Tag: blogging

Quotes – Part 2.

This is the second post on the theme from my first post. Quotes for a New Year – Part 1

Not really more of the same, the subject matter is a little different this time.

Inspirational dreams can set off the stories I write, the poems which follow and the map of the road which I consider taking. Occasionally, common sense will kick in and I will tug on the reigns instead of following that direction. I accept this as all part of the process.

A life is made up of so many chapters. They can’t all be great, exciting and wonderful. So if you have a bad one, you might need some help and just try and get through and learn from it.

When things are going wrong, I often think we are better off not daring to ask, what’s next?

I feel that this quote is leading me in a direction I have yet to find. There must be a purpose, we are here for a reason, we don’t always know what it is.  One day I am sure to find out.

In other words, don’t feed the fears…

That is what I plan for each year.

There’s just something about this quote which resonates and fills me with Hope. You have to go through so much in a lifetime and don’t worry if you break along the way, for there is a chance for the light to appear.

So when someone is talking rubbish, then don’t rise to it. If you can’t escape them, then just don’t answer!

Along with the age old quote, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger I sincerely hope that my time at rock bottom will hold me in good stead. How do we become  Hero?

 

And this is what I aim to become, in whatever path I follow.

Here’s to having messy hair, Salut!

If you don’t have a forest, then find one, or at least borrow some time in one  I highly recommend it.

When you feel broken, remember this it may just give you hope.

So if just one little thing can brighten a persons day then do lots of little things as it can mount up to one helluva change.

A simple message  I don’t understand. Why do people feel the need to be unkind?

… and this is when we are we are at our happiest!

Letting go is all part of the healing process, it can be hard to try but in the end surrendering to the ingrained ideas of what “should be” and accepting what will follow can be very liberating.

I think being soft on the inside, or even allowing that side of you to be visible to others still is misconstrued as weak by so many. If only they knew! It’s an honour when someone shows you their soft side so don’t let anyone abuse that.

 

 

 

Days like These and Remaining Independent

 

11062706_10154122837704517_7428223558496551676_nThere’s something about days like these, being in a rural location that makes you feel cold to the bone. It’s damp in our house and in a stone cottage where on this trip we have brought with us an oil fired heater which was keeping the chill off, we were feeling rather pleased that it was working.  On a freezing cold night, we are now able to keep warm in two rooms.  I am also extremely grateful that I have the gas cooker in the caravan.  It’s a really old caravan and it leaks and is damp, but it has its’ cosy moments.

Today there is something wrong with the electric. It has been on less than half speed since we awoke there must be a problem up in the fields somewhere. The caravan fused last night, which meant that we had an impromptu candlelit dinner in there.  I was just pleased that there was power left in the house, but today nothing was running right. 20 minutes to boil a kettle and despite the heater being left on all day, the room was still cold and chilly. We wondered if any other homes were suffering but the neighbour is not around so we cannot ask him. So as I prepped dinner tonight, a Thai Chicken Curry to warm us up, suddenly the cavalry arrive here, lights ablaze on their team of vehicles, called by our neighbour who returned home to a cold house. We both have very dim lights.  At first we thought that the bulbs might be on their way out, but since they are the old incandescent ones, they either work or they don’t.

So Scottish Power arrived at about 9pm, to head over the hills to investigate a cabling problem, we were all at half speed so it seemed.

Grateful for the logs, gas bottles and candles I have in the house along with the bottled drinking water and our washing water.  Yes we are basic here, but pretty self sufficient for a night at least. The guys worked through the night, cutting all power to our homes from 11pm. Back on by 7am they let us know before heading back down the hill. We were very relieved that we could get the oil fire back on again to warm it up.

chainsaw-kit

So today we are back to normal again and since I only brought the electric chainsaw with us on this trip, I am relieved as I will have to cut wood again in a couple of days, to actually fit on the fire. Our logs were hastily cut from trees which had fallen in storms in the past couple of years, all sections are about a foot high and anything up to 2 feet across and were not logged at the time.  They have dried in large pieces and now need to be split.  We tried a small hand splitter, a large axe, a small hand axe and we only have the small chainsaw left here to try.  My partner tried it the other day, but his old injuries along with the new ones have been playing him up and have left him sore. So it will finally be my turn to try, I have the kit for working outside, chainsaw helmet, muffs, gloves, trousers and rigger boots.  I am sure that with his guidance I’ll be able to do it.  When I get the hang of using the small one, then I can move onto the big one next time.  But for now this will have to do for us.

