More evil nursey vitis for Peter Bear

Poor little fella - more jabs, more pain, more sleepless nights for Mrs B and myself :/

Ah well, it's gotta be done, I guess. Just wish the nurse this time wasn't so crappy!

In other news, have posted my crapometer entries to Miss Snark. I'm in the 500s, so it'll be a little while till I have a response! Lol. Eagerly awaiting news ...

Oh, so it's a love story!!!

*ahem* quite.

I was bemoaning my lot, yestermorn, at the lackadaisical hook I produced for the Blood of Es in submission to Dear Miss Snark's happy hooker crapometer. "I'm trying to figure out what the story is about," I complained.

"Well," the wonderfully contrite Mrs B said, a sarcastically raised eyebrown lampooning my dilemma, "it's a love story, innit?"

"Is it?" quoth I, surprised.

"Well, yeah," she said, although from her tone of voice one could be quite sure she was actually saying: well, duh!

So, I know the direction to take now. All I need is the time in which to do it! lol

Merry Crimble Everybody (Mrs B made some yummy mincepies :) mmmmmm)

Sunday morning - blah

Guess what? I had a glass of beer last night and it was goooooooood! :)

Wychcraft from the Wychwood brewery - a 'blonde beer' or, to the rest of us - a larger - lol. So crisp and clean and yummy :) Their Hobgoblin is yummy too - a rich, strong, dark ale - mmmmmmmm ........................

Now it's ten past eight on a sunday morning and i'm trying to hold a wriggly 15 week old baby while typing out this blog - d'oh! and gruh?!!!

Poopy baby

So this morning, Peter waited until I was up to have a poo. Bloody typicao, eh?!!

I still haven't managed to get much done on my book :/ but we've been very productive in terms of sorting everything out in this new town. I have even put all the Xmas decorations up. Woo hoo ... go me !!!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous Mrs B is fast asleep upstairs, resting her perty head, and ickle fluff-bum is rolling around the floor and gurgling!

Bless

All together now ...

awwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Fluffbum is teething and after 20 minutes of screaming and a generous applique of calgel, he's nodded off on my lap.

He needs the sleep so I won't disturb him :

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Blasted medical professionals

I swear, they are in fact trained in the style of the Inquisition - yes, the Spanish one.

So, Professor Woolfe prodded and poked and, in response to me telling him that my left knee is particularly bad at present, he takes out his rubber mallet and whacks it a couple of times for good measure. "bend forward without bending your knees," he says, having just cracked my already acheing knees a thumping good blow. "Does this hurt?" he says, twisting my wrist again after seeing me wince with sharp intake of breath and trying to pull away from his painful intrusions.

And then the blasted "community health practitioner" with the enormous needle inserted roughly into tender arm and yanked out equally painfully.

Bastards

Look who's back, baby ;p

Well, that was a stressful week or so!

Thank dear dogness that it's all over and done with! On Friday, at 4.24 pm, with less than a day and a half till we moved into our lovely new cottage in Callington, we got a call from the council offering us a flat in Pensilva. Of course, as we were technically to leave our previous adress on the Satruday they would have been unable to visit us there to verify our details so we were no longer eligible for the flat. The council, being the council, refused to speak to us on Friday about our case as we figured we had every right to that flat and that they were just being ridiculously pedantic about it, and so, for fear of losing out on the cottage and having nowhere to go and having to stay with the in-laws indefinately, we took the cottage.

Ho hum. Yesterday, the lady from Ocean Housing that was to manage the property told us she wanted to pursue it and that it had gone all the way to top management between them and the council about how they messed us around and that we were the rightful tenants. Of course, we'd have to get out of our current contract which would cost 5 months rent. We could claim that back from the council in compensation but it would take forever and cost us more money to pursue than we have, so we've just given up.

Poo to the council. Poo, I say.

Still, this cottage is lovely. Very lovely indeed. The cats and Peter and mummy bear are all happy to be here. Well, fluffy bear (Peter) is teething and so grumpy in general, but he seems happy here anyway :)

And daddy bear is happy to be here too.

Now, for tomorrow. I have to go to see Professor Woolfe. He's going to cause me pain, I know it. *shudders* I hate hospitals :/ Me a little scared.

