Sports Bra? Jog-On!!

Hi All

I have had this blog for almost a year now and guess what? I still don’t know my way around it without causing the occasional blip! This will come as little, or no surprise, to those of you who know me. I regularly send almost finished blogs winging freely into the ether, and try as I may, and I really do try, I can’t find the buggers anywhere. I mean, isn’t that what the ‘draft’ folder is for? Doesn’t that catch my ramblings before they fly? Apparently not because I’ve yet to find one in there. It usually happens when I get carried away with my own enthusiasm and my fingers can’t keep up with my brain, and then, of their own accord, they whack the wrong key and – hello, blank screen! However, as usual, I am digressing …

What I meant to say was, if a comment ends up in my spam folder it gets deleted, instantly, and without much question or remorse but today there appeared to be rather a lot of comments in there and so I worked my way down them and two or three  looked very non spam, so I thought I would just delete the spam looking ones and delve a little deeper into the others. That’s when the brain and fingers stopped talking to each other and I deleted them all!

Sooo if anyone legitimately commented and it ended up in the spam bin please forgive me for deleting you and consequently for not replying. You can try again, if you feel up to it. I’m not a div everyday!

That is one great mystery of life. Yesterday I came across another. If you remember, some weeks ago I lost a bra. I gently asked Richard if he had it, by accident, in his underwear basket. I’m broad-minded and was OK with it, as long as he gave it back. He said he didn’t have it and I had no reason not to believe him (?!!) The said bra has not turned up, so whilst I was taking a couple of things back to Next (yes, I know I said everything from their sale was fine but I changed my mind) I popped into the underwear section in Marks. I contemplated a sports bra. Well, why not? I walk sometimes. And I have been known to trot down the ‘short-dated, bargains section’ in Tesco. No use being proud. I find loads of almost out-of-date flesh for Richard. It’s fine. It barely smells and if you are going to eat animals I reckon you have to take your chances? I’m joking! I only pick up pizzas and sausages for him. He never eats anything else. Well, no, that’s not strictly true – he nicks my veggie stuff!

Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, Marks. I couldn’t remember what size bra I needed. I fluctuate. No I don’t. I just get bigger. It’s my genes. As I say, I couldn’t remember the size so I took several sizes of lovely looking sports bras into the changing room, following the assistant obediently and exchanging smiles and promising to ring the God-damn buzzer if I needed any help. It was early and I’m always very polite and jolly first thing because Richard is at work and hasn’t had the opportunity to wind me up.

I stripped off and slipped into the first bra. It reminded me of our coal man, shuffling up the path with a sack of coal on each shoulder. I tried on the next size and it was better so I had a bit of a bounce on the spot, ( imitating jogging you understand?) and almost knocked myself out! Sports bra!! Huh? What sport could I have played in that? Dominoes?

I lied to the assistant and said one of them was perfect and that I’d take it. They don’t look at you very nicely if you just bung bras and empty boxes at them and leave without a purchase. I hung it back up and bought a thermal vest instead – far more me. Well lets admit it, there’s a very slim chance that I’ll be playing squash or jogging, and there’s every chance that I’ll be bloody cold in this fridge-of-a-house. We have already starting lighting the wood burner at night because Chea is cold.

Right! Off to do the chucks…whom by the way are turning into two delinquents. Little,  in her frenzy to nick my  malted milk biscuit yesterday, knocked my hot mug of tea all over her feet, and didn’t seem to notice, being 100% focused on running up my body, perching on my arm and snatching the biscuit as it was about to pass from my hand to my mouth. This jealousy annoyed Flight who chased Little up the garden until she collided with the fence and then nicked the biscuit. Think I’ll eat today’s quota of malted milks before I go out there!

Have a super-duper weekend.

Little.

Take care my lovelies x

Please! No Eye-Balling!

Hi All

I think I need oxygen! I have just had a weird experience.