Something occurred to me yesterday morning though, if all the big strong men up here get their logs delivered and pose with their axes for their women, then there is probably a reason or two why.  I will leave you to come to your own conclusions there.

Our neighbour has a bandsaw and a huge pile of perfectly sawn logs.  They are outside ready for winter and he has moved them outside his back door for ease of use when needed.  When the power was down, my partner commented that it must be lovely and warm in there with his new log burner going. He was a little bit shocked when he was informed that despite having it fitted over a year ago, that the man still has not yet used it. That “it was a very messy business using this one, and all the instructions are in Italian.”  As my partner says, that was three reasons.  Remembering the other neighbour with his wood delivery my response was My God, is it all for show up here?

How difficult is it to light a fire for goodness sake?

I guess some people are not blessed with either common sense or practicality.

I don’t know why the mess of a log fire should bother him, he is a wealthy man who has people to clean and pick up after him.

So when there was not enough power to pump his oil fired heating around his house rather than put on a coat to come outside and speak to the men from the power company, he stood in the icy cold in his sweater. He did not figure out how to use his log burner and would rather sit indoors moaning that it was cold.

“He’d cut off his nose to spite his face” as my grandparents used to say…

We did have some light it was so dim that it was little more than candlelight and it wouldn’t even power the fan heater, or the electric blanket on the bed. We put on extra layers, extra logs on the fire and can boil a kettle on the gas in the caravan if need be. Although everything took twice the time to achieve it didn’t much matter to us, we were not on a schedule, however for the folk who are, it must have driven them crazy.

Lessons Learned when Writing your Book

IMG_1939So after a quiet couple of weeks here on the blog away from the laptop and writing only sporadically the sun had been shining, in between the rain storms here so I decided to get out in the garden. To allow myself to be attacked by Roses and make the outlook a little bit brighter. Summer is here and with it brings the urge to create nicer surroundings for us all. So I have been weeding, digging, growing and sharing cuttings, re-potting and tying back unruly plants and trying to forget that there is a whole huge expanse of space which has yet to benefit from my attention, if only I had the energy to tackle it.

After a couple of weeks of leaving my draft alone and then returning to it to edit again and print off a copy for someone else’s opinion. Here is a list of the Lessons I have learned while preparing a physical book for someone to read for the very first time.

1. Disregard the fears that you may have done it wrong. They are just concerns, you have to start somewhere.
2. Have a back up title in case you have done it wrong.
3. Make Lists.
4. Edit, Edit then Edit again, there will always be something you have missed. Surely not, well Yes actually!
5. Remember to insert the page numbers so that if there are corrections noted, you’ll be able to find them to fix.
6. Make sure that your desk is sturdy, more important than you know.
7. Make sure that you have more than enough printer ink for the job
8. Give your printer a service before you start to print.
9. Do not hold your breath when you hit PRINT, it may take longer than you think.
10. Print in batches of 10 pages at a time, that way if your printer begins to shake uncontrollably whilst doing its job, or misalign inexplicably you will not waste time and resources with fuzzy pages.
11. Reprint any fuzzy unreadable pages. These things are sent to try us!
12. Since your first reader is a family member. Make them swear that it is for their eyes only and they will not send it anywhere until you have got it back and corrected everything. Stating for all to hear that this is “definitely not the finished article”.
13. Write all over it that it is the “First Draft” Confidential might be a good idea too!
14. Realise as your heart sinks that although this is your baby, other people have their own lives to live and it might take a while to get it back.
15. Remember to breathe. Eagerly anticipating their response will only cause added stress and upset, especially if they tell you that it isn’t your best work, or you should include something else.
16. When your family tell you that there are more important things to life than being wrapped up in your book, as their patience has run thin smile sweetly and agree with them.
17. Try to convince yourself that it’ll all be alright in the end.

