Fed up with Double Standards

I came to a decision early this year – okay maybe it should have been a New Year’s resolution but I only finally decided late in January.  I decided that now (being a double granny - second granddaughter Eloise was born on 30th October 2015 -  after years and years of waiting) that the time was right for me to stop colouring my hair. I have actually coloured it for years but after going raw (January 2004) I decided to stop putting chemicals on my head and changed to using henna, which I am assured is a natural herbal product.   However it fades and grows out at an alarming rate and then I have felt it is essential to cover up the tell-tale greys.   Having very dark hair any greys are immediately apparent and I have always considered them something shameful, something never to be seen in public. 

Then in late January of this year I asked myself the question ‘why?’  For someone generally considered quite bright I can be amazingly slow at times.  Now I ask myself why it took me so long.  I have never been big on make-up either (laziness probably) and our year on the boat in France completely put an end to it.  All I use on my face is coconut oil and Aloe Vera gel – which I find great as a natural sunscreen.  So I go around with a bare face and now will have grey hair to go with it.  Oh, did I mention I also stopped shaving my legs?  Of course one’s hair growth does get thinner as one ages so it’s really not that noticeable.   But shaving legs is definitely in the same double standards category as having to hide the grey just because one is a woman.

However I am only human so don’t want to go around looking a complete frump.  I decided that to go with my grey hair I would work on my face and my body.   I have started doing the 5 Tibetans – a series of yoga exercises marketed as the 5 Rites of Rejuvenation (how could I resist?)  I have a little book that I bought ages ago but they are readily available online (here’s a Wikipedia link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Tibetan_Rites) – I have done them in fits and starts for about 10 years but now I do them daily – as well as a range of other yoga stretches and a few arm exercises (my granddaughters are really getting heavy – need to strengthen up). I have also tried facial exercises half-heartedly in the past but have now found an amazing woman in Australia – who offers an enormous range of facial exercises free on YouTube under the name Facerobics.  Check it out https://www.youtube.com/user/RENEWMETVCHANNEL.  The most amazing thing is that she is living proof of the effectiveness of her programme – you see before and after shots and also see how much younger and prettier she looks in her later videos compared with the earlier ones.  I have a LONG way to go.  But realistically I do have more than 10 years on her so I just need to work harder.  So every morning I now start with facial exercises then my exercise programme.   My fantasy is that by the time my hair is completely grey my face and figure will look so good that everyone will assume I’ve coloured it grey as a fashion statement!   I can dream, can’t I?

Till next time J

Game Changer

I haven’t written for a while – haven’t even been on Facebook either.  It’s not that nothing has happened in my life, rather that too much has.  I hardly know where to start.

First HUGE thing, on 19^th March 2015, our daughter gave birth to a baby girl whom they have named Jemima Joy.  After all these years of waiting we are grandparents – and I can tell you it is totally awesome.  I mean that in both the modern and the literal senses of the word J.  This tiny, beautiful scrap of a baby and I am her grandmother – what an honour and what a responsibility. 

We have been living 6000 miles away from our daughters, but now this has to change.  The trouble is that we really like living in Cape Town, and we enjoy the outdoor lifestyle which the weather affords.  My husband, Colin, loves his golf – but is the first to admit he is a fair weather golfer – so not for him the donning of heavy waterproofs and playing in rain and snow (joke I think – they wouldn’t see the ball in the snow J but we have known some very hardy golfers).  But we definitely need to spend more time in England.  Fortunately we both have dual citizenship so there are no nasty visa problems.

While we were over meeting Jemima we visited out other daughter, who was about to qualify as a vet, and received the amazing and very welcome news that we were to be grandparents again.  Come November we are to have another granddaughter!  What was that joke about buses?

All in all this has turned out to be a very expensive year for us.  We will have made four (!) trips to the UK – starting with February when we flew over for the funeral of Colin’s aunt to whom we were very close, then April to meet Jemima, July for the graduation (arranged over 5 years ago), and now we will be over for Christmas and at the same time meet our new granddaughter.   We are not wealthy people so this has made a huge hole in our capital – but from next year we plan to become ‘swallows’ spending half the year in England and half in South Africa.  So only one return trip a year, with our dogs.  A neighbour has kindly offered to look after the cat while we are away.  Unfortunately our daughters live several hours drive from each other so that is a logistical problem of its own. 

I tend to have a low boredom threshold but right now I am in no danger of being bored J

Till next time J

I’m HOOKED on MOOCs.

I never thought I’d hear myself say that.  I only learned the term MOOC last month.  (It stands for Massive Open Online Course in case you are as ignorant as I was up till a couple of weeks ago.)  What happened is that I did a course last year, through the U3A, called Introduction to Astrology.  I really enjoyed the course (knowing nothing about the subject) and wanted to learn more – so looked online.  There I came across Coursera, and the rest, as they say is history.  I didn’t actually do the Astronomy course, though I do plan to in the future, as my life was too busy with house alterations and then a family visit (part of the reason for the house alteration).

