Chris James's Blog, page 17
May 14, 2018
Rhododendrons, roofs, and people whom one does not refuse
One of my favourite parts of spring is when the rhododendrons bloom, because the bumble bees they attract are very fast, and it is a challenge to get photos of them. Even if I can (see below), the results are seldom any good; for taking the best shots of insects, the later in the year, the better.
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This weekend I also had to replace the roof over the part of the old house where we store the wood for winter . This was a real Bodge & Scarper operation, as I used any old crap I had lying around to patch up the rotting timber frame before covering it in sheets of metal. Just a few hours after I finished it, we had a shower and in a break with tradition, the new metal roof didn’t leak. Here are the ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots:
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At this time of the year, I would normally be writing my next novel, however The Repulse Chronicles, Book Two: Invasion is currently on hold as result of those delightful people at The Polish History Institute, who have approached me again to verify the English translation of a major history book written by a renowned Polish historian. This is quite prestigious stuff. The Institute uses the very best translators, and my time is also quite well remunerated, so it is not the sort thing to be turned down. However, I remain confident that I will finish writing and publish Invasion later this year. Busy days here, folks, phew!
P. S. And no, those bloody chickens haven’t laid a single egg yet – Tsk! 
May 1, 2018
Spring arrives, bringing beautiful blossom and… 11 chickens
Just a month ago, we were still in the grip of winter; yesterday, while I was finishing building the chicken pen (more on that in a moment), the mercury had soared to a balmy 28 degrees. While most sensible people went somewhere nice to relax and enjoy the sunshine, I was wrapped up doing some home improvements. But first things first: if you’re one of the 99 new readers who read one of my novels in April, sincerest thanks and do please leave a review if you have a moment.
The blossom this year has been the best in a very long time. Here is the apple tree in my back garden. I’ve lived here for 20 years and can’t recall when this tree’s blossom has been so full and rich.
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A couple of weeks ago, we decided to keep our own chickens to have a reliable supply of the freshest eggs. Of course, this required a few minor adjustments to the old house at the back of the garden. First, an area had to be fenced off for them, and those posts are concreted into the ground.
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Second, in the inside of the old house, the chickens needed perches to sit and sleep on. As you can see, it is important the perches are staggered so that the birds don’t crap on their fellows immediately below them, which is of course the exact opposite of the purpose of human hierarchical structures.
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Then it was enough to bash a hole through the wall and build a couple of runs for them to hop up:
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So, finally, here are our new arrivals, which should start laying eggs in the next couple of weeks. Yummy, can’t wait
April 9, 2018
A Frog Orgy and Some Crocuses
So which pictures would you like to see first: the pretty crocuses or the down-and-dirty frog orgy? Yup, I thought so:
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And here are the pretty crocuses:
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Finally, here are a couple of compare-and-contrast water scenes. To make the water appear static, a shutter speed of anything faster 1/80th will do; to make the water appear blurred, a shutter speed of 1/10th or lower will do, but 1/10th is about the slowest shutter speed it’s possible to use handheld before camera shake sets in. If you want to shoot slower than that to make the water appear even more blurred, you’ll need a tripod and remote shutter release. Finally, if you’re one of the 96 readers who read one of my books in March, thank you and do leave a review please, whether good, bad or ugly, because they all help. Did you read that? ALL REVIEWS HELP!!!
March 31, 2018
A Pitiless Pitstop
Spoiler alert: this post is very wordy. While I try to be as erudite as usual… *** waits patiently for you to stop laughing*** …this picture of ice frozen into a plant in my garden is the only picture, so you might want to fix yourself a cup of your preferred beverage and settle down for a few minutes with this post, thanks.
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Fiction writers have a mental exercise to keep their imaginations in good working order, which is this: every time you talk to someone, anyone—the checkout person at your local supermarket, the receptionist at the office you’re visiting, the cab driver taking you to the airport, the doctor uttering the ultimate reassuring line of, “Don’t worry, it’s normal for men of your age,”—you build the background of their lives and write the scripts of their futures.
