Debbie Young's Blog, page 57
January 8, 2014
Travels With My Blog
Our camper van, precariously parked outside Linlithgow Palace, Scotland, last summer
As regular readers will know, one of the most frequent topics on this blog is travel, usually involving our family motorhome (posh name) / camper van (what we usually call it). But when I was giving my website a New Year makeover, it occurred to me that there’s one sort of travel that I’ve neglected to mention here – and that’s virtual travel.
Have Blog, Will Travel
No, I haven’t devised a Star-Trek style teleporter – though I’d love one of those, if I could be confident that on arrival at my destination all my molecules would be reassembled in exactly the right place. What I’m talking about is guest blogging – where I’ve hopped across the ether to write a guest post on somebody else’s blog.
Just before Christmas, for example, I managed to appear both in the USA and Greece on the same day, thanks to two blogging friends, the US author Amira Makansi and writer/musician Jessica Bell, who is based in Athens, Greece, but comes from Australia, which pleasingly allows me to squeeze another continent into this conversation.
About Amira Makansi
Amira Makansi
I met Amira via the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), whose Self-Publishing Advice blog I edit. I was intrigued to learn that she had co-written her debut novel The Sowing with two other writers - her mother and her sister. She kindly wrote about her experience on the ALLi blog, then invited me back to hers to be interviewed about my own book, Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes. You can read my interview – and lots of interesting posts by Amira and other guest bloggers - on her blog here.
Introducing Jessica Bell
Jessica Bell
Jessica Bell is another ALLi friend, a live wire with endless creative talents: she writes brilliant novels, poems and music. Though based in Athens, she also runs an annual Writers’ Retreat in Ithaca, mythical home of Odysseus and Penelope. Not quite as mythical as, say, Atlantis – it does actually still exist, as I can personally testify – I went there quite a few times in my pre-motherhood sailing days. It’s hard to imagine anywhere more peaceful or beautiful to pamper your muse. This probably makes Jess just about the coolest person I know.
One of the many other plates that Jessica spins is her blog The Alliterative Allomorph (yes, I also had to look up Allomorph in the dictionary), and every Wednesday she invites a guest blogger to sound off about any writing-related topic of their choice. Just before Christmas, she hosted a festive-themed post by me,. I realise this does not have the same topical appeal in early January, but it was great fun to write, allowing me to segue from my own frivolous, hot-off-the-virtual-press Christmas ebook to what in my opinion is the greatest ever Christmas novel – Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. There’s something about Jess’s blog that makes me want to talk about the greats, because last time I was on there, I talked about Tolstoy.
A Virtual Paper Chain
Helen Hollick
I also took part last month in a mass blogging event, known as a blog hop. This requires a number of bloggers to blog on the same theme, at the same time, and link to each other’s posts, leading readers on an ethereal tour. This one was held on 21st December, the shortest day (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), and took as its theme “Casting Light Upon the Darkness”. Historical novelist Helen Hollick kindly organised this mass blog, which meant coordinating 30 bloggers in different locations and time zones, and it was fascinating to see each author’s individual take on the subject. You can see Helen’s starting point here, but if you want to hop straight to my post, you’ll find it here.
So those were my December outings. In future, whenever I write guest posts or am interviewed on other people’s blogs, I’ll be adding links here so that you can read them in situ – and while you’re at it, you’ll gain an introduction to another great blog too!
By the way, I also regularly host or interview other author bloggers on my Off The Shelf Book Promotions website: www.otsbp.com - but more about that another day.
Follow That Blog!
If all that blog-hopping is making you dizzy, there are two simple ways that you can keep up with my online wanderings without having to remember to click on my blog every week:
sign up to receive each new post in your email inbox by clicking the “follow” button
subscribe to my new e-newsletter, which provides will give you a monthly round-up of my online activity within a single email, once a month
You’ll find instructions on how to do both of these things in the right hand column on the home page of my blog.
And finally… happy New Year, wherever you happen to be, online or in the real world!
Filed under: blogging, reading, self-publishing, travel, writing Tagged: Amira Makansi, blog chain, blog hop, blogging, Helen Hollick, internet, Jessica Bell, reading, travel, virtual travel, writing
December 20, 2013
Casting Light on the Darkness
A few last-minute technical hitches mean that some of the links in the post published just now for the Winter Solstice may not be working till after 9am on the morning of 21st December - so please
As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s a big task to organise what is effectively a joint post by 30 writing (the bloggers’ equivalent of synchronised swimming!) and Helen Hollick has done a fabulous job.
If there are still any links that are not working for you, please leave me a comment and I’ll get them fixed.
Thank you – and happy Winter Solstice!
Filed under:
Let There Be Light! – Casting Light on the Darkness of the Winter Solstice
Logo design by http://www.avalongraphics.com
Welcome to the Winter Solstice Blog Hop - a grand tour of 30 blog posts, published simultaneoulsly on a shared theme.