The Daily Post – Struggle

Lost work or When Mercury goes Retrograde

It’s frustrating isn’t it, when you search the depths of your PC, your files etc, only to find that it is gone….
Is it another hazard of the planet Mercury going retrograde. When the planetary movement destroys the work which was not backed up properly, or fries your technology. Of course, that is not the actual description as to what happens, except that invariably does. To much clasping of hands to the side of the head and Oh No’s!

I do believe that it IS a real phenomena, it happens so regularly and goes on for weeks. Every quarter and lasts for around 3 weeks at a time. Where suddenly Pcs’ Phones & TV’s begin to play up. It affects communication but not just online causing havoc in your life, especially to the unprepared.
Thankfully the internet can offer you a warning of the impending doom that is on it’s way and for the next few weeks you’d better hang on tight, but there is good news, the current one is due to finish on 22nd and not return until late August apparently.

At least the knowledge of it’s existence serves to advise you that you are not losing your marbles and that you can stop pulling your hair out. My reason for writing this… Well, I have been caught out on a few occasions with this. Lately I have begun to back up my Laptops to an enormous external drive. But having done that with every file I can find, I still can’t find it…

There have been a few things I have lost over the past few months, which have caused me great distress and whichever “Safe Place” I have put them in they have yet to materialise from. But the aforementioned IT, was from about 10 years ago, when I wrote a short story. I can remember sitting at the computer, no laptop back then for a very long day, then going back to edit it the next day. I was quite pleased with the end result, although I never sent it off anywhere to be published. It was on an ancient PC, at one such time, the PC began to “play up” again and I subsequently lost a lot of my files from it along with a hard drive. I relied upon a back up on the PC and it failed me, but I wonder if I did actually manage to save it, if only I could remember what it was called.

Recently my thoughts keep returning to the story that I wrote. I cannot remember the whole thing, but the character’s name and backline are in my head, so often right now that I felt that I should search for it again. Since all my old backups are now on this one drive. I also have another just in case I am dealt a further cruel blow, I’m being careful now.

I am now gathering up my work form the years gone by. I refer to myself as a new writer since I have not openly written or published anything until recently. However it occurred to me that I have been a part time writer for many years. I have poems, short stories, ideas for books, allsorts of things. I remember that I was writing a book when I was fifteen. I wonder what happened to that? It must have gone adrift in the 13 house moves since then. Thrown away to start again, or is it hiding again in storage which may never be uncovered, awaiting the day when it is cleared and someone may either find it and destroy it, or decide to finish it and publish it.

So, it may be that I have actually been a writer for years. Not a failed on, just a not ready to launch yet one…

My valentines cards to my partner have often contained poems of love, I wish I’d written all the poems down elsewhere, but I’m sure that in the grand sort out, they will turn up in the cards, since we tend to keep them with the lovely words we have written. I thought about updating my website, my social media with my current choice of work experience. Maybe that unscheduled time off which forced me to be the person underneath all the rest of it that I am, can come out to play, learn to dance as my words do, off the page.
Maybe I have finally embraced what IS meant to be after all these years, the writer who was hidden underneath. Watch out world. Here I come….

As my writing persona takes me to a whole new level in my life, I am grateful for the new opportunity I have seized with both hands. For the new experiences it has opened my eyes to and the people I am “meeting” along the way, via social media and the fact that this year, I WILL publish my first book.

I haven’t been sitting idle, and stopped banging my head against the wall whilst I tried to figure out the next step forward for me. I have begun to do what has been there all along. I am happy. Everyone knows that writers have no money until their big break, right? So we pared back, hunkered down, stayed in and stuck together. I have gained strength from the process and we live a simple life again at the moment.