At first, this exercise requires effort and concentration; after a few years, it becomes second nature. When I meet anyone I’ve never seen before, in whatever social setting, at once my imagination feeds off the clues they give in the speech patterns, physical ticks, and the disinterest/impatience they display, to cast their background: their loves, their hates, their regrets, desires, wants, wishes. I invent their history, their families, their friends, and the schools they went to. I guestimate their temperament and the length of their temper; I imagine those life-defining moments of terror or joy or despair or realisation. Then I extrapolate and script their future: if they’re young, I imagine if they’ll have a family and where their career might lead them, and whether their life will be one of warm fulfilment or of wasted effort for little reward…
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While my ideal job would be full-time fiction writer, until that happens the job I actually do nevertheless makes me quite a lucky guy. I work mostly with young people half my age who exude youthful vitality and determination, and who have yet to see their dreams shattered and their hopes crushed (notwithstanding the 2% of them whose dreams will be realised and hopes fulfilled, obviously). In addition, as we work in a business environment I can observe them as they cultivate their preferred style of corporate disguise: whether, at one extreme, they hide their lack of self-confidence behind a shell of feigned professionalism, or whether, at the other, their ego inflates beyond the confines of the office, if not the city, in which they work. For most of them, the result is somewhere in between, but I get pleasure from watching them develop as time passes—to imagine their pasts up to that point and write the scripts of their futures—and their vibrant youthfulness triggers recollections in me of a time in the not-too-distant past when I too could put in a 16-hour day and come straight back for more.
However, two weeks ago I suddenly found myself obliged to go into hospital for an unscheduled pitstop, at once going from being one of the oldest people in my immediate environment to being one of the youngest. The timing of this mini-drama was less than agreeable: on the Saturday two weeks ago I’d returned from two days of giving lectures in Prague and was due to give another lecture in Krakow on the Monday. On Sunday, therefore, I clenched my teeth and insisted I could not afford to go into hospital, but fortunately calmer heads prevailed.
Abruptly, from imagining the futures of people half my age I found myself building only pasts. The patients in the same room as me, and those on the rest of that ward, were nearly all in their sixties or older. Indeed, one poor fellow must have been around 90, and suffered the appalling indignity of being cleaned in an open corridor. I couldn’t help but imagine him as a younger man, full of vitality and achievements and satisfaction. But the next day he and his bed had vanished, so he ended his days in the cold, impersonal environment of that hospital ward. Other patients appeared to be there mainly as a result of lifestyle choices: decades of tobacco and alcohol [ab]use, and years of less-than-healthy diets. Finally, it seemed, we all have to pay the price of youthful indulgence, out of sight of those on the outside who remain fit.
But there were lighter moments. One morning, a doctor approached me and asked if I’d mind some trainee doctors practising on me. I apparently had the perfect complaint for them to learn how to prod a patient’s stomach to just the right depth to ascertain if the patient is in pain (I was). There followed a line of around 15 young men and women who each took turns to dab my stomach until I confirmed that it hurt, but not too much. Given that I am fortunate enough to live in a country with a health service that will save my life and not present me with a bill that will bankrupt me at the end of it, I regarded helping the trainees as the least I could do.
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My reason for spending a week’s pitstop in hospital transpired to be not as serious as I’d first feared on that Sunday night two weeks ago, and the doctors looked relieved to send me on my way after seven days’ fasting with antibiotic, saline, and mineral drips having given my insides a thorough rinse. But, as is my habit, I have taken with me the images of pain and regret and resignation and, ultimately, acceptance. For so few of those patients could I envisage any outlook beyond more pain and suffering, with only memories of happier times to comfort them. I suspect this is the bleak future that awaits us all, including those vital, beautiful young people with whom I work. Time is the only god, and it’s a fan-bloody-tastic god, too.
Thanks for reading, and happy Easter.
March 14, 2018
Putin manages not to piss himself laughing for 24 hours straight
[image error]Moscow was reeling in shock this evening when a Kremlin spokesman confirmed that for the first time since the UK’s referendum on EU membership in June 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin had gone a full 24 hours without pissing himself laughing.
The spokesman said: “On every single day since 23 June 2016, our Great President has pissed himself laughing at how his army of internet trolls have proceeded to destabilise those so-called ‘democracies’ in the West. Indeed, since one of his most important assets took over the White House, it has been common for our Great President to piss himself laughing at his morning FSB briefing, and then piss himself laughing again at the evening briefing.
However, on the advice of his doctors, for the sake of his health our Great President has decreed that his FSB briefings are now to be delivered by a cast member of Mrs Brown’s Boys, so they will not be in the least bit amusing.”
The spokesman vehemently denied suggestions that Putin keeps pissing himself simply due to his advancing years, and insisted: “Listen: the KGB may have lost the Cold War, but the FSB is winning the Cyber War. We are setting you all to hating each other so your economies and then your societies will soon collapse. We come into your countries and murder who we want because we know you haven’t got the balls to do anything about it. And, frankly speaking, after the endless shame of losing the Cold War, our Great President finds this all fucking hilarious.”