I am just finishing my first course, Introduction to Genetics and Evolution.  It’s a Coursera course (when I found out about MOOCs I also found out about other MOOC providers though Coursera is the largest), taught by an amazing professor from Duke University, Professor Noor.  He’s an inspired teacher, teaching with zest and humour and so much enthusiasm for his subject it rubs off on all his students.  I have loved every minute of it, finding  the course interesting as well as challenging – last time I did any biology I was 14 so it was quite a steep learning curve for me.  Each week there is a set of videos to download  and watch (multiple times in some cases for me) then once a week a problem set to do online.  Two exams, one mid-term and a final, which I hope to do next weekend.    I love having a deadline to work to – it’s only with a deadline that I accomplish anything.  I think that’s a sign of natural laziness J   Then next week my next course starts – Forensic Psychology by the Open University, though the MOOC provider is Future Learn, then in June another Coursera course, Animal Behaviour though Melbourne University then in September I’m doing a course in American contemporary poetry.  Might tuck in a few others in between.   Can barely remember what I did before I started this!   And I only started in January this year!

These MOOCs should come with a health warning – seriously addictive!

Till next time J

Last week we experienced a miracle.

Our children having grown and flown, our dogs are our children now.  We have two beautiful toy poodles, Phoebe who is four and Lola who is nearly two.  Lola is the smaller, weighing only 2.5 kilograms, just over half the weight of the average cat. They are lovely, bright, friendly, loving  little dogs, who in spite of their small size are very good watchdogs.  We go everywhere with our dogs, they mean the earth to us.

We have builders at our house at present, putting in a loft room.   Last Tuesday morning my husband Colin, needed to tell the builders something so he climbed up the scaffolding to call them.  On the way down his foot slipped and he dislodged a section of scaffolding that had been standing upright against the main section.  As usual Lola was right at his heels and the scaffolding, weighing some 20 kilograms, landed right on top of her.  I was upstairs on my computer when I heard an almighty crash them heart rending screaming.   I ran downstairs shouting out ‘What happened? Who’s hurt?’

Colin said ‘it’s Lola’ then I saw her, her little body twisted like a pretzel, her head on one side and these screams coming from her mouth.  I grabbed Colin’s fleece, which was the nearest thing on hand and wrapped her in it and we headed for the car.  I didn’t stop to put on shoes, or take my handbag, or lock the doors.  Colin drove as fast as he could to the vets – asking me continuously to check that she was still breathing.  When we got there he ran ahead and told them what had happened so the vet was waiting.  He took us into the consulting room, unwrapped her, said ‘she’s convulsing!’ Neither of us had recognized the strange disjointed movements accompanying her screams, not having seen them before.  He said he’d put her on a drip and took her away, saying he would call us.

It was the longest afternoon ever.  At four o’clock the call came – one of the vet assistants who said Lola was doing really well but the vet wanted to see us at 6 o’clock.  Colin and I took the dogs (we had a friend’s dog staying for a few days) for a walk and came back in time to get to our appointment early.  Neither of us felt like talking much – the vet’s summons sounded ominous.  We were both sure he’d want us to make some sort of decision.  On the way there we discussed that we had to do what was best for Lola, not for us.

When we got there, somewhat early for our appointment, the assistant said we could see her, that she was awake.  There she was, looking very shaken, and attached to a drip, but very happy to see us.  I held her on my lap in front of her cage and we cuddled and spoke to her.  She seemed almost normal – it was hard to believe.  When the vet came he said he was amazed at her progress, he had had to anaesthetize her and had given her cortisone and pain killers.  He said she’d been X rayed and there were no bones broken.  He said she wasn’t out of the woods yet but he was cautiously optimistic.  He said they would see how she was overnight.  He did say that it was easy to lose these little dogs – a sudden bleed to the brain could cause it.   He said I could call them at 8:30 next morning .

That night neither of us slept much, though we both prayed a lot, as we had been doing since the accident.  I remembered that on the Sunday, two days previously we had had a sermon on St Francis, whose saint’s day had been on the Saturday.  I don’t think I have ever prayed to a saint before but I prayed to St Francis all night, to intercede for little Lola.

 At 8:25 next morning , gathering all my courage, I phoned the surgery.  The assistant said she had been about to call me.  ‘Lola is wonderful’ she said – you can come and get her.’

Neither the vet we had seen first nor the one I saw on Friday when I took her for a check up could believe it – she seemed absolutely fine – no sign on any injury, no sign on brain damage, just nothing!   She is a little diffident, and nervous near the scaffolding but that’s only to be expected.  She seems to sleep a lot, perhaps a little more than usual, but that’s presumably her body telling to rest – she had the incredible trauma, plus an anaesthetic, both of which can put enormous strain on her little body.  The vet said she seemed remarkably resilient – but we know the truth.  It was a miracle.

Till next time J

You couldn’t make up stuff like this. I know I wouldn't dare.

Or you could but it would be shot down in flames as being far-fetched and unrealistic.   Has the world gone mad?  All I know is that people, even people who purport to find the news depressing, have been glued to their seats watching the TV news as it unfolds. 

