Not much happening

Not been up to much recently aside from going to see Simon Amstell live.
He was terrific. How much of his material is real, how much invention I couldn't guess but he came across as complex and vulnerable; not an easy role for a stand up.

Nothing recent on the writing either owing to a combination of indolence and distraction by my late decision to do NaNoWriMo again with all that involves.

Lazy Lazy Lazy

I really do get tired of myself.
I had a decent little piece about Autumn half written in my head and just never got around to writing it down and now it's evaporated. Serve me right.

Anyway I have uploaded chapter 1 of 'Emma' for perusal. I am working on subsequent chapters slowly.
Just this morning I decided to sign up for NaNo again. Why in God's name have I done that? I really am crazy; I haven't got an idea yet alone an outline and I've got about a week to find one.
I think I'm trying to pressurise myself into disciplined work, but myself is usually wise to that old trick so it may not work and then it'll be tears before bedtime again.

You care for nothing

"You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching,and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family."
Erasmus Darwin to his son Charles.

It's hard to predict how anyone will turn out and it's easy to criticise younger people.

Children seem to have little similiarity to their parents. Having just had unpleasant dealings with Tony's son that comes from the heart !! Rejection of the older generation is commonplace and probably necessary for progressive thought, but sometimes it just seems like deliberate idiocy.
I'm not in a good mood this morning.

Monday mornin'

Start of a new working week and I actually did some writing for the novel this morning. Have a look over on 'Whatever Comes' if you're interested....

While walking Razz this morning I had a flash of long lost memory. There was a nice little single funnel steamer coming up the channel. It was still misty and she had lights on her fore and main masts.I said to the dog'Oh they're her riding lights I think'.

While wondering if I had the nautical term right I remembered a house I'd not seen in 50 years. It was called 'Riding Lights'.
The memory was of a girl called Lyn and me.I'd stayed at her house overnight and we snuck out after dark and tramped around the woods in the moonlight. At one point, trudging through someone's garden, we found a swimming pool that had been drained. It's deep end contained a large pile of fallen leaves and we'd rushed about in it shrieking and throwing armfulls in the air.
Some time later her father's car picked us up on the road and took us home.
I was never invited there again.
Strange that I should remember it so clearly today.

Okay Foxy Woxy I still luvs ya

This morning I fire up the old laptop and open Firefox and Shazzam there's my mail!
Apparently the Mozilla Fairy snuck in while I was sleeping and made things all better again. Thank You whatever you are. Even my morning headache feels better.


I have another fly in my ointment that is trivial by comparison, but I must mention it now.
I buy stuff online: it's easier than hauling the dog to a shop only to be refused entry which irks me somewhat, plus paying the delivery charge keeps somebody in work and decreases my carbon footprint, plus I'm lazy.

It took ages to find galvanised buckets even with all the might of Google, but I found some and ordered 2.
Box arrived,big box. I opened it and found shoved inside each other 2 galvanised incinerators- the ones that are really a modified dustbin.

Seeing as I want the buckets for forcing rhubarb, large and ungainly dustbins aren't gonna be adequate substitutes.

I have emailed the company and asked them to collect bins and replace with buckets. Watch this space.....

Today the sun is shining for a rare change. I must away to the borders and plant some bulbs, skippety skippety skip.

Driven Mad

Help. I'm being driven mad....

It started when I caught H1 N1 Insomnia from a certain relative.
I've had older chronic versions of Insomnia before, the kind where you wake at 03.30, get up make a cuppa and grab a start on the day before the rest of the world.

Now I've got the 'Why go to bed at all' variety, which is very deadly. I hang around my laptop till well past beddies time then I read until my eyes fall out of my face, then I have vivid crazy dreams that don't fit into ANY context I can think of. Then I get up and drag through next morning with headache etc etc.Of course I liven up again in the evening and don't go to bed then either.

Added to this internal disease Firefox is making me crazy. I've always loved Firefox and been besotted since we first met, loving all his fun features.

A little while back I downloaded 3.5 and very snazzy he was too.There were few irritations,okay he was slower than the old Firefox, but I have more patience so we didn't fight about it. Pages weren't always showing up legible because the damn print size kept wobbling, but I just dug out my specs.

However 3 days ago Foxy Baby refused to let me read my email.Maybe it was a fit of jealous pique, so I let it ride.
Another day and still no email, just blank pages. So I tried tinkering to no avail.

Then I went for help only to find that Foxy has been screwing over his other buddies and they like me are getting a bit pissed at this anti-social behaviour.