However, when asked to respond to rumours from the UK that Moscow is secretly paying illicit funds to Rupert Murdoch and Paul Dacre so their papers continue to support the strategic Russian objective of destabilising the West, the Kremlin spokesman paused for a moment, considered the question, and then pissed himself laughing.
March 11, 2018
Documenting the New Motorway, #4: Piling up
Today I returned to the same places which I photographed on January 14 to see how things are coming along in my neck of the woods. Supports for a local road to go over the new motorway have been concreted, and all the plant in the area has created mounds of sand and earth over ten metres high. Probably I shouldn’t clamber up them just to take photos, but the contractors make little effort to prevent the locals going pretty much wherever they want. As I stood on the highest mound snapping away, I did sigh once or twice when I considered that just a few months ago, this was all unbroken forest…
In other news, next week I’ve got Time Is the Only God and Dystopia Descending both on Kindle countdown deals at $1.99. I’m loathe to discount any of my books because: (a) I ask what I believe they’re worth, and (b) it’s not fair on readers who’ve previously paid the full list price, but I can’t seem to get any attention on these two titles, while Repulse and Onslaught continue to chug along gaining new readers daily. And if you’re one of them, thank you.
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March 3, 2018
Winter Visitors
First things first: if you’re one of the 92 readers who read one of my books in February, sincerest thanks. I hope you enjoyed the story and do please leave a review, whether good, bad or ugly.
This week has seen temperatures plunge as the “Beast from the East” has swept across Europe, causing particular disruption in the UK. Here in Poland, we have a special word for this kind of weather. We call it ‘normal’. One of the pluses of subzero temperatures is that the local birds are keen to grab some free food when the ground is frozen, and I can enjoy photographing them from the warmth of my kitchen. This is in fact quite a challenge: the tits and siskins in particular are as fast as lightning, and to capture them in flight means using the highest shutter speed possible. The problem is that there is seldom enough daylight, so I’ve mainly been restricted to a shutter speed of 1/2000th and giving it a couple of plus exposure steps. Anyway, here are the best shots of the last week; my favourite is the sixth image where the siskin appears to be coming in to land with his wings retracted
February 11, 2018
Sunday at the Museum
Youngest Daughter wanted to do a school project on life in the Middle Ages, so today we visited the Polish National Museum to get some suitable images. It struck me again how when you’re a resident of a city rather than a tourist, you tend to take places like this for granted. Then you actually visit them and are suddenly amazed you’ve never been before. All of the images below are wooden carvings and statues that originated from churches in Silesia in south-western Poland around the turn of the 16th century (the dates on the descriptions ranged from 1480 to 1510).
In addition, another surprise awaited in the museum’s restaurant in the basement: the best sledzi (herring) I’ve ever had. So, I told Youngest Daughter that another school project requiring a visit to this museum will certainly not be a problem. In other news, I want to thank my good internet friend and loyal supporter of my scribblings, KD Rush, for this kind review of Onslaught.
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February 4, 2018
Winter Visitors
Winter already seems to have come and gone here in Poland. Sometimes I wonder if the British climate has gradually followed me to Poland over the 20 years that I’ve been living here: this year, we’ve had one week of decent, proper snow and frost, but now we’re back to the grey skies and light rain which reminds me so much of the UK winter. At the turn of the century, winter in Poland began in October and ended in April, and I’ve known years here where the temperature didn’t rise above freezing from late November to the beginning of March. But the last proper winter was 12 years ago, when we saw the mercury drop as low as -27C (-16F) for a few nights.
Still, we did have a few visitors in January, but once the snow left, so did they.
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January 14, 2018
Documenting the New Motorway, #3: More ‘Before’ Shots
After crossing the Vistula and heading in an easterly direction, now the deforestation has taken a northerly turn and, quite literally, reached my neck of the woods here in Radosc:
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On ul. Izbicka there is a cemetery. Until a couple of weeks ago, it was surrounded by forest. Today, I think I got a few good ‘before’ shots, as I hope the bus stop and cemetery walls will remain unchanged. I suppose, however, that there’s a good chance they might be replaced or moved by the time the motorway is finished in 2020:
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There are trunks and roots all over the place, and huge piles of wood chips (my bike for scale):
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The motorway is far enough away that my family and I won’t be disturbed, but close enough to make it massively useful. Finally, here is a shot from the safe part of my local forest of a bright morning earlier this week, and few shots of my dog, Crazy, doing what she does quite, er, crazily:
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