I feel quite sorry for the press – generally if there is one big story it’s a lot but this month we have three 1) the continuing Ukraine – Crimea – Russia saga, with Putin appearing to thumb his nose at the west, who are making paper gestures.  Where this could lead is too frightening to contemplate.

Then of course 2) the baffling question of flight MH307.   Was there a catastrophe on board?  Was it hijacked?  Was the pilot making a political statement?  Was it taken by aliens, is it under the Indian Ocean? Or possibly it’s now in a parallel universe, having gone through a worm hole (seriously I have both heard this one and read of It, though how tongue in cheek I wouldn’t like to say).    But the families are getting more and more desperate.  I know if it were my family I would be praying that the plane had been taking by hijackers and was now in Pakistan or Afghanistan or somewhere, because that way there would be a chance, however slight, that the passengers have survived.   But as the days go by this hope must be slowly fading.   My thoughts and prayers, as well as those of most of the world are with them. But is seems it might be years till the full story is known.

And 3) here is South Africa, we have the eyes of the world on the Oscar Pistorius trial.  This one is really over the top.  Beautiful young couple, him a world icon, both a Paralympics and Olympics sporting star, her a rising TV celebrity, as well a law graduate.  Then another St Valentine’s Day Massacre.   You couldn’t make up a story like this.   Now the South African judicial system is on trial too, being judged by the world, to see if one of our icons can received a fair trial.  I know the SA police are stretched (what police force isn’t?) but generally I think they’re giving  a good account of themselves.  I didn’t expect to find the nitty gritty of the court case so fascinating (perhaps I should have, being a life long fan of legal fiction) but I do.  When the court is in session I am glued to my chair, waiting only for the commercial breaks to cross over to the BBC news/CNN/Sky News to see how the other dramas are panning out. 
 
I don’t know how much longer we can take all this excitement.  Though when it’s all over I am sure we will find our usual fare of corruption, local politics, gang and drug warfare, just a little dull.  As I said perhaps the world really has gone mad.  And what do we learn from it?  Don’t trust Putin.  Avoid flying (easier said that done when one’s family lives half way across the world).   And the whole gun culture is really dangerous, especially in the hands of a loose cannon – but we knew that anyway, didn’t we?

Till next timeJ

New Direction

Last time I wrote I was pondering the three deep questions about my life and its meaning and direction.  I can’t say that I’ve really reached any great conclusions but I have taken a few small steps.  I have enrolled for a short course called Basic Astronomy – just a series of 5 lectures, which I am finding really fascinating.   Somehow compared with all that’s out there our little worries and concerns seem very small and trivial indeed.  I am now enrolling for a slightly longer on line course called Introduction to Astronomy, through Duke University ( https://www.coursera.org/course/introastro ) – this is 12 weeks and includes homework (6 to 12 hours per week, they say).  Later in the year I am taking another short on line course called Philosophy and the Sciences, through The University of Edinburgh this time (https://www.coursera.org/courses?orderby=upcoming&cats=physical ).   Both look very interesting and it will be fun to study again, after a gap too large to mention!   Amazing what is out there, and these are all free too.  I think I might like to be a perpetual student!

The other thing that has happened is that at the end of January we reached our 10 year anniversary as raw vegans.   It’s just a way of life now.  The health issues that prompted it initially are just a distant memory, and this is how we eat.   People have been nagging me to actually get down to writing a raw food recipe book – I always say there are hundreds out there – often written by raw chefs.  But then I thought , I own quite a few of those and often the recipes are just too complicated or the ingredients are just too expensive so I tend to do my own thing.   So now I am tentatively working on a new book.  A book of fairly simple straightforward recipes which don’t take days to prepare nor break the bank.  I also try to use all fresh produce, rather than packaged.  To me it goes against the grain to use, for example, garlic powder when fresh garlic is available. 

So, if I am not actually solving the great mysteries of life, I am keeping myself busy and my brain active, though playing bridge, doing Sudoku and crossword puzzles help there too.  Also keeping myself physically active, with Kundalini Yoga twice a week, aqua aerobics twice a week, and a home exercise programme.  Colin and I recently completed the 30 Day Plank challenge, (http://30dayfitnesschallenges.com/30-day-plank-challenge/#) –  found the last part very tough going, but we now plank for 3 minutes three times a week for maintenance.    So, though I consider the word retirement, to be a dirty word, and aging not even a real word, I am still doing my bit at total denial.  

I do have several ideas for more novels, have about three partly written but nothing that grabs me so much I am prepared to miss meals to write.  There have in the past been occasions when Colin is reading in bed, and wants to turn out the light and  go to sleep but I am still banging away on my laptop.  When I get an idea that inspires that amount of compulsion no doubt I will drop everything else and write it but there’s nothing like that at the moment.   However, watch this space!

Till next time J

Food for Thought

I seem to get on numerous people’s mailing lists, often newsletters I had no intention of signing up for.  Every now and then I do a big purge and follow all the instructions to unsubscribe, though some people are very persistent and don’t make it easy. 
But I do keep some that I find interesting, although I often just skim and then delete.  One that I have hung on to, although I really don’t  remember how I got on their mailing list is from Adoley and Jim.  And right now I’m very glad that I did.  
 