Temporary Access

I am temporarily here, typing on a laptop at the inlaws. Our belongings are in storage, our baby is teething, cranky, but mercifully asleep, and our bed is a matress on the floor! At least we're not on the couch! lol

We pick up the keys to the new place on Sunday morning, so should soon be back to work on Blood of Es. Have not had any opportunity to do any work and things are a little stressy at the moment.

Anyways, better be getting on. I will post a fuller post at a post-moving post-time! lol

PLUG

So, I've posted the synopsis so far and the revised hook over at my sister blog: http://bloodofes.blogspot.com/

So, if you wanna check it out ... you know what to do :)

Other news - it's so cold here. Still, tonight will be our last night in this bungalow with the hole in the wall and the no-central-heating and the no-carpets-throughout and the crappy landlords ...

So, YAYAYAYAYAY

Today I transport most of the remaining small bits and bobs - boxes of DVDs, kitchen equipment, tins of tomatoes, etc. I was gonna take the PC too, but that will wait till Sunday with the big van move :)

Hey, I don't want to miss out on my time-wasting-time! LOL

We'll sleep here tonight and then I'll mosey on over with the kitties tomorrow morning, pop back here to move kitchen white-goods closer to the door so Sunday goes more easily, and then whip my super son and wonderful wifey up to her parents' where we'll spend the next week waiting for our cottage in Callington to be free :) Woo Hoo Hoo

I'm telling you, it was so cold last night I had a dream that I was at a children's party with Peter. He was about 6 years old and it was a pool party. He was so cold he clung to me for warmth and I was just telling him that if they didn't add hot water we'd get out when I was woken up by Peter crying (because he was cold - it was way to early in the am for him to have had enough sleep) with Khaymen (the cat) purring on my chest!

Brrrrrrrrrrr

Grarrrrrrr

My son rocks :)

Further Items Of Interest

Well, it appears that we have Peter's sleep routine sorted out. Last night, despite teething and having nappy-rash as a result, despite having been out all afternoon at his gran's for her 60th birthday, despite us being more stressed out than a steel wire on a suspension bridge by this impending move, and despite having his second round of jabs on monday, he was wide awake when I put him in his cot but instead of fighting it and crying, he moaned for about 2 1/2 mins and was then asleep. And he stayed like that till we got him up for a dream feed at about 10pm, and then continued like that till he woke up for a feed at 4! Woo Hoo Hooooooooooooooo!

It is now that hazy time of the morning where I have a little time to work on my book before he gets up at 7 but spend most of it wasting my time on the internet ... oops, better get on with my work!

LOL

More jabs and one in the eye from the council - FUCKERS

So, Peter had his second round of nursey jabs this morning and he's taken it rather well *touches wood - ooh, the rudeness*

Then, on another note, Mrs B called the council to see what the dangdigereedoo is happening to our sodding claim for Housing Benefit - we're talking over two months now - and they've only gone and completely messed it up. They've got information that is incorrect and, on one occasion, completely untrue. A cheque for a very small amount is being sent to our landlord, and the remainder that is owed to us (and they verified over the phone that they made mistakes and it'll be reasessed) will be paid (again to the landlord) after we have moved out.

Dear dog, the complete and utterly incomparable nitwitery of the council knows fewer bounds than a boundless thing boundlessly bouncing a boundless ball on boundless-eve.

Fuckers!

So tired

Well, I've run three loads of the car up to the storage container and going to do another one this morning. There's not that much left here in the bungalow. But what with a teething baby, controlled crying, my arthritis and the autumnal weather, I'm feeling a mite out of sorts!

Never mind. I'll live :)

I've been making good progress on my fantasy novel. Starting chapter six now and it's just over 16k words long already. I had originally thought about making it a trilogy but have decided to make it a stand-alone story - so I have to be careful not to let it overrun too badly!

Well, it's good fun, so better get back to it.

Oh, and one last thing:

i wuv my wifey, i wuv my wife, i wuvy my wifey, my bootiful wife
so does my baby, my baby boy, so does my baby, my woderful son
we wuv you mummy, we wuv you bear, you are so wuvly, we wuv you and so there :p

ciaou!

Bollocking from Mrs B

Sorry me dear. I'll stop worrying. I won't stress that the samples posted to Fantasy Writers haven't had a single hit. Screw them all, anyway! I'll just get on and write my book.

