Ramblings

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The curse of on-line shopping

IMG_0232I am waiting for a parcel to be delivered.  Thoughtfully, the courier has sent a message to say it will be ‘delivered today between 7:00 and 20:00 – Just the thirteen hour window for me to spend waiting then. Thanks.

I didn’t get this message until about 7:30 this morning, so just got up at my normal time 6:50.  I didn’t rush to get showered and dressed. Then I saw the text.

I am now afraid that the doorbell will ring as soon as I:

  • step under the shower.
  • settle on the loo for my morning poo.
  • Give in to the dog’s pleading looks and go and play in the garden with her (she’s not getting her morning walk, that’s just asking for trouble)
  • I get on the phone to any of the people that I promised I would get around to ringing today
  • Try and do anything that requires more than a minute of concentration – it’s a wonder that I’m typing this.

I guess you’ve got the picture.  Much as I love on-line shopping an’ all, the waiting for parcels bit is a such a bore.  Why can’t they give you at least a morning or afternoon slot? Or better still, an hour or two time slot?

My daughter was telling me that in Cardiff Amazon have set up lockers in some shops where you can pick up your parcel whenever you like. This seems a step in the right direction.

But hey, we’re trying not to shop at Amazon – remember the tax stuff? Well, I’m not succeeding anyway, let’s face it they’re cheaper than anywhere else, AND they’ve given me a free trial of Prime, that’s free delivery over the Christmas period, can’t go wrong. I’ll stop using them after my three months honest (except for kindle stuff) (oh, and other things I can’t get cheaper anywhere else…) Oh god, I’m Kaye and I’m addicted to Amazon….

However, I’ve not heard of any scheme like that ‘round these parts, some of the villages around here haven’t even got broadband yet for goodness sake.

What happens in your part of the world?  I hope it’s easier.

Anyhoo, I think for today, I’ll sit and do quiet things, and treat it as time out from the world until the nice man turns up. Lovely.

But boy, do I need that poo…

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Tick Tock – am I wasting my time?

dandelion

The clocks went back an hour on Sunday morning, and my body clock has not yet adjusted.  So with my brain’s usual contrariness I woke up at what would have been 6:30 a.m. on Saturday but was in fact 5:30 a.m. today.  Normally of course, the alarm alarms me into half wakefulness (enough to reach for the snooze button) and it needs two more attempts to rouse me to the point where I can crawl out of bed.  This morning though, I was wide awake. Waiting.

It occurred to me that I have wasted an awful lot of my time waiting one way or the other.  I suspect at least a couple of years of my life were spent sitting in the car outside of various establishments waiting for the kids to come out of drama/violin/gymnastics/St John’s/choir classes or other kids parties.  And later, as taxi driver extraordinaire, waiting in the car at a distance from whichever pub or club they’d been to.

Then there’s the level crossing further down our road that we had to cross to get to their primary school.  Heaven only knows how many hours I’ve lost sitting waiting for the trains to pass.  The other day me and the dog were there for 20 minutes – that’s five trains worth. Twenty precious minutes of my life, gone, just like that.

And while we’re about it, what about waiting at airports, stations, waiting for buses, waiting at the dentist, the doctors.  My life ticking away while I’m sat reading out of date copies of ‘Practical Caravan’ or ‘Angling Times’ neither of which I have any interest in whatsoever.

A couple of weeks ago we watched a fantasy type film called ‘In Time’ (see the trailer here) where everyone lived until they were 25 after which they had to buy time, otherwise they were ‘terminated’.  Time was currency, and everyone had a clock built in to their arms which they could see running down.  Employment was paid in hours.  The wealthy could live forever.   Poorer people ran everywhere to save their precious minutes.

Of course, it was daft, but I did find it thought provoking (and actually much better than it sounds – worth a watch).  It made me think about the hours I waste, and the difference between wasting time, and, well, living.

Am I wasting time when I play games?  Is playing Candy Crush Saga on my phone any worse than sitting watching pap TV or reading a bit of entertaining chick-lit?  Am I wasting time when I’m writing?  Aaagghhh… now there’s a question.

