Kathryn Freeman's Blog, page 21

What I learnt this week: 11th December 2014

It is worth putting up the Christmas decorations. My family subscribes to the ‘why bother’ theory when it comes to Christmas decorations – or indeed most things involving Christmas unless they can eat it, watch it or unwrap it. I ignored them (as I usually do) and put the decorations up anyway. Without decorations Christmas is just another week off and Christmas Day is just another day. This year I went light crazy and even Coco the elephant wasn’t spared. I’m still a little disappointed that he looks less like a festive decoration and more like an elephant with chickenpox. See if you can spot the subliminal advertising in our tree.

It is worth writing Christmas cards. Another Christmas tradition to come under the ‘why bother’ category, and this one is harder for me to support because unlike decorating the tree, I do find it a chore. To make it less of one, we have a family tradition (which I had to suffer as child) of all writing them together, each signing our own name. I think you can imagine how well this goes down with my teenage sons. We pick a date early in December, sit round a table, put on the Christmas CD and crack on. Well, that’s the theory. Each of us have our own area of responsibility, other than writing our names. Mine is to head the card ‘dear xxx’, one son stamps the card, one puts in the newsletter and finally my husband puts the address label on the envelope and the signed card inside. Easy huh? Well it should be, but when someone has to ‘urgently’ look at their phone, or go to the toilet, or generally gets distracted, the whole system falls down. The wrong cards are put in the wrong envelope, some go unsigned, some unstamped. So if you receive a card from me addressed to someone else and only signed by me, that the post office ask you to pay for, you’ll know why. Is it all worth it? Yes – it is a way of making sure you don’t lose touch with people you can’t easily see, but who are important to you.

I have a reason to watch formula one next season. It took McLaren several months to come up with what I’d decided in two seconds, but at least I can look forward to watching formula one again next year now that Jenson Button has been confirmed in their 2015 line up. Until then, I always have my cardboard cut out.

What I learnt this week: a weekend on the south coast.

 

Last weekend we stayed near Portsmouth harbour and decided to make a crack at the Christmas shopping by going to Gunwharf Quays – a lovely factory outlet next to the Spinnaker and overlooking the harbour.

First though we cycled over to Southsea to play pitch and putt. So what did the weekend teach me?

I will never be any good at golf. While the males in my family elegantly loft the ball into the air – though not necessarily near the hole – all I can manage is an ugly swipe. I’ve been told my arms are too stiff, my bottom sticks out too much, I don’t bend my knees, my head goes up too soon and my whole body is too rigid. Apart from that, I guess I’m nearly there.

Christmas shopping can be painless if you combine it with a weekend away. There are a number of caveats to this statement. You won’t get all the presents you need (there are too many more interesting distractions), you have to be really lucky with the weather (we had cloudless blue skies – unbelievable) and, if you decide to go to a factory outlet like we did, you have to be flexible with your gift ideas. My friends and family will be getting not what they asked for, or what they needed, but what was on offer! (below a photo of the canal at Gunwharf).

The Portsmouth area on a sunny day is beautiful. There is a particular place that we love – Stokes bay – which is on the Gosport side. Even in the height of summer it is never packed, yet it is the same distance from London as Brighton. The beach is shingle and sweeps round for over half a mile with fabulous views across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. In the summer there is crazy golf and a children’s waterpark. In the winter it is a life affirming, cobweb removing walk along the bay and up to the café for a cooked breakfast. The perfect way to start a Sunday. Especially when you’ve crossed off a few items from your Christmas to-do list. 

Here is the bay when we left it.

 

What I learnt this week: Stonehenge

At the weekend I visited family who live in Somerset and the journey involves going past Stonehenge. Usually we gawp from the car – it’s a pretty special sight – but this time we decided to stop and take a closer look.

Stonehenge isn’t really a henge. Typically archeologists define a henge as a circular or oval shaped bank (sometimes with stones) with an internal ditch. In the case of Stonehenge, the ditch is on the outside. It is said to be the most architecturally sophisticated pre-historic stone circle in the world and when you consider how big those stones are and wonder how on earth they managed to get one ontop of the other, you can understand why.