I have been feeling a bit unsettled, as I often do when a new year comes along (and by implication a clean slate).  I have been wondering whether I should make some major changes in my life.   One change that I am making is in my volunteering.  I have regretfully decided, after quite a few years, to stop helping with a children’s literacy programme at a school in a severely underprivileged area.   I loved the children (and loved the fact that they tend to be touchy feely kids who always come for hugs and cuddles),and loved feeling I was being of some use to them, but unfortunately I have found that I have picked up so many viruses and bugs that my health seemed to be being compromised.  All children seem to carry lots of infections but it seems much worse with these children, many of whom live in tin shacks so it’s hardly surprising.    I seem to have had numerous infections over the last few years, far more than I ever had when teaching full time, and the severe chest infection and asthma that I had in October was the final straw.  So I reluctantly decided that this form of service was not for me any longer.  I am still exploring avenues where I can be of use but where I will not be exposing myself to so many infections.   I’ll have to leave this one to people whose immune systems are more robust.

Back to the point I was trying to make.  At the start of this year Adoley asked what she called ‘three critical questions’.  They were

1.  What do you do that really matters?  (this one attributed to Mother Theresa)
2.  What do you want to experience this year?  What feeling or quality do you wish your (area of life) to express?

3. If you were to die today, what is the one thing that you didn't get to do that you would regret?

 I have been doing some deep soul searching on these.  The first question seems to pertain directly to my volunteering – I really need some clarity on that.    The second one I’m not sure of – I do intend to work on various areas of fitness and core strength this year – I have already embarked on a home exercise and stretching programme in addition to my twice weekly kundalini yoga, and my twice weekly aqua aerobics (though this one is still on Christmas break).  I am also giving serious thought to completely changing my writing – the genre, the location, even to writing under another name.  I have several ideas but haven’t quite narrowed them down yet.

It’s number three that I am spending most of my time on.   What would I regret most?  It’s not travelling – I really have never had the travel bug.  While I enjoy seeing new places I accepted years ago that you can’t go everywhere (try telling our elder daughter that! J).  Perhaps it would be never having held my grandchild, but that ‘s really not up to me.   We have two amazing daughters for whom I am grateful every day of my life.  They have given us so much happiness that even if they don’t give us grandchildren we can have no cause for complaint.    So perhaps it should be something  that I can actually control. 

 Then is occurred to me that perhaps what I am doing wrong is thinking that the three critical questions need three separate answers.  Perhaps if I can find the right answer to the first question it will answer the other two as well.    Whatever it is I shall keep on with my soul searching.  Thank you Adoley – you have really given me food for thought.

Till next time J

Rest in Peace, Madiba

Such a sad time for all of us.   We knew it was coming – after all he was ninety five, a good innings by any standards, and he above all people had had a hard life, a hard physical life, not to mention the emotional and mental strain he must have been under, all those years of incarceration and separation from his family.  What would that do to any man?  But this was not just any man, this was Nelson Mandela, known affectionately to all South Africans as Madiba, his clan name.   And as Tata to many, a term of respect for an older person, a term of veneration, what you would call your grandfather.

But he was larger than life, it just seemed to all of us he would go on forever.   So the end when it came was a shock, bringing an intense feeling of disbelief and horror, that this man, who had steered our country, against all expectations, through a peaceful transmission to democracy was there no more.  I remember it so clearly, the first free elections, when we stood in the rain for hours waiting to vote, but the atmosphere was so upbeat, so optimistic, it was an experience to cherish, to file away with other important , never to be forgotten, life experiences.   I remember his inauguration, when there was so much talk of chaos in the country, when people, people we knew were hoarding baked beans and candles, in case of food shortages and power failures.  I bought some beautiful candles and a bottle of our local sparkling wine – I cut out a picture of our new flag from the newspaper (such flags were not readily available at that stage) and we watched the inauguration, lit our candles and raised the little paper flag and also raised our glasses to this remarkable man who had defeated all the naysayers and achieved what most of the world would have considered impossible.

I didn’t have the privilege of meeting him, to speak to.  But I did shake his hand, twice.  It was just before the 1994 elections – he came to my daughter’s school (which had been my school many years before) – she was part of the choir which sang for him.  I was in the crowd,  a large crowd outside the school, waiting for a glimpse of the great man.  The choir sang and he listened to them and watched them, in fact everyone was focused on the choir, except a select few men, who were facing the other way and keenly scanning the crowds – his bodyguards.  It hadn’t occurred to me but they must have been very necessary – there were many in the former South Africa who felt very threatened by what was to come.   Then, after the singing, he graciously went round shaking hands with the crowd.    I wriggled to the front and by dint of extending my hands in two different directions, managed to shake hands with him twice. I can still feel the rough skin, the workman’s hands, from this high born man, this royal son, this amazingly eloquent lawyer, who was forced to do manual labour in a lime quarry, work which not only hardened his hands to those of a manual labourer, but which damaged his eyesight from the glare and led to the future lung problems to which he ultimately succumbed.   Shaking his hand was one of the highlights of my life, right up there with being present on the Grand Parade in Cape Town, when Archbishop Desmond Tutu (another of my heroes) presented him to the nation as our president elect.   It was also my first experience of a praise singer, an extraordinary African tradition.  