I have JUST finished the first draft of my new novel, The Sleeping Field. This is amazing because I have had so many interruptions, distractions and curved balls hurled my way during the writing of this, that I thought I would never achieve conclusion. That isn’t why I need oxygen though.

I’d just finished the draft, saved it to two plug-ins, looked up, and there, trotting across my middle vision, just outside the kitchen door, was a grey squirrel. We don’t have grey squirrels here …or any other colour or variety!

I have lived here for twenty-three years and only once seen a grey squirrel, and that was years ago, and I think he was merely attempting to pass through. And I use the word attempting on purpose because at the time we had Oscar, our Burmese cat, and one day he brought me a lovely little present. At least I thought it was a lovely little present. It had been left on the kitchen tiles and looked like a perfect little rosebud. On close examination I discovered that it wasn’t a perfect little rosebud but an eyeball. Later that day I found a squirrel, dead, with one eyeball missing. And that was the only squirrel that I have ever seen around here.

So here’s the thing. Am I, in my delirium at having finished the first draft, hallucinating? Is the squirrel – that really shouldn’t be here – not really here? Or is it a sign? Are squirrels synonymous with anything? Finishing a novel? Going slightly potty? All answers kindly received.

I’m now going to take a break from writing for the rest of the day, and then, tomorrow, start again at the beginning and edit the draft etc. Then I’ll be looking for a proofreader and someone to produce a nice cover. I am a dreadful creature, by nature, and everything has to be done at the speed of light – usually – but this time I’m taking my time and I’m heading for a pre-Christmas release. We’ll see.

* Just a quick thank you to all followers of this blog, new and not so new. Your likes are appreciated and your comments let me know that you are still there. I liken this to book reviews. So many people don’t leave an author a book review and so we never truly know if we are on the right track. And the same applies with blogs. If you leave a comment now and then it lets us know that we are still on the right track. Though, seriously, I find it hard being on the right planet half the time… Oh, I thought that was another squirrel passing across my vision, it’s just Chea coming back, and thankfully there is no sign of an eyeball peering at me from her pretty little mush.

Off to hug a tree – or something.

Take care my lovelies x

He’s Done A Runner From A Runner!

Hi All

I have to confess to not having cleared out the wardrobes yesterday, but I did get round to trying on the sale items and I’ll tell you this – I am amazed, because they are all OK. Usually I buy something, it comes for a little ride with me up the motorway, and then, two days later, it goes for another little ride with me back down the motorway and is returned to the shop.

My time yesterday, after the physio, was taken up with pruning a massive buddleia and slicing and freezing enough runner beans to feed most of Leicestershire.

I pruned (hacked) back the buddleia with a sadistic satisfaction. Over the summer, it had attracted every butterfly within a twenty-mile radius. You might be forgiven for thinking that sounds lovely. And to a degree it was, however, half the butterflies it attracted were of the cabbage white variety, and after taking nectar from the purple buddleia, they nonchalantly flitted over to lay their billions of eggs on my cabbages! Just how they managed to do that when the cabbages were double netted is a mystery. But sure enough, just as the sweet-heart cabbages were developing their sweet hearts the caterpillars hatched and ran amok, nibbling, crunching and munching their way through the precious leaves. Bloody things.

I couldn’t even give the remnants to the chucks because the caterpillars filled the cabbages with green pooh and they looked disgusting. They all ended up on the compost heap, cabbages, pooh and caterpillars, and the heap is now the size of a small hill. I swore that I wouldn’t grow any more cabbages and then, what did I do? I bought twenty spring cabbage plants and put them in the garden. This time I have triple netted them – not that there should be any butterflies around through the winter!

The runner beans have also gone ballistic this year and Richard is now terrified of them. And I mean terrified. Five weeks ago he was heard to say, ‘I love runner beans. I can just have a dish full of them with butter and black pepper and eat the whole lot.’