When it came to doing the back of Stonehenge, the builders had had enough. If you look at it from the back, there aren’t as many stones left and archeologists believe the work might not have finished. Alternatively, it might have been completed but they didn’t prepare the stones at the rear as well as they had those at the front and they’ve since fallen and been taken away to be used elsewhere. Still, it’s not looking so bad considering it was built in around 3,000 BC.

It’s still not understood why it was built. Perhaps it was a pre-historic sundial or a memorial ground. It probably wasn’t used for a game of giant cricket, though my family thought some of the stones would make pretty good stumps.

 

 

 

What I learnt this week: buzzzzzzz

It started with a single buzz. I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, but the noise was driving me mad. I dug my husband in the ribs.

‘Sort out that fly.’

He raised a groggy head – he’d already zoned out. How can anyone fall asleep with the buzz of a fly in their room? My grumpy husband turned on the light and we kept still, trying to locate the source. We couldn’t see the damn thing, just hear an intermittent buzz. On a 0-10 loudness scale it was only a 1, but on an annoying scale it was off the chart. Well, my chart, anyway. Besides, it wasn’t just the noise. It was the thought of that fly crawling over my face while I slept.

‘It’s in the loft.’ My husband deduced. ‘I’ll give it a squirt.’

Now we converted most of our loft into a bedroom and study, so it’s pretty easy to get into it. You just go into my study (next to the bedroom), open a door and hey presto, the loft. So hubby squirted a can of fly spray indiscriminately into the space, shut the door, turned off the light and went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, there wasn’t a single buzz…there were thousands of buzzes. It sounded like an army of really, really pissed off flies up there.

I dug my husband in the ribs. I knew he couldn’t do anything, but why the heck should he be allowed to sleep while I was wide awake and imagining Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, only with a smaller flying variety.

‘They’ll be dead soon,’ came his helpful reply. Then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Eventually, so did I.

The next morning we hoovered up thousands of the blighters, but they weren’t finished yet. Sitting in my study, I was visited by over a hundred flies that day. I know, because I was sad enough to count them as they, presumably, squeezed through the crack in the attic door and headed for the light of my window. They didn’t come all at once. Just in dribs and drabs, as if they’d had a meeting and decided how they could be the most annoying. At least having to get up every few minutes to open the window was good for my circulation.

Obviously we’ve researched into this and it seems we were graced with cluster flies (also known as attic flies). Slightly larger than the housefly and slower moving (not that you’d notice when you’re trying to swat one) they like to hibernate in the winter in warm lofts. A lot of times they go unnoticed, simply exiting in the spring the same way they came in. But in our case they were like a noisy neighbour sharing the same loft space, albeit a door and few pieces of MDF away.

In the end, we humans kicked them out and won our space back. It’s been several days since I’ve heard a buzz.

Perhaps that’ll teach them to be a bit quieter next time. At least while I’m trying to get to sleep.

(Photo of desk – with fly spray and arm of Jenson Button. If you’ve not been following my blog and are confused – see my earlier post from October 9th!)

What I learnt last week from a trip to Rome

What have the Roman’s ever done for us? It’s a famous Monty Python sketch and one that takes on new meaning if you get the opportunity to visit Rome. They were such clever, forward thinking people.

Take, for example, the Trajan market – the first shopping centre.  We marvel at the Trafford Centre, MetroCentre, Westfield and Bluewater but the Romans got there two thousand years before us. And not a Starbucks in sight.

Did you know that the Colosseum was built in only eight years? About the same time as it took us to build Wembley stadium. Granted slave labour didn’t require quite as many rest hours, but I wonder if people will be flocking to see Wembley in the year 4000?

The Colosseum gets its iconic half demolished shape courtesy of an earthquake. The marble that fell down was used to build St Peter’s, another incredibly impressive sight in Rome that draws the visitors (photo below at night – had to include because my hubby is very proud of it…).

If you’re prepared to pay about three times the usual entry fee you can jump the never ending queue to the Sistine Chapel by taking a tour. We did, not just to save time but also because you gain so much more insight from a guide. I like the little details. For example the fact that The Last Judgment contains the only self-portrait of Michelangelo, painted into the flayed skin being held by St Bartholomew. One theory of why he drew himself this way is that he hadn’t been paid fully and felt he was being skinned.

