New book - you saw it here first!

Finally the wraps are off, the editing done and Lost in a Book is proud to present to the world:

Outnumbered by Cats

The true story of how I got outnumbered by cats - bursting with colour photos

The blurb:

I’d like to get a female kitten and let her have one litter,” I said to my stunned family when they raised the kitten topic. Not surprisingly a suitable kitten was quickly found...  and Mitzi arrived in time for Christmas, bringing her own brand of fun and chaos, and demanding friendship from our 5 year old cat Cleo.

By summer Mitzi was quite confused, she came into season and started calling shamelessly. But when a hapless tomcat answered her call, she was far from impressed; causing more than one cat flap drama, and a hole in the door where a flap used to be. 

Eventually nature took it its course and Mitzi had kittens. The first few weeks were blissfully peaceful, watching as Mitzi took care of their every need. We had a week of heartache when one of the kittens was poorly, and then not developing properly, and was destined to challenge and inspire us in ways we could not yet imagine. 

Then they grew big enough to escape their box, and the bedlam began... 

published and available from May 2014

Cat Flap season has started...

It seems that the cat flap season has started... we've already had a rat and a mouse brought in - the rat was discarded on the floor and should probably have made me jump, but I think I''m just getting used to such things now... The mouse was obviously more prized, and I had to have a chase around the house after Captain, who really wanted it for himself.

And there was me thinking that a cat flap would make life easier...

Back from my holiday - so what's next?

Just back from a wonderful Birthday weekend away with my family at Center Parcs. We went swimming every day, we were even joined in the outdoor pool by a duck... I cycled round on a quad bicycle contraption with my daughter, and generally had a lot of fun...  and now I'm feeling refreshed and ready to go again.

So what's next? Well there's a notice up on the outer ring road reminding me I've got a book signing coming up very soon, at Long Marston near York on 4th May at the Spring craft fair - there'll be books, there'll be sheep... and that's just on my table. They'll also be birds of prey and a bouncy castle...

How to stop picture edges appearing blurry when saving an adobe file to pdf

Hopefully this will help anyone else out there who is tearing their hair out, trying to get rid of the blurry edges that form around edges of pictures when saving to adobe  PDF

I've been trying to solve the problem of blurry edges around the photos on the cover of my book cover. As usual I've gone around in circles a few times before getting there, but in the end the answer was simple:

When saving my book cover as a PDF in adobe photoshop an option box came up about compression - don't let it compress at all, and the blurring will not occur. 

And there it is - my eureka moment!!