On reaching 100 and Counting, (Still)

Well, that’s one for the list of Yay’s…
To those of you have been waiting and would like to know, you’ll be pleased to hear that I have now reached my 100 poems. This is the goal that I set myself to write, before I would choose which ones I will include in my first book. It also appears on the list of Yay’s. For the uninitiated, this is a list which I made myself in February, just as I began this blog of things that I wished to achieve (preferably) this year. As I complete them, I place the Yay! By way of celebration in the completed column. See Intentions – Things I want to do this year

The truth be told, I have surpassed this particular personal goal in a glut of writing that began yesterday and went on through the night. It was daylight when I finally clambered into bed at 5am having been unable to sleep once again, the words and thoughts just kept coming and I am but its slave. Having been in bed for the grand total of three hours I was suddenly awake again, at 8am the notepad pulled from under the pillow, the pencil poised once more. Round two, ding-ding!

I am not stopping yet though, let’s continue to make hay whilst the sun shines. (Although this morning is actually met with rain) the selection process will begin, just about the time that my current stream of writing falters a little, I will then feel able to edit and work on how it will all come together and final quantity that will be included in the book itself, also on how on earth I am going to get it out there and market it on my non-existent budget. Hold on to your hats.

The intention is there and I had anticipated that it would be my first book, but since my butterfly mind is flitting once again I may conclude something else I am also working on first. I know, I know the voice inside my head warns the old me to finish what I had started, before moving on to the next thing. But there is another deadline I would rather like to meet. It is a competition entry, with a month to spare and would be my first entry for writing. It could be a short story, but what constitutes a short story and where is the line drawn before it becomes a long one?  If last night was anything to go by, it could end up a novel. It started off a couple of months ago, notes on a page, characters in my head, stories to be told. It has sat there, whiling away the time, until more thoughts formed in my head and I began to consciously write it, I somehow knew that once I did it might open a floodgate.

This particular story is of a young girl, reaching womanhood and the people she encounters, who try to change the direction her life should take and the people thrown into her path. The way that it is coming thick and fast at the moment, I might just ,make the deadline for that particular competition, dependent on what else May holds for me. If not, then there’s a rather large shelf full of stuff that I could put it on. I’d been sitting on there myself until recently, but it was time to dust myself off this year and start something new.

Oh metaphors, how I love thee….

I said that May is going to be a good month, where good things happen. It is traditionally so and I don’t want to break with that particular tradition. I have a lot to accomplish this month and so far, progress has been made, so Salut and long may it continue.

There is another goal, which I am so close to reaching on the list, the magical number of 50 followers to my blog. So, if you are reading this for the first time and want to do me the honours, I’d be over the moon to be able to tick that one off too and I‘m oh so close…

I am filled with Gratitude for the people who follow the blog and regularly send me their comments and emotional support, sometimes the road can be rocky, but your words continue to inspire me. Thank you!

 

 

 

Who Will Buy? In the words of Oliver Twist..

It’s inspiration that we find in the strangest of places, today this tune and a couple of lines of it have been going around my head.

In the words of Oliver Twist…

Who will buy
This wonderful morning?
Such a sky
You never did see!

Who will tie
It up with a ribbon
And put it in a box for me?

So I could see it at my leisure
Whenever things go wrong
And I would keep it as a treasure
To last my whole life long.

Who will buy
This wonderful feeling?
I’m so high
I swear I could fly.

Me, oh my!
I don’t want to lose it
So what am I to do
To keep the sky so blue?
There must be someone who will buy…

I set myself a goal when I began writing this blog and post my own brand of poetry here. Finally, I would be doing something that I wanted to do.  That special thing, ME TIME! and who knows, somewhere along the way, someone might like it and read it.

To all those of you who have so far brightened my days with your likes and comments, it is appreciated more than you could know.  To the people who follow this blog, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart, you give me a reason (and boy, do I love one of those) to go on with it.

So, I set about it.  Putting my thoughts on paper, (or laptop) random things, poems, feelings, photos etc and here we are, a few months later, although early days, I am making progress on to my next goal.

