It’s a busy time of year for gardeners and writing falls by the wayside. Torrential rain and thunderstorms should have given me more time with my quill, but I have been to an author coffee morning and been roped in to a quiz and that was just Saturday. We came fourth and I answered at least one question – ‘Gone With The Wind’ – what was the question? An interesting round was ‘Cheese or motorway services?’ which proved surprisingly difficult. At least the rain has filled my water butts and the wildflower wheelbarrow is flourishing.
Oil painting
If only ChatGPT could come and improve our real gardens, not just the photos.
Water colour
The world cup is happening right now. If you don’t know what they are playing, answer at the end. Having a big garden tidy up I found this mini Scotland player and that night they won their first match, so now he is my mascot. I’m the only person in my family with no known Scottish blood. When I consulted them for a name for the wee one Cyberson 2 suggested Red Jock McPlastic. Scotland play again on Friday night. Cyberson 1 has the shirt.
Today it was announced our government intend to ban social media for under sixteens. Which made made me wonder how over sixties would feel if we were banned. I’m not even sure I understand what constitutes social media and what does not. I would certainly be upset if we were not allowed to use WordPress. Lots of us have little addictions like Words With Friends – above is a typical score for me, but it’s still fun. Also useful as you can check if other friends living alone are fine – if they play back first thing in the morning you know they are still alive.
This scene may look peaceful, but any moment now a herd of schoolteens and bicycles are going to appear over the horizon as school finishes. Eavesdropping as I was walking home I heard one boy say ‘But What are we going to Watch?!‘ another said ‘I bet under sixteens are going to march on parliament on Saturday.’
The answers are The first colour film to win an Oscar and Football.
To celebrate Chelsea Flower Show week I will post garden pictures every day, to save me bothering to write any blogs while I am busy enviously watching the show every evening on television.
Window or Mirror?
Even my beach hut has a garden?
A look back… I got a bit carried away during Covid lockdown when I discovered the local garden centre was doing deliveries, but you had to order a minimum amount… Visitors could only chat in the front garden.
Will you be watching Chelsea? Does your garden match up to the ones at flower shows?
Who would have imagined that the evil tendrils of international tyrants would have wound their way into the heart of my family and the Bournemouth Writing Festival? My sister in Australia had planned her latest two month holiday to encompass various cultural delights including the fourth Bournemouth Writing Festival. Her flights were booked well ahead. There is so much to do over the three days of the festival it is hard to focus. Last year this had resulted in a friend and I only making it to the free poetry on the bandstand. So this year we needed to plan properly and book well ahead. After much shortlisting and Facetime consultation I had booked six events at the festival.
Shortly before her departure WW3 erupted in the middle east, airports closed, governments issued warnings to their travellers. My sister was traveling in comfort to visit all her English relatives, not to have an adventure. Her favourite airline Emirates was due to leave Perth, stop in Dubai and onwards to Gatwick. Suggestions by some that she could fly over the North Pole were not appealing. When Emirates announced full refunds available, she cancelled her holiday.
The spare tickets were happily taken up by others in my writers group, though by this time I had forgotten what I had booked and why we had chosen them. A sunny weekend made it very pleasant to wander through the gardens between the various venues. Everything was taking place in Bournemouth town centre so easy for everyone to walk, cycle, skate, paddleboard, come by bus or train. Car parks are expensive and stressful from my non-driver observation so to be avoided if you can.
There was a real buzz about the festival and a buzz in town. Festival team members wore bright yellow T-shirts so it was easy to ask for help and they greeted everyone enthusiastically. I can only give my humble impressions with so much happening. But we have always been impressed with how well organised and supported the festival has been right from its inception. If you want to meet other writers of all ages this is the place to be. You could be on the go from the moment you got up till bedtime with breakfast, lunch and dinner meet ups at local eateries. In between talks and workshops you can chat and look around.
In the Pavilion you could buy books written by the speakers, while at Bobby’s any author can book a table ( well in advance I gather ) to sell their books. There were interesting and colourful characters from far and wide.
There were two workshops I particularly enjoyed.
‘Stop your Plot Deflating like a Sad Balloon’ with Helen Comerford
If you run out of ideas or have writers’ block just spend five minutes writing a list of What Ifs, as silly as you like. We did this and then wrote our favourite on post it notes which we stuck all around the room and read what ideas others had come up with. We then wrote a plot for our What Ifs. I wrote ‘What if you go to a writing festival and realise you have all been taken captive.’ Some of us read out plots out.