My contribution is a short story written especially for the event:
FEAR OF THE DARK
A Short Story for the Winter Solstice
Hitting the “speaker” button on my mobile, I flung it down on my desk, as if physically distancing myself from my sister Kate’s voice would protect me from giving in to her. But I knew it was already a lost cause.
“I wouldn’t have asked you if our usual sitter hadn’t come down with the lurgy, but you know the rule – I can’t have her in contact with the kids until 48 hours after she last threw up, and I can’t sentence the whole family to a sickly Christmas just because of you.”
And so it was that I found myself heading out of town, down unlit country lanes, on the winter solstice, the worst night of the year for anyone who, like me, is afraid of the dark. Kate’s years of legal training were not in vain. She can argue that black is white and people will believe her.
But even if it had been broad daylight, I was still not ready to go back to Kate’s, just six months after last summer’s tragedy.
Well, ok, so it isn’t really a tragedy when a 92 year old woman dies. I’m only allowed to use that word very sparingly at work when I’m writing up the obituaries, and my editor would definitely blue-pencil it out in this case. But it certainly was traumatic, most of all for me, because I found her. And the 92 year old woman in question was my lovely Great Aunt Sophie.
It was Midsummer’s Eve and we were all out at my Kate’s huge place in the country to celebrate her husband Tom’s 40th birthday. Normally this would be a treat for me, escaping from the confines of my poky city-centre flat to soak up expensive food and drink at their expense. Tom’s family own a fancy car dealership, and what with Kate’s lawyer’s wages too, they’re loaded. For this party, they’d pushed the boat out even more than usual, because they were also celebrating Kate’s promotion to partner at her legal firm. It felt more like a wedding than a birthday bash, and, as ever, I felt like the bridesmaid, never the bride. But I’m not complaining – I could get used to prosecco.
All the family were invited to come during the day, with friends and work colleagues piling over in the evening. After family games for all ages in the afternoon, there followed a buffet and dancing to a live band in a marquee in the garden. The finale was a professional firework display, with the pyrotechnics let off from the stableyard giving everyone a fine view from the vast terrace. (It was a good thing there were no horses in the stables, only Tom’s family’s collection of vintage cars.)
Great Aunt Sophie was at the daytime celebrations of course, as she had been at every family partythat I remembered. She’d even been at our house on the night that I was born, and loved to tell me of the first time she saw me, just minutes after I was born. I had rosy pink cheeks, the loudest of cries and two big tears in the corners of my scrunched up little eyes.
Great Aunt Sophie was so much a part of my life that I couldn’t imagine ever being without her, even though I knew that eventually we must part. Whenever I’d been away from home for long, such as when I went off to university for three years, I’d keep a little bottle of her favourite perfume in my handbag, so that I could get a little hit of her summery, flowery aura whenever I was missing her. But she showed no sign of giving up the ghost that day, beating us all hollow at cards and charades. She claimed to be unimpressed by Tom’s milestone birthday.
“Forty? That’s nothing! I’m in my 93rd year, I’ll have you know! That’s you twice over, young Tom, plus your Zoe and Archie too.”
Zoe and Archie are Tom and Kate’s kids, aged ten and three.
Zoe was particularly impressed.
“So you’re me nine times over, plus an Archie,” she gasped. “No wonder you get so tired.”
Sure enough, Sophie was flagging by the time the evening guests arrived, and she pottered off contentedly to bed around 8pm, shrugging off sympathetic looks as she made herself her usual bedtime mug of cocoa.
“I’ll have the last laugh on you, my dears. I’ll be fresh as a daisy at dawn while you’re all out for the count nursing sore heads.”
I chinked my Prosecco glass against her mug, suspecting from my already spinning head that she’d be proven right.
Next day I awoke at 8.47am, according to the annoying loud clock ticking away on the bedside table in the guest room. Trying to remember exactly when and how I got to bed the night before, I staggered out onto the landing, kicking aside my discarded clothes on the floor, to search for orange juice – my preferred hangover remedy of choice. It was a glorious bright day already, with sun streaming in through the tall stained glass window that dominates the staircase, scattering coloured shadows across the pale parquet floor. I had to turn my head away from its glare, and as I did so, I caught sight at the far end of the corridor a white heap, crumpled at the foot of the full-length mirror on the wall. Oh God, I thought, someone’s been sick in the night and dumped their sheets there for Kate to wash – charming!
But then, my eyes adjusting to the shadows, I realised that it wasn’t a soiled sheet at all, but a pristine cotton nightdress – and contained within it was the frail body of my Great Aunt Sophie. I ran towards it, thinking I’d help her to her feet after a fall, but before I even reached her I realised that she was beyond my help.
Even so, I reached out hopefully to touch the smooth, papery skin on the back of her hand, as familiar as the taut flesh on my own. Worn smooth as old silk by her age, exuding her favourite night-scented stock handcream, its raised veins were still.