Now if I cheerfully say, ‘do you fancy a veggie curry tonight?’ he pales, backs away and mumbles, ‘er…what are you putting in it?’

I say, ‘courgettes, onions, mushrooms …those left-over runner beans.’

He says, ‘No thanks!’

I say, ‘so what will you have?’

He says, ‘anything that doesn’t include runner beans!’

Lightweight!

I had strongly stipulated that all beans would have to be eaten fresh this year because there was no point in picking, slicing, and freezing them, only to repeat what happens every year I pick, slice and freeze them; two years later they are hauled up from the bottom of the freezer, needle-sharp, grey, sporting freezer-burn, and then they are thrown in the bin. But because Richard has gone soft and can no longer bear to swallow the smallest bean I had to freeze some and there are still more on the plants. His aversion had better be short-lived because I do not intend to throw those away in two years’ time! I don’t know what the problem is frankly, he never tires of nachos and chocolate, no matter how many or how much he consumes.

Yesterday I said I would tell you about my new pet, Arrow. To be honest I don’t think I can class him as my pet because he is a wild creature. He’s a frog. A not very old frog – probably enjoying his second summer? I’ve seen him quite a few times over the summer; he’s been living in the pots of succulents which were in the flower garden. Being a glutton for punishment I decided to remove that section of the garden, thereby giving me more room for a veggie patch. I’ve been working on it for the last few days, each day removing a bit more of his domain. As the flowers came out, and were either binned or replanted, Arrow moved along. Each day his world has shrunk a little more but he doesn’t seem to have minded, sitting happily watching me, and now and then moving along the bus. I’ve now finished and his area has been massively reduced but he has a choice…stay or move across the narrow path into the fruit garden. Just now he seems happy to be where he is. He also has a friend. He/she is tiny, this year’s spawn, no bigger than my small finger-nail. I noticed that he/she had decided to move out and was last seen crossing the path and hopping under the runner beans. I am glad that they are this side of the gate because the chucks lurk the other side and both Arrow and friend are small enough to become a tasty snack.

So…that was yesterday …and today I must trot off and continue with the novel. I must be blinkered and not let anything else distract me. I must …I must…I must …

Take care my lovelies x

What A Man Will Do For A Double Sausage Bap!!

Hi All

As I predicted on Friday, no writing of the novel has occurred over the weekend, and yes, I could blame Richard but in this instance that wouldn’t be fair. Believe it or not Richard is massively in favour just now and here is why.

Next’s two-day sale was advertised on the TV on Thursday evening and I excitedly exclaimed to  Richard, who by the way had appeared awake and compos mentis until the advert came on and then appeared to be asleep and dead to the world, ‘Ohhh its Next’s two-day sale, I shall have to go. I don’t suppose you would like to come with me?’

No comment.

‘Would you like a bar of chocolate?’ I said.

Suddenly he was awake, which was a shame because I didn’t have a bar of chocolate.

‘What? What?’ he mumbled, frowning, pretending not to have heard? He truly is a crap actor.

‘It’s Next’s sale. I wondered if you would come with me –‘

‘Oh God! Do I have to?’

At this point I stopped talking to him and watched the telly.

When he came home from work on Friday the subject of ‘what to do over the weekend’ came up so I said, ‘I’m going to the sale in the morning but I don’t suppose you have changed your mind and are coming with me.’

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ he said.

I nearly dropped down dead on the spot! My saving grace was the fact that I knew he had only agreed to it because that damn WWII weekend is booked and he knows me well enough to know that I firmly believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and would kick against the traces later, and though I would go, I would not let him forget that I was prepared to go to that for him but he wasn’t prepared to stand in a queue with me for forty-five minutes. Scorpios NEVER forget and will hold grudges for a lifetime.