I certainly spend a lot of time writing, or at least messing about on my blog, tweaking it, reading other blogs etc.  Hours pass by miraculously quickly and I often think ‘I must stop this and do something useful’.  And then go and do a bit of sewing, which if I was making clothes might be termed as useful, but I don’t, I make soppy things out of felt (you can see some here!).

I suppose it brings me back to the question of why we do creative things.  Whether it’s wasting time to just enjoy yourself.  Lose yourself in creating something original, unique, perhaps even entertaining or useful.

I’ve searched the internet for answers, and not really come up with anything definitive.  But I have had a deep think about my motives.  My motives for wanting to write, to want more followers, more readers, this urge to foist my thoughts on the unsuspecting public.  After all, I don’t think they’re particularly enlightening thoughts, probably not original either for that matter. It doesn’t even earn me any money for goodness sake!

But I have come to a conclusion:

The reason I write all this stuff and nonsense, the reason I post it on my blog for all the world to see (if they care to – come on world!), is to leave a mark.  A mark of the real me.  Not the me that is a mum or daughter, or wife even, nor the me that colleagues knew, but the nugget of me, that even I don’t know about until I start putting things on paper, the central joy of the absurd, as well as the deep chasms of darkness, that my inner self seems to dwell in sometimes. It is the yin to my outward yang.

Most of my family have found it hard to understand why my short stories tend to bend towards the dark side.  Only the other day my mother complained that they never have happy endings.  To be honest, I don’t know where they come from either, but that’s just how I write.  Some people start out with a plan, a ‘beginning, middle and end’, but I’m one of those folk whose hands practically take on a life of their own when I’m bashing out a story on a keyboard.  I don’t know what’s going to happen to the protagonist until there it is, on paper, a sticky end again.

And as far as verses go (no, still can’t bring myself to call them poems) well, they just turn up in my head as a rhymey line or two, and I knock them into some sort of shape from there.

So, basically, as well as leaving my mark, for posterity sake (my words will be around a lot longer than me), it reveals the individual in me, not only do my family, friends and followers get to know me better, I get to know myself too.

Therefore I conclude:

Writing is not a waste of my time. Yay!!

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Between the posts

Well, Writing 101 is finished (boo…)

But hey….Blogging 201 is just starting (yay!!)

First challenge is to post at least three goals for my blog.  Hmm… that’s dead hard that is.

They’re asking me things like ‘why do you blog?’ and crikey, I don’t know.  I just do.  I like it, I like writing, I like interacting, I like reading other people’s blogs and pinching their ideas (not really, just getting inspiration, honest!), and I like seeing my stuff looking pretty. I like my friends and family to see how I’m keeping myself busy, and making them laugh, and wince sometimes (hehee).

Sooo…that’s why I blog.  Now I know.

The blogging 201 pixies are also asking me to set myself three goals for my blog.

So, what might they be…?

Ooh.. I’d like some more followers please.  It’s so lovely to see the dubree in the corner light up with likes or comments, but it really makes my day when I get an email saying ‘so and so is now following your blog’.  That’s splendid.  Yep, lets have some more of those, say reach 220 by end of November. Sitting at 180 as of this morning, so doable I hope.

Of course, to get more followers I’m going to have to do some work.  Have been publishing daily through the course of writing 101, so I’m going to give myself a break here, and just endeavour to post something at least three times a week.  Perfectly doable I think.

Thirdly, for your delight and entertainment, I’m going to establish a new feature.  No idea what.  I could do with your help if I’m honest.  Have come up with one or two ideas:

  • Madness on Monday – plenty of madness in the world to talk about methinks
  • Terrible joke Tuesday – hmm… know plenty of those too…
  • Wordy Wednesday – my ‘word of the day’. Today, by the way (ok I know it’s Monday, smarty pants… I’m just sayin’), it’s Balter, which apparently means ‘to dance gracelessly, without particular art or skill, but with some enjoyment’ – I do it all the time!
  • Thirsty Thursday – actually this one already exists in our house, but not in a bloggy way, more in a ‘time for a glass of wine’ way.
  • Fabulous Friday – well, I’m fabulous every day of course but not blingy, more sophisticated and genteel (hmm..!) but there is plenty of bling out there that catches my eye and makes me gasp with wonder at what people are prepared to wear.

