Carl Ashmore - writer of stuff ...

[Carl]

Hello everyone,

I'm Carl - doting dad, curry creator, longtime lecturer and amiable author of :

The Time Hunters
The Time Hunters and the Box of Eternity
The Time Hunters and the Spear of Fate
Bernard and the Bibble
The Night They Nicked Saint Nick

I live in the railway metropolis that is Crewe, and have a cat that really doesn't like me ... EDITED: Sadly, that cat passed away recently. However, I've just got a kitten and he doesn't like me much either :)

I look forward to meeting many of you in the threads. Please feel free to pop by and say hello :)

Carl

[Shaun]

Hey Carl, we live in the same town :)

[Patti (baconater)]

Small world, isn't it?
There seems to be quite a few ties to Crewe in our group.

Welcome, Carl! It's so nice to have you with us and I'm pleased you've started your thread.

I posted (and made!) a sag aloo recipe in the recipe thread last evening. We do enjoy a good curry. Would love to talk curries as well as books with you.

Weyhey! I just had a peek at your Goodreads author profile and noticed the like button. First time I noticed such a thing! Now you're on my Facebook page!

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Hi Carl - great to see you here. And is there any news about the print version of Time Hunters?

[Steve]

Hi Carl, and welcome to crazy gang!

[Kath]

Greetings from a Time Hunters fan. Don't mess about here, get on with the sequel! (I've got a reputation for bossiness and I believe in playing to my strengths.) You created some wonderful characters there and I'm sure you aren't going to waste them.

[Carl]

Hey Shaun,

I was brought up just off Hungerford Road but now live in one of the old railway houses in town. What a very small world :)

Hi Patti, oh, I love making curries. I believe I've just perfected my base gravy which took an awful long time. I also made some crackin' onion bhajis at the weekend.

Hi Ginger, yeah The Time Hunters printed version is available on Lulu.com, but it hasn;t made its way over to AMazon yet. Great to see you here .xxx

Cheers, Steve. Great to be here.

And Ingnite, thanks for being a fan of the book. I appreciate your bossiness and will certainly do as I'm told on this one. I am 52 000 words into Book2 and hoping to release it at Christmas :)

Thanks for such a lovely welcome everyone

Carl

[Patti (baconater)]

Base gravy! Share! Please post it in the recipe thread. Pretty please?

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

Hi Carl,
Glad you've joined us. I love your books and can't wait for the new one.
Please share your recipes...I'd like to try them...love onion bhajis!
Hope you've got a good sense of humour with us lot!

[Shaun]

Carl wrote: "Hey Shaun,

I was brought up just off Hungerford Road but now live in one of the old railway houses in town. What a very small world :)"
I only moved to Crewe 15 years ago (Uttoxeter and Birmingham before that). Now live in Sydney just off Hungerford.

[Patti (baconater)]

You two need to meet up in the pub!

[Kath]

Patti (P E) wrote: "You two need to meet up in the pub!"

... and invite the rest of us!

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

yep, sounds about right. Maybe we could have regular PPUs like the music forum... (poster's piss-up)

[Carl]

Ha. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Saying that, Patti, Shaun lives in the posh part of town. Come to think of it, there isn't a posh part of town.

And Patti, I would love to share some of my recipes. I love talking food, particularly curry :)

I have spent many hours pondering/sweating over how to make the perfect Tikka Massala and still haven't mastered it. Anyone got any thoughts?

I'm also determined to make the perfect pizza dough/base but haven't cracked that, either :(

Carl

[Patti (baconater)]

Ah ha! I have the perfect pizza base recipe. Made in my bread machine, believe it or not! I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

[Shaun]

Carl wrote: "Ha. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Saying that, Patti, Shaun lives in the posh part of town. Come to think of it, there isn't a posh part of town."
I was going to say I didn't think there was a posh part of Crewe. Lol

[Kath]

For some reason the words Crew and Alsager come to mind. Why would that pop into my head?

[Patti (baconater)]

Dunno. Is it past medication time?

[Kath]

Aye, and I think me straight jacket's slipping again too.

[Patti (baconater)]

I'll tighten your buckles in a bit.

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

Is that my jacket you've knicked?
:0)

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

I was wondering where mine had gone...

[Patti (baconater)]

I threw mine in the corner in Vanessa's thread. I plan on being totally nuts in there.

Speaking of which, I just googled some more good ones!

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

I hadn't noticed any difference Patti...

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

Poor Carl, we've hijacked your thread.
Are you finding your way around the forum ok?
Oh, and please dig some recipes out for us.
;0)

[Patti (baconater)]

Gingerlily wrote: "I hadn't noticed any difference Patti..."

Hush you!

