Good afternoon from a crisp winter afternoon at West Lodge,

Recent newsletters have tried to give a flavour of how various sections within the club have adapted to, and found inventive ways of dealing with, the enforced isolation of Covid 19.

A number of individuals within the club community have also come up with some imaginative ways of facing the challenge of lockdown and in this newsletter we are highlighting Amy Ferguson’s pretty novel solution!

Amy is the Panthers’ co-captain and does a huge amount for the Women & Girl’s Section; she arranges the weekly zoom quizzes and keep fit/zumba sessions as well as a lot of the admin. So to add to her already impressive cv Amy wrote an e-book during lockdown. The newsletter can’t do better than quote Amy’s own words on how the project developed:

“ “Turning the Tide” was written last year whilst the nation was still grappling with lockdown. What started off as a few chapters to keep myself amused turned into a fully formed project and a daily obsession. This book kept me going through most of lockdown and I feel proud to now be able to share the fruits of my labour. The book itself is based (very loosely) on my experience teaching in a small village school in the North of Scotland. Although the plot and associated characters are fictional, my love for the North west corner is very much captured in its non-fiction. I hope this book lets me share my love for our little island with many others.

Amy approached several publishers without success( remember JK Rowling got knocked back by 12 publishers!) but undeterred and following a tip from a friend, she has now got “Turning the Tide” self-published on Amazon and if you would like to get a copy and support Amy in her first foray into fiction you can do so on the Amazon website, at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08SHYPKPV?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420  

If you have an interesting story to tell about how you have dealt with the “Lockdown Challenge” or if you know of someone else in the club how might have an interesting story to tell please feel free to email Fergus Neil at fergus.neil1@gmail.com who would be delighted to share them with our wider audience. 

Next week, the amazing story of the former President (not Donald Trump!) who braved icy waters for a good cause.