What do you think? Any of ‘em any good? Well, I’ll leave it for now, and surprise you!

Anyhoo…there you are.  Three, perfectly achievable goals.  Better get off and start doing something now then.

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Reading Revolution

I love to read, I really do.  Anything.  Everything.  I read every day. Emails, newspapers, other peoples blogs, posts on facebook.  Do you know, I sometimes even read books.

In fact, these days I’m reading a lot more books than I used to.

One of my favourite things about our holidays is the bit at the airport when we go to Waterstones or Smiths and choose three books each to take with us. Just light stuff, nothing deep and meaningful like you’re supposed to read. Even, dare I say it, chicklit sometimes.  In the past though, this would be the one time of the year when I allowed myself to fork out for the luxury of books.

If ever I had any money given to me for birthdays or Christmas, it would usually go on books too. Better ones.  ‘Literary fiction’ that requires some time and thought rather than the throwaway holiday reads.

But often there would be a lean period where I was half-heartedly perusing our bulging bookshelves for something worth reading a second time, or to search for one that I’d half read but didn’t enjoy, to find out if it was any better second time around.

So yes, often I have been without an open book for months at a time.  But things have changed.  Oh yes sirree!

I got myself a Kindle. (other ereaders are available!!)

Now, I know ebooks are not everyone’s cup of tea.  You’ll hear loads of people sniffily say

‘I prefer the heft of a real book’.

Well so do I, except when I’m in bed trying to hold a heavy tome up with a tired arm, or trying to fit it in my handbag to read on the train, or carting it about while it takes up valuable space in my hand luggage.

The ebook is a revelation to me.  The choice is wide and varied and I can peruse the ‘book shop’ at my leisure.  There are some free ones (which frankly, I’ve learned to avoid, since on the whole, they seem to be a load of tosh, even to me), but even the ones you pay for are cheaper than the paper variety.

So now, I read a chapter or two every day.  I’ve read things I wouldn’t have dreamed of buying if I’d seen them in a conventional bookshop.  In fact, I probably wouldn’t have discovered them since I tend to only go to the shelves loaded with my preferred authors or genres.  I’ve been re-reading, or discovering for the first time, some of the classics too.  At the moment I’m reading ‘Cider with Rosie’ and I’ve got half a dozen other books already downloaded and waiting in the wings.  With its built in backlight I can even read at night without disturbing my husband, who lies right beside me snoring in the depths of dreams.

It’s not only me either.  My mother (whom, if you’ve been reading my blog, you’re well acquainted with by now) has her own kindle which she loves.   She is an avid reader, but since having a stroke was finding holding large books, and their varying type sizes, difficult.  With the ereader she can enjoy any sized book, and change the font quickly and easily.

Ereaders will never replace real books, nor should they.  If (when) electricity does finally run out, and the internet fizzes to a halt, this wonderful, sharing and illuminating world we’re enjoying will no longer exist, it will be the libraries full of dusty books that will remain to tell the stories.

In the meantime, come on everybody, lets just appreciate the words however we choose to read them!

Written in response to the daily post ‘Readers block’

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It’s Magic

In response to the writing 101 challenge to write a longform piece about ‘your most treasured possession’.

I used to think that the first thing I would rescue, if there was a fire in the house, would be photographs.  They are irreplaceable reminders of the good times.  Weddings, births, holidays, Christmas’s, days out.  The past is all there, carefully arranged in photo albums, or stored higgledy piggledy in dusty shoeboxes.  Now, however, I’ve scanned the best of the older ones, and all the more recent ones are digital anyway, so they are all safely waiting on the cloud ready for me to look at whenever, and wherever I please.

So I had to think hard about what my most treasured possession is now.  At one time it might have been some jewellery that had belonged to my nan.  I wore the necklace on my wedding day.  It was just costume jewellery, not even gold, but it was a row of mother of pearl circles that she wore often, and when I looked at it I was reminded of cuddles and lavender smells.  That’s gone now though. Stolen the first time we were burgled, along with every other piece of jewellery I possessed at the time.