[Carl]

Ingnite, Crewe and Alsager are about five miles from each other, and there was a teaching college (now part of MMU) called Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education. Perhaps that's it.

Patti, but I don't have a breadmaker. Oh, and isn't that cheating? :)

Yes, Vanessa. I'm getting there slowly. Everyone is very friendly so far. And I would be delighted to add some recipes to the thread.

Shaun, we may not be posh but we have 17000 takeaways :)

[Patti (baconater)]

Dave got his teaching degree at Crewe and Alsager. Like I said. Small world.

You could do it by hand, I guess. I really don't care if using the machine is cheating. It's easy and it works!

17 000? You sure you didn't add a couple zeros there?

[Carl]

Ha@Patti. Er, yeah, maybe two zeros.

And I'm all for using machines. I think I need that recipe :) Swapsies????.lol

[Patti (baconater)]

Swapsies

[Carl]

Ahh, but what do you want in return?

[Carl]

Vanessa, the bhaji recipe is up. :)

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

Thanks Carl, I'll definately give it a go...I love onion bhajis.

[Patti (baconater)]

I'll post my pizza dough recipe and a lovely green bean curry recipe.

Have a look through the whole recipe thread, Carl. There are some great ones in there.

[Carl]

I'll check it out, Patti :) xx

Hope it's okay, Vanessa .xx

[Patti (baconater)]

Nice to see you pop in, Carl!
Cornelius posted a crackin' curry in the recipe thread!

[Kath]

Finally your book "the time hunters" got to the top of my tbr pile, or to be honest, i actually wanted something different to what i had been reading (crime/thriller stuff) and boy was it a fantastic and pleasant change... thoroughly enjoyed every moment reading it... looking forward to the next one :)

edited to add name of book (ooopsie)

[Carl]

Thanks, Patti. I'll check it out :)

And cheers Kath. Thank you so much. I hope you may consider writing a review if you get a few mins. Either way, it's made my Sunday :)

[Carl]

Oh, and for anyone that's interested, the sequel to 'The Time Hunters' should be out in December.

[Kath]

Carl wrote: "Oh, and for anyone that's interested, the sequel to 'The Time Hunters' should be out in December."

Now that IS good news Carl. I look forward to that!

[Sue]

Very good news indeed Carl, I'm looking forward to it too!

[Vic]

Hello Carl, re: the Crewe-ness of it, and it being a small world.

I used to live in Middlewich, which is not too far away, and am (or was) very familiar with Crewe. I now live in the French Pyrenees. Last year, at the age of 70, I walked from there to my home town of Blackpool, and that is what my book "Vic's Big Walk", is about. Available on Amazon (both), Nook, iBookstore, and soon on Sony.

This is the BBC coverage of the finish of my walk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXEsga...

[Carl]

Vic, I don't know what to say. My late-dads side of the family are from Middlewich. I know it well and used to go fishing all the time in your many canals. Oh, and I wrote the first draft of 'The Time Hunters' in the midi-pyrenees in a town called Saint Cere. It really is a very small world. :) 'Vic's Big Walk' sounds great.

And Sue and Ignite, thank you sooooo much :)

[Vic]

Carl, Vic's Big Walk passed not too far away from St Cere. I went through (and stayed overnight in) Souillac, which has almost the same postcode. That would have been in May last year (I started on 15th May from my home in Puivert and finished 70 days later on 23rd July - my 70th birthday - at the house where I was born in Blackpool). Were you scribbling away in St Cere then?

Thanks for saying Vic's Big Walk sounds great. I assume you mean the book (the walk and my blog have the same title). I know several people in this group have bought it and am dying to have some feedback. It isn't free, but of course it would not be raising funds for pancreatic cancer research if it was free.

[Carl]

I certainly was scribbling in Saint Cere. We had a beautiful town house just on the river. I turned the loft into my study and it was all rather perfect. I took a year sabbatical from my day job (I'm a lecturer) in 2005/2006. And what a wonderful cause for your book. I wish you the very best of luck with it.

Souillac is a beautiful place.

Can I just say to any Time Hunters fans that today (well, about 30 mins ago), I finished the first draft of the second book 'The Time Hunters and the Box of Eternity.' Gosh, it's been a slog getting it finished but I'm going to go and have a few beers now :)

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Whoopeeeeee!!!

[Patti (baconater)]

Great news, Carl! You've certainly earned a beer or two!

[Kath]

Oh great. I did so enjoy Book 1 and there was too much potential to leave it there.

[Kath]

yayyyy carl... well done, looking forward to it muchlike :) enjoy your well deserved beers...

[Joo]

The Time Hunters was the first book I bought and read on my Kindle Keyboard. Perhaps I need to buy a new Kindle just for the new book :)