I can’t believe he’s gone – the reactions around the world show how much he was valued.   We like to think he was ours but he was too great to belong only to South Africa, or indeed Africa.  It is not often that someone’s life enriches so many the world over, but this is such a life.  I feel honoured and humbled to have been so close to greatness.  Long may his legacy live.  Rest in peace, Madiba, we owe you so much.

Drought

It’s not a block

It’s more like a drought

It’s as though I’m on the wrong side of a glass wall, a frosted glass wall

I can see shapes but no detail 

Perhaps I’m done, a small voice cries –  a disloyal, mean small voice – I pay it no heed

Then another voice says ‘Try something new’, and ‘Start over’

That one I take seriously.   Another genre, perhaps even under a new name

The idea excites me, intellectually, but still the drought

Then I think of the brain fog I got last month after the antibiotic

Perhaps, though I’m not even aware of it, it’s still there, frosting up my window on my world, on my imagination

Perhaps I should just forget about writing, enjoy the glorious early summer days, walk on the beach with the dogs

I should feel grateful to be alive and well, living in such a beautiful corner of the world

 

When the time is right the glass will clear

I have to believe that

Nothing to write

I can’t write.  I literally can’t write anything; I can’t think of anything to write.  When I think about the books I have written so far I realise they have one thing in common – in each and every case I had a story that was screaming ‘Write me! Write me!’   Such a persistent scream that I had no option but to sit down and write it.  Which probably explains why I have generally finished the first draft in four to six weeks – it’s hard not to when there is an irritatingly persistent voice screaming in one’s ear.  

Now there is nothing and I feel rather flat.  Oh, I have odd ideas, (in fact some are very odd ideas – which reminds me of a Hager the Horrible cartoon I saw years ago – Hager says ‘Helga and I have been married thirty odd years’ to which she responds ‘Thirty very odd years!’ – I tried to find a copy as a card for my husband when we had our thirtieth anniversary but had no luck), but nothing clear cut.   My daughters tell me I should write murder mysteries, complicated murder mysteries (they think I have a devious mind – perhaps they are right), and though I have had some ideas along those lines, there is nothing that quite makes a story.    They say (the ubiquitous they, who know everything) that everyone’s got a book inside them.  Perhaps seven was what I had in me, perhaps I shouldn’t be greedy.  I should just enjoy the newly arrived summer here in Cape Town.   Then, like not looking for romance, I can be pleasantly surprised when the next story just arrives unbidden.   If it does, or when it does, that remains to be seen. 

Till next time J

Birth Announcement

My latest novel, On the Ninth Day, is now available on Amazon.  No 7 in the Southhill Sagas, though each story stands alone.  I had fun writing this one – actually I have fun writing all of them – I tell myself I’ll stop writing when I stop having fun but it hasn’t got there yet.  I have no idea of what, if anything I’ll write next.  I have several partly written stories but nothing I am desperate to finish, nothing that really makes a novel  – sometimes an idea just turns into a longish short story, maybe I’ll combine them one day.

Perhaps I won’t write any more – that’s what I say at the end of each one, but somehow or other another idea just pops into my head and before I know where I am I am banging away on the keyboard.   Take my third one, But a Dream – I had written two stories and wasn’t planning another and I woke up one Saturday morning with the idea, the almost completely formed idea for But a Dream, even the title, which felt quite appropriate considering where the idea came from.   That’s how I write – I always have to have a title, a basic storyline, a beginning and an ending and the characters, all firmly in my head before I start writing.  The actual story from A to B just develops from the characters – I give them free rein and they tell their tale – that’s why I find it so much fun, it’s a little like watching a movie for me, I’m never quite sure where it’s going or rather I know the ending but not the route.  
On the Ninth Day is fiction but one of the characters is definitely not made up – Smudge is or was, a real cat, a completely crazy but very beautiful and affectionate cat.   Is there an element of the paranormal in this story?  You decide.

Till next time J

I’m Back!

I had a great holiday in August – we went to Edinburgh (my first visit to Scotland) to see the Military Tattoo, an amazing spectacle which I can highly recommend.  Honestly, the televised version comes nowhere close.  My sister felt that the lone piper at the end was better on TV but I have to disagree.  The zoom of the TV lens loses the poignancy of the one lone piper on the castle wall in the distance.  Anyway, a wonderful experience.  I loved Edinburgh – such a beautiful city and so vibrant!  The Edinburgh festival was just starting, also the international book fair so the streets were really jumping.   We were lucky with the weather too, though the locals have a very different idea of fine weather.  When we were reaching for an additional jumper and pulling on a rain jacket they were all saying how lucky it was the weather was so fine.   But it wasn’t really cold – days about the same midsummer as our Cape Town winter I suppose, though there were some warmer days.  We stayed in a cottage, formerly a cow shed, a few miles out of the city, next to a very beautiful reservoir.  One of the highlights for me was that we picked delicious small wild raspberries, growing wild near our cottage – much nicer flavor than their larger cultivated cousins.   I love foraging – I am definitely a gatherer rather than a hunter.  I have just received my copy of Sergei Boutenko’s new book Wild Edibles and the DVD, which I am really looking forward to starting.
Then after just over a week we flew to Bristol to see our daughter and son-in-law, which was just lovely.  It had been a full eighteen months since we had seen them so a very happy reunion.  We were also able to see our grand-dog and meet our two new-grand cats.  They gave us a wonderful time, highlights of which were the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta,  a truly mind boggling spectacle, and the other was whole day trip on a narrowboat down the river Avon to Bath which was very interesting and also just lovely, so relaxing and good for the soul.  I love boats – our year spent on a canal boat in France is still such a fond memory.