Adrienne Dines’ workshop on creating conflict had the tag line ‘How to make it bad, make it worse then make it personal.’ She gave us an opener, chap walking home from the pub late one night and comes across a road accident… and we all had to offer make it worse contributions… ‘he knows the victim in the crash’ soon became a whole complicated family story!
Next year’s festival is already being planned, last weekend in April again. Other events go on all year round so writers can continue to meet up.
This is a genuine walk, get off the bus, down towards the sea, turn right and walk all the way down the road. On the way can you spot one of the venues for the Bournemouth Writing Festival and the burial place of Mary Shelley? I did have fun photographing everything I saw.
Here is my bus on the worst road surface ever, a real bone shaker stretch.
Where were we in the last blog and where are we going now?
Bobby’s was one of the venues for the fourth Bournemouth Writing Festival. Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the last weekend in April. There was so much going on and a real buzz about town.
Off to one of the other venues…
Inside, a theatre and two studios with events and talks.
There were events at half a dozen venues all near each other and you could also do Writing on the Beach and go to a poetry marquee on Horseshoe Common. Look out for my next blog for my impressions of the festival.
Today my short story collection Tidalscribe Tales features on Smorgasbord, Sally Cronin’s very popular blog. She is a great supporter of fellow authors and regularly promotes their books. In this blog you can read Sally’s review and also an extract from one of the stories.
Lottie almost faltered under the withering gaze of her agent Felicity Buchannon, but it was too late to change her mind.
‘Felicity, it was you who said I must take a break after losing Callum.’
‘A break, not permanent exile.’
‘I’m hardly leaving the country, it’s a lovely little place where I can get away from everything.’
Charlotte stopped typing. She had set herself to write the opening page of her Lottie Lincoln novel, now all she had to do was decide in which order to put all the chapters she had written so far. She could well imagine the reactions of Felicity and Lottie’s friends. She recalled her boss’s reaction when she had handed in her notice.
‘Where on earth is Hambourne?’
Once her boss realised Hambourne was not within Greater London, Royal Berkshire or Surrey, she lost interest and obviously decided Charlotte was a lost cause and did not try to dissuade her. After that, the longer Charlotte left it to explain to people she was moving away, the harder it became to tell anyone, let alone mention David’s situation. Her best friend from school days had recently departed to live in New Zealand with her new partner, so there was no need to reveal her change of address, thank heaven for emails.
So here she was in Hambourne writing, which was more than Lottie was doing as Charlotte had given her writer’s block. She started typing again.
When Lottie’s mobile rang and she saw Felicity’s name, she was tempted not to answer, but Felicity had been a good friend to her, she deserved better.
‘Lottie, how are you, we’re worried about you.’
‘I needed time to think.’
‘Did you ring that number I gave you for the grief counsellor?’
‘I don’t need counselling, a walk by the sea helps.’
‘So how’s your novel coming along?’
Novel? She hadn’t even unpacked the few chapters she had written, so much had happened to her, Puddleminster was not the quiet place she had expected. After Callum’s tragic death some people had advised her to have a complete break from writing and work, while others had insisted she must keep busy, keep writing.
‘Are you still there Lottie? I don’t want to push you, but we have got a publishing deadline to meet.’
‘I can’t do it Fliss, maybe I’ve got writers’ block. If I do write it will be something dark, this is such a strange place it’s given me new ideas.’
‘Darling, we don’t do DARK, what on earth would all your readers say, they want romance and escapism.’
‘I’ll write under a pen name then, look I have to go, I have an appointment…’
Five minutes later Lottie was on the beach and happy to bump into Geoff the pathologist out with his friend’s dog.
‘Hello Lottie, my wife was just talking about you, wondering when your next book was coming out.’
‘Oh dear, my agent just rang with the same question. I think I’ve got writer’s block. Maybe I should write something different, about a pathologist or a forensic scientist, what is the difference?’
‘For a start hasn’t that already been done and my wife certainly doesn’t want to read about bodies, being married to me. Mind you, I have got an interesting case on the slab, elderly lady, quiet life, living alone with her pot plants, not an enemy in the world and she has been poisoned with a very unusual substance, the sort of thing arrows in the South American jungle were tipped with…’
Lottie wasn’t sure if there was a code of conduct among pathologists and if he should be telling her this, but her interest was piqued.
‘Ohh, was it a local lady?’
‘No, no, way the other side of town. I would not be telling you if it was local.’
‘Are you sure she was murdered? Would the plants still be in her house, did she have exotic plants?’
‘No idea, why?’