He also got revenge on one of his detractors, Master of Ceremonies Biagio da Cesena, who had critisised his painting of so many nudes “it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully.” He painted Cesena’s likeness into Minos (judge of the underworld), giving him donkey’s ears and a snake to cover his nude body. If you click here and look at the picture, you’ll see the snake appears to be targeting the poor guy’s private parts. Considering how many millions of people traipse through the Sistine Chapel every year to study this painting, I would say Michelangelo’s revenge was very sweet.

What I’ve learnt this week: 23rd October 2014

Have you ever been asked to see someone’s etchings? And if so, did you snigger?

In my current work in progress, the hero is a part-time painter (he also manages an international biscuit business. Hey, it’s my story and I love biscuits…). When my hero invited his personal assistant to come and see his paintings, I found myself smiling and thinking about etchings (funnily enough, so did my heroine).

It made me stop and think – where on earth that phrase came from?

According to Wikipedia (that fountain of all knowledge) it originated in the 1890’s from a novel called The Erie Train Boy by Horatio Alger, Jr. In his book a woman writes to her boyfriend that she has a collection of etchings she wants to show him. She asks, ‘Won’t you name an evening when you will call, as I want to be certain to be at home when you really do come.’ The boyfriend replies. ‘I shall no doubt find pleasure in examining the etchings which you hold out as an inducement to call.’ It was later referenced in various books in the 1930’s, including The Thin Man,  ‘She just wanted to show me some French etchings.’

It is also believed to have been influenced by Mae West’s line, ‘Come up and see me some time!’ although originally that was believed to be,’Why don’t you come up sometime ‘n see me?’ (from the film She Done Him Wrong in 1933, reference).

During the 1930’s it seems the phrase ‘do you want to come up and see my etchings’ gained more popularity when it was used in several cartoons in the New Yorker magazine, including one from James Thurber where it was turned on its head. In an elegant hotel lobby an eager-looking female guest is told by her male host, ‘You wait here and I’ll bring the etchings down!’ (reference).

Finally, I have seen a reference believing the phrase came originally from the French expression ’Veux-tu monter voir mes estampes japonaises?’ (Do you want to come up and see my collection of Japanese stamps?).

Umm, that just doesn’t seem to have the same ring to it, does it?

What I learnt this week: the pesky comma

To comma or not to comma? That is my question. 

A few days ago I received the final, final, probably final again, proof for my ebook, Life After, which will be published by The Wild Rose Press (not sure when yet). It’s the first book I ever received a publishing contract for (yes, it’s taken a while to get to this stage!). Subsequent to this I was lucky enough to be given two contracts with Choc Lit and am now a very happy Choc Lit author.

It’s been several months since I last reviewed Life After and this time it was the galley proof, where you see the version as it will look in digital print rather than a word document. I couldn’t believe the explosion of commas. They were everywhere. Muttering about the editor under my breath I looked back at the previous version and gulped. That was riddled with the damn things, too.

It seems that somewhere between the last few reviews of this manuscript I’ve stopped using so many commas. Is this right? A good thing or a bad thing? I’ve been desperately scanning the literature and it seems that there are two distinct functions for the comma. The first is to show the grammar of the sentence. The second to help with flow and rhythm. Of course sometimes the two clash.

In my case, I had a lot of phrases where I used a comma before an and. For example:

She was honest, sweet, and trusting.

According to my bible, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the comma before the and isn’t necessarily as wrong as I first thought. The author of that book believes that sometimes a sentence is improved by a comma, sometimes it isn’t. A comma can act like a brake, slowing it down to create emphasis, and we shouldn’t be too rigid about them.

Oops, there I go again, putting a comma before an and - something I’m sure I was told not to do at school. Truth is, the words flow from my brain to my typing fingers with little conscious thought. When I begin to think about punctuation, I’m sunk. Which probably explains why, armed with my book, all I could see over the pages of Life After were commas, jumping up and down, waving their arms and screaming at me. Just like when you buy a new car in a colour you think is a bit different but then all you can see on the road is your car in your colour. All I could see on my pages now were commas.

So I took a step back and thought as a reader, not a writer. Do I notice commas when I read? Only if they’re glaringly in the wrong place.

With that in mind I deleted the obvious errors I found (he had black, hair, a square jaw and clear grey eyes:  agghhhh) and relaxed about the rest.

Now all I can do is pray that should you be kind enough to read this book, you won’t notice any of those pesky commas.