Not only did they take my stuff, but they ransacked the kids rooms and took all the plastic, and even homemade, bits and pieces that they had collected, every bit of electrical equipment (even the phone – no mobiles at the time so I couldn’t ring the police even). I was devastated, and the sense of injustice remains.  I’ve also been left with a feeling of insecurity in my own home which will never go away, or even recede, despite all the double locks and alarms in the world.  Thanks for that burglers.

However, I do have something to thank the miserable toadys for. I no longer invest such emotional attachment to things. I have realised that life goes on even if you’re favourite trinket goes missing. Despite my insecurities, my fear these days is not of losing goods and chattels, but of the house being trashed, or being bopped over the head, or the dog’s (and the fishes – please don’t wee in the pond) wellbeing.  Whilst I don’t want them to pinch my stuff, after all, we’ve worked hard for that and those lowlifes don’t deserve it, it really is all about my family’s personal safety these days.

My love of technology is well documented.  I am gadget woman.  Many years ago now, my husband bought me an ipod for Christmas.  I cried with excitement and joy.  Likewise, when my company presented me with my first iphone, I got embarrassingly over-excited and yes, a bit blubbery. I am one of those saddos that likes shiny new toys.  I know, it’s undignified, what can I say?

I was the first amongst my friends and family to own a tablet (Ipad of course! p.s. Dear Apple, do I get a free upgrade for the advertising??).  Again, it was my husband who forked out for it as a Christmas present.  I had to order it myself though because he is a technophobe.  Hates it all.  Mind you, he’s a bit better now and I think secretly enjoys using his ipad (course I eventually bought him one – gave me something new to play with).  When I ordered mine the Apple store was offering free engraving so I chose for him to write something gooey and lovey dovey on the back as well as ‘Christmas 2011’.

You’d think from all this I would be about to say ‘my most treasured possession is my ipad’.  Well, those that know me might very well think that is the case. My ipad and my phone go everywhere with me.  I’ve often tried to explain to unbelievers why I love it so much

‘What do you use it for’ they ask

And I set off on a list as long as your arm; l listen to music; I keep up to date with the news; I look at the weather forecast; I play games; I use online banking; I keep in touch with my friends and family; I read books and blogs;  I shop; It’s a dictionary and theasaurus; a compass; it tells me about the traffic when I’m travelling; I can visit other places using google earth; there’s a map of the stars; a calculator; my address book; my calendar; a camera; my photos…. Well that’s for starters, you get the picture, and I always forget something or other anyway.

‘it would drive me mad, all that stuff’ they say

‘Ah, but that’s the beauty of it, you can use it how you want to. You can download the apps that you want.  You don’t need all that stuff.’ Let’s face it, nobody needs Candy Crush Saga or Bejewelled Blitz.  And though it pains me to say it, I suppose nobody really actually needs Facebook.

So you see, my ipad is a treasured possession. But when I think about it, it’s not my most treasured possession.

Now, you might be thinking it’s my family.  But then you can’t call them possessions.

‘I have daughters’ doesn’t mean they belong to me. They are their own people. Even as children we shouldn’t view them as belongings, though undoubtedly some people do.  For instance, I had a colleague who told me that if she wanted anything in the evenings, a glass of wine, a sandwich etc, she always made her son get it for her rather than hauling herself from the sofa to go to the kitchen. She argued that she provided for him so the least he could do was to wait on her hand and foot, slavelike. It was not a happy relationship though, and quite rightly in my opinion, he rebelled.

Without a doubt, my children are the most treasured people in my life.  I am tempted to write something gooey about the happiness they bring me. How I would be nothing without them in my life, but I’ll spare you, and them.  Suffice it to say, even though they now live great distances from me they continue to make me smile every single time I think of them (unless I’m going through a worrying about them patch, in which case I get wrinkles in my forehead) and that is practically all the time.

I should of course mention my husband.  Can’t leave him out.  He is there, walking beside me, encouraging me, making me snort with laughter, making me cross occasionally, making me delicious food, making my world better.  Where would I be without him?

It is he who has encouraged me to write.  Pushes me in fact. Tells me when it’s good and when it’s a bit pants.  Tells me when it gets just a bit too ‘dark’ as it, bafflingly, so often does.  Tells me how proud he is that I’m putting it ‘out there’.

