NEW RELEASE

Tomorrow is not promised – A story collection from 2019-2023 – features Lucy’s Salinas Valley Tribune newspaper columns from some very interesting years. Grouped under headings Me & My friends and Family, Me & The Animals, Me & The World, Me & Them, Me & It and Just Me, you’ll be glad to hear these stories are not just about Lucy, but the world, the impact of corona virus on our world, the amazing life she leads, her love of the animals and other funny stuff.

Lucy is also author of Window on the World, Winston Comes Home, The Animals Teach Us Everything & Other Short Tails, The Rosebud & Her Brilliant Adventures, The Soup Diaries & The South Lookout – Our Aldeburgh Childhoods.

Born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, she now lives on a rescue ranch called Solace in California.

Winston spent his early years in Mexico. Little is honestly known about how he spent those years, yet it is apparent that he was starved and abused. He has scars and bite marks all
over his body. He has a branding on his back leg and nails were certainly pounded into his feet by an untrained farrier, ensuring that he had to be sedated for every future shoe appointment.

Winston was rescued to California and taken in by a kindly foster mom who took care of him and the goats Charlie and Elvis, hoping to find them all forever homes. Fortunately for us, no
one else wanted Winston. He had some bad habits that were going to be tricky to fix and he wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants with his scarred body and twitchy mannerisms. When we found out that no one wanted him, we immediately did; having already taken in his roommates, the naughty goats.

This was to be a lifelong love affair and his journey home is the subject of Lucy’s first children’s book, illustrated with her own photographs.

It was the 1960’s and 70’s, freer times… no seat belts, no sunscreen, and no worrying about where your children were, in Aldeburgh at least. Lots of sun, sea, swimming, walking, laughing, talking, eating mostly around the South Look Out, the sentinel of a shared childhood.

Lizzie and Lu lived next door to each other on King Street in Aldeburgh, right around the corner from the South Lookout – their homes open door extensions of one another. This nostalgic look back to those simpler times tells the story of their extraordinary friendship, but is also a special nod to the ‘King Street Gang’ – friends, family, and other voices, some already departed who figured large in shaping their idyllic childhood by the sea.

Well before Rosie passed away, I knew I would be writing her story – a patchwork quilt of her life with lots of pictures. Little did I know what a therapeutic experience this would be for my own grieving process. When I got close to the end of the manuscript, I started to grieve just a little all over again.

Though my timelines are off and dates a bit wonky, love sings through every step of the way. Rosie was my baby sister, and it has been a pleasure writing about her brilliant adventures in this crazy life and how she navigated the difficult hand she was dealt with limitless humor and grace.

Rosie, or Bud as we call her, lived a full and rich existence during her short 48 years on the planet. From her life as an inner-city teacher in London to the life she adored in Turkey with her beloveds Ali and Dilgesu and the creation of her school Vizion in Kumluca, Bud made life-long friends wherever she went. We will always remember her with so much laughter and love.

“You need to rest, Rosie!” my husband ventured, and I thought she was going to eat his head. “I can sleep when I am dead!” she retorted in typical Bud fashion. She showed me where Ali’s daughter and father were buried and where she will be too, before sundown on the day she passes. “You won’t make it, sis,” she tells me, reading my mind, eyes firmly on the road ahead.

These twenty-something had been friends forever; so, there was nothing off subject, as you will see in their banter. They were also new London-flat owners, where they would cook, eat, drink and plan their men-chasing antics in each other’s homes. Lots of souls, hangovers, cheese, chocolate and laughter.

It was also the beginning of an exciting new era – the Internet has arrived – so ‘The Soup Diaries’ have evolved as a period piece stemming from these emails, that were amazingly preserved, between date 1999 to the Spring of 2000.

This is a compilation of newspaper columns, published from 2011-2019, that focus primarily on rescue animals and the charity I co-founded in 2016 ‘South County Animal Rescue’. The stories detail funny and sad tales of horses, llamas, dogs, cats, birds, turtles and goats on our rescue ranch we call Solace. There are tales of characters galore, loss, tears, laughter and love – always love.