What I’ve learnt this week: October 9th 2014

There’s nothing like a life size cardboard cutout in your study to inspire a story.

Authors get their inspiration from a variety of sources. Sometimes a film, a book, a chance conversation. In this case, it was a cardboard cut out.

I’m a massive Jenson Button fan – and yes, I have to admit it’s not all down to his smooth racing style. A couple of Christmas’s ago my husband gave me one of the best presents I’ve ever had – a life size cardboard cut out of Jenson Button. He works for a company who used to sponsor Mclaren and when he saw this in the foyer he asked if he could take it home for his wife. As I often say, heroes come in many disguises. In my view walking through your work car park with a cut out of Jenson Button under your arm, all because your wife is a fan, is pretty heroic.

Here is Jenson, in my study.

He and I have been gazing at each other a lot over the last few years and it is no coincidence that the manuscript I’ve just finished features as its hero…a racing driver. Of course Jenson is just the inspiration – my hero is nothing like him. But the more I researched into racing drivers the more I was in awe of their fitness and skill so now every racing driver is a hero to me.

My manuscript is now in the hands of the Choc Lit tasting panel and I keep my fingers crossed that they will enjoy it. If they do, it will hopefully one day become a book.

As for the cardboard cut out, it’s still in my study. I might have moved on to writing about a different hero now, but Jenson is still providing vital inspiration.

What I’ve learnt this week: 2nd October 2014

A picture is still worth a thousand words – especially on twitter. A lovely friend of mine was kind enough to not only read my book on holiday, but take it up Mount Etna to photograph it. I thought for quite a while about the words I’d tag it with when I posted it on Twitter: bubbling, explosive passion, just waiting to erupt… (yes, I love a corny line). However I know the number of retweets it received was down to the drama of the photograph – pretty pink against the barren brown ash, with snow in the background – rather than my prose. I’m off now to take a picture of my book in as many dramatic places as I can and if you fancy adding to that collection I’d be delighted. You can even come up with your own prose, to save you cringing at mine.

For his birthday dinner my teenage son chose – a take out. I’m going to pretend this is a reflection of his desire to give his mother a night off rather than a preference for food that doesn’t involve me cooking it.

Going out for dinner with your family is worth every penny, not for the quality of the food, but the quality of the conversation.  Taking my sons out for a meal, away from the distractions of home, is a joy. They’re chatty, witty and surprisingly knowledgeable. Our topics last Friday ranged from formula 1 to Adam and Eve and they knew more about both than I did. There was only way it could have been improved; they could have picked up the bill. Sadly I suspect the day they’re earning enough to do that is the day they decide they don’t want to go out with their fusty parents.

What I learnt this week: 25th September 2014

Bungee straps and parcel tape are invaluable when it comes to small fixes in the home (though it isn’t exactly invisible mending). As you can see from the photographs below, parcel tape is brilliant at keeping two ends of a curtain pole together. As for the bungee strap – who would have thought it would make such an excellent shower holder? The trouble is, apart from looking shabby, both items have solved the issue so well it’s hard to find the motivation to get them mended properly.

Mountain biking is terrifying. I should qualify that by saying it’s terrifying if you’re not a very confident cyclist. I can just about cope with flat roads, as long as I don’t have to turn left because I’m very unstable with only my right hand on the handlebar. I don’t even mind going uphill as long as it’s not too steep, not too high and I can go at my own pace. Hurtling downhill through forests on rough trails, with testosterone fuelled bikers breathing down my neck, wasn’t fun. I must have been the only person in the forest who used their brakes.

Happy goldfish are like humans and can put on weight. You may remember that Googley, our very special gold fish, had struggled in the same tank as his supposed friends. These other fish were bullying him, pecking at him, driving him to hide behind the bogwood. In the end it was so heartbreaking to watch we bought him his own tank (see first picture below, and also the blog on 12th June!). Three months later he is absolutely thriving. He’s now twice the size he was before (second picture) and is always out and about, coming to see us rather than cowering in the corner like he used to. I think if we put him back with others now they wouldn’t dare pick on him, but why risk it? He’s a contended fish, king of his own domain, happy with his human companions.

Run out of cups, plates, glasses – check your teenager’s bedroom. One thing for certain, if they are up there, they won’t make it down unless you bring them.