I’m a member of a golf club. And contrary to popular belief amongst non-golfers, that doesn’t mean I’m a posh git with more money than sense. For one thing, the club is at a municipal course – so the annual membership fee is on a modest scale…not the price of a new Mercedes. (Okay, so non-golfers, feel free to leave out the ‘posh’ and make a comment about ‘a good walk wasted’.)

I mention this because while I was recuperating from my recent hysterectomy operation I received Get Well cards from some of the women in the club.

When I read the handwritten message in the one from our current oldest member (80), I was in danger of bursting my stitches. She’d had this operation many years before and apparently a nurse told her: “Don’t worry, dear…the cradle is gone, but the playpen’s still there.”

I was thinking about her the other day, not just because the comment in her card still makes me smile, but mainly with all the talk about the film ‘Carol’ and the fuss about it not being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. (Hollywood misogyny – or just plain old fear of celebrating lesbians living happily ever after?)

Anyway, my 80 year old golf friend would have grown up in the post-World War II era and lived her whole life with the understanding that you didn’t talk about your sexuality. Although I know she’s a lesbian and she knows I am, we’ve never discussed it. It’s not something we mention while chasing that little ball around a field or in the bar after the round.

However, she has now discovered lesfic. And I’m proud to say it is through me. A surprising (to me, anyway) number of straight women at the club have read my books. And one of them passed on her paperback copies to this older woman.

Before I went into hospital I got a phone call from her. She’d looked at the ‘Other Books’ section at the end of one of my books and asked if she would be able to buy any of these in a bookstore. I told her they could only be ordered online and as she doesn’t have a computer, I could do that for her.

Well, I haven’t heard from her since she received those three books. There were fairly explicit sex scenes in one of them, so maybe she’s busy. After all, she still has a ‘playpen’.

Right, well on that note, I’m going to sign off. Maybe go to the driving range and see if I can remember how to hit a ball.

The Oscars usually pass me by as I don’t know many of the films, but this year I will be rooting for the Shaun the Sheep movie to win Best Animated Film. As for Carol, my prediction is that it will win the Best Costume Design award. (This will no doubt be a revelation for those in Hollywood who still think lesbians only wear dungarees and check shirts – so it’s a breakthrough of sorts.)

Coming soon: Book III of The Starling Hill Trilogy (and the re-release of the first two books)

Publications:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website