‘Three years ago I’d never have given a thought to visiting the Philippines. It wouldn’t have appeared in even my top hundred places to visit. Come to that, I’d never thought of re-marrying.’
So begins my travelogue, more a diary than a guide book, describing my marriage to a Filipina (by the way, we met through neither a dating agency nor ebay!) and my visits to the country. Lest there should be any doubt, I am the virgin in question though only in a figurative sense. In fact I’m an 80++ years-of-age Englishman though I don’t feel a day over 75!
The book is an account of the greenest green of the rice fields; of nightmarish criss-crossing traffic, managed it would seem by some master choreographer; of traditional family reunions; of my being refused entry to a Subic Bay hotel room on moral grounds along with my 65-year-old nephew-by-marriage; of advertising hoardings the size of tennis courts; of the eventual sale, after much peasant dealing, of one of my wife’s rice fields; of my election as life President of the Husbands’ Escape Committee; of life in a country town; of being inveigled into having a tooth extracted; of visits to the family mausoleum; of locking myself for hours in a mosquito-infested garage; of the most charming and pleasant people you’d ever meet and that’s just for starters.
I love the Philippines, the place and the people and I hope it shows though my writing.
Well, it’s on Amazon UK Kindle now though you can download it to your screen or your iPad or iPhone - and it will appear next week on Smashwords - 40,000 words by WH Johnson for peanuts (77p)! And it’s worth every peanut for Leonardo Malgapo’s cover and illustrations alone. Just a reminder… this is an ebook… it is not in printed book form. If you cannot manage the technicalities of getting the ebook, contact me.
Find me on www.johnniejohnson.co.uk or on http://www.amazon.com/author/whjohnson where there is more detail about the book and my career as a writer.
In brief, I retired 24 years ago; have written twenty-odd books, both fiction and non-fiction, both traditionally and self-published; I’m a winner of the South East Arts Prose Prize; the National Association of Writers’ Groups gave me their ‘best novel’ award and I’ve found a wonderful wife …and I’m blissfully happy.
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