And now we come to the crux:  Out there.  The Internet. The World Wide Web.  The Cloud.

This is what I couldn’t do without. Having that connection is something I truly treasure.

You see, the internet was born quite late in my life, so I do remember the world without it. I remember life before Windows. I remember my first ever email. The beep beep beep of the dial up connection and frustration when you couldn’t get through. I can remember life before Google and Amazon, and Ebay, and Paypal.  Makes me feel old. (note to self…you are!)

What I mean is, I really appreciate it. The connectivity of it. I can manage without my ipad, or iphone, or laptop. There are always others. Upgrades even. New ones to buy or borrow. They would be nothing without the connectivity though. I know how I feel when we have a power cut (all too often) and there’s no wifi for a couple of hours.  It’s like my arm has been cut off.

Twenty one years ago we moved North, away from my family, and since my daughters left home, my husband and I are alone, apart from friends, in this neck of the woods.  The internet provides a means of keeping in touch that no postal or telephone system could.  Communication is instantaneous.  Now, I am even able to facetime with my mother, who at 92 is using her ipad to email and text, play soduku and word games, and play solitaire.  She lives alone and it has been a revelation to her. Given her a new lease of life (apart from when it goes pear shaped sometimes which knocks another couple of days off her I think!).  Facetimes with her are hilarious too. She keeps forgetting to hold the ipad up, so most of the time I can only see the top of her head, but it gives us both something to chuckle over.

Without the Internet I would never have been brave enough to try and publish anything. Now though, thanks to WordPress and PoetrySoup, my writing is reaching far corners of the world. Something I could never have envisaged when I started writing stories years ago.

I’m more intelligent too…well, appear more intelligent.  I see news as it happens. I feel well informed about current events, and can read opinions from all sides thanks to the likes of Twitter.  I read more because books are cheaper, free even, and appear on my devices instantly (yes, of course I’ve got a kindle). It’s modern day magic.

Yes, sad but true, this is the thing I’d be lost without. The ability to reach my family, friends and the rest of the big wide world from the sofa, and to see and share my documents, photos and projects wherever I might be.

So thank you all you clever people out there who know how it works.  I don’t need to know.  I am just a grateful user.

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Freewriting Hell

Today’s writing 101 challenge was to do a ‘freewrite’ of 400 words.  That is to say, put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard in my case) and just write (type!). Let the words flow, don’t stop, don’t punctuate.  You can see I’ve failed in both of those. I did stop, abruptly, at 400 words though, which probably seems weird for the average reader!  I’m posting this because I don’t want to wuss out of the challenge, but it grieves me.  It’s not what I want on my blog. It’s just rambling.Not for public consumption. It’s coming down as soon as this event finishes.  I really wouldn’t bother to read it if I were you!

‘Where is my brain today?  I am trying to freewrite and yet I keep encountering obstacles.  I think it’s the full stops. My brain comes to a full stop. Nothing is in it, just a vacant echoey space.  Usually it’s full of words like ‘what shall I get for tea’; I’m really tired; I should really do some housework..you know, that sort of thing. But today nothing is tumbling out.  I am of course, tired.  Always tired.  Must be my age.  Got a bit of a headache too.  Oh goodness, I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I just wrote 232 more words and deleted them because I didn’t like where it was taking me.  I know I’m not supposed to do that. Heck, I’m not supposed to punctuate either. What a rebel! Actually, it’s probably the nearest I’ve ever come to being a rebel.  I’ve always conformed, happy to stick by the rules.  Boring really I guess. I do like a frisson of excitement sometimes though. Like rollercoasters.  Like zip wiring. Like paragliding.  Only did that once, but it was brilliant.  Flying high above the sea, being pulled along by the little speedboat below.  I could just see my husband, his face squinting up at me, looking terrified.  He doesn’t like heights and wouldn’t dream of doing it.  He didn’t like the zipwiring much either, but to his credit, he did do it with me. Actually, a couple of times.  The best time though was in Costa Rica zipping above the forest. Wheeee…. I screeched….aaargghhh…he screamed.  Costa Rica was a brilliant place altogether. Several different ecosystems. Three different types of forest. Lets see if I can remember… Rain Forest, Cloud Forest and, and…. Errmmm… Dry forest.  I loved the cloud forest best I think.  We stayed in a beautiful lodge and it was really cloudy. Bit chilly too.  It made the surrounding forest seem eerie and quiet. Well apart from the noises. (well, that sounds stupid on paper!!) Animal noises I mean.  There were so many birds.  All sorts, and the lodge was dotted with feeders where I could have spent all day watching the humming birds visiting.  Yep, Costa Rica was great, but that was a few years ago now. We like to travel and recently visited Southern India. Kerala to be precise.  It’s a very beautiful part of the country. Less manic than some of the Northern cities that we visited……’