So, the alarm sounded on Saturday morning at 5.00 am and up I jumped, followed by Richard doing his snail impression. He is so good at it that I’m surprised he doesn’t leave a slime trail behind him. We were in the car and sedately driving down the motorway by 5.30 – and this is another weird thing. Whenever we are going anywhere like Next, Ikea or somewhere similar, we travel at an ‘all the time in the world pace’ but when we are going somewhere like a WWII thing or to pick-up Land Rover bits we belt along breaking the sound barrier. However – I digress.

We arrived and joined the queue behind just eight people, with me keeping up a running commentary, until Richard suggested fetching a coffee and a tea from McDonald’s, just over the road. Off he trotted, obviously happy to be away from my early morning cheerfulness, which frankly he has never coped with, and returned shortly with said drinks. Now let me explain why I need Richard to come with me. I don’t need him in the shop, in fact, I definitely DO NOT NEED HIM IN THE SHOP!! I just need him in the queue because my digestive system is quite unreliable and I can be prone to having to dash to the loo at half a moment’s notice and If I were alone I’d lose my place in the queue. And because it is lonely, standing on my tod, I take my iPod, and try as I might, and I do, I can never resist singing along, and don’t even realise I’m doing it until a space widens around me, like the parting of the Red Sea. So Richard gets dragged along  to save my place in the queue. my embarrassment, and to keep me entertained.

As the time moved ever closer to the opening time I realised that I was, in fact, going to be fine, so I said I would pop to McDonald’s and have a quick wee, just to be on the safe side, and that I would bring Richard back a breakfast, which he could eat in the car, because I didn’t need him anymore. This cheered him up no end. In fact he almost smiled!

So he bolted off to the car with a double sausage breakfast bap and a hash brown (see how fast he can move when he wants to?) and I waited for the last twenty minutes on my own. With only thirty seconds to go, a wasp appeared and the shoppers all broke ranks and ran around flapping at the poor creature. This put me right at the front of the queue as the doors opened and off I went.

I found a few bargains but I haven’t had time to try anything on yet. Just between you and me I still have tagged stuff hanging up in a wardrobe that I purchased at last year’s Boxing Day sale (clothes that I purchased – not a wardrobe!)

And yesterday was taken up with picking apples, erecting a frame for the raspberry canes and tearing out a flower-bed to make more room for a veggie garden. This morning my lower back has gone and I could barely get out of bed. Fortunately I’m off to the Physio in a couple of hours for treatment on my neck – that’s if I can get in the car. And then, hopefully, if I can find the enthusiasm, I’m going to really, really, really, blitz my wardrobes and part with everything that I am never going to wear. Fortunately we have three or four charity shops in the town so …

I may try to write the novel – but it’s doubtful. My ‘time’ for writing will have passed by the time I’m back from the Physio and besides, the chucks will be clamouring to come out and I’ve six buckets of apples to do something with? I’m thinking apple juice – lots of it – and freeze it? We tried doing just that the other day and it worked perfectly. Soooo …

Take care my lovelies x

My early morning writing companion!

 

PS I have a new pet – Arrow. I’ll tell you about him tomorrow.

 

 

 

Another WWII Enactment Weekend! Whoopee! NOT!!!

Hi All

I’m still getting on quite nicely with the novel – 72,000 words just now. Hopefully the first draft will be completed in the next day or two, depending, of course, if I am left to my own devices but with a weekend looming it is doubtful!

I learnt a valuable lesson two nights ago whilst sitting at the laptop and tapping away. Richard sidled up and began unfolding a piece of newspaper. I was aware that he was there but tried to ignore him.

‘Are you busy?’ he said. (stupid question!)

‘Umm?’ I said.

‘It’s just …well I know you aren’t interested in this and won’t want to go but …’ (negative – he admits defeat instantly!)

He shoved the newspaper article along the table.

I glanced (mega briefly) and with my best Oscar-winning performance, hid my sheer horror. It was ANOTHER … WWII enactment weekend! I carried on typing whilst Richard galloped into his flow, stating…

‘It’s a bit of a way away but I thought we could go and stay overnight and then go to it the following morning, that’s if the animals will be alright on their own for 24 hours.’ (Sarcastic – insinuating that I’m never prepared to leave the animals for a second!)

