Oh, My Days!

Here we are, then! Back on track with 'Clive and Min.' Now, I've changed a bit of the last cliff-hanger, so I've included that to get us started again. Don't be having any moments of deja vu, will you? And please can I ask you to be aware that everything up until now has been subject to three wranglings at least with my editor (that'll be me then....) and everything hereon in has been subjected to, well, two. So the writing might not be as crisp as it was. But I am aware you are keen for another run of chapters, so I'd rather get it out there, as it were, rather than sitting on it for another six months. Heaven forbid! Here we go then...'Clive and Min' continues.... On the doorstep stood a middle aged woman of average height and stature. Her hair was sliced into a chic bob and large sunglasses obscured the top half of her face. Red lipstick, expertly applied, animated the bottom half, and a cotton scarf of navy and white stripes was sitting crisply

Well, I’ve been writing this afternoon. Or, to be more precise, re-reading ‘Clive and Min’ and trying to sort out a few plot cul-de-sacs I’ve created and need to negotiate myself out of using a series of cunning 15 point turns. I’ve only myself to blame for this narrative turmoil. I go running full tilt at a chapter and think, ‘Oooh, hello! That’s a good idea to introduce,’ then get totally carried away with the whole excitement and joy of writing, and then I put the writing to one side because I am distracted by sewing, gardening or a jolly good book. And then, when I pick it up again, I find I’ve got myself into a proper pickle. A bit like leaving off knitting a complex cardie halfway through and then stuffing it into a bag for a few months without marking if I was half way up left side, right side, sleeve, back or that fiddly bit on the neck. A lot of unravelling ensues... ...and so, where I thought I had two possibilities for Cecelia’s parentage - the real one and the red herri

Me, today. Don’t know why. Work was fine. So was the weather. All was right with the world. Just inexplicable ‘blah.’ I might need cake...

I continue to edge along with life, feeling a bit on the periphery of the main action and seriously considering the life of the recluse ever more beguiling. As time floats by I am realising I need very little to be happy and usefully employed. And that life for me is to be quite different as I grow more into the role of the non-conformist. The quiet inner voice is asking more ‘whys?’ It is seeing less reason to live life how I used to, as a well behaved citizen who did as she was told, staying within the white lines of ‘normal’ because that is what was expected. The quiet voice is getting used to saying, ‘No.’ The quiet voice is encouraging the dipping of the toe into the waters of doing what I bloody well want to and in my own time, following my own rules. But not on Saturday! Before you think I’ve gone a bit sinister (I haven’t, but having re-read that first paragraph, I gave myself a bit of an edgy shiver!) - on Saturday, I was out with my new chum exploring the new venture in Mar

Another good luck sign today - I went into the laundry to check on the baby swallows (I know, I just can’t help myself) and one of them pooped on my head! Yes, dear reader - today was Swallow Fledge Day! Two of them were perched on convenient, and large, nails fixed in the next beam across from the beam ‘pon which their nest is attached. They are testing the air waves, as it were.  Here is one of them. This was NOT the one that pooped on me... I told Andy, and he said, ‘Is it lucky to be pooped on by a bird? Is it? Is it??’ And I said yes, it jolly well is, because it was what I had been told in my childhood, but then I am from down South and he is from oop t’North and heaven knows what weird beliefs they have up there. I know I looked at him askance the first time he said, ‘Butter me no parsnips.’ I’ve not asked since. Anyway, I went and had a shower because although it is lucky to pooped on by a bird, it doesn’t do much for one’s sartorial elegance.  Message from D

The swallow babies are jostling for position in their increasingly cramped living space. Yesterday, a sizeable swallow baby bottom was hanging over the edge of the nest which made me feel a little nervous. I’m already treading carefully whenever I go into the laundry now, for fear that one of them may have been shoved overboard by its feisty siblings; the last thing I want to do is accidentally squish a baby swallow, especially given the effort I’ve invested into providing them with a safe home. And clearing up sizeable piles of poop. Anyway, I think it can’t be long now before they will be fledging! It is all very exciting! Yesterday, I found three clovers of the four leafed variety, and one that had five leaves. Here are two of them. I shoved them in my diary to bring them home which means they weren’t as carefully preserved as they might have been had I still been 9 years old and obsessed with pressing flowers. Do you remember pressing flowers? I didn’t have a posh flower press

The toaster has decided to be difficult. I think it is about three years old, which is the right age for wanting to test boundaries and develop awkward habits. It has decided it does not want to accept pieces of bread for toasting, refusing to ‘latch’ into the correct downward spring position when bread is inserted. You have to persevere in order to make the latching mechanism work, and this involves a certain level of violence on my part, which entertains his Lordship Malarkey no end. And then, when the damned machine has performed its task, most sullenly I might add, it has taken to evicting the toast at high speed across the worktop, ricocheting it some several feet, which entertains Bambino no end because he had forgotten he rather enjoyed the ‘Stealing the Toast’ game when he was a kitten, and now he has remembered and lies in ambush, awaiting his moment of glory.  It’s all very tedious and, quite frankly, putting me off toast. There is but one difference of letter between ‘toast’