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eeeekkk…

It’s easy to write about my greatest fear.  Everyone knows what it is. I’ve written about it in great detail on my blog before.  It’s much harder though to write in a different style as per the writing 101 challenge suggests today. I’ll give it a go.

Spiders, their creepy crawliness, and legginess, and scuttering. Their black, still, gaze as they spread their legs, clinging, against the laws of physics, to the ceiling.  I can’t deal with them like a normal person does, I go too clammy and heartbeaty. I couldn’t squish one. Apart from being too frozen with fear, I can’t squish anything.  I don’t like killing things, even things I don’t like.  Occasionally, if it’s the right sort and not too big, I can save one, using a spider catcher at arms length.  I tip them out at the end of the garden so that they can’t run straight back in.  Sometimes, I’ve been known to spin them round in the contraption so they lose their bearings, just to make sure they don’t head back to make their home in my home again.

I hear that those ruddy great ones that catch your eye as they run across the living room floor in the evenings are always males looking for a partner. It doesn’t make me love them more.

Writing this is freaking me out.  I keep looking around, quite sure I’m being observed by a many eyed monster hiding in a corner, waiting to jump out at me when I’m least expecting it.  So I’m going to stop.  You’ve got the gist. I don’t like ‘em.  Big or small. Long legged or fat bodied.

I’m Kaye and I fear spiders.

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Tell Father Christmas not to bother

October, and already the shops are filling with Christmas ‘cheer’.  For the first time this year though, for us, Christmas is cancelled.

Now, I’ve often thought about cancelling it before. For a start, there’s the hassle of Christmas shopping.  Fighting through hoards of harassed people to find gifts that you know will be gratefully received, but will probably be stuck at the back of the recipients cupboard for all eternity. The queuing to pay, only to eventually be served by thoroughly cheesed off staff who have had their brains fried by the constant loop of ‘Jingle Bells’, and ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’. Frankly, you’ve only been in the shop for ten minutes and you would willing smash the damn tannoy yourself.

Then there’s the long heated discussions about who is going where, and when.  Which mum is coming to us this year? When are we going to see brothers/ sisters/nieces/nephews… ?? Are they coming to us or should we go to them?  Who’s staying over? Will they want lunch the next day as well??

Once decided, there is the happy task of food/drink shopping.  You park in the one spot left in the supermarket car park. The little one.  Next to the bollard that you scrape as you pull in.

You get a trolley with wonky wheels that insist on going in the opposite direction that you want to, which makes you swear loudly, turning heads and forcing mothers to cover their children’s ears. The supermarket is packed with people all standing chatting in front of the aisles that you want to go down. The shop has run out of just about everything you’d planned to buy, and you know you’ll have to repeat the visit again before the big day. Yet still you end up paying over a hundred quid and having a trolley load big enough to feed an army, and somehow you’re going to have to find room for it all in the cupboards when you get home.

You’ll guess I’ve never been a big fan of the run-up, but I do love Christmas eve, when the wrapping is finished, the turkey is ready for popping in the oven the next day, and we sit down to watch ‘Carols from Kings’ with a glass of sherry.

I love the morning itself often dragging everyone else out of bed early.  Even when my daughters were young, they were never ones for getting up at the crack of dawn it was always me waking them

‘lets go and see if Father Christmas has been!’

He always had.