I was just getting to a bit that was flowing really well and my little digits were flying faster than swallows heading south, so I mumbled, ‘whatever,’ and that, me ‘earties, was bloody that. He bombed off, with cutting in hand, cranked up his notebook, and faster than pooh off a shovel booked a room.

So it appears that we are going to another one of those Goddamn WWII shenanigans. It’s my own fault, I shouldn’t have said ‘whatever’ and wafted him away like an irritating insect. I guess, on the good side, if it all gets too much I can always shoot myself, at least I’ll be in the right place. Failing that, I can always shoot Richard! If only I can wait that long??

The thought has actually crossed my mind that perhaps, in view of the fact that I could be dragged along to these darn things for the foreseeable future, maybe I should use the experience to my advantage and base my next book in this era? Ha ha can you imagine it? I could get Richard to dress up in his …er …army stuff and click-a-pic’ of him for my cover. Richard and his Willys – that’s a Jeep to the uninitiated!

Off to write a few more lines.

Take care my lovelies x

Willys Jeep

Love Yer But …Please Leave Me Alone!

Hi All

At last! I’m back, and I have this week to myself – mostly. My nerves are fraught and my temper still simmers. Richard was on holiday last week which  means that I also was on holiday. The only difference is, I didn’t want to be on holiday because I wanted to finish my book.

I have been drifting around, acting like a div, for weeks now with all in the good intentions that the world could throw at me about sitting down and opening up the word doc.’ Soooo …the week before last was ‘the week’ in which I was going to pick-up on the novel, and I did, in bits and bobs, working it around domesticity, Chea, the chucks and the garden. And then Richard dropped the news that he had decided to take last week off. I saw the preview clearly before me…

He’d be popping here and popping there and doing this and doing that but there was an irritating little fly in the proverbial ointment …he would want ME to do these things with him. Aww I hear you say, what a sweetie, what a nice bloke wanting a nutter like you with him 24/7. And yes, of course, it is true. Twenty-three years down the line and the chappie still considers me his best friend and companion BUT I had plans to work on the novel!! However, I am nothing if not inventive and figured that if I got up at 5.00 am each morning I could have a couple of hours writing before the Lord surfaced.

This worked only in theory because the second I showed my nose through the kitchen door Chea activated and wanted love, cuddles, food, and her scrap of a felt mouse throwing around the kitchen floor and THEN, after that little lot, insisted in settling in front of the laptop waiting for 8.00 am, the time when she is allowed out because the garden birds have fed by this time of day and are sitting out of reach on high branches!

Also, the chucks would see my pathetic under-cover movements from half way up the garden and stand clucking at me to go and give them a treat. So, my two-hour lead was whittled down to one, and then, because I’d make the mistake of joyously singing and giving away my whereabouts, Richard would surface early and start boiling the noisy kettle and making toast etc. You’d be surprised just how sodding irritating and off-putting it is having toasted bread popping up out of the toaster!! AND the smoke alarm going off because he’d burnt it!

I did have a couple of decent sessions at the novel and yesterday proved not too bad, word-count wise. I’m now on 68,000 words and I tend to bring my novels in at 70,000/71,000. I am hoping that the first draft will be finished this week because then the ‘real’ work starts. Then I have to go back and edit, which mainly consists of me deleting half the book, two characters and 25% of the dialogue because, like me, my characters often talk a load of old crap. But then, let’s be honest here, these dudes are coming out of my head so they would, at times, talk crap!

