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eBook Category: Romance
eBook Description: 'Women reach fifty and think they're on the verge of liberation and excitement, and their broken-down men just want to stay home and fart. Or in my case, go and live in a cabin in the Rockies and fart.' Sally Howe plans to spend her husband-free year trying her hand at becoming a wildly successful author. But she's beset by distractions - the first being a queue of local lotharios, led by young Billy Bathgate, village postmaster with a tartan trouser habit and an obsession with drain rods. Warm, wise and funny, Plotting for Beginners offers a wry evaluation of long-haul marriages, plus a lesson on how to hit the menopause running and seize your freedom when the family has gone.

eBook Publisher: Snowbooks/Snowbooks
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2007

Tuesday 1st April
Gus has gone. As a mark of tenderness he let me drive the car to the airport. ?Well I suppose you'll be doing it all year when I?m not here so at least I can supervise your last practice.? ?Cheeky sod,? I said. As I turned onto the A6 I said ?Do you want me to run through everything again?? ?Yes, just to calm me down.? So as I drove I explained again about checking in and then talked him through all the procedures and destinations? customs, security, gate numbers, Heathrow, Denver. When we reached the security barrier we gave each other the biggest hug of our lives. ?Just make sure you come back in one piece,? I said. ?I don't want to get an email from Dan telling me you?ve been savaged by a bear.? ?Will you be OK?? he said. ?You know how long I?ve wanted to try this, don't you?? ?Of course. Go on, you'd better go.? We kissed each other as if it were the last time (hark at me, I sound like Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca). Then he walked off to be searched. ?I love you,? I called after him. ?Love you, too.? I watched him go through the arch and collect his bag. He turned round and caught my eye and grimaced. Then he put down his holdall and held out his hands in front of him and made them shake, pretending to be even more nervous than he was. Then he smiled and waved again, picked up his bag and went. I walked back to the café near the entrance, the one that smelled of apricot and almond cookies. I treated myself to a celebratory pot of earl grey tea because there was no-one to complain about the ?extravagance.? And it felt like an occasion, so I bought a pack of shortbread fingers too. I saw an empty sofa, which felt like a sign?a sofa is just what a newly liberated writer needs. I got out my notebook and described the scene...the waitress flirting with the Jon Snow look-alike in crushed corduroy suit and exquisite arty tie, and the business woman who thought no-one could see her flicking her nose-pickings under the table. On the way home I played my Fred Astaire tape. I sang along to all the songs and joined in the taps on the steering wheel, and there was no-one to moan about the choice of music, or the taps. And when I got home I watched Neighbours and no-one complained. What fun! I have a whole year of this ahead. The above is what I was expecting to write here tonight. This is what I am writing? I wanted to go to the airport starting on the A623 via Chapel-en-le-Frith, but Gus preferred the ?far superior route? via Buxton. There was no third way. Balls to compromise. Compromise just means that at least one person is unhappy. Sometimes it?s both. Once I got there I was dying for a cuppa but Gus said Thoreau would have waited for a drink till he got back to Walden, and I should do the same. We had a long-married, businesslike hug at the barrier. ?Just make sure you come back in one piece,? I said. ?I don't want to get an email from Dan telling me you?ve been savaged by a bear.? ?Will you be OK?? he said. ?Of course. Go on, you'd better go.? ?Well,? said Gus. ?Just think. The next time you drop me off here I'll be on my way to Australia.? ?What?? I said. ?If the Rockies goes well, I?m planning on doing the same in Western Australia.? ?What?? ?It?s another type of wilderness, and I thought?? ?If you're planning on going to the bloody Rockies for a year...