TEAM DICK

Not being the butchest of people you can imagine my delight when confronted with the joyful task of taking a group of students on an adventure day. So what will we be doing? I asked with trepidation

Orienteering? Fair enough a bit of map reading I can handle that. Cycling? Well I cycle to work every day so not a problem. Climbing? Frightened of heights and absolutely no upper body strength. Raft Building ? In bloody October you’ve got to be kidding me.
The day arrives and it’s pissing down with rain and at least fifty below zero; well in my head anyway. The students are split into teams and I give them the task of giving us a snazzy team name. TEAM DICK was the result. The ensuing jokes about being head of the team and “one might call you Dick Head” were hilarious and I smiled enigmatically and took it all in my stride.

The activities came in the order I’ve listed and as the morning went on and we headed towards my own death by fright I began to wish I was somewhere warm. I really thought a career teaching Performing arts was about as far away from butch as you could get. I thought I would spend my day flouncing around calling people darling and lovey and I would have been bored within ten minutes.

The students we took were BTEC First; the kids who hadn’t done so well in GCSE’s because in the majority of cases they’d been ignored and considered trouble makers. In my opinion the best students there are. You give them some attention and praise then watch them achieve and blossom before your eyes.

I almost managed to reach the top of the climbing wall and the support and cheering was heart warming. They looked out for each other and they looked out for me. I could ask for nothing more.

By this point though we were bottom of the leader board and the task I dreaded most loomed ahead. Raft building. We lost three of our team to fright so it left five of us to build the thing and paddle it to the island. We knew at this point there was no chance of catching the other teams up point-wise. Did we give in? Hell no we rushed in and built our raft before everyone although to be honest it was more than a little rickety. We waited for the guide to check it was sea worthy but he didn’t he just told us to go. Confused I was sure he wasn’t going to let us risk life and limb without the thing being checked over by health and safety and pat tested but no. So we carried it into the lake sailed it to the island and it was only on our way back that the other teams got into the water. By the time we got halfway back our raft began to come apart. There was only one thing for it. We jumped into the icy depths and towed the bloody thing back to shore were it promptly dissolved. It had done its job and we were back on dry land.
We kicked arse in the way that only those with nothing to lose can do.

I’m knackered and sore now two days later but it was the best day and I got to wear my second wetsuit of the year (the first occasion being pictured above). I’m hoping it’s the last time I wear one this year.

The one where I get published

In June I entered the Tonto Books short story competition which was judged by the delightful and delectable Caroline Smailes and am very proud and pleased as punch to announce that (drum roll) I was successful.

My short story Sleeping on trains will be included in the anthology Even More Tonto Short Stories. It’s in there with some very impressive writery people and I couldn’t be happier. Yay me!

How pretty is the cover?

Rusty not crusty

I haven't done this for a while so I'm a little rusty.

Why start again? To be honest it is because I have a new laptop with all kinds of spangly new special things on it including straight to blog publishing thingamy jiggy. So i thought I'd go right ahead and give it a whirl.

 

I am coming to feel more love for this new laptop than I can manage most days for the long suffering boyfriend. He won't mind me saying that as he won't be reading this. No one will. Hehehe

I have to say the screen for this post is very wide and I haven't managed to get to the end of it once yet.

Well that's it for now I just wanted to see if it works. Blogger used to be such a pain in the bum and I was forever deleting posts and cocking it all up so if this works I might very well try and become a regular.

Sacrifice

I am just about to reach (what I’m thinking of as) the magical number of words in my novel. That number is 40,000. For some reason it holds mystical connotations for me, maybe I’m thinking in these terms because I am writing a fairy tale for adults.

The total goal is 60,000 so that’s 2/3 of the way through. Up until now the most I have ever managed is 20,000 and none of it linear. I skipped around and wrote the set pieces I found easiest at the time. This one however is nearly 40,000 of continuing story.

It’s been a hard road. Not the least finding time to work when visitors and other commitments have taken me away from writing it and then I’ve had to endure a week or so of staring at the computer screen and writing one word an hour before I’ve got into the flow of it.

Over the past 6 weeks I have thought of nothing else. It’s been a fragile process during which I have read only children’s books and watched children’s films and watched no television whatsoever. Well maybe I will occasionally watch strictly come dancing. The reason for his is I’m easily distracted. I would really rather be reading than writing. I suffer from the most appalling book lust. I devour books as if I might be able to read everything before I die. So I’ve hidden myself from temptation and it’s worked really well.

Only thing is now that I’m in the last third I have a feeling the total will be more than 60,000 but I’m going to ignore that for now. I am trying to coincide my finishing with the arrival of Christmas. That way I can take some time off and all the books I have wanted to read have been saved up on my Amazon wish list and my partner will buy them all for me as Christmas presents and I can hermit for a couple of weeks and read, read, read.