All too soon it was time to come home – though not too soon for our cat, who thought we had abandoned her in a cattery forever and who didn’t leave our sides for the first week after our return.  Our dogs were pleased to see us, but had been having a lovely holiday on a wine farm with our friends, so they were feeling anything but abandoned.

Since getting back I haven’t actually written a word – sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever write again, then a new story just hops on board and I find myself devoting eight to ten hours a day till I have got it down.  Are all writers so obsessive?  Or is it just me?  Who knows?  I haven’t even finished tweaking my latest one, On the Ninth Day the Cat was Sick.  Partly because my friend and fellow writer Deborah Goemans, (http://www.amazon.com/Amaranth-Bloom-Deborah-June-Goemans/dp/1439286906)  very kindly assessed part of one of my novels and as a professional editor told me all sorts of things I didn’t know, such as the rules for indentations, and spacing and dashes.  So now I have to go through this book and make all these changes, when I do the tweaking and the rewriting.  (Not to mention my previous six books!)  I am most grateful to Debbie but this means lots of work and I am very good at avoiding work!  The trouble is I don’t have a deadline – and I am one of those people who can only work with a deadline, even a self imposed one.  So I should probably set myself a date, like the first of November for this book to be up-and-running.  Yes that’s what I’ll do – you saw it first here.  Look for my new book on Amazon on Friday 1^st November!

Till next time J

First draft written, work starts now

Well, I have finished my first draft, but it needs lots of work and some fleshing out.  This is not how I usually write but the story line this time was quite complicated, with three parallel stories so I was anxious to get to the end.  But it's not long enough and some of the chapters need expanding.  You know the sort of thing - they always say 'show don't tell'.  
This is quite hard work, and not nearly as much fun as the main story writing, so I plan to do it fairly slowly and will in any case be taking a break for most of August when we are in Edinburgh and then Bristol, visiting our family.
We saw a brilliant play last night, Solomon and Marion with Dame Janet Suzman, and Khayalethu Anthony.  It finishes its run in Cape Town this week, then like us goes to Edinburgh where it can be seen in the fringe.  Not sure what we will see in Edinburgh - we are joining my sister and brother-in-law and will be going to the tattoo, which should be amazing.  I have never been to Scotland, in spite of living in England for twelve years, but Colin spent part of his childhood in Aberdeen where his mother hailed from.  So I am quite excited! 
Then we go to Bristol to visit our daughter and son-in-law.  She is a veterinary student, a mature student who entered the field after years of being a dancer.  She's just going into her 4th year now, so in two years time she'll be a qualified vet.  
The heat wave in England continues so we are watching the weather carefully before deciding what to pack.  I had thought we would take our normal winter clothes, as Cape Town winter has in recent years been on a par with English summers but if this carries on I'll have to think again.
Right now it's cold and rainy in Cape Town with a maximum of 18 degrees C today, so not warm but not cold by northern hemisphere standards - equates to 64 degrees F, but quite cold enough for us, thank you. 

I am now wabbing - wab is a wonderful word which our daughter, the one in Singapore and her friends coined - wab is an acronym for work avoidance behaviour.   Back to my draft!

Till next time :)

Hurt my ankle but now having fun!

    We live in a very small townhouse in a suburb of Cape Town.  Really little with two small bedrooms, one bathroom and a downstairs loo.  Plus a pocket handkerchief size garden.  Last September when we sold a flat we had in England I had this bright idea of putting in a tiny splash pool in our little sun trap of a garden.  It worked fantastically, despite the mess involved in the process.
    Now we have two tiny poodles and a small cat, all about the same size as each other, who play together with great gusto.  Two weeks ago, the night before my birthday, they were in fine form, the dogs chasing the cat and vice versa.  Then after some time, Colin, my husband, pointed to the cat who was sopping wet!  Obviously in all the excitement of the game she had landed in the pool! 
   A while later I went upstairs (after we had dried the cat off and she had joined the dogs to resume the game)  to fetch something, completely unaware that Miss Molly, our cat, had been upstairs. Nor realising that she had spilt water on the tiles upstairs I came a cropper in our doorway - one leg out in front, the other bent under me with the weight of my body on it.  Bad news - the first time in my life I have turned my ankle. I yelled for Colin who came and helped me down the stairs.
   He obligingly went to the chemist and bought me a crepe bandage which he applied, and some anti inflammatory tablets that I refused to take when I saw all the possible side effects.
  Next morning my ankle was swollen and painful, however a hot bath seemed to help, so I looked up various hot treatments, for ankles.  The one I liked is this one    http://drbenkim.com/articles-sprainedankle.html   I followed his advice and my ankle felt amazingly improved.   However ankles, as I am learning to my cost, can't be hurried.  Six days later I went to my aqua aerobics class which I love - I was very careful not to do anything which hurt.  Unfortunately the warm water lulled me into a sense of false security - it was great in the water but really quite sore afterwards.