I only realised I had screamed out loud when I saw Tom reflected in the mirror, standing over us both. He’d staggered out of his and Kate’s room, looking nauseous.
“Christ,she looks how I feel!” he began. “I thought she was on tea and cocoa, but maybe it was Sophie who drank that litre bottle of sherry?”
Kate appeared alongside him, hastily tying the belt of her silk kimono.
“Tom, you moron, she’s not drunk, she’s bloody dead!”
Tom’s face turned ashen. He must be mortified, I thought – no that’s the wrong word, change it to gutted.
A more appropriate choice, it turned out, as straight away he dashed to the bathroom to be noisily, violently sick.
I never saw Great Aunt Sophie again.
After the funeral was over – I have to report that the post-mortem decided it was natural causes, by the way – normal life carried on for us all, except Great Aunt Sophie, of course. The only difference for me, apart from Sophie’s excruciating absence, was that I began to find excuses to avoid going back to Kate’s house. I couldn’t bear to see again the place where my beloved aunt had died. Until tonight, I thought Kate had understood. She had at least been letting me off the hook.
Of course, I knew I’d have to go there some time. I tried to bring my objective journalistic judgement into play. Surely I wasn’t going to let the inevitable death of one old lady cut me off from the rest of my family? But why did it have to be tonight, of all nights? The longest, darkest night, which I usually spend at home with all the lights on, the telly on full blast, trying to distract me from my fear of being alone in the dark.
I don’t know why the dark upsets me so, but I can’t remember a time when it didn’t. I always slept with a nightlight in my childhood bedroom, a much brighter one after Kate had moved into her own room. I even took it away with me to university.
Although as a local paper reporter, I’m positively penniless compared to Kate, I’m still happy to spend a sizeable chunk of money on my electricity bill every month, just so that I can keep all my lights on. I once went to stay with an environmentally-minded friend who only ever lit up the room she was actually in, turning the lights off obsessively on and off wherever she went around her house. If I had to do that in the winter, I think I’d die. Either that, or I’d have to move into a bedsit, so I had only one room to worry about.
I think in a former life I must have been something like a swallow. I need light and warmth to thrive, and I long to fly south as soon as the nights draw in each winter. Then I’d only return when the nights are only as long as the time I need to sleep.
Fear of the dark dominates my life. Although the power never goes off in the city, I keep a wind-up torch and candles in every room, in a place where I know I can put my hand on them, just in case we’re ever plunged unexpectedly into the dark.
What would happen if I had to spend time in the dark? I don’t know, because I’ve never had the courage to find out.
When I got to Kate and Tom’s , my heart was still pounding from driving through dark lanes with no street lighting. How do people live out in the sticks like this, with only the moon and stars to brighten the night? I’d had to drive the last three miles with the map-reading light on in my car to compensate. When I reached their house, I pulled my car up as close to their front door as I could. Thankfully, their security light came on just after I swung the car door open and my foot crunched down on the gravel, sounding for all the world as if I’d stepped on a pile of light bulbs. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
When Kate let me in, I realised she must have been feeling guilty about dragging me out here, as she’d crammed the coffee table full of upmarket snacks – olives, pistachios, kettle chips,Belgian chocolates – alongside a newly-opened bottle of Rioja on the hearth. She knows Rioja is my absolute favourite, even better than Prosecco in the winter.
“I can’t drink that, I’ve got to drive home later,” I objected ungratefully, already worrying that those lanes would be even darker after midnight.
“Don’t be stupid, you must stay here, I’ve got the guest room ready,” said Kate.
I thought it better not to tell her that I wasn’t prepared to go upstairs. After all, that’s where the childrens’ bedrooms were. What kind of babysitter was I?
Kate chucked a couple more logs on the blazing open fire before tipping about a third of a bottle into one of those big balloon glasses, the comforting sort that sit nicely in your hand in pubs, which they give you to make you drink more. I glanced around the room, scanning for candles. There were plenty of big fancy scented ones with multiple wicks in glass jars, the sort that cost about as much as a standard lamp. I felt in my pocket to reassure myself that I’d got matches to hand.
“We’ve got a taxi booked for half past midnight, so we’ll see you about one,” said Kate, wrapping a thick red wool stole about her shoulders. “But feel free to go to bed before we get back if you want to. That would be fine.”
I scowled. There was no way I was going upstairs. There were shadows and dark corners, and no light switch within reach before you got there. I picked up the Sky remote to distract myself. My self-hypnosis would begin the minute they went out the door.
A slight figure appeared in the living room doorway.
“Hello, Emma,” said Zoe, who recently dropped the Auntie title on the basis that she’s nearly a teenager. (Nearly? She’s 10 – she must be as bad at maths as Kate.) I hadn’t seen her for a few months, and for a moment I was startled by how similar she is to Kate – same long-lashed green eyes, same fine dark hair, falling in shiny waves to her shoulders, which, just like Kate, she shrugs in a particular way when she’s restless or bored. In fact, I always think of Kate as being about 10, as that was how old she was when I first became aware of ages, when I was about 5. Archie is much more like me, straight lighter hair, blue eyes, serious look. Sometimes, when we’re all out together – which has happened much less often lately – people will assume he’s mine and only Zoe is Kate’s. It’s funny how these genes seem to side-step through family trees sometimes – mannerisms and ways of speaking too.
