Wellington Boots

The end of book of four in the Wellington Boots series, saw the author relocating from London, and after an emotional journey, moving into his new home in Marsaskala, Malta. “A Bird in My Drain”, takes up the story from there, up until a point almost 7 years later. Just as the rest of the series has truthfully related the author's adventures, mishaps and travels, from a chaotic foreign childhood, to serving in the military, the Metropolitan Police and a host of other adventures, this latest installment retains both the comedy and drama of the next chapter in all its unvarnished glory. Fact, as ever, is always stranger and more entertaining than fiction ever could be.

The boy in Wellington boots who kicked off this series, is now almost a pensioner, but there's life in the old dog yet. Wellington boots became army boots, then police boots, before morphing into flip flops during a seven year adventure on a Mediterranean island.The island, originally meant to have been the boy's final destination, and a completion of the circle of his life, became restricted and groundhog day-like, leading him to up sticks yet again, this time to the former republic of Yugoslavia. This true story is about life in his latest adopted country.In a land of undecipherable language where they still harbour a love for Only Fools and Horses, use unfathomable expressions, like St Peter's scrambled eggs, and where they still maintain traditions he'd not experienced since Britain of old, he settled into a new routine. His new life included, negotiating none too subtle interrogations by the local police, running the gauntlet of packs of street dogs, having his feet massaged with vinegar when he became feverish, trying to understand restaurant menus that offered broken glass, and labouring under the misapprehension that living in a village would be peaceful.These are his further adventures…