  So I have cancelled my aqua, and my kundalini yoga, both of which I love, and am doing gentle ankle stretches in warm water as well as a few short walks with the dogs.  Meanwhile I am resting my foot  on a pillow while typing on my laptop sitting on my bed.  
   However there's a silver lining to every dark cloud and I find that I am getting on well with my book - it's fun to write  - I now have three interweaving stories.   I am now on track to finish the first draft before we leave for Scotland on 1st August.

Till next time  :)

No Discipline! When Temptation came I gave right in!

To quote from With a Little Bit o Luck (My Fair Lady, as if you didn't know that), 'when temptation comes you'll give right in'. 

There I was, writing my book (the one I put on the back burner when I started A Season, and A Time), slowly and steadily, but making general progress when I got a new idea.   So like Albert Dolittle in My Fair Lady I gave right in.  A Fairy Tale (for grownups) is once again on the back burner. 

My current book, which I am really enjoying writing, is called On the Ninth Day the Cat Was Sick.  (As I have explained previously for some reason I can only write a story if I have a title, so I always start with the title.)   This time it's not a baby boomer book.  It is women's fiction meets possible paranormal.   Maybe, maybe not - it's for the reader to decide.  It's a story of a woman, a single mother with two little girls, who has had her share of bad luck in her life.  When suddenly things turn around she can't really believe that it's just coincidence.  Her family and friends disagree strongly. 

The story also features a cat, Smudge, who is named for and is a faithful description of our beloved, but completely crazy cat of the same name, who we sadly lost a couple of years ago.  I'm also dedicating the book to her.  If people can leave their fortune to a cat, there's no reason why I can't dedicate a book to one. 

We are going on holiday in August so I either need to finish the first draft by then or let it join Fairy Tale on the back burner - I know which I would prefer!   I'm quite glad my regular bridge partner is off on a cruise - I have no time to spare!

Till next time :)

Six down! Working on number seven

My new book, A Season, and A Time, is now up and running.    http://www.amazon.com/Season-Time-Southhill-Sagas-ebook/dp/B00DCZSHUA/     It is another baby boomer novel, of a year in the life of a sixty year old woman.   No six of the Southhill Sagas, all set in Surrey, where I lived for many years. Each book stands alone though characters do reappear.

This means I am on target for my goal of two books completed a year.  I started writing novels in August 2010 (I had written lots of things before then but never a novel), so with number six in the bag, I am in fact slightly ahead of target.  You might imagine I could have a rest from writing for a couple of weeks but it doesn’t work like that.  The instant Season was off my hands I hauled out the previous one, the one I had put on the back burner when Season came along, and got going.   It really isn’t that I want to put pressure on myself – I just feel the need to keep writing. 

I may have mentioned reading what I am sure is an apocryphal story about the late Graham Greene – to the effect that he wrote 500 words a day, then stopped, even if in the middle of a sentence.   It seems unlikely – he would quite likely have been writing by hand, and would have had to manually count the number of words.   But as a discipline it would be quite extraordinary.    

But, truth to tell, I am writing because I enjoy it.  And I never think of it as a book, but as a story.   When I write it is because I have a story to tell.   I don’t like the marketing side one little bit – I hate having to try to sell things, my writings least of all.  In fact I think it is comparatively unusual for people to enjoy both the creative side and the marketing side.  But with self published eBooks the author has little choice.   So I do try to promote my kindle free days on whichever sites will take them, and  to get my books onto various websites.  it is a slow and tedious process and after that I need a break. 

So I get back to my characters, to see what they have been up to in my absence and where they want us to travel to today.   Much more fun!

Till next time J

Onwards and upwards!

So, I have gone through my story, three (!) times and hopefully picked up all the errors.  One blatant one was where I referred to the main character, Rhona White, as Rhona Black - what was that? some sort of mental aberration? Perhaps subconsciously related to being brought up in South Africa, where we are all colour blind these days.  

Now I wait while the book goes through the review process.   I remember so clearly, when I had finished my first book, that I was desperate to keep writing - life felt so flat without a story to tell. Now at least I have a story to go back to, one that was put on the back burner while I wrote A Season, and A Time.  

It's quite strange -  I would never have realised before I started writing but writing is actually a powerful aphrodisiac  - seeing one's thoughts and feelings appear in print is like no other feeling. 

So now, whether or not anyone wants to read what I am writing, I will carry on.  It's fun and just possibly that's what it's all about! 

Till next time :)

Finito!