“Archie’s in bed already, because he’s been a bit zonked since having his latest cold ,” Zoe was saying. “I’m off to bed too now, night night.”
She came over to give me and her mum a kiss.
“Please will you tuck me in before you go out, Mum?”
So much for the nearly-teenager.
I awoke, shivering on the sofa, just after the ten o’clock news had finished. The log fire had dwindled to ash and barely a spark. Hauling myself up off the sofa, I shuffled over to the fireplace to add a handful of kindling topped by a couple of logs. These weighed much less than I expected from the look of them, then I realised they’d probably been stacked in the stables to dry since last winter. What luxury to have so much space. Soon sparks were crackling like gun shot in the grate, popping out of the dried ivy clinging to the bark, and I jumped at every single tiny explosion.
I turned my stiff back to the fire to warm it, remembering that I still hadn’t adjusted my office chair as I’d meant to. I always seemd to be too engrossed in bashing out my latest news story to remember to sit with the health-and-safety-approved posture.
It was only while I was surveying the room with a rapidly warming bottom, like some lordly Victorian gentleman, that I remembered that Kate and Tom didn’t bother with curtains in their house. All around me, on every wall, there was a large, blank glass window, with a view of nothing but the blackest of nights. Wherever I turned, I could see one. And I really didn’t want to look.
Ever since we read Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” at school when I was about 14, I’ve had a thing about not looking out of windows after dark. I have a vivid memory of terrifying scenes in which dismissed, disgraced servants come back to press their face against the glass after dark, sinister with some unspoken threat. I cannot think of anything more frightening – the cold, dark threat of the unknown, emerging from the depths of one’s own imagination. I’m not even sure now whether I’ve misremembered it, but I daren’t go back and re-read the book to check, in case it makes it worse rather than better. I don’t know what the answer is.
I cupped my hands round my eyes, attempting to create the effect of a horses’ blinkers, and tried to concentrate on the telly, but my pulse was too loud in my ears. I rummaged in my pocket for my matches and stooped down to light an exotic-looking, five-wicked candle in the fireplace. I didn’t like to calculate how much each minute’s burning of those five little flames must be worth, I just needed all the light that I could get.
Slumping back on the sofa, gazing at Kate’s huge television screen, I tried some deep breathing exercises to calm my nerves. The sound of my pulse was just receding when there came another noise – the creaking of a door. I gave a little shriek and looked around, then realised with relief that it was upstairs – probably Zoe going to the loo or getting a glass of water, rather than a burglar or a ghost downstairs. I tried to attend to the panel game that was just starting up Channel 4, and to ignore than the glass of Rioja that was tempting me to take some Dutch courage. I heard the door creak again as Zoe pattered back across the parqueted landing to her room.
Then just before the start of Round 3, a noisy coughing started upstairs. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, hoping it would quickly abate. It sounded shrill – it was definitely Archie rather than Zoe.
Zoe will sort him out, I told myself, hopefully. She doesn’t need me to go upstairs. I’m not going upstairs. I’m staying by this bright and cosy fire.
The strong scent of the candle, channelling verbena and jasmine, started to weave its way down into my lungs. A little spluttery cough of my own brought me to my senses. Kate may be my sister, I suddenly thought, but she’s a lawyer too. I can’t let her son die of neglect, just because I’m too afraid to go upstairs.
On impulse, I knocked back half the glass of Rioja – there was still time for it to wear off before I had to drive. Then I seized a pale shawl that lay artistically draped across the rocking chair and wrapped it tightly around my shoulders, as if it were symbolic armour against the dark. Cautiously I crossed hall to to the foot of the dark oak stairs and began to climb them carefully.
Please stop coughing, please stop coughing, I urged Archie at every tread. Don’t make me come all the way up there.
I proceeded as quietly as I could, as if making my passage in silence might reduce the risk lurking in the shadows.
Archie went on coughing.
I rounded the dogleg half-landing and continued to climb, conscious that the higher I went, the darker it was. I couldn’t believe Kate hadn’t left the landing light on. Wasn’t it dangerous to have unlit stairs? It wasn’t as if she couldn’t afford the bill.
Archie’s coughing was becoming shriller, tighter, grating on my nerves.
At least he’s breathing, I comforted myself. No real harm done yet. But what was Zoe thinking? Why wasn’t she in there helping her poor little brother?
A small amount of moonlight was now glinting down from the skylight above the corridor, and as I reached the top of the stairs and turned left towards the children’s bedrooms, I stood stock still. For there, at the far end, who should I see but my aunt, standing in the spot where she had died? Great Aunt Sophie, shrouded in white, was staring back at me, her long pale hair adrift from her habitual bun, and streaming down her shoulders, thicker and lusher than I’d ever seen it in her life.