Sowwy

I wish I wasn't so insecure about my writing. I worry about every word - every sentence - even the chapter structure and perspectives taken through the stories. And I read back through what I've done and worry whether what I've done is any good anyway! I mean, I'm so familiar with what I've written and I know where the story is going and to what the various nuances refer ... but would a reader get it? Would my reader even like what I've done? Would they bother to read on passed the prologue, and if so, would they keep reading - would I have them interested enough to actually care about the story and the characters?

My wife patiently reads everything I do, sometimes at knife point (lol) and says she likes it ... but even if it wasn't any good she'd probably say that! I've posted it to fantasy-writers.org (well, the prologue and first two chapters) and am hoping to get some feedback from there ... but then I've read some of the indisputably crap stuff that's posted there, so am not even sure whether to trust what any of them say - except they are the target audience, for the most part, as they are mostly amateur writers that like reading fantasy and playing Warhammer and write their stories based on the moves of their pieces that time they beat Hairy Dave with their band of Orcs and a Dark Elf Wizard!!!

And, shit man, I started to read Robert Jordan's famous Wheel of Time saga last night. I read the prologue and thought ... whoah - a bit heavy on the "thee and thou" language - but I suppose that's a good indication of the genre - but I find it somewhat tedious when it then takes a couple of thousand words to describe a pair of men riding horses through a wood into a village! I mean, seriously ... same problem with Tad Williams - why is each of his books over a thousand pages? How the hell does this tripe get published. Most people that read these books say - yeah, good story, but really slow to get going and a bit overlong ... so how did they get agents and publishers and the like, when it's clear from the advice of these same agents and publishers and self-help books and the writers and artists' yearbook etc that what is required to get published is a snappy query letter, a gripping synopsis, an opening that captures their attention and then continues to hold it, and that is well written ...

I'm still determined to crack on with what I'm doing, just feeling a bit daunted by the whole mountain of shit against which I must pit myself.

Hopefully I'll get some feedback from fantasy writers, and I'll keep on bugging my perfick wife coz she's a fantasy writer too and this one's for her ... and I do trust her to tell me what she thinks, I just know that she'll also feel obliged to sugar coat it a little too - but then she is my wifey and if she doesn't massage my ego from time to time, who will ... not to mention Bilbo ;)

LOL

Hoograahaa, I've also been given stronger co-codomol from the doctors and it's making me a little drifty in the head! But yay - I finally have an appointment to see the specialist ... no doubt he'll look at me and say, yeah, psoriasis, aches and pains that are not caused by rheumatism or trapped nerves or whatever - well - it's obvious what you got sonny, especially as your dad has it too ... here, have some more pills and a bit of physio - but at least it'll be a start on getting well again - me hopes.

What a week!

Phew, so glad that is over.

After the drama of the first part of the week, Friday did not go according to plan. We had been told by the estate agent that the landlord of the Liskeard flat had agreed to us as tenants in principle and just wanted to meet us to make sure we were "their sort of folks".

Well, when we got there, they didn't even know our names. They had been told that there was another couple coming to view the flat. That's right: another. We were another couple in a long list of people they had viewing the flat. They hadn't even been told about us or our circumstances.

We went to the estate agent afterwards who then told us that the landlords didn't think the flat was right for us as there was a noisy and troublesome neighbour and we have a small baby.

Well, I'm grateful to the landlords for their honesty, but am soooooooo annoyed at the estate agent for the lack of theirs. I cannot believe that they could tell us such out-and-out lies.

Luckily the local paper came out Friday and we found a property for rent in Callington. We called the number and they said we could come straight over and view it. And so we did.

It was a beautiful big cottage with plenty of space for a growing family and a reasonable rent and central heating and a NICE BIG BATH!!!!!! Oh, we were so excited and had a chat with the landlords (private renting=no scummy estate agents). They took our details and told us they were doing more viewings over the weekend and would let us know as soon as possible.

Oh we were all aquiver. Then, at about 10 am on saturday, they called us to tell us they wanted us as their tenants.

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

We're all sorted and don't have to deal with that crappy estate agent again.

Woo Hoo Hooooooooooooooooooooooo

Second try

Okay, that sucked. Mrs B has set me straight :) ta very muchly perfick one.

How's this for size?

The Blood of Es
by Rhease Linnell.

