Congrats! (Love the header btw) and look at how much you and your writing has grown.

Good show Sam. [hugs]

Marisa Birns said...

Happy Anniversary Future; Nostalgic! Wow, I can't believe it's been a year.

So happy that OSC is well recuperated from the surgery and is eager to hit the slopes again. More travel stories for you to share with us. And yes, eagerly waiting for rest of Slovakian travelogue. :)

Good luck with all the research and writing left for you to complete. And yes, you ARE a published author. Congratulations!

Unknown said...

Happy Blogaversary! And happy congrats on all the good news contained in this post!

And you had me at "Staedtler triplus". Just sayin'. ;)

Three cheers and I'm settled in for more Future; Nostalgic and your word-wrangling!

Jackie Flaherty said...

Congratulations and Happy Birthday!! So glad to see you so supportive and active in this pen and papery world! Congrats also on your story acceptance. Happy Days!!

Your friend and fan,
Jackie
www.lettersandjournals.com

Anonymous said...

So glad to hear that OSC is doing so well after the surgery, that's amazing! And not having to take the huge bag of painkillers is just great!

Happy birthday to Future;nostalgic! I'm (also) looking forward to many many more! :)

Congrats on being a published author, I'm so happy for you!
Truly a great achievement :) Hugs!

Cat Russell said...

Congratulations on your stories being accepted! And Happy Birthday to your blog!

Are you going to announce the winner in the comments section of this post?

I've enjoyed all your posts for #fridayflash and you completely deserve to be in the BOFF anthology. :)

Okami said...

Congrats!! Our blogs were born just a few days apart :-) the children grow up so fast don't they?

Here's to a wonderful 2nd year!!

Karen from Mentor said...

Happy blog-i-versary Sam! The bathroom reno "taking longer than expected" made me laugh. They ALWAYS do. But my favorite story surrounding reno is: I have a friend who had a man she was dating pull her toilet to redo her bathroom floor. The toilet sat in her laundry room for a month. [she only had the one bath mind you] Turned out it was just a ploy to get her to spend a lot of time at his house. It worked-- they've been happily married for ten years now.

Happy week! Happy birthday to the blog, and happy contest!
Karen :0)

Anonymous said...

Happy blog-birthday, Sam! Your little spot here is such a delight. Congratulations on the anthology and contest, too. Yes, you are definitely a real author. And a gentleman. :)

Josie @safetycomfort said...

"Happy blogday to you, happy blogday to you, happy blogday dear Future;Nostalgic..." Congratulations on reaching your first blog birthday, on the honourable mention of Driftwood in the competition, and the inclusion of Twist in the Tale - most excellent :-)

I'm looking forward to reading your up-and-coming entries when ready. I'm particularly looking forward to reading about your MiL's military service.

You and yours have had quite a time of it, and that's great that things are settling down now - pending laptop behaving itself ;-) The giveaway looks great too, you've put together a lovely and generous package there.

Andy McNally said...

Happy Blog Anniversary!!!

JoniB said...

A VERY Happy Birthday to your blog! I love your writing and hang on the edge waiting for each new post. Please count me in for the give away. I'd love to try out those pens and new paper products that we don't have over here in the USA.

Cathy Olliffe-Webster said...

Happy Blog-Day, Sam!
Always happy to read your stuff and always happy to get shot at amazing prize pack... I literally drooled when I saw the picture... !!!!
I bet you can't believe it's been a year... time flies when you're doing what you truly love.

Inkthusiasm said...

Congrats on the milestone! Here's to many more years!

Icy Sedgwick said...

Happy Birthday Blog!

And congrats on the publication :)

Mary said...

Happy Anniversary, Sam and congratulations on getting published. Looking forward to many more years of your wonderful blogging.

Emma Newman said...

Happy birthday! Sorry I'm late, but I brought virtual cookies, is that okay? Oh, and balloons.

Congrats on those comps, glad to hear that life is settling down again. We've all been through the mill lately haven't we? xx

Anne Tyler Lord said...

Sam - so much to celebrate!

I'm glad the surgery was a success! And, of course it must be great to have the bathroom done.

Your blog is a year old (what is that in blog years, about 35-40?) that is great!

How wonderful for your publications - you are a great writer I love to follow your stories.

congrats all around!

Valerie said...

Many congratulations, and I hope the new bathroom was at least worth the trouble!

Superpooky said...

Oh I just tweeted congratulatons but love a giveaway too. You know I love an Asda notebook, that;s the reason we 'met'

Keep on writing

Mari said...

Happy Anniversary Future Nostalgic!

Congrats Sam on the publication. Most deserved! :D

Good to hear that the recuperation is going well, and that all the bathroom thing is over and done. This can be so tiring...

Great idea to give things up on such occasion. I hope you don't mind me copying your idea later this year? ;)

Anonymous said...

How comes it, I wonder, that so many pen-enthusiast web-logs have a May inception? Happy anniversary to your, and long may it sail.

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