Pedalo Pandemonium (Scott Family Short Story, Book 4) by Amanda Paull
Laura
and Ben are still together, against all the odds. Laura's Family the
Scotts are adorable - but they wreak havoc wherever they go. The
couple have survived first date silicon dog poo, Christmas mayhem and
even dodgy marshmallows.
Their future together may have looked doomed on more than one occasion, but here they are at the airport – eating bacon sandwiches and watching planes take off, as they wait to board their flight to Mallorca.
A whole week in an idyllic Spanish fishing village. Just the two of them. Away from their families and the usual chaos. Wonderful.
What could possibly go wrong...?
Their future together may have looked doomed on more than one occasion, but here they are at the airport – eating bacon sandwiches and watching planes take off, as they wait to board their flight to Mallorca.
A whole week in an idyllic Spanish fishing village. Just the two of them. Away from their families and the usual chaos. Wonderful.
What could possibly go wrong...?
Bio 2 – Scott
Family Short Stories
Hi,
My name is Amanda
Paull and I live with my third (and last) husband in the North East
of England.
I can’t say I
have always loved reading and writing. I went to a strict Grammar
school in the 70’s where we had to read ‘good’ books, analyse
them to the hilt, and then write academic essays on them. It put me
right off until I was in my forties, when I decided to do a creative
writing course and discovered how much fun writing can be.
After leaving
school, I studied Spanish and German and got to spend a brilliant
year in Pamplona in Navarre. I love anything Spanish. When I met my
current husband, I was delighted to discover that we both loved
Mallorca. When I say ‘met’, it wasn’t when we actually met that
we made this discovery, it was around 30 years later.
I met him at that
Grammar school I mentioned. We were in the same year group for 7
years but didn’t speak to each other. I was painfully shy and
avoided boys. That was easy to do, since the classrooms were divided
in half, boys on one side and girls on the other. There were even two
separate playgrounds for breaktimes. After leaving school, we didn’t
meet again for over twenty years. It was after I ran the Great North
Run half marathon and he made a comment about it on Facebook that we
eventually ended up having a conversation and discovered we quite
liked each other. So Facebook was involved, like it was for Laura and
Ben, but unlike with Laura, my mother had nothing to do with it…
When I wrote the
Scott Family Short Stories, I based Ben and Laura on my husband and I
– nice but a bit geeky and goody-two-shoes-y. He had very bendy
toes, like Ben in his dancing shoes. All four of the stories are
fictional, but A Christmas Day Kerfuffle was actually based on
a real Christmas morning shenanigan. We still laugh about it.
The inspiration
for Pedalo Pandemonium came from our holiday to Mallorca last
year. The hotel was just as wonderful as the one in the story and the
taxi transfer just as bad, but the rest was all fiction.
I am thinking
about writing a novella later this year to complete the story of
Laura and Ben’s relationship. We’ll see. Chaos is fine in small
doses, but a novella might be a bit too much…
I do hope you and
your readers enjoy reading the stories and they make you giggle. If
anyone would like to catch up, there are four al together. The first
one, Let’s Dance is available free from most e-book
retailers, and there is a link to the free second story in the back
of it.
Thank you for
reading. I’d love to hear what you think of the stories.
Amanda 😊
My
name is Amanda Paull. Well, that's my pen name, not my real one,
which helps to keep my writing separate from my day
job.
I
grew up in the North East of England and couldn't wait to move
away. However, after studying and then living both in England and
abroad, I returned to the North East and wouldn't dream of
living anywhere else now.
Going
to Grammar school in the days when teachers wore black caps and
gowns, and walloped at will, wasn't much fun for a
shy, quiet child like myself. So, I just kept my head
down, did my homework and tried to stay invisible.
I
used to love daydreaming and making up stories in my head, but I
never thought about writing them down. In those days, writing
wasn't an enjoyable pursuit, it was more of a time to tow the
line and avoid being hit by a flying blackboard rubber. I
was the type of pupil who would have been mortified to have
'made' a teacher launch one at me, so I would have shown
respect by not ducking.
A
short career in teaching was a revelation, to put it mildly. After
going back to University, I settled into my current post in
the public sector, where I am very happy.
It
was Jim, a work colleague, who suggested around 12 years ago that I
write a book. Apparently, my contribution to coffee break
conversations always seemed to be either tragic or
hilarious. But to me it was just normal stuff. No-one would
want to read about that.
Then,
a couple of years later, while sunbathing in Mallorca with my
boyfriend, who is now my husband, and a glass of
Cava, the idea of writing a humorous fiction novel came to
me. I didn't need to make it all up though as I had a plentiful
supply of funny real life snippets.
To
get started, I studied creative writing through the Open
University, which fitted nicely around my job and, to my
delight, was absolutely nothing like school. The Scott
Family Short Stories started out as an assignment for this course. A
Christmas Day Kerfuffle was the result of the fictional account of
the first Christmas brunch my husband spent with my family. Of all
the short stories, this one has more true snippets in it than the
others. The taxi driver and bike box scene in Pedalo Pandemonium was
pretty true to life, too. The driver looked different, but the
airport to hotel transfer only required slight embellishment.
I also write
Women’s Fiction. Pictures in the Sky was my debut novel, and I am
currently writing my second, Painting Bananas.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Apaullfiction
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Apaullfiction
Website:
https://www.amandapaull.co.uk/