When I reach 100 poems that I have written, I will self-publish a book of poetry.  Some you will have seen here, some you will not. (After all, I have to hold something back) Like one last card to my chest, I sometimes get fed up with being the proverbial open book. So once I reach that 100, I’m actually almost there… Yay! I will start to select the few that will end up in my first book and I will have reached that goal.

I have a name, a format and a question…. Who will buy?  Then another, If it ever makes it to proper print, (hard copy) then should I wrap it up in a ribbon?

Since I am planning to self publish this book, I’d love to have a physical book for people to have, hold and share. If any other bloggers here have had any success in getting donations towards hard copy publishing and can give me any advice, it would be much appreciated.

For those of you who may now have the tune whizzing around your head, here’s a link to the words.  Who Will Buy… From Oliver Twist, by Lionel Bart

 

 

 

 

The Music of The Hills

6 (6)A storm is brewing, keep things close at hand.
The woods gently sing their quiet song.
The wind is blowing across the top along the land,
Begins it’s low howl it resonates deep and long.
Building itself up, as though to make an entrance,
Bending trees along the way, start to sway and dance.
Reaching it‘s crescendo thunder crashing through the hills,
A dramatic drum roll there it’s mad frenzy sending chills.
Hurling itself up before swirling around the ledges,
Nature singing out from the safety of the hedges,
Cattle calling across the way, invisible in the mist.
Lovers lost to it’s emotions, meeting for their tryst.
Eerily silent once again, this weather is a curse,
before tinkling raindrops signal the next verse.
Thoughts are stirred up taking you right back,
For a moment, you temporarily sidetrack.
Lost up there in music, a world away from your own,
As they rest again exhausted, the hills will sigh and moan.
This is the music of the hills,
Pay close attention to how it feels,
Of all things fierce and good.
Played out by the Orchestra of the Wood.

The Daily Post – The Music of The Hills

Her Memory of Tennis in the Sunshine.

Initially there were several reasons as to why I began writing this blog. It started out in my head as an outlet for deeper feelings and how I would deal with them as they sprung up, like loose floorboards in an old house and hit me squarely between the eyes, often catching me unawares. I think that over time it will grow into far much more than that, as it has already shown signs of doing.

Today I am feeling as though another reason for writing this will be to remind my partner and I years from now, what was going through our heads, the memories we have made and the ones that we have cherished.

Since Alzheimers is a genetic disorder, there is some concern on our part, that it may follow down the line over the course of time and this may serve to remind us of some of the wonderful times we have had and how loved we both are. I would love to write his own story, and share his memories which seem far more interesting than my own, but he is not inclined to allow me at this point. It would make interesting reading though but he remains a very private person.

Last year we finally lost his mother to a lengthy fight with Alzheimers Disease, she lived a life which had been both tragic and wonderful at times. She lived to what is considered a good age, but unfortunately she could not remember most of it. In latter years, when I visited her sometimes her eyes would glisten and a flash of a memory would return, along with the excitement of being able to share it with someone. On the occasions whilst she could still tell me, snippets of stories would come back to her and she would recount them, although sometimes they would be all intermingled. To me it didn’t matter how she remembered them, whether they were entirely factual or not, it just proved that her brain was still working, despite some short circuits and that she was in there somewhere. She was a good friend to me and I have been thinking fondly again about her today, as I often do. It was devastating when she could no longer speak to share her thoughts, my last conversation with her was in October 2014 and after that her silence was awful, which the chatter of others around her was deafening, she passed away in March 2015.

She often told me about the Grand old house in Kent where they used to live as children, it was where she had grown up with her two brothers before the loss of her beloved mother in her teens, it was very clear that she was happiest there. They had a large house with Tennis courts out the back and she was playing tennis in the sunshine, they backed onto woodland behind the house and the trees offered dappled light across the house and shade when out on the court. She often spoke of the tennis courts, she must have enjoyed the game. I think it was due to it being a bright sunny day today that, it reminded me of this.  It would be a wonderful day to play tennis, I would have loved to have played the game with her.