I've been reading writers websites and they all say the same thing the important thing is to be there at your desk everyday. And I have. and it's worked...so far. fingers crossed.

It all feels like a sacrifice well worth making for the achievement of finishing a whole novel and gaining my masters. Would I do it again? If I got the chance yes I would, in a second.

New Earth

Well it has finally happened they have maybe found a new planet and it is feasible that one of its moons could conceivably support life. Nothing definite yet you understand and the fact that it is 41 light years away and we don’t have anywhere near the technology to travel those distances I don’t suppose anyone will be in a hurry to pack.

What a coincidence that this has occurred just after Jeanette Winterson has published her wonderful yet frightening new novel The Stone Gods. Talk about timing eh?

I can almost hear the world’s politicians heave a collective sigh of relief. Well at least it’s possible that we will have found somewhere else to run and hide on if our planet goes tits up, as I have an eery feeling it will before much longer. Maybe not in my life time but soon enough. Anytime is too soon.

Winterson’s novel explores what it would be like if we reached a global situation where the only future left would be to set off and inhabit another planet. Of course the reason this would come into being is because we’ve pretty much destroyed the planet we are living on. Would we learn from our mistakes? Would we rape, pillage and burn a New Earth?

Well I won’t give away the ending but I certainly know what I think.

Now I’m nowhere near an expert on these matters and would never conceive of trying to argue a scientific point but I can’t help think; if we developed the technology required to travel those distances what damage could that do to the Earth? Look at the damage we have been told that aeroplanes have caused.

Can we be trusted with what’s out there? Are we reliable enough to take care and nurture what we may find however different or similar it may be?

Food Glorious Food

A friend informed me recently that I live in the cheapest small town in the country.

I have bored her rigid over the past two months with news of my delightful bargain fodder.

No it is not, as you might imagine, because I have moved to a place filled with Icelands, Lidl or Aldi in fact it is quite the opposite.

For the past three years I have never lived further away than a three minute walk to my nearby Sainsbury. It has become something of a shock to those I know that I now have no idea where my nearest orange logo’d supermarket is.

Instead I have discovered the wonders of the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker. Scrap the last one and replace it with Grocer.

Hibberts’ butchers make the best homemade sausages this side of Clitheroe. In fact although not as much in the way of choice they are certainly on a par taste wise as Cowmans famous sausage shop and for me since it’s only a two minute walk from the house and not an hour’s drive you can’t complain. I shall be making sausages braised in red wine for dinner tonight. Their tomato and basil sausages (£2 a pound) fried gently then floured will be joined with half a pound of shallots from the grocers two handfuls of mushrooms and half a bottle of red wine. Seasoned thoroughly I don’t like to be shy with pepper and herbs although I have yet to figure out the point of the bay leaf , I always put one in though just in case it has secret powers I don’t know about. It takes an hour and a half to simmer in a casserole on the hob and the result is fabulous. The best onion gravy you’ll have in your life (well I think so anyway)

Since it’s sausage it has to go with mash so again from the grocers Cheshire potatotes (with dirt still on which of course I wash off) cooked and mashed with whole grain mustard, parmesan cheese and a handful of chopped spring onions. What more could you ask for on a cold November evening.

I’m loving the food here and I’m loving that it is the highest quality (sausages are homemade on site as is everything else) and none of it comes plasticized as it does in the supermarket and to top it all off it’s cheap as chips. The whole thing sans wine comes to about £4 and feeds at least four and it keeps well in the fridge too.

I am beginning to disturb myself by how much I think about food.

Yet surprisingly am eating less than I have done in years.

Quality over quantity, bring it on!!!

Making the most of it

It would appear that winter has finally arrived.

I like this time of year. I can put the fire on and curl up early at night with a good book . The rain and the cold means that for the next five months or so i can stay in without accusations of being boring.

Right now th wind is howling outside and the rain is starting to spatter the windows. The dog has been walked, the leaves have been raked and there is a beef casserole in the oven. For the rest of the day i have nothing to do but write.

I would much prefer to be teaching but the job market being what it is in this area means there is little chance of that in the forseeable future so i might as well make the most of this quiet time. And I have been. I have been writing and cooking and baking and feel as if i've been sucked into an Enid Blyton book of my own design.

Am I bored? Occasionally.

it seems to me though that we rarely get lots of time to do the things we love so I'm cramming in everything I won't have time to do when I am finally working again.

I hope to finish my novel and I'm half way through so that's a good sign and I intend to make everyones Christmas presents this year for financial and creative reasons.

For all of you at work and thinking about the cold journey home and then having to get up in the morning when it's dark I'm sure you're a little jealous and I won't rub it in but i'm jealous to. I miss having somewhere to go each day and I hope it isn't for much longer.