Who was it that said “Death becomes her?”
And why do such random thoughts spring into our brains at the least helpful time?
I didn’t know I’d screamed until Zoe flung open her bedroom door, flicking on the hall light switch and casting a full 100 watts upon me – and on Great Aunt Sophie. Except it wasn’t Sophie at all, but me, like a frightened rabbit caught in headlights, staring at myself in the mirror.
Then I realised that Archie had stopped coughing.
Tearing into his room, with Zoe right behind me, I snapped on the light switch on the wall (no nightlights in this house, cruel mother that Kate is) and dropped to my knees at the side of his tiny bed. It’s one of those ones that you pull out to make bigger, every time your child grows a bit. It always reminds me of a child-sized coffin. His eyes were closed, his cheeks pale, his body still, and sticking out of his mouth was a small plastic toy zebra. I grabbed it quick and flung it across the room, seized him by the shoulders and shook him.
“Archie, Archie, breathe, for God’s sake!”
After what seemed like hours, he stirred slightly, took a noisy deep gasp, puffed it out, and resumed normally steady breathing, tinged with a snuffly baby snore.
He didn’t even open his eyes as I lay him gently back down on his side, hoping I hadn’t dislocated any bones. He settled immediately back down to the easy sleep of the small, untroubled if slightly nasally-challenged child.
Zoe, meanwhile, calmly collected the toy zebra from the other side of the room, gave it a token wipe on her nightie, and stood it up neatly beside its twin on the gangplank of Archie’s toy ark.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a drama out of it, Emma,” said Zoe. “Anyone would think you were scared of the dark.”
I emitted a false little laugh and hoped it fooled her.
“Haha. Back to bed now, Zoe, or your mum will be cross with you.”
“No, she’ll be cross with you, Auntie Emma,” replied Zoe firmly.
For a moment, Zoe had forgotten her near-teenage status, and she trotted obediently back to bed.
After I’d made sure there were no other choking hazards within Archie’s reach, I pulled his door to not quite closed, just to be on the safe side, and turned back to stare at myself in the mirror. With Kate’s pale wrap around me and with the shadows cast across my face by the moonlight, I really did look a lot like Great Aunt Sophie. As I stood there smiling at my reflection, I realised that it was actually a comfort. Maybe she wasn’t as far away as I had thought.
As I pottered slowly back down the stairs, I began to wonder what my children will look like, when I get round to having them. Will they get any of Sophie’s genes, or will they turn out like Kate? Or Mum? Or Dad? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
I’d finished the Rioja by the time that Kate and Tom got home, and I was busy writing in the shorthand pad that I always keep in my satchel a shopping list for the garden centre of the scented plants I’m going to put in my window boxes this spring: narcissus, wallflowers, hyacinths, and Great Aunt Sophie’s favourite, of course, night-scented stock. I’m looking forward to sitting on my balcony when the days are at their longest, a glass of something cool and refreshing in my hand, looking out to the views beyond the city, and breathing in the perfumes of the flowers of the long summer nights.
When Kate finally staggered home, she thought I didn’t notice her fall off one of her designer heels as she got out the car, but I’d been watching them as they pulled up outside the big picture window of the lounge.
“Kate, had you ever noticed how much I look like Great Aunt Sophie?” I said casually, hoping that she would agree.
Kate gave me that knowing look that only big sisters can pull off.
“Of course you bloody do, have you only just noticed? Now get to bed, you look knackered.”
“Okay.”
I heaved myself up from the comfortable wallowing position that I’d sunk into in the soft leather sofa, and gave her a light goodnight kiss, though not so light that it didn’t leave a little Rioja-coloured mark on her cheek.
“Thanks for having me,” I said, unnecessarily, and wove my way upstairs with an airy tread, not forgetting on the way past the children’s room to give Great Aunt Sophie a little wave in the mirror.
THE END
Logo by http://www.avalongraphics.com
And now, on with the blog hop!
The theme of the blog hop is throwing light amidst the darkness, and it’s down to each author to interpret this brief however they wish. They might unravel a mystery, reveal a little-known fact, or share a short story with darkness and light at its heart – or anything else that takes their fancy.
Whatever the blogger’s take on the theme, you can be sure each post will brighten up this longest, darkest night for us all. (Unless, of course, you’re reading this from the southern hemisphere, in which case you’re enjoying your longest day!)
Huge thanks to the tireless historical novelist Helen Hollick inspiring and organising us all.
And now, pour yourself a drop of your favourite midwinter tipple, sit back and enjoy the journey…. And when it’s over, take heart, for after tomorrow, the nights will start drawing out again!
Happy Winter Solstice!
Take the Tour
Helen Hollick : A little light relief concerning those dark reviews! Plus a Giveaway Prize
Prue Batten Casting Light….