The smell of Christmas dinner cooking while we ate mince pies and drank Bucks Fizz. Playing with the daft games.  Eating chocolates.  Lighting the Christmas pudding with Brandy.  Falling asleep in the afternoon.  Eating some more.  Drinking some more. Playing raucous board games ‘til two in the morning.

Yes, overall, I pretty much enjoy the actual event.

But as I said, this year, for the very first time, Christmas is cancelled.

Our doctor daughters have so far been lucky with their shifts and have always managed to come home for Christmas.  This year though, it’s their turn to work, one has to do a long shift on Christmas day and the other on Boxing day (though they live and work at opposite ends of the country – just an unfortunate coincidence!).  So me and my husband will be on our own.  For one reason or another, we won’t be seeing any other family either.  It will be very weird.

Of course, we’ll try and get together at some time, either before or after the ‘big day’, and I’m determined that ‘our christmas’ will be exactly the same as everyone else’s whether it fall on the  1st December or the 1st January.   I’ll still have to do the shopping and the wrapping. We’ll still have the tree, and the presents and the turkey, and it will still be brilliant.  And I keep telling myself it won’t matter when we do it, as long as we’re all together at some point.

But secretly, whilst being really, really proud of my hardworking daughters, I’m still very sad that I’m having to write to Father Christmas and tell him not to bother to come on the 24th!

Written as part of the Writing 101 challenge – ‘think about an event you have attended and loved and you’re told it will be cancelled – your voice will find you’.

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Dear writing 101 pixies

Today you asked me to pick up a book, turn to page 29, see what word jumps out at me, and write a letter using the word as inspiration.  Now, I’ve got lots of books, I could’ve chosen any… history, plays, novels, poetry, even creative writing tomes, but today the writing gods led my hand to Marina Lewycka’s ‘We are all made of glue’ (one of my favs… if you haven’t read it, do!).

I’ve had a rough count of the words, and there’s around about 350 on that page, and do you know which one took my eye first?  Well, do you?

‘Hard’

‘Now that’s fates hand working if ever I saw it’, I thought.

To be honest, it made me chuckle.  Of all those words that could have leapt from the page ‘hard’ seemed the most apt for a writing 101 challenge.  Not that, generally, I’ve found the pieces hard to write.  On the contrary, as each day and challenge passes, generally I find the ideas are forming quicker and the words are spilling from my keyboard in a smoother stream.

But it is hard sometimes to find the time.  Even me, in my retired state finds it hard to fit writing in every day.  Something has to give. So the housework doesn’t get done, or we get in to an unmade bed at night, or we have a quick, thrown-together-with-left-overs dinner in the evening.

Sometimes, I look at the challenge that arrives in my inbox first thing in the morning, and sigh heavily.

‘Phew, I could do with giving it a rest today’ but nonetheless, I see all the others in the commons writing brilliant stuff, and know I need to keep up.

The other thing, that I am truly finding hard, is the change that’s taking place on my blog. Up until recently, all I had posted was ramblings and rants based around my chaotic life.  Not so long ago, I took the plunge and diversified into adding some photos and poetry (that was very hard.  I had to suck my teeth and take the plunge – glad I did though, nothing but nice comments about it so far, and met some brilliant new followers).  And now, since taking up your challenge, I have been writing fiction and sticking it up on the blog.

I’ve always written short stories.  I like writing them, and think they’re generally ok.  But they weren’t really for public consumption.  Now though, everyone is getting to see the warped contours of my imagination.  Again, nothing but complimentary comments, but at least one person was worried that one of them was non-fiction. For the record…no, I haven’t murdered anyone!

The hardest thing is seeing how my precious blog is changing. Morphing into something it wasn’t supposed to be.  I’m publishing things on there that I wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing before starting this course.  I look at the home page and hope that people are not just reading the first post, but having a look around to see who I really am.

Ok, hopefully you’ve got the gist. I’m finding writing 101 hard in all sorts of ways. Nonetheless I’m loving it.  Yes, it’s hard to go straight to my computer and start tapping away first thing, but my head is now brimming with ideas and I can’t wait to get them down on the page.  Yes, it’s hard to see my blog growing up. But it is becoming varied, and with any luck, more interesting. I’ve certainly gained lots more followers since starting, and have had some lovely comments.