Not even the dragons had heeded Jayth’s warning. Now they are dead.

Mistaking the goddess’ warning for a threat, Davyl has done his utmost to protect those that he loves. In so doing, he imprisons Her and taps too deeply into the power of Es itself. Warped by powers he cannot control the Chief Druid breaks the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead.

A band of peaceful nomads are drawn unwillingly into the fray by the machinations of the faeries, desperate to save their land, and they join Jayth as he searches for the lost dragons. They soon come to realise that they must enlist the help of the dark fire god, Koto. They must be careful, for Koto’s agenda has always been destruction.

But Koto is the counterweight to light. Without him, there cannot be balance.

How's this for a hook?

Over at Miss Snark's blog, she'll be doing a crapometer next month on hooks. The plan is to post hooks to novels and she'll critique. This is intended to hook an agent/publisher's interest in a query letter. She wanted it in under 250 words, and mine is247 - so just in there. If anyone is reading my blog, let me know what you think:

The Blood of Es
by Rhease Linnell.

Not even the dragons had heeded Jayth’s warning. Now they are dead and even the goddess has abandoned the people of Es.

Es and its people are dying and Jayth must find the last of the dragons. With their help, it might be possible to rescue the goddess.

Mistaking Her warning for a threat, Davyl has done his utmost to protect those that he loves. In so doing, he has imprisoned the goddess and taps too deeply into the power of Es itself. Warped by powers he cannot control the Chief Druid breaks the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead.

Told in the third person, this novel weaves a web of magic and intrigue. The style is brief and the pacing fast. It begins with a prologue in which the goddess delivers her warning. The story then continues three hundred years later as Davyl is preparing to go to a barren region of Es where he will mine so deeply that he taps into the Blood of Es. It follows him on his journey and in alternating chapters, also follows the fortunes of Jayth and his companions.

As Jayth searches for the lost dragons, he comes to realise that he must enlist the help of the dark fire god, Koto. He must be careful, for Koto’s agenda has always been destruction.

But Koto is the counterweight of light. Without him, there cannot be balance.

Items of interest

So:

We've been up since 5.30 am running around like headless chickens. Yes, our necks have been severed midway through the night. By our flipping landlord. So, you've been complaining about damp and mould since you've moved in. Well, we're going to come over at 8.30am tomorrow to repaint the whole room and put a vent in the wall. What? You have a baby? You don't want to stay the night there with paint fumes? You're moving out in three weeks anyway? You really don't want to have to empty the whole room and then put it all back in again with only three weeks left before you have to pack up and move anyway?

Tough noodles, poodles. We're the landlords, and we've shceduled the work and wouldn't want to inconvenience the next set of tenants who, quite frankly, we haven't yet found nor have we advertised, nor has anyone expressed any interest, nor can we possibly wait three weeks when we've made you wait 5 months already!

So, here I am, sleep deprived, having whisked wife, baby and cats round to the inlaws for the day, sat in a room full of two rooms worth of stuff, with a "decorator" drilling a hole through the wall when he's not playing with his radio and having breaks, grumpy and a tad miffed at the whole escapade.

And to think, the estate agent has said she will be on holiday on the day we are due to give her the keys, so can we move out the week before so that she can do it all then? Can we fuckadoodledoo. Fuck them. Fuck them up their stoopid asses, you goddamned cockmaster. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, our landlord's a bitch, she's a stupid bitch, she's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world, she's a mean old bitch, just a stupid fucking bitch, she's a bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch, bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch, she's a stupid bitch, our landlord is a stupid bitch. Our landlord's a biiiiiiiiiiatch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other news, yay, we're meeting the new landlord at the liskeard flat on friday so he can reassure himself that we are not crack heads, or whatever, and then on to the new estate agent (who is also, no doubt, a stupid bitch - despite being male) to, hopefully, sort out our new tenancy.

In other other news, I learned yesterday that an ex of mine who took way more substances of interest then were ever good for her and used all my money to obtain them, who has drunk copious quantities of alcohol on more occasions than I've breathed, has just learned she has impaired liver functions. Stupid bitch. I still feel for her, though. Damn, to be forced not to drink when addicted! But she did do it to herself, so I'm not that understanding. It's just my brother was informed he had to stop drinking a few years ago as he had impaired liver function also. That didn't stop him, though. He still drinks more often than he should, so I can't see the ex stopping either. At least I don't have to deal with her. Stupid bitch!