Alison Morton Shedding light on the Roman dusk Plus a Giveaway Prize!
Anna Belfrage Let there be light!
Beth Elliott : Steering by the Stars. Stratford Canning in Constantinople, 1810/12
Melanie Spiller : Lux Aeterna, the chant of eternal light
Janet Reedman The Winter Solstice Monuments
Petrea Burchard : Darkness – how did people of the past cope with the dark? Plus a Giveway Prize!
Richard Denning : The Darkest Years of the Dark Ages: what do we really know? Plus a Giveaway Prize!
Pauline Barclay : Shedding Light on a Traditional Pie
David Ebsworth : Propaganda in the Spanish Civil War
David Pilling : Greek Fire – Plus a Giveaway Prize!
Debbie Young : Fear of the Dark (that’ll be me!)
Derek Birks : Lies, Damned Lies and … Chronicles
Mark Patton : Casting Light on Saturnalia
Tim Hodkinson : Soltice@Newgrange
Wendy Percival : Ancestors in the Spotlight
Judy Ridgley : Santa and his elves Plus a Giveaway Prize
.Suzanne McLeod : The Dark of the Moon
Katherine Bone : Admiral Nelson, A Light in Dark Times
Christina Courtenay : The Darkest Night of the Year
Edward James : The secret life of Christopher Columbus; Which Way to Paradise?
Janis Pegrum Smith : Into The Light – A Short Story
Julian Stockwin : Ghost Ships – Plus a Giveaway Present
Manda Scott : Dark into Light – Mithras, and the older gods
Pat Bracewell Anglo-Saxon Art: Splendor in the Dark
Lucienne Boyce : We will have a fire – 18th Century protests against enclosure
Nicole Evelina What Lurks Beneath Glastonbury Abbey?
Sky Purington : How the Celts Cast Light on Current American Christmas Traditions
Stuart MacAllister (Sir Read A Lot) : The Darkness of Depression
Filed under:
December 17, 2013
Talking Turkey In the Countdown to Christmas
Click the image to visit the book’s page on Amazon
This time last year, I had the honour of having one of my short stories, The Reason Why We Eat Turkey at Christmas, featured on the Mumsnet Advent Calendar.
Mumsnet, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a highly-regarded, well-read parenting website. Dads are by no means banned from it, though some may be intimidated by the name.
Mine wasn’t a children’s story (though older children may enjoy it), because the calendar was aimed at parents - and what parent doesn’t love an advent calendar, big kids that we all are?
But in this age of the e-reader, another fun festive trend is emerging to get us in the mood for Christmas: the rise of the special Christmas e-books. These are usually short stories rather than full-length novels, because who has time to read much when there’s Christmas shopping to be done? Nor the budget to buy them – so these e-books are usually priced low, designed to provide an affordable treat that offers light relief from the stresses of Christmas preparations. Speaking as one who has yet to write a single Christmas card, post a parcel or finish my shopping, it’s a service made to measure for me. I’ve just enjoyed two very different such stories by my friends and .
On finishing Andrew’s book, it dawned on me that here was a bandwagon (or perhaps I should say sleigh) on which I, as a self-publishing author, ought to jump. So last night I entered the fray, and hey presto, via the digital magic of Amazon, I’ve conjured up a new Kindle e-book of my Mumsnet Christmas story, under the new, snappier title of The Owl and The Turkey. As it’s original name suggests, it is a fun, frivolous and ever so slightly silly fable that suggests the real reason that we eat turkey for Christmas. The tale begins when a young Queen, bored of wild boar, despatches her Royal Huntsmen on a quest to find the medieval answer to fast food. No birds were harmed in the writing of this book, which is suitable for vegetarians of all ages.
The Owl and the Turkey is now for sale on Kindle at just 77p/99c here.
And while you’re reading it, I’d better make a start on those Christmas cards….
COMING SOON:
While we’re in wintry mood, make a mental note to come back to this site on Saturday, when I’ll be taking part in a special feature about the winter solstice, with links to fun and fascinating contributions from 30 other writers, kindly choreographed by my friend the historical novelist Helen Hollick.
From My Christmas Archive
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December 5, 2013
The Christmas Past and the Christmas Present
What’s inside – is it a Toblerone? (Photo: http://www.giftideasformen.com)
I must admit I am a lazy wrapper.
Not for me the creative approach of an old flame who tried one year to make Christmas extra interesting by disguising all his gifts as something else. A bit of a challenge when his present to me was an LP. (Yes, I am that old.)
His plan backfired. Presented with a box several inches deep, I was expecting much more than a record. Disappointed to find the only thing in the package apart from Wings’ “Band on the Run” was air, I kept the LP but ditched the relationship.
As for me, I keep gift-wrapping simple. The last few Christmases, I’ve mostly given books as presents – so easy to wrap!