So thank you pixies. You’ve made me realise that my writing really does benefit  from daily practice, and that with a simple prompt my mind can fly. That if I’m brave enough to share all of it, I’ve got friends out there who will comment and give some constructive criticism where necessary.  It’s been an enormous boost to my confidence, and motivation.

Now I feel empowered. If I keep at it I feel sure my blog will grow and blossom, and it’s all thanks to you.

Best wishes

Kaye

by

Home but not a house

I never thought much about it when I was growing up, it was just where we lived, but when I told my husband that we lived over a motorbike showroom that was squashed between an off licence and a salvation army hall, with a bus stop right in front of our front door, he swore there must be a story in there somewhere.

Now I come to think of it, there probably is, but I’m not going to explore that now.  I’ll just tell you the facts. It was an old building in Tooting, South London, probably a warehouse at one time. Certainly, our first floor living room was of warehouse proportions, and a devil to keep warm, especially with the three tall drafty sash windows that lined the front wall.  We used to stuff newspapers in the gaps between the panes to stop them rattling in the wind. We had no central heating, and relied heavily on a two bar electric fire at the end where the sofa and tiny TV stood, and a terrifyingly temperamental paraffin heater at the other end beside the slightly out of tune piano that my sister used to endlessly practice ‘The Elizabethan Serenade’ on.

Next to the living room was the kitchen/diner, always steamy, with a kettle on the boil, and the oven alight to warm the room.  The old radio would be humming ‘sing something simple’ or ‘The Goon show’ while we sat at the table for our tea.

The bedrooms were on the second floor.  My sister and I shared a long narrow room with another newspaper-stuffed sash window at the far end.  The room was decorated with willow pattern wallpaper, and we used to entertain each other making up stories about the little Japanese people that were crossing the ornate blue bridges.  When she got married and left home I was allowed to choose the décor and went for a vivid plain orange paper, which I loved, but it had no stories to tell.

When I was very young we didn’t have a bathroom, and on Friday nights mum took as into town to the public baths where my sister and I shared a soak. Eventually though, my dad did a bit of home bodging and put in a bathroom and indoor toilet – luxury!  Like most of his projects, I don’t think it was ever quite finished off, but he did paint the walls using a feather duster dipped in different coloured paints to give a rainbow effect. This was long before fancy paint techniques were discussed on the TV.  In fact, it was long before any DIY shows were on the TV!

Our home was dusty and drafty. There were lots of stairs and a spider filled basement, which had been used as an air-raid shelter during the war, and which I didn’t dare go in, not only because of the spiders, but also because of the scary stories my sister used to tell me about witches and bogey men that lived down there.  I was so frightened of it that I always sidled quickly past its wooden door to get out into the small walled garden.  I seem to have a vague memory of a corrugated iron Anderson shelter out there at one time, but I guess that must have been taken down when I was very young.

Sometimes, but not always, our garden had flowers, once I had a much beloved guinea pig who lived out there, but over-ridingly, there was the huge white pigeon loft which took up pretty much half of the space. When Dad got into pigeon racing, everything else went.  The apple tree in the middle of the grass.  The flower beds.  The guinea pig.  My swing-in-the-door.  Instead, the pigeons became his, and by default, our focus. Trying not to knock the jelly off the window sill where it had been left to set, while we leant precariously out of the kitchen window to see if they were on their way back after a race, or standing outside rattling tins of food to entice them to come down to have their racing rings removed and be ‘clocked back’ became our standard occupations on Saturday afternoons.

Dad’s craze’s and eccentricities were a central part of my growing up, and many of them formed the memories I have of my childhood home. Often when I think back to those times I think of the many Christmas’s when he insisted on decorating the front room with an elaborate spider’s web of crepe paper strips. I have no idea where he got his ideas from, but I have never seen the like since.  I remember being mortified at the time and really just wanting tinsel and paper chains like all the other kids had.  Now, the memory of the ‘ta da!’ moment when we all stood round with our fingers crossed while he cut the strings that temporarily held the strips of paper up, to reveal that they were in fact self-supporting, is a warm memory of home I will never forget.

Written as part of the writing 101 challenge – write about your childhood home with sentence length in mind.