LOL

And: the final Item of Interest:

I love my wifey, I love my wife
I love my wifey, my beautiful wife
She is so wonderful
And kind and sexy
I love my wifey, I love my wife.

My wife is lovely, my wife is great
My wife is lovely, my super wife
She is so wonderful
And kind and sexy
My wife is lovely, my wife is great.

My wife's a mummy, a great mummy
My wife's a mummy, a wonderful mum
She is so wonderful
And kind and sexy
My wife's a mummy, a great mummy.

ORTEGA's AHOY-GA

So, Mr Ortega is back in the driving seat. You know, I spent some time in Nicaragua and I'm not surprised that the ex-prez can make a come back. So what if he did whatever it is the American press say he did. The truth on the ground is that Nicaraguans are very peaceful, very friendly and very poor. They couldn't give a flying monkey if the privelaged few had their riches taken away and redeployed to arms to fight off the American-funded Counter-Revolutionaries.

I don't mean to sound overly political, but all the Nicaraguans I met were lovely lovely people. Even the thirteen year old soldier I shared a cigarette with while he hugged his carbine to his chest outside the army barracks in Rio Blanco. A really nice kid. I couldn't speak Spanish very well. He couldn't speak English at all. But he smiled just the same as any one else I've ever met.

And the family in Achuapa that housed, fed and washed my clothes for three weeks: a nicer bunch you couldn't hope to meet.

When we were sat at the top of a mountain overlooking the valley finca owned by one of Nicaragua's most prominent barristers, we were told folk tales that really gave a feel for how full and complex these people are. And for all the sophistication of a barrister, he still was never happier than when he was wading out into his lake, dragging a net across to scoop up a large haul of fish for the fiesta he threw that night.

When the sun peaked its head up over the distant mountains as I sat outside the house in Achuapa I was so happy and at peace. The family's dog was sat at my heel, the dad was out cutting wheat with his machete, the mother was collecting water to cook the kidney beans and rice, the kids were getting ready for school and the world was just busily getting on with life.

Good on Mr Ortega. Please don't fuck these loveley people over.

Peace out.

Dieting hell continues

Well, it's not so bad, really. I actually like celery! Unfortunately, I like crisps more, and that is where the problems are. I've managed to cut down to just the one packet a day, and this is with a box of fifty within sight of where I am currenly sitting. Crikey, how am I managing it?

I have Peter sat on my lap at the moment. He's waving his arms around and cooing and this makes it all worthwhile: the late nights, the early mornings, the interrupted sleeps, the crying and tantruming - all is forgotten when he starts acting cute.

And I say "acting" in the nicest possible way, of course. The fact that he is, at heart, a mischievous little rascal that would like nothing better than to have his mummy and daddy running around after him night and day makes his dumpy little face and chirpy little smile all the more endearing.

Damn his cute little ways. Damn them all to the other place!

I think he just laughed at that one.

Altogether now: awwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poopy diet

So, I weigh over 13 stone. I used to weight between 8 1/2 to 9 1/2. Okay, I was underweight, but since I've been married I've put on way to much!

I only want to drop a couple of stone. I realised when my trousers didn't do up. I thought at first that they'd shrunk in the wash, but no. None of my other trousers did up either! I now have a 36" waist. Dear dog, that's a lot for me!

I even have to count how many cups of cofee I have! LOL.

YEARGH

Yes, "yeargh". Not the cornish cheese, for that is spelt YARG and is rather yummy.

Yeargh. At the local council. At the landlord. At running out of painkillers at the weekend when even the chemists are closed. At doctors that don't answer their phones for ages. At doctors that ignore your appointment time and make you wait in a music-less waiting room on uncomfortable seats while your hips and hands and feet ache and throb and complain in their psoriatically arthritic way.

Yeargh.

Yeargh.

And then, bliss, the doctor prescribes stronger co-codomol. Mmm, codeine! No more beer for me, for a while!

Garoovy, as a somewhat worse for wear Denman might say. Who is Denman? Ah, there's the rub. For in that sleep called Dave, what tales might be waiting to be told. What sequels might be itching to be concocted. Lol.

Old Friends

Mmmm ... BEER.

