Turns out that just because it says ‘2 hours drying time’ on the tin of silver enamel it doesn’t mean that if you give it an absent-minded shake on the way in from the garage and then prize it open with a screwdriver so that it explodes all over the freshly painted ceiling and the lid lands splat (paint side down) on your hair, it won’t dry instantly. It does. You learn something new every day I guess. I also learnt that if you stay up really late reading Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories you will probably feel fairly lousy the next morning. Oh well, at last I’m a good month ahead of the game now when it comes to sorting out some suitably festive hair… throw in a sprig of holly and I’m laughing.
November 2, 2009
It’s been an exciting couple of weeks with trips to London, Paris and then back home to organise the Big Halloween Sleepover…
I can now reveal my exciting news of the summer – I’m the winner of this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Competition( http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/culturediversity/shortstory/ ) and as such enjoyed a very nice lunch in London at the Commonwealth Club before rushing back to pack for Paris the next day. We did as much gallivanting around the sights there as the unexpectedly huge crowds would allow and took in some new (to us, at least) places too: browsing the shelves at Shakespeare & Co; surreptitiously peering through the windows of Nicholas Flamel’s house – now a restaurant; admiring the rooftop views from Galeries Lafayette, plus a quick walk up the canal to Park de la Villette, where we failed to find the giant dragon slide but did get to explore an old submarine. We got back just before midnight on Tuesday, ready for three days of cooking and preparation for the big Halloween party on Saturday. I’m now sporting a very nice zombie look (albeit two days too late) and have decided to celebrate the return of normal life with a big stinky cold. Lovely.
September 30, 2009
The fantastic thing about ‘research’ is that now and again you stumble over something stunning, like this – http://pingmag.jp/2008/07/25/martin-and-munoz/ . The less fantastic thing about research is the growing sense that while hunting for weird and wonderful images on the internet and compiling ever longer lists of background questions is infintely more fun than writing, it doesn’t actually get the words onto the page. Neither, it turns out, do housework, cooking, going to the gym, reading Paris guidebooks or visiting friends. Shame.
August 23, 2009
‘Footprints’ reading at Waterstones, Dorchester, 27th August
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There will be a FOOTPRINTS book signing event / reading at Waterstones in Dorchester on Thursday, 27th of August, at 7:30pm.
Authors Kate Kelly and David L Clements will be there to read and sign copies of the book. Refreshments will be served.
for more details see http://ericreynolds.livejournal.com/70378.html or http://scribblingseaserpent.blogspot.com/2009/08/footprints-signing-in-dorchester-on.html
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August 23, 2009
It’s almost the end of the summer holidays now although the weather makes it feel more like the middle of autumn. We’ve been busy roaming around Europe with a day trip to London and then visits to Switzerland and France from our base in the Black Forest. We even called in at Luxembourg and Belgium on the way home just to clock up a few more countries. Despite our best intentions we failed miserably on the Black Forest gateau front (the streudel always won out once we got to the cake counter) but we did visit some hideously naff cuckoo clock emporiums and saw the World’s Largest Cuckoo clock. We also dug for minerals at Slag Heap Clara which was great fun and hunted for fossils at Holzmaden slate quarry. We all had our hired chisels and hammers but ended up just pulling belemnites out by hand and left the chipping out to more determined hunters… I came back to some very exciting writing news which I cannot divulge for another month or so but have failed to write a single word all summer. The writing room has been and still is a guest room for visiting family which is my latest feeble excuse for not even picking up a pen and notebook. I’m currently working on a better one but even excuses are proving too taxing in my post-holiday stupor…
July 16, 2009
Two deliciously short shorts coming up: the Miniwords contest for stories of 50 words or less closes on 10 August – see http://miniwords2009.sharedspace.org/rules.php and Hint Fiction are accepting fiction of 25 words or less for their upcoming anthology throughout August – see guidelines at http://www.robertswartwood.com/?page_id=8 .
July 16, 2009
Apparently he/she (it’s hard to tell when they’ve got their hats on) is demanding more pay and better working conditions and is refusing to enter into negotiations with anyone over 2 foot tall. Looks like I’ll be tackling the towering pile myself then. Joy. Hopefully the packing fairy will be feeling more co-operative when it comes to sorting everything out for our Black Forest trip. I’ve started the ball rolling by making up some CDs for the car – best to get the essentials covered I thought and then worry about the incidentals like clean clothes and bedding later. Mummy, I’ve only got one pair of socks to last me a fortnight – Never mind dear, it’s Carly Simon next...
July 10, 2009
Feeling gloomy after a great few days in Berlin, wishing I was still there. It was our first time in the city and we can’t wait for another excuse to go back again. We did the works – or at least as much as we could cram into three and a half days – from the ultra modern Reichstag cupola (which was even more architecturally stunning than I’d imagined (grab yourself a child or two to jump the queue and go in the side entrance – I always knew they’d come in handy one day)) to the beautiful ancient Ishtar Gate at the Pergamonmuseum on Museum Island. We bought old German bank notes at a flea market (ranging from 50 mark notes right up to 50 million marks – now that’s what I call inflation), admired the old mosaics and the new stained glass at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, walked in the gardens at Schloss Charlottenburg and through the maze of huge concrete pillars at the Holocaust Memorial, checked out Chekpoint Charlie, Potsdamerplatz and Alexanderplatz and watched the riot police keeping tabs on an anti-capitalist demonstration at the Brandenburg Gate. We saw the outside of the Olympic stadium but that was closed to visitors because of the World Athletic Championships. And in between we feasted on sausage and schnitzel and ate hotel apples under the antique gas lamps in the Tiergarten. Fantastic. But now we’re back to the English rain and the Berlin novels we didn’t quite manage to finish while we there there – ”Marlene Dietrich Lived Here’ by Eleanor Bailey, Beatrice Colin’s ‘The Luminous Life of Lily Aphrodite’ and ‘Berlin: A Novel’ by Pierre Frei. And who could forget ‘Emil and the Detectives’? There’s plenty more where they came from… I went for the typing ‘Berlin’ into our library search catalogue option but the fictional cities site at http://www.fictionalcities.co.uk/berlin.htm is a much nicer way to go about finding the perfect holiday read. Check it out for Venice, Florence and London too.
July 1, 2009
Heard today that I came third in the 2009 Shine poetry contest with my poem ‘Life in Film No.62′ (http://www.theshinejournal.com/2009poetrywinners.htm). Very pleased as I have a bit of a soft spot for ‘Life’ and now it’s out in the big wide world where I always hoped it belonged…
June 30, 2009
We bought a nice new birdhouse this spring for our nice new fence in order to house some nice new birds. Only the birds didn’t come. The wasps did. Over the past few weeks they’ve been constructing their nest inside (made from chewed wood and wasp spit I believe) and the number of inhabitants has been steadily increasing. We’ve had an ideal view of their many comings and goings from our kitchen window and they’ve been too busy attending to the larval wasps (who doesn’t love a nest full of those cuddly critters?) to bother about us. We decided action would need to be taken before the second half of the summer, though, when the stinging season is in full swing. I rang the local council today to find out more and just hours later a pest controller has already been and gone. Poor old waspies. It was fascinating watching them swarm about the nest afterwards, clearly desperate to get back in but constantly driven back by whatever was sprayed in there. Hopefully they’ll have calmed down enough for me to venture out with the washing by now. I can’t help feeling a little mean (though given the promximity to the house, the pavement, the shed, our fruit plants and the bins they couldn’t really have stayed) so I shall be doubly nice to any bees I stumble across.