On a good point, we did drive out to Sheringham, a lovely seaside town of my childhood memories, on the east coast. And, after Richard attempted to repair the fridge door and buggered it, we did pop out and order a new fridge freezer. It’s the same kinda design as a Smeg and looks, even if I do say so myself, rather super. I’ve told Richard that I’ll be keeping all my veggie’ stuff in the freezer compartment and that way he won’t have to go rummaging because there will be nothing of interest in there for him to be rummaging after, and that I’ll continue to put all his dead animals in the chest freezer in the shed. Sorted!

The other reason that I didn’t get to blog was, because of MY time being so limited I had a choice – novel or blog and the novel won. Just as well because if it hadn’t the blog would be full off my rantings about Richard and the shit, idiotic things he does, like …I asked him to order another blind for the lounge window. The one we have is OK but there is a small gap down the right hand side and in the winter, with the blind down, and the lamps on, any passer-by can see into the room if they really try, and as I like to slob in front of the wood burner in my night attire I don’t find this acceptable. He ordered a new blind. 5 days delivery. It came late yesterday afternoon just as we were popping out for me to buy Richard a tablet (another story for another day!!) 10 days after ordering it! I saw the postie hand the box to Richard and it was half the expected size. The pillock had ordered the wrong size and his excuse was, ‘If I’d ordered it in feet and inches, something I know about, it would have been alright!’

So why didn’t he!!???

He went back to work yesterday and for that, Dear Lord, I am truly grateful …Amen!!

Sheringham – Norfolk

Take care my lovelies x

The Greatest Conversationalist …The Cat Or The Man?

Hi All

I admit it, I have conversations with my cat.  If you are not a cat lover this is A. unbelievable and B. ridiculous. I am a cat lover and therefore I find it neither unbelievable nor ridiculous.

My first sighting of Chea each morning is either still in her chair in the lounge or sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me to come down. Notice I said in ‘her’ chair. If she is still in ‘her’ chair then I pop the kettle on before going out to the chucks and leave her to wander through to the kitchen in her own good time.

If she is on the kitchen table I say, ‘Hi Che Che.’ She doesn’t answer at this point. It’s almost as if the loving slate has been wiped clean overnight and you have to start grovelling to her all over again to prove your worthiness and continued devotion.

When I come in from pooh picking the chucks Chea is ready for conversation. I say, ‘hi sweetie, are you ready for your breakfast?’

This produces a head-butt.

‘Shall we have chicken or slop? Hmm, what do you think? Chicken or slop? Slop or chicken?’

‘Meow.’

‘Chicken it is then. How much shall we give you?’

‘Meow.’

‘Quite a lot, hey? You must be hungry?’

‘Meow.’

‘There you go, enjoy.’ I place her dish of chicken on her little plastic mat at the side of her water dish and her bowl of crunchies.

‘Purr, purr, purr.’

I then make a cup of tea and switch on my computer. Chea finishes her chuck and then jumps up on the table and stands between me and the laptop with her tail wrapped around my throat.

‘Purr, purr, purr.’

‘Right! Mind out-of-the-way.’

‘Meow.’

‘No, come on move. I can’t even see the keypad let alone type!’

‘Purr, purr, purr.’

Now she is head butting my chin and walking over the keypad. I’m gently pushing her out-of-the-way. She keeps returning. Now I have her bum in my face.

‘You are not going out yet, it’s too early. The birds are still feeding. Go!’

‘Purr, purr, purr.’

‘Get out-of-the-way … and move your tail out of my tea! You are not going out yet!’

‘Purrrrrrrrr.’

‘Right! Where’s your collar. Let’s let you out.’

‘Meow. Meow. Meow.’

‘Put this collar on!’

‘Meow.’

‘Off you go …and behave …and no birds!’

No answer.

So, there you go. Now compare this to the first sighting of Richard.

Richard walks in from work.

‘The pond pump’s stopped.’ I say.

‘Right.’

‘And the beans need picking…the tall ones that I can’t reach.’

‘Right.’

‘And I’m not cooking tonight so you can have whatever you want.’

‘Right.’

‘And your mother rang.’

‘Right.’

‘You need to ring her back.’