It has been such a long time since that amber bevarage smoothed a path down my throat to quench the thirst that demanded it. Not since about a month before our son was due - which makes for a four month dry spell.

Well, okay, I have consumed whisky in that time, but BEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had only the one pint, but it was delicious.

In other news, an old friend I'd not heard from in a while got in touch. Bad me for being so slack at maintaining contact. Bad llama. Bad llama.

Naming Ceremony

Yesterday we had the naming ceremony for our son.

It was lovely to present him to the circle of our family and friends and then to go out for a nice big slap-up meal.

Mmm ... carvery yumminess.

More baby news

Yesterday, our son slept more than he has ever slept before in his life. From 12.30pm through till 4.30pm he was asleep. He woke up for a feed but hardly took any milk. He only had a slightly wet nappy. He got really hot at about 5pm so we stripped him down and gave him a dose of Calpol.

By 5.30pm he was asleep again. We assumed that he would wake up again in a few hours for a proper feed and that we would not get much sleep at all. By 11pm he was still fast asleep and I couldn't get him to wake up. We forced him to swallow some water using a syringe and called the 24hr NHS line. A nurse told us he was probably okay and what we needed to look out for.

She got the local out of hours doctors to come round. He arrived at about 1.30am, by which time the cheeky little monkey had woken up, had two proper wet nappies and drunk a HUGE amount of milk!

We were so relieved. The doctor gave him the all clear after checking him out. So grateful to those doctors!

He's been great today and is now playing on his activity mat. He's so happy now. Lovely.

But his mum and I are now exhausted. Thank the gods that he's okay.

The last dram of them all

I finished my whisky last night *sobs*

There were only two doubles left in there and these slipped down my throat far too swiftly while watching the always crass and vapid X-Factor. Dear gods, how could they have saved Ash? Let's face it, the boy is tone-deaf, has zero personality and looks like a lollipop that has been rolled in a deep shag-pile carpet! But it was clear from the judges comments when he had finished his performance that he has been groomed, so they say, to win. Just like with that nob-jockey Shane Ward from the last series!

I'm not hung-over. Honest.

Mmmm, coffee.

Acorn

Well, the landlord's painter and decorator had gone to the wrong house. He arrived eventually, took a glance at the mould and said he'd need to repaint the room. Well, DUH! The walls will need cleaning and repainting with anti-mould paint. I could have told them that! Still waiting for the landlord to contact us to arrange a date for that work to be done. Bah!

So anyway, I was going to explain why the car is called Acorn. When we bought her, she squeaked a fair amount. The clutch pedal squeaks with every depression and the brakes squeaked (brake pads have now been replaced).

What, you could be forgiven for asking, has squeaking got to do with Acorns?

Well, there's a certain Disney cartoon, The Emperor's New Groove, the final lines of which are: "you owe me one acorn: sqeak squeaker squeak squeakum". If you haven't seen this film yet, go out and obtain a copy. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen and in it can be found the answers to all of life's problems.

Two summers ago, back in the day when certain funghi were legal, we watched this film after eating some tasty Hawaiian blues and laughed so hard it hurt. We then tried to eat cornettos but they kept waving around and bending away from our mouths so we had to give up! A real hoota-doodle-doo! Of course, then the British government decided that wee mushrooms that grow absolutely everywhere in the autumn time just had to be declared a class A because of course they taste so nice that if you didn't do that people would spend all their time eating them and jumping off bridges and buildings convinced they can fly!

But in any case, the scene had been set for us to know the script of the Groove by heart, and when we bought this old banger and it squeaked and squealed all the way down the road, we just had to name her Acorn.

Sqeak squeaker squeak squeakum!

Garr, landlord's ahoy

Isn't it just typical?

When we moved into this property five months ago, we didn't have keys for the windows and it took four phone calls and a week and a half to get someone to come round and get us a key.

Then, in the height of summer, ants came up through cracks in the parquet by an internal door and made their way up to the windows to fly off in a mating frenzy! That took three phone calls and we were told to use ant-spray (with a pregnant lady and two cats in the property)! They came a week later to seal up the gap!

Now, towards the end of our tenancy, when they have already served us a notice to quit in a surprisingly aggressive and officous manner, the weather has changed and mold has appeared on the back wall. We called them two days ago. It was arranged yesterday that someone would come on Friday before 12 midday. And I got a call a few minutes ago to tell me the decorator was 30 seconds away and was on his way over.