The Best Way to Shop for Books
And if you buy print books, don’t just order them online – support your local independent bookshop, where you’ll be ably assisted by knowledgeable, well-informed shop assistants with brains, rather than dodgy Amazon algorithms. When searching on Amazon for travel books about Japan, its customer service robot once advised me “If you like this book, you might also like “Diary of a Wombat” and “Australian hat with corks”. Bizarre or what?!
But lately I’ve realised I’ve been missing a trick: give an e-book as a gift, and you don’t have to wrap it at all.
If the recipients don’t have e-readers. Provided they have a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or PC, they should be able to download an e-reader app. Better make sure they’re happy with that idea first, though, before making your purchase – either that or buy them an e-reader first!
Then by saving all that money and effort on wrapping paper, you’ll be able to afford an extra book for yourself, and have time to read it too – result! Merry Christmas!
PS I’ve just set up a group on Facebook where, not only at Christmas but all year round, I’ll be posting up news of free and cut-price e-books by my author friends. If you’re on Facebook and would like to join it, send me a request or a message via my website .
(A slightly different version of this article originally appeared in the Hawkesbury Parish News, December 2013.)
Laura’s first Christmas
If you enjoyed this article you might like some of my other festive posts:
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December 1, 2013
Tricked into Treats at Disneyland Paris
Disneyland decked out for Halloween
It’s Halloween, and I’m in Disneyland Paris in a queue. No surprises there, as anyone who has ever been to Disneyland Paris will confirm: queuing is inevitable. For anyone with a low tolerance of queues, such as my husband, the best advice is to avoid it.
But we’re old hands, my sister, my daughter, and me. We’ve been coming here once every year or so since Laura was 4 – old enough to appreciate it yet young enough to believe in its magic. (My sister, aged 60, is still at that stage).
Over the years, we’ve become adept at keeping our queuing time to a minimum. But tonight’s queue is different.: I’m not awaiting a turn on a ride, but lining up, early evening, for refreshments in a Disneyland Main Street cafés. Like everyone else around us, we’re exhausted, but hanging on for the end-of-day audio-visual display before we head back to our hotel for the night. Having seen the show the night before, we know it’s worth the wait.
Looking Forward – and Backward – To Fireworks
Clear sky by day, laser-filled by night
Thanks to 21st century technology, the end-of-day show is far more sophisticated than when I first went to Disneyland, as a child living in California for a year. In those days, there was only one Disneyland, and we had the good fortune to live close by. Back then, we thought the traditional display behind Sleeping Beauty’s Castle was spectacular, but it was nothing compared to what we’re about to see. This display uses the Castle as a projection screen for a complex laser show, transforming it into Notre Dame, the Scottish castle in “Brave”, Beauty and the Beast’s palace, and more. Not only fireworks but huge blasts of fire shoot into the air around the castle, warming us all the way down Main Street.
After a day of bright sunshine and clear blue sky, the night air is bitterly cold, and we need internal warming to tide us over until the display begins, and so we’ve hit the café. I’ve parked my sister and my daughter in a cosy, comfortable booth of this Victorian-themed fast-food cafés, and I’m queuing at the self-service counter for tea and cake.
Fast Food It Ain’t
Tucking into treats by day
As in all Disneyland Paris’s fast food outlets, the term “fast” is a bit of a misnomer. The French simply do not understand the concept of fast food. If they did, the Park’s profits would surely soar, as they’d serve thousands more meals and snacks every day.
I resign myself to waiting however long it takes to reach the cashier and spend some time inspecting the display of Halloween-themed cakes. Having chosen a fruit tart to share between the three of us, I lean back against the brass rail that runs the length of the self-service counter, channelling the queue towards the till, and I turn my attention to the others in the queue. It’s a good thing that I enjoy people watching: it helps pass the time.
Behind me I observe two American ladies who are just deciding to buy four souvenir plastic cups, adding 20 Euros to their drinks bill. This purchase seems rather coals-to-Newcastle, considering they hail from the land of Disney. I wonder whether they’ve thought how much suitcase space these cups will require on their journey home.
Halloween Treats
Ooh La La!
In front of me is a middle-aged French lady whose loaded tray includes two pumpkin-coloured tarts adorned with marshmallow ghosts. I’m just speculating whether they contain real pumpkin when I’m distracted by the appearance of a small olive-skinned child whose curly head is bobbing under the brass railing beside me. Pushing through to the counter, she stands on tiptoe beside the lady with haunted tarts, one of which I assume is destined for her. I’m therefore surprised when the little girl reaches up to the counter to help herself to another one exactly the same. The French woman looks down, startled, without a flicker of recognition of the child. They’re not together.
Although I know that not everyone is as disciplined at queuing as we English, but still I wonder at the child’s cheek. I wonder whether her mother has already reached the till and sent her to collect the cake as an afterthought? A glance at the front of the queue tells me otherwise: a man on his own is carrying off a tray without a glance at the child.