‘Right.’

And off he goes to sort out the pond pump.

I know you think that I’m harsh but honestly I do have a lot to contend with. Last night I said to him, ‘I need to use up some eggs, we have so many just now.’

Richard nodded and then said, ‘OK, well, if I pick up some milk tomorrow do you want to make a big rice pudding?’

I gave him my most, ‘are you really being serious’ look.

‘What?’ he said, in all innocence.

‘Why would I want to make a rice pudding? You don’t use eggs in a rice pudding!’

‘Oh, don’t you,’ he said, looking at me, and burst out laughing. I shook my head and muttered, ‘idiot,’ which made him laugh even louder. He seems to revel in the moments that prove his ignorance.

However, it is moments like these that bond our relationship. Moments when I suspect that he is an idiot and moments when Richard confirms it.

Chea practising telepathy..”find my collar, put it on my neck, and let me out”

Take care my lovelies x

Naughty Little Characters …Behave!

Hi All

The pen, my friends, is most definitely mightier than the sword and I have the ultimate proof. I have just used my pen (laptop) to give one of my main characters in the novel that I am now working on, (The Sleeping Field), a stroke. And, frankly, I do feel rather bad about it. I haven’t yet decided how severe this stroke is going to be, and again, I feel slightly bad about that too. No one should really hold this much power at their fingertips, should they?

I don’t always mean to do these things. I start writing and the darn character takes over, charging along, out of control for most of the time. Sometimes I have to rein them/him/her back in, delete their naughtiness and watch the word count fall from 50,000 to 54,500 – or less. It mainly depends on how  bad they have been and for how long they have been free running. Sometimes it is just really interesting to see what they get up to of their own accord!

Sometimes I don’t even recognise the fact that they have been ‘free running’ until I’ve laid my little head on my pillow and then I’ve thought, ‘What!!’

I killed off a character in Mulligan’s Reach and then burst into tears and shuffled, sobbing, into the bedroom, and wailed to Richard, ‘he’s dead. He’s died. He’s gone.’

Richard of course shot up in bed with heart hammering and said, ‘who? Who has died? When?’

He wasn’t over impressed when I told him, merely stating, ‘well you killed him!’

But I didn’t. One minute the character was there, saving the girl and the day, and the next he’d expired. Kaput!

It’s funny how you get to know your characters as you get deeper into the novel. At the start, I find the going a bit slow and stilted because it is a bit like a new relationship and you don’t want to show your hand until the other person has shown theirs. And then when you finish the book and go back to reread/edit etc you realise just how much you did get to know your characters by the end of the book.

Something that works for me is to just write the whole thing and then go back (when I have built and lived with the characters for 70,000 + words) and flesh them out. Let’s face it, we rarely know anyone at the beginning of a relationship, do we? Sometimes we barely know the buggers at the end of one either!! But that has to be another story.

So, I am tip-tapping away just now and I have 56,000 words, as of 11am this morning. I will probably delete a couple of thousand of those – or not – depends on whom I decide wrote them, me or the characters themselves. If I wrote them they will probably be binned ha ha.

I’m thinking that the stroke will be minor. I need this character, but I also need her to be at risk of dying and consequently taking a huge secret to the grave. I need for her to spill the secret and she will never do that from a position of strength and well-being. Once the secret has been spilled, if the dear soul so wishes, she can kill herself off…

But then again, I’ll probably rein her back in because I kind of like her and I figure that by the end of the book she will have suffered enough. Be it by her own doing or be it by mine.

So I’m trotting off now to have a quick push around of the vac before the Lord and master gets home. And I still haven’t had the chucks out yet!!

Take care my lovelies x

Enough To Get On Your Willy …

Hi All

Now,  riddle me this …can you see me in seamed stockings and high heels? No? I thought not. And neither can I. And this is exactly what I told Richard yesterday.