Peter, of course, chose that moment to start screaming for a feed, and now we are still waiting for the workman to show up!

I was going to use this post to talk about vaccinations and Acorn the car, but that will have to wait for the next post now!

So long, for now!

Nursey nursey

Well, our little man had his first round of vaccinations yesterday. We had such a rough night as he was soooooooo cranky! I tried to tell him that one day he'll be chasing nurses around, but he was not really in the mood for listening.

Blah!

Rough Night

My perfect little man, my special baby boy, has got to go to the doctor today for his eight week jabs!

We are not looking forward to this. I've been up since about 5 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep for worrying about it. I know it's for a good reason, but I'm not going to enjoy watching some callous NHS doctor inserting a needle into my son's arm!

It was bad enough when the doctor checked him out following the birth. He didn't like being prodded and twisted and weighed and so on. Poor little guy. And he's certainly not going to like this today!

He went to sleep really early last night as well. We woke him up for a feed when we went to bed in the hopes that we'd still get some decent sleep. My wife told me this morning that she got up again as she couldn't get to sleep so she would only have had an hour or two of sleep when he woke up for a feed in the wee small hours. Then again in the early morning she was looking so damn tired. I think they are going to need lots of cuddles today!

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring

Well, apparently it's true: I snore. Seeing as both my son and my wife snore as well, I hardly see why I should receive complaints.

At least, that would be my valid argument if it weren't also true that I snore when I'm awake. Which it is.

Ah well.

Can't believe the torrential rain this morning. It's been such a mild autumn so far and then all of October's rain arrived at once. The drains couldn't keep up with it and the car nearly drowned!

Poor Acorn (I'll explain the car's name another time). We had just left Asda, bubba in the car seat wailing his head off because ... well, just because. There seems to be an inverse ratio between the weather and the care with which others choose to drive so that it was exceedingly hazardous to attempt the journey to St Austell market.

Biscuits, however, were calling, so off we went. Acorn had a dip in a disturbingly deep puddle so that she kept trying to stall on me all the way there. It only happened as I was slowing down in second gear for roundabouts or turns, but it was scary nonetheless.

We made it, however, and braved the madness that is St Austell market on a Sunday.

Thank the sparkly angels we're home, that's all I can say.

Well, better get off. One of the cats is resting his head on my wrist and I'm getting cramp trying to type.

Cheery-bye.

Day Two: Bloggilicious

Writing down my dilemma yesterday helped me to focus on the problem. I now know what to do, and have in fact begun.

Heng is the project closest to completion. It fits in the thriller genre if I remove the frankly unneccessary Sci-Fi moments. This is the genre most of my work falls into, and it is one in which slightly futurisitic inventions are quite welcome. The fantasy work will take years to perfect and my surreal fiction can wait till I'm established.

I want to make it in the big bad world of publishing - I'd better think about the fact I'm manufacturing a product for commercial consumption!

Here's a short excerpt from the first chapter:

Frank sighed and wiped a bead of sweat away from his brow.
As the door closed with a quiet click behind him, Frank noticed how damp his palms were.
“One more thing for her notebook,” he said quietly to himself, smiling at the irony.
Frank made his way across the wildly patterned floor to the front entrance. The door was of a heavy wood, thick and reassuring in its bulk. It took all of his remaining strength to push his way through.
Once on the porch, he took out his own cigarettes, lighting one to calm his nerves. It was cold outside, the air thin and crisp with the onset of evening. Some of the trees before him shivered nakedly, their leaves having abandoned them for the winter. Most, however, still bore their glorious plumages to form a richly textured green that encompassed his horizon.
Blowing a lungful of smoke out into a billowing halo around his head, he started off for the car park, gravel crunching under foot with every step. The narrow path meandered slowly through the wizened grove, emerging at last beside a moderate lake whose surface was pockmarked with quacking ducks, crying gulls and hissing swans.
A handful of dour patients, brows knitted in concentration, hurled fragments of bread at the fowl, emulating a game of darts in their innocently uncomprehending enthusiasm. Around the lake were scattered the occasional wooden benches, their thin wooden slats ill suited for protracted periods of contemplation. Not that this was, in itself, a great surprise, for who would go to any length to encourage a madman to investigate his thoughts too closely?
For Frank it was an inconvenience. Many a fine day would leave him wanting just such a soft-focus spot in which to relax. Forced away by the unwelcoming hardness of the seats, however, he would proceed in his unhurried gait towards the awaiting interior of his car, an ancient thing now in its own peculiar way.
There was one patron of the hospital, however, who found comfort in the stern chill of the benches. He would sit, back as rigid as could be, as his silver flecked beard bristled in the breeze.
Frank could not have shared more that a handful of brief conversations with this man in all the time he’d walked these grounds. As his encounter with Dr Chang ran round and round in his head, however, Frank found himself slumping down in the space next to the inmate.
Perhaps the old man had beckoned him over. Frank did not know. He looked down at his hands to check they were clean before offering the man a smoke.
“Thanks, son, but no.”
The old man’s eyes watered in the chill, rimmed red all round, deep sleepless bruises sagging beneath like piles of unclaimed baggage. At this close range, Frank could see the mottled teeth, the gangrenous gaps, the bulbous nose from which coarse dark hairs sprouted like cress, the specks of food within the beard, the hard edged apple that bobbed ungainly whenever the urge to swallow demanded it. The ears were large and equally hairy, the one closest to Frank sagging slightly where a long-tarnished silver ring had sat for countless years.
“Yes, it is a good day,” the patient replied, although Frank was sure he had not yet said a word. “I like it here. The walls are hidden in the garden.”
“There aren’t any walls out here,” Frank countered.
“Not the pale green things in there. I don’t mean the walls in there.” The old man’s voice was impatient. “The walls in there are plain enough. You can always see the walls in there. Out here, the walls are different. Even the ducks can’t fly over them and they’re good at flying. Like the seagulls. They can fly well too. But even they can’t get over the walls. The walls are everywhere.”
“Why? I can’t see them.” Frank exhaled quietly, tossing his cigarette into the undergrowth.
“You can’t see them!” The tone was sarcastic. “I can’t see them. The seagulls can’t see them. Why do you think we can’t get passed them? They are all one. The walls are the wall. It is everywhere. We can’t get passed it. Only through it. And you can’t come back.”
The old man’s voice had become increasingly sad and he sniffed noisily before retrieving Frank’s cigarette butt. There was still a small amount smouldering and the man took a couple of tight pulls before the ash crumpled into his lap. All that was left was the grubby filter, which he pocketed with a conspiratorial wink.
“You can have a whole one, if you want.”
“Thanks, son, but no.”
Frank shook his head in disgust as he moved to stand up, but the man put a grubby hand on his sleeve.
“No, wait,” he hissed. “Don’t go yet, son. We haven’t gotten to the good bit, yet.”

Fit the first

So, this is blogging.

What fun.

To begin: I'm an author, currently unpublished. I have a number of different ideas, some a fair way along on the way to being worked out and others still in the perpetually formless mind-smog of the creator-gods.

Hail Cerridwen!

Thing is, I wrote a novella that I foolishly called 'TK+'. Not particlarly well-written, but I did create it when I was only young. That fitted into the 'thriller' genre and with a little work on the editing front, could make a good novel.

After a couple of years I wrote a self-exploratory (read self-indulgent!) artsy-novel called 'La Reponse'. Again, with some work this could be a good piece of work.

I then created a tale called 'Heng' in the thriller genre with elements of Sci-Fi. By then my writing style was beginning to settle in to it's own space, but my focus appeared to loosen after 60,000 words and the ending feels rushed. I need to sit down and work through the tale to fix the problems and it'll be a cracking yarn!

After a year I began work on a thriller piece and almost simultaneously a fantasy-genre piece. I love the thriller tale and have the story pretty much worked out. The first part of the fantasy tale is all worked out, chapter structures all mapped and large swathes already written. All I need to do is sit down and finish the damned thing!

I've also got an idea for a straighforward commercial novel that is on the tip of my keyboard, not to mention more thriller, more Sci-Fi and more fantasy ideas stored away (one even from idle days at school spent day dreaming).

I just need to figure out which project I would be better off completing first; which project would be most likely to be successfully published.

So, that's my dilemma! Still, I guess it's better to have too many ideas than none at all! I should quit complaining and just get on with one of them. Hmm. Which one, however, remains the question of perplexity.