Mud & Mischief

Before:

And after:

Of course, what you can’t see is the inside of the filing cabinet - which is 7/8 empty! I found mortgage arrangement documents for 1999… two houses ago. Now there’s lots of room for me to sort all the paper work into. That’s in the piano room. Which I am NOT showing you all a picture of!

Note cute small boy having a not-two-year-old moment. They are few and far between these days. Hellion child.

How to think Sideways

Other uses for books!?!

Yes, I know the blog has been abysmally lacking in content lately, but I’ve been a little busy…

I did my first show, at the Doncaster Enterprise Event last Monday, and it went very well. Sold a little, talked a lot, gave out a heap of business cards and generally had a great time talking to folks about knitting and yarn and stuff all day.

There was a photographer wandering around taking pics, and she’s put some up on her flickr photostream, and guess who’s in there? Yes, me, but not looking at the camera as I was concentrating on counting stitches on a cardigan for me.

Doncaster Business Enterprise Event

I can’t wait until I can do another show.

I’ve been avoiding doing this for ages, for some reason. But today, as I feel crap, it’s raining outside, I’ve had to put the heating on inside, RJ is snoozing, and I have an hour of absolute quiet, I found myself choosing hairstyles and accessories. It’s so sad.

However, it is amusingly like me.

Did you know it’s Apple Day on 21st October? No, neither did I until I just went looking for it. I’ve got a couple of apple trees in my garden and this year, I got the most wonderful crop. As soon as we find somewhere bigger/permanent to live, I’m going to plant a whole orchard full of wonderful English apples with fabulous names such as ‘Peasgood Nonsuch’, ‘Adam’s Pearmain’, ‘Pitmaston Pineapple’ and ‘William Crump’.

If I get a yen to make cider, I’ll grow ‘Slack ma Girdle’ and ‘Sops in Wine’ and maybe even ‘Fillabarrel’ And if you think I’m making these up, go look at Adam’s Apples. I got my raspberry canes and a blueberry bush from him two years ago and this year we were inundated with raspberries.

Now all I need is a bigger garden to plant my orchard in…

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

~ Buddha

I’ve just finished “The End of Mr Y” and it was outstanding. I read it a little each evening, whilst waiting for the small ones to go to sleep, as I didn’t dare sit and read it all in one go. Mainly because it’s one of those books that turns into a bit of a runaway train - it starts off by gently piquing your curiosity, and then gathers pace until you really, really don’t want to put it down. 500 mind boggling pages.

The blurb reads:

“When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of The End of Mr Y in a second-hand bookshop, she can’t believe her eyes.

She knows enough about its author, the eccentric Victorian scientist, Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And, some say, cursed.

With Mr Y under her arm, Ariel finds herself swept into a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time travel.”

Now as blurbs go, that makes it sound kind of interesting, but nothing special. It was the cover and the black edges to the pages that made me pick it up, and Philip Pullman’s comment on the back “Ingenious and original. A cracking good yarn, fizzing with intelligence.”

It’s got everything from theoretical physics and a deconstruction of Einstein’s theories to sex in Little Chef toilets and what it’s like in the mind of a mouse. Extraordinary.

I can most definitely recommend it.

No, not thingymas that we’re not allowed to mention until after Hallowe’en.

It’s Nanowrimo time! On the 1st of Nov, zillions of mad manic scribblers around the globe will be doing their thing to add to the burgeoning quantity of questionable literature that proliferates every November.

And seeing as how this is my fourth year of doing it, I need your help. I want to get out of my usual rut of writing, and try something new. To that end, I need a few ideas throwing into the mortar, to pound with the pestle of my imagination.

Throw me some ideas. Some character names, plot bunnies, stray things you think I need to include in my NanoNovel. Genres, settings, character flaws, inanimate objects. Be creative. Be silly. Be innovative.

But most of all, have some fun.

After two hospitals in under twelve hours, the beads are now out.

Got to DRI at 9am this morning. Lovely doctor peered into each ear and announced that he wasn’t going to do it, as one was quite far in, and would prefer it if the senior registrar stepped in. Registrar chap would be in at 9.30 and would see me after he’d done the rounds of the Head and Neck unit, which wouldn’t take long.

We went for a wander, charmed a few folks, ran up and down endless corridors,and returned to the ward to wait a while longer. RJ decided that taking a chair for a walk was hugely entertaining, and he amused a couple of eldery gentlemen in the beds next to where we were waiting. Finally, at 10.45 we were seen. Bear in mind that neither of us had had any breakfast, or even a drink!

It wasn’t pleasant. After explaining that he really didn’t want to give RJ a general anaesthetic, and it would be a week or so before it happened anyway, he got the matron to wrap RJ in a blanket and hold him fast. Shortly after, the lovely doctor had to hold his ankles. Then I had to hold his forehead. And then the registrar could finally insert the speculum and use a long thin bit of metal with a tiny loop not much bigger than an O to hook the bead out. A green one and a blue one.

He’s got to have some ear drops in for three days, to stop the bleeding forming a clot that will need removing and he’s a bit sore around the edges. But he devoured the toast the nice nurse gave him, and drank my tea in favour of the nasty orange chemical squash stuff they offered him. He’s had a snooze, his ear drops (that was a lark) and some tomato soup and suddenly, he’s as bright as a button again. Thank goodness.