This is how it came about …

Earlier in the week Richard asked, ‘Do you fancy going to Rufford Park on Sunday? They have a WWII day/enactment.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I thought you’d say that,’ he said, with his chin on the floor. ‘I’d like to go.’

‘Well you go,’ I said.

‘But I’d like to go with you.’

‘But I’m not going.’

End of conversation – until Friday evening when the subject came up again. I caved in and said, ‘Oh alright. But if my lipoma wound hurts I’m sitting in the car and reading and you can walk round on your own.’

This seemed to satisfy him, so much so that he looked like a little dog with two tails. The lipoma comment was a bit glib because obviously it wouldn’t stop me from walking. But it was my ‘back-up’ plan for if I couldn’t be bothered to get out of the car.

Richard has this passion for the past which frankly I don’t share. I’m fine with memories but I don’t have to go out of my way to look back. Most of the stuff that I’ve moved on from needed to be moved on from, and definitely not revisiting.

It was really quite chilly when we got there so that was slightly off-putting. And then the cafeteria/restaurant didn’t really cater for vegetarians, particularly a non-cheese-eating-veggie, so I ended up having a golden syrup flapjack and a cup of tea, which by the way, I had to guzzle down because Richard was in such a rush to get off to view his Willys Jeep – or whatever it is called. Don’t shout at me for not bothering to find the correct spelling of the thing because I’m really not interested enough to bother. They are some American, green vehicle that was used in the war …or so I am lead to believe and is Richard’s latest, greatest love. I know his love is true because he actually said that he would sell Betsy Land Rover (horror upon horror) and his BMW motorbike (double horror upon horror) to buy one. This didn’t sound too bad …until he then stated that we would have to move house, to a house with a garage, because a Jeep couldn’t live outside in all weathers. Yes, well,THAT’S not going to happen.

We trotted round and I have to admit it was OK. Everyone dressed in clothes from the era and there were some good-looking soldier-type people sitting around polishing their ammo’ and sharpening their bayonets. I was quite taken with one guy …but that was when Richard beetled off to the loo and I was left watching him playing with his bullets.

The downside to all of this was when some very serious types dragged a gun thing onto the open field and proceeded to blast the quiet of the Nottinghamshire countryside to smithereens. I hate loud noises. It scares me. There must be something deep within my consciousness that scares the hell out of me, because babies and small dogs watched, whilst  I quickly retreated with my fingers rammed into my ears. I hate the sound of planes etc too. I could never visit an air show. 

So …Richard, all excited and gushing said, ‘I’d really like a Jeep …but then I’d want to do this and you wouldn’t, would you?’

‘This?’ I said. ‘Do this!’

‘Yeah. Go the whole hog and do enactment weekends. We could camp out and …’

‘Let me stop you right there! If you think I’m dressing up in seamed stockings and heels you can think again. No, Richard. No. Read my lips. NO!’

‘You could be a land girl,’ he said. ‘You like wearing wellies and you said that you had a pair of dungarees years ago.’

I shall tell you no more. It turned a bit ugly after that point …until we both burst out laughing as a very buxom ‘land girl’ wobbled past. We just looked at each other and Richard said, ‘Hmmm perhaps not.’

 

At least Richard enjoyed the day out and to be honest so did I. We spent some time together, which was the main thing. It is too easy to forget to do that sometimes.

The day ended on quite a sour note though. The neighbour called round to tell Richard that he and his partner are moving. This we found really sad. Their cat Rory (name changed for legal reasons) is Chea’s best and only friend. They love each other. She will be devastated, bless her. The neighbours do, in fact, have a garage, so I’m just waiting for the light to go on in Richard’s head and for him to suggest that we buy the house we are attached to and move next door. That way he can have his bloody Jeep.

And as much as I hate repeating myself …that isn’t going to be happening either. I’m such a spoil sport!

So, I’m posting a few pictures that we took because there might be another Richard out there …somewhere?

 

Take care my lovelies x