Then, as quickly as she appeared, the little girl vanishes, dashing off down the café among the banquettes, the pastry still in her hand. The French woman and I exchange astonished glances as the child settles down next to two coffee-drinking women.
The Mystery of the Vanishing Cake
Next up at the till, the French woman lays into the cashier indignantly. He and his coffee-making colleague are not perturbed: it seems they’re used to such infringements.
“Ça n’est pa grave,” he assures her, totting up her bill and sealing plastic lids on to her drinks order. “Ça fait rien.”
My well-mannered daughter and friend
I know enough French to recognise that the lady thinks it very grave indeed. As she pays, she continues to rail against the child’s action, the body language on both sides of the counter becoming more pronounced as words fail to resolve her disagreement with the cashier. I begin to wonder whether she’s about to make a citizen’s arrest. Finally, she gives up, muttering crossly as she retreats with her tray to her table.
The child’s mother seems even less concerned than the cashier, continuing to drink coffee and chat to her companion, though she must have noticed her child’s petty theft.
Thankful that at last it’s my turn at the till, I order our teas and pay. As I’m waiting for my drinks to be poured, I hear a rustle at my side at waist level. The little girl has returned. Ah, I think, she’s seen the error of her ways and come to apologise, perhaps paying from her own pocket money as a punishment.
She pushes past me without a care and smiles innocently up at the cashier, before saying in fluent French: ”Please may I have a spoon with which to eat my cake?”
With a twinkle in his eye, the cashier passes her a spoon. Well, it is Halloween, after all.
If you enjoyed this post, you might like this anecdote about self-catering in France: Filed under: 
November 17, 2013
New Diabetes E-Book Takes To The Airwaves
Last Thursday I officially launched my new e-book in style. I took to the airwaves of our local BBC radio station for an interview on its popular morning show to tell the world (or at least the county of Gloucestershire) all about Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes: One Family’s Story of Life After Diagnosis.
Still buzzing with the adrenalin triggered by a busy few weeks preparing the e-book, I drove to the station’s Gloucestershire study in glorious late autumn sunshine.
Welcomed with a cup of tea by a helpful, smiling receptionist (what a great job to have, listening to the radio and meeting people all day!), I was soon shown in to the studio where Chris Baxter’s three-hour long programme was already in full swing. (I’d been listening to it in the car on my journey to tune myself in.)
I’d never been interviewed inside a studio before – previously it’s been down the line or as part of an outside broadcast, most recently at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last month.
In The Hot Seat
After the bright sunshine outside on the noisy London Road, the thickly padded studio was dark and peaceful, womb-like and comforting. A big smile across the desk from presenter Chris Baxter put me immediately at my ease, and we were soon chatting at length about my book.
Chris Baxter is a kind, sympathetic and caring type whose programme is a real community service, reporting on achievements and concerns of local folk and bringing them together for common causes. I was delighted when a listener phoned to join to our discussion.
“I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 68 years ago, and I still do all my own gardening,” she said proudly. “I’m coeliac too, but that’s just another diet to get on with.”
Just what the anxious patient wants to hear, or the anxious parent of a newly-diagnosed child, or indeed the medical professionals whose lives revolve around keeping the chronically ill healthy.
That’s exactly who my e-book is aimed at, so you can imagine my delight when one of the earliest reviewers turned out to be Dr Carol Cooper, the medical journalist, broadcaster, and lecturer to doctors in communication and consultation skills. She summarised the book as follows:
“It’s a lovely uplifting little book, full of insight, wit, and practical know-how. I think it will appeal to anyone with Type 1 Diabetes and their family. Health professionals would also find it useful. The book is beautifully written. A little treasure as well as a ray of hope.”
Over And Out
Photo credit: BBC Radio Glos receptionist!
After the interview was over, the receptionist kindly took a souvenir photo of me looking a bit pleased with myself. Then I stepped out, blinking, into the bright sunshine, only to realise halfway back to my car that I’d left my black beret on the floor of the studio. I retrace my steps to retrieve it. (I think I was stretching the limits of the receptionist’s job description that day.)
Later, the show’s producer kindly emailed me some .mp3 files of the interview, spread across two files because I’d talked too much to fit into one easily emailable package. I have BBC Radio Gloucestershire’s kind permission to share them here with you, for the benefit of my friends who can’t catch the show on BBC iPlayer because they live outside of the UK. I hope you enjoy the interview. I certainly did!
Click here to hear the first part:
Download:
Click here to hear the second part:
Download:
To my delight and surprise, by the time I got home, my e-book was already in the Amazon bestseller charts in its category, #4 in the “Health and Fitness > Disorders and Diseases” chart! Admittedly, I’ve never had a burning ambition to top that particular chart before, but if it helps raise funds to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes, that’s fine by me!
To order your copy of my e-book in the UK from Amazon, click this link . In any other country, just enter my name and “Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes”, and it should magically appear. UK price is £1.99, US $2.99, and all profits go to the Type 1 diabetes research charity, JDRF. Thank you for your support.
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