Tina Rath's Blog: A Writer's Diary, page 8

Popcorn and Pizza

We spent a very pleasant evening at the Walthamstow pop-up cinema, watching Nebraska eating pizza – and popcorn. A very civilised way to watch a film, sitting in comfortable chairs at little tables. On Sunday we have a Vintage Fair. Just a dizzy round of pleasures.

And I have started to query agents…

The First Frog of Spring

I thought the cats were behaving shiftily in the conservatory – they were spending far too much time peering round the washing machine…and when I went in there late in the evening, after Vlad and Boris had been locked out of it for a while I discovered – the First Frog of Spring – who had, I suppose, decided it was safe to come out. I opened the back door and it exited into the garden sensibly enough.

But I thought frogs were green. This one was – sort of – black.

Free E-Book Week. See the Little Chimaera for free

From today until March 8th my collection of short stories A CHIMAERA IN MY WARDROBE will be available free on Smashwords

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/292691

Use code RW100 to download and enjoy a collection of stories, told by a gentle little monster with a fondness for happy endings – read about a stage-struck devil, an avatar of the moon goddess living in suburbia, a grumpy hobgoblin, a beautiful vampire and more…

The Carnival is Over

I used the last of the Christmas ham to flavour last night’s dinner of cabbage and lentil soup. Now is the time to think seriously about New Year Resolutions. I shall certainly renew last year’s which was to drink more rum, but I have added a general category of Getting on with Stuff. Never again shall I find myself approaching the end of the year with so much undone.

So – I have booked an eye-test (after only three reminders) made an appointment at the foot clinic (two reminders) and a check up at the dentist’s (who give up after the first letter and who can blame them). I have written four thousand words of a possible sequel to Zamorna which can possibly be stitched in to the parallel rather than sequel material I already have…and I have three titles for short stories which only require plots, characters and – everything – to be written. So:

Lady Mary, When She Danced.

‘Ye Hae Lien Wrang, Lassie’

Jelly Donuts Ruined Me for Ever

will be written before the end of 2014. In the last Christmas reference: “Oh yes they will!”

Getting Sorted

Today I: accompanied my husband to buy a replacement for the dead washing machine.

Booked for the 2014 FantasyCon and booked a single room (on the grounds that no one can share with me…)

And … er … bought Edward Gorey’s Dracula Toy Theatre, a nice edition of Dracula with lovely illustrations by Becky Cloonan (hey, it’s all research) oh, and a copy of Hark a Vagrant….

Yip Yip Whoop.

Festive Fun – The Cake

Today we finished the last of the cake. It was quite large and lasted precisely a week, which, in view of the problems attending its preparation seems like a result.

Festive Fun: More Christmas reading

Today I collected my beautiful copy of The Complete Uncle by J P Martin, a collection of all the Uncle books, beautifully illustrated by Quentin Blake, and with extra articles from contributors like Neil Gaiman.

Uncle – for those who may not have come across him, is a fabulously rich elephant, perpetually involved with a battle with the Forces of Darkness as represented by the Badfort Crowd, in a wonderfully surreal environment. I have always loved Uncle and I was so delighted to have all the books together.

I might not do much writing over Christmas.

My New Book

Festive Fun: Christmas Reading

I have assembled my Christmas reading: The Box of Delights by John Masefield in my lovely Folio edition, The Fir Tree, a short story from Tales from Moomin Valley by Tove Jansson in which the Moomintroll family meet Christmas for the first time, don’t understand it at all and yet get it spectacularly right and Crowns by Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock.

Just leave me to read.

Festive Fun: Presents

I assembled a number of presents to wrap and put in sparkly bags, ready to give to friends – one was a cymbal playing monkey – like the one which appears in a short story by Stephen King – I couldn’t manage a Monkey’s Paw but I thought this would be an acceptable substitute. While I was wrapping some Bad Taste Bears – difficult because they tended to be pointy and one kept losing her cane I heard the bell on the monkey’s hat give a small chink, and realised that the cat Boris, misled by the creature’s fur, had mistaken it for legitimate prey. Luckily I was able to rescue it before it was seriously nibbled, so Boris transferred his attentions to a wooden skeleton, cheerfully decorated for the Mexican Day of the Dead. It rattled and he wanted to play with it. He seemed so determined I might have let him take it if it hadn’t been a bit expensive for a cat toy, intended for someone else, and bound to fall to pieces if he had it for five minutes. So I requested him to get off the table and leave things alone. But he did not go far. Moments later I was startled to see the skeleton making it’s way jerkily across the table…and mercifully realised that Boris was pulling it.

I took it away, and hastily wrapped it in festive paper…Boris sulked.

Festive Christmas Fun

I meant to make my Christmas Cake on the traditional Stir-Up Sunday, but I got a day’s work and the impulse passed..it kept right on passing until eventually I had to make up my mind – did I buy a cake or did I buy the ingredients for a cake?. Now I actually made a cake while I was recovering from my knee replacement. Surely I could do one with two (more or less) operational knees… surely… I decided to seize the day and take all the foreign mail to the post office to send off, then go to London and get the oddments I want for Christmas presents (skulls, M&Ms, that kind of thing) and come back via Sainsbury’s to pick up the essentials for the cake. Sadly Sainsbury’s appeared to have been attacked by a gang of ravenous locusts with a taste for dried fruit. There were no currants. Absolutely none. I persuaded myself that I probably had some in the store cupboard. I use raisins and sultanas in ordinary cooking, but never currants… I must have some…I bought the necessary orange and lemon, the small packet of almonds which was all that was left and went home. Just before midnight I checked the cupboard. There were no currants… but there were some packets of what was described as a luxury mix of dried fruit. A mix must include currants…surely. They were a bit old looking, true, but a good soak in brandy would deal with that…if we had any brandy… would whisky do? Possibly not gin… well, I put them in soak, reminding myself to take the butter out of the fridge an hour or so before I started on the cake so it would soften.

But I did not take it out of the fridge. And when I came to make the cake the butter was as hard as a rock. But I needed to to take that cake out of the oven before I went out that evening… so I put the butter into the oven on what I thought was a low temperature…it was the crackling sound and the smell that alerted me to the fact that I was wrong… I managed to salvage enough butter for the cake (the melted butter was not wasted – I used it to grease the tin). I cleaned the oven. I mixed the ingredients, many of which differed more than somewhat from Delia’s recommendations by now, wrapped the tin in brown paper and shoved it in the oven.

Actually it smelt quite nice. I’m sure it will be fine..