‘My aunt had plants, house like a jungle my father used to say. Anyway, she liked her tea brewed properly with freshly boiled water, so she would empty her kettle before using it, distilled water for her beloved plants. If your lady had an exotic plant and the kettle spout touched highly poisonous leaves, is it possible the poison might end up in her tea….’
Geoff laughed then looked thoughtful. ‘I am not an expert on tropical plants, but it would be amusing if an episode of Gardener’s World was devoted to plants that killed their owners.’
‘Oh yes, those viewers’ homes where they can hardly move for plants.’
‘…and you were right about the headless body in the park…’
Charlotte passed for a moment, what fun, this could be a further step to Lottie becoming an amateur detective.
Two weeks had passed with Lottie writing not a single word, while frantic emails from Felicity became more and more frequent. She had joined a walking group and a widow’s support group, where she was of great interest because of her novels and the unusual circumstances of Callum’s death. But she had to face the fact she had no idea in what direction her life should go.
As she walked on the beach one morning she looked up to see Geoff striding purposefully towards her waving.
‘You were right, house full of exotic plants. More than one type highly toxic. A gradual build up of poison in her body, it would not have killed you to have one cup of tea with her, but… ‘
Charlotte closed her lap top, no need to decide tonight how poor Callum had died or what might happen next in Puddleminster-on-Sea.
Random ponderings on First World Problems and out of world experiences.
Miserable November afternoon
Happy November morning, welcomed by a Robin singing his heart out.
It has been a discombobulating month so far. WordPress would not let me download new photographs; how could I go on any walks if I couldn’t use my photos! The naughty elf who runs WordPress seemed to be suggesting my gallery was too full. I deleted lots of pictures to no avail and causing havoc to my posts and pages. To be fair to WordPress this was on my desk top computer which is still on Windows 10, now no longer supported, whatever that means. Cyberson2 had suggested I didn’t need to worry or at least there was no point in doing anything, as my old computer would not cope with Windows 11. He had downloaded extra protection when they were visiting recently… And hey ho, I have heard scary things about Windows 11… So I created a test blog on my iPad and whoopee, pictures were accepted, so now I download pictures to the gallery then do my blog on the computer where my word documents are…
Anyway, back to real life. One of our local towns is in lockdown or gridlock… there are always road works somewhere, but this is work on the bypass that does not bypass the town, but ends at the roundabout. Only one side at a time is being closed over the next three weeks, but apparently locals could not drive or catch a bus with any hope of getting there. No problem for me, I don’t drive, don’t live in the town and I walk there. But it turns out walking across the river to your writers’ group or coffee morning is not much good if nobody else is there. Like any group we arrive from all directions to a central point.
Meanwhile, no such problem in Southbourne for our monthly book club, only one person absent. The only problem being half of us had not read the book and only one person loved it, nobody else liked it! After the previous month’s enjoyable hardback in good print size, we were faced with a thick paperback in small print. This is a famous novel many people have loved over the years. Find out what it was at the end of this blog. With two lots of visitors staying and blogs to write, I started reading, but decided I must abandon it. I met one of the other members out and about and was relieved to hear she had not read it either.
It is looking like autumn, but too mild. I have just given my so called lawn its third final mow of the year. Talking of global warming, we seem to have heard too little about Prince William’s Earthshot prize and ten year project. While world leaders preside over wars and destruction, clever people are working and innovating to look after the planet.
And talking of the planet…
Years ago my husband came back indoors one night and said he had just watched the space station fly over Ken’s garage. He had asked another neighbour why he was staring above Ken’s garage. We hadn’t known we could go on line and track its many differing orbits. After that we were obsessed for the period it was passing over Southbourne, or Dorset or England…
The International Space Station, that shining beacon of humanity, science and international cooperation is coming up to retirement or abandonment. My scientific knowledge usually comes from tuning in to the middle of intelligent radio programmes, so it may or may not be true that a space station does not stay in orbit of its own accord and is reliant on the occasional blast of propulsion, worked by the Russians. To bring it down safely to some remote Mexican desert is not guaranteed, dependent as it is on international cooperation. Russia’s MIR was successfully brought down in the desert, but Skylab was scattered over Western Australia in 1979. To have a piece of ISS come down in my road would be blogworthy, but possibly more inconvenient than work on the bypass.
Possible scenario of bits of ISS falling on Bournemouth seafront.
The novel was Catch 22 and the person who loved it also loved my novella Pandemonica and gave it a five star review on Goodreads, so she is obviously a good judge of books...
Have you read Catch 22… or Pandemonica?
Have you spotted the space station or perhaps even been to the space station?