This morning, headache an' all, I backtracked to a previous Foxy Woxy , it cost me a few passwords but what the Hell.
I started again
................. (long pause for unprintable expletives).........

The old version won't let me read my email either.

If you're reading this Foxy Socksy I'd like to tell you that you are jeopardising my long held affection for you.

Get back on track, straighten up and do right by me!!!!!

Been busy: which is GOOD

I've been mentally and socially active recently.
Taking grandaughter on holiday for a week, getting a visit from an old friend, starting agility classes with the dog and joining a real knitting group. That's more in the last month than I've done in the whole of the last year.
I've also been more active online, chatting on Facebook and Ravelry etc etc.
So here I am again as well.

Today I'm uploading 3 short stories to my writing site. Look for the link on the right of this page. These are all stories submitted in different competitions over the last year or two. None of them won, but at least they're legible. Take a look if you like.

The Icelandic effect

I've been so deep down in my own muddled head that it was only last week I realised a sea change has been working through me.
I was in Iceland, no I'm not being pretentious; but Iceland has lots of big sky and 360 degree panoramas that even the most slug-like mind has to expand to cope.

I noticed while gawping that I was happy; free of stress, free of pain.I was on the outside of me among the glaciers and the lava fields and it felt damn good.
Quite possibly the latest incarnation of me crawled out of those ashes and flapped it's stubby wings.

Of course being in Iceland just brought things to a head; a lot of 'stuff' has brought me to this point. The list is long: but I think the most important steps have been the presence of Razzle in my life, Kate's illness and recovery which have altered our relationship from mother/daughter to best friends. Oddly too my estrangement from Aileen has taught me not to dwell on things I can't change. All of which and more has made me decide that I'm no longer passing through life as Tony's Relict but as Norma mark 3.


Nobody reads this blog, so note to self: hold on to this good feeling and keep testing the wings.

Mamma Mia

I watched Mark Kermode's video review of this on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61UolzFTVPI

before seeing the film. I agree with every word of it. It's a great review for a really odd movie. Do watch the review.
I think Mamma Mia is a strange movie because it was made for we ageing farts who still hanker for a LIFE and that's why it did so well at the box office; grey power rules! Cooooool.

Dronesville

I have started on my New Year Resolutions in so far as I've begun the second draft of Lizzie and signed up to the 2yr novel group on Forward Motion ( I did start this class 2 years ago but my head still wasn't glued on and the story's seed fell on stony ground) I've no idea what I'm going to write but goals are good, goals are good, goals are good.

This week Razzle has been ill with a nasty bug. I think he ate something very dead when we were on the beach last weekend. Anyway £50 poorer and with lots of stains on the rugs it looks like the anti-biotics are winning.
I've got a stiff back and neck from working on a jigsaw, but I'm being brave about the agony. It's tough here in Dronesville.

The signs are hopeful

So what else am I doing apart from maundering here?

I'm knitting again too. Now this may not sound much to you, but I seldom let a day pass without needles in my hands back in the days....
I have proudly completed TWO sweaters in the last 2 months: one for my daughter Kate and another for her husband Chris. This I find vastly reassuring because I've been a knitting addict since I was five. I have been buying yarn and knitting books in the last year, so I'm glad to be gaining some control over my stash.

Buying books has been a major addiction these last months. Buying but not reading.
New Year's resolution number 685 MUST read something all the way through. I am hopeful of accomplishing this one because Christmas tv was such utter tripe that even I, the Complete Vegetable, was appalled.

Yes I feel a degree of optimism coming on.

Now I can look at this without crying (much)

I thought it was about time that I put a photo of Tony here.I haven't looked at this picture in over a year
because this was the last photo I took of him. It was November 2004 and he was going into hospital for surgery the next day.

Still love you so much

Today a fresh start ( how many times have you heard that one before}

This IS a fresh start because I am going to begin editing my NaNo novel.
If you follow the link on this page to 'Whatever Comes' you'll see the original first draft of chapter one. I intend to edit chapter by chapter on the second draft because I'm reasonably happy with the storyline at present.

I would appreciate it should any of you choose to read a chapter, if you would add your comments.
Please tell me what you think especially where you find boring bits or sections that you think are complete rubbish.
As I progress through the chapters I'd also be glad if you would comment on the story and characters.
If you think the hero is a big Woos or the heroine is a ball-breaker I'd love to know that especially if you tell me WHY.
Hopefully we will all get to the end of the second draft.

Then we'll go for the third and final draft................