I have finished the first draft  of my book, A Season, and A Time, so am somewhere between shattered and elated.  When I feel I am in the home stretch I tend to pull out all the stops so I have been writing over 3000 words a day for the last ten days or so.   Which leaves me feeling a little drained.  I have no idea why I put so much pressure on myself but I can't help it - the story just builds up the momentum and like a snowball carries me along with it. 

When I started this book, in March, I had no idea of the turns it would take.  I started as usual with a basic story line and the characters (I spend ages pondering about my characters - I can't write in their voice till I feel I know them intimately), as well as the ending, which in this case was a true story from my own experience, and the title.  Not for me something called a working title.  If I don't have a title I can't tell a story.  Yes, I know I'm a bit strange - I wouldn't be a writer if I weren't!

Then after I start I just let it happen, and often my characters surprise me - they often impress me too.  Not really surprising as all my books seem to feature a strong woman as the main character, or at least one of the main characters.

Of course now the hard work starts - I need to read the whole story, out loud, pretty much at a sitting, for consistency and continuity and at the same time proof read, for those inevitable typos that slip in.  If  someone could come up with a spellcheck which can differentiate between from and form they would make a fortune!  I have found that for me the best way of proof reading is to make the font large, so that any typos literally jump out. 

The joys of self publishing - in traditional publishing there would be editors doing this work - although I have found mistakes recently in work published by some of the top publishing houses in the world, so even that wouldn't be fool proof. 

Till next time :)

Sobeit, folks

I am more than half way through my book and haven’t been sparing a thought for my blog  but there are a couple of odds and ends I want to share.   One is the word sobeit.  Is it a word?  Should it be written as three words, so be it?  I found myself using it in my current story and when I tried sobeit, thinking it would be like albeit, my spell check got all upset.  So I spelled it in three words.  Then I looked it up – apparently sobeit is a word which dates from1575 and albeit from 1385 (according to dictionary.com).  But sobeit looks silly so I decided to leave it as three words.

The story I am writing is about a woman, in England, who is doing a lot of dog walking in winter.  So obviously she wears wellington boots, a term which is always abbreviated to wellies.   But does my spell check accept this? Not a chance – at every opportunity it changes the word to willies.  My daughter finds this hilarious, to her the word is plural for a vulgar term (interjection – why do men feel the need to give names  to  their private parts?   One of those weird things no female would ever consider doing, or can really understand  - but for many women that goes for football too) but I am of a generation where the expression ‘gives me the willies’ to denote a spine creeping feeling, is a normal term.   Not to mention the strange but beautiful group of Wilis (one L, no E) in the ballet Giselle.  They always puzzled me  a little as they are described as girls who were jilted and died before their wedding days.  Well they must have been pretty feeble sort of characters – I am so glad we are made of sterner stuff these days!   BTW I am not criticizing Giselle – it is one of my favourite ballets – I saw it not too long ago at Maynardville, our local (Cape Town) open air theatre set in wooded parklands – you could not imagine a more perfect setting – also perfect for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  But I digress.  And just in case I have readers of my daughter’s generation I shall do a thorough search when I have finished and make sure no ‘offensive’ words have slipped through.

Till next time J

Back again, doing what I like best!

After all my whingeing and whining I have started a new book, putting the two that I was trying to work on simultaneously on the back burner.  I will get back to them in the fullness of time but not now. 

Now I am having fun; I’m excited about my new book.  It’s about a sixty year old woman whose husband leaves her for an OLDER woman, someone he plays bridge with.

Now I don’t always notice these things, preferring to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I do know that some of the clubs where I played bridge in England had all sorts of goings on.  I heard of someone who left his wife for his bridge teacher, and someone else who was found dead after a heart attack in his bridge partner’s house in the middle of the night –  which as you can imagine created a huge scandal, his wife knew nothing of it,  but apparently the relationship was common knowledge to ‘those in the know’ whose number did not include me.    Now I play at several bridge clubs in South Africa and I haven’t noticed any ‘extra table’ activity but that’s not to say it doesn’t happen.

Anyway I am enjoying writing the book – as usual the characters take on lives, voices and personalities of their own and I just write it all down.   I think that’s what I find so exciting about writing – watching the story unfold.  

One of my little (?) peculiarities is that I can’t write unless I have a title first.  Not everyone is like that – my daughter was half way through the second draft of her book before she thought of a title.  But not me - so I can tell you the title of the book I started last weekend – it’s ‘A Season, and a Time’.  You will probably recognise the quote – it’s from the Bible, King James Version, Ecclesiastes,  Chapter 3 – ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven’.   To those of my generation it also has the words Turn, Turn, Turn but that doesn’t have any biblical origin, it was strictly added by  Pete Seeger when he made it into a song (which I had on an LP when I was a teenager).

I have some of my completed books available as freebies on Kindle over the Easter Weekend and am supposed to be trying to promote them but really I’d far rather write my new one.  I know I am supposed to be trying to sell books which seems ludicrous really  - the sort of people who write fiction are not the same sort of people who are successful marketers.  So I have made some half hearted attempts at listing them on various websites and will now go back to doing what I enjoy!

Till next time J