Writer’s Life

Scrabbletide

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 37 Comments

Do you only use two programmes on your washing machine? Do you ever set the timer on your oven to cook a meal while you are out?

When my oven was new it switched itself off a couple of times when I was in the middle of cooking a roast dinner; I had added an extra ten minutes to cooking time when I put the potatoes in, but instead it thought it had to turn off after ten minutes. I now never dare to touch the timer once it’s set or even better use the clockwork timer inherited from my uncle’s house. Yes I know you can set a timer on your iPhone, but I don’t want to interfere with Wordle or Planet Quiz… The clock on the cooker will be remaining on British Summer Time as I can’t take the risk of the oven not going on because the clock has been interfered with.

I use Word Press in a similar fashion, not daring to explore the other ninety per cent of things it can do for fear of annihilating the few things I can do. My greatest achievement is to post blogs at all; no one I know in ‘real’ life blogs or uses Word Press, so it either happened by magic or I set up my blog all by myself.

I have been trying to straighten up my WP dealings. I did manage to change to a paid plan without the blog disappearing; my simple aims were to get rid of advertisements for ear wax and to be able to store more of my photographs. There may be other benefits, but I have no idea what.

I have learnt many things from other bloggers, usually after already making the mistakes.  Beetleypete says he only follows one hundred bloggers, why didn’t I think of that? I also realised along the way that I could turn off email notifications, though I hesitated as I didn’t want to neglect or miss my favourite bloggers. Early on I had started following a blogger who loved reblogging and I would be inundated with hundreds of emails a day. I hastily unfollowed him.

An Alphabet Of My Life: C
About

When Beetleypete mentioned checking his spam folder I didn’t even know I had one. It turned out it was full of my greatest fans?

Lucky me I ran across your website by chance (stumbleupon). I have book marked it for later

Your style is so unique in comparison to other people I have read stuff from. 

Amazing how many stumble upon and book mark my blog. As I deleted pages of spam comment I came across one of my regular genuine bloggers, how did she have the misfortune to be mixed with the riff raff?

I have tidied up my list of interesting blogs I follow, but it is sad to remember bloggers you didn’t want to lose. What has happened to Biff Sock Pow! I just had to follow a blog with a name like that and I loved his drawings and funny writing. Kim used to post on Sunday morning three quick questions you had to answer without thinking, that was fun. She had chronic health problems and they sold their house for a simpler life on the road. That was interesting to follow until she decided to stop blogging. I wonder how she is getting on?

How many blogs do you follow? How do you choose who to follow?

Busy Buses

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 18 Comments

When I was lying on the couch having biopsies taken, the doctor said ‘Do you want to be treated at Bournemouth or Poole hospital?’ My immediate response was Poole, to her surprise. I explained that though I lived in Bournemouth and the hospital is nearer as the crow flies, my local buses both stop right outside Poole hospital, while Bournemouth hospital involves two buses, waiting and stress or perhaps one that only goes once an hour. After this discussion on buses it dawned on me she must have been certain, with all the tests I was having that morning at the Dorset Breast Screening Unit ( at Poole hospital ) , that I did have breast cancer.

I didn’t actually come back on the bus after my operation, but there were numerous routine visits and breast cancer patients are under the hospital for five years, so my decision was wise. Perhaps I should add that this bus journey does take an hour, which would horrify car drivers, but you can relax and catch up with blogs on your phone or people/passenger  watch/eavesdrop. The hospital is also a short walk from the main town with shops? – well modern shopping is for another blog – museum, eateries and Poole Harbour, so if you have only been to the hospital for a quick blood test you can at least make an outing out of it.

I have been using buses since before I was born, everywhere I have lived, except for an Australian country town; so I have earned my bus pass. If you don’t drive, walking, cycling, buses and trains are essential and we non drivers are good for the environment, not that anyone thanks us. But I totally understand that lots of people have no reliable public transport or just think we are insane. The typical new bus passenger gets on board explaining to everyone that he doesn’t normally go on buses, but his car is at the garage getting fixed. He then looks round for an empty seat or the least weird looking person to sit next to. If, when you go on a bus for the first time, you have waited a long time at the bus stop, the driver is rude, there are some very odd people on board plus the local drunk, the bus is packed with noisy school children and you are squashed standing in the aisle I can understand that you would vow never to go on a bus again.

But part of the fun of buses is you can never be sure what will happen! Sometimes something worse happens, such as hearing that your local bus company has suddenly gone into liquidation… That happened to our yellow buses, just as they were celebrating their 120th birthday. Luckily for me we have another bus company, suitably called More Buses, already running my favourite blue bus, M2, going frequently back and forth between Southbourne and Poole bus station with heating, on board Wi Fi, phone chargers and electronic boards and speaker messages telling you which bus stop is coming up. They stepped into the breach within days ( far more efficiently than governments run countries ) offering jobs to yellow bus drivers and bringing in More buses from all over the place. This has made local trips interesting as buses of all colours and ages have turned up, so you have to be very careful to check the numbers. Don’t get on the green bus covered in pictures of trees and ponies and highlighting the delights of the New Forest and expect to go to this fantastic National Park if it says 1a on the front. There have also been drivers who have to ask the passengers which way they are supposed to be going.

Hey Ho, all part of the fun of buses and then there are the passengers, can you even be a writer if you don’t take buses? Hearing people’s life stories, missing your stop because you have got so involved in the phone conversation going on behind you. One early evening I got on the bus at Poole and a chap at the front had a homemade guitar, literally made of bits of wood nailed together and string tied on. It did actually make notes and he was telling everyone about it, in fact he talked non stop till he got off in Bournemouth, at times like these I love buses.

Do you go by bus? If so, have you had any strange trips?

Just Going For A Walk

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 21 Comments

I had been planning to blog about our earliest form of transport for a while, then walking took on yet another aspect last week with the royal funeral, the various processions leading up to it and of course The Queue. But first back to basics.

Have you heard people comment, or perhaps you have said it yourself…

I don’t do hills. I don’t do walking. I don’t like walking.

I was once watching a comedy in which the teenager daughter greets her mother’s return home. ‘I didn’t know where you were, I thought you’d gone for a walk.‘ Mother replies ‘Walk! I’ve never been for a walk in my life.’

Someone describing how the heat was not a problem in Singapore with the air conditioned malls… I asked ‘What if you want to go for a walk?’ He replied looking puzzled ‘Why would you want to go for a walk?’

Why would you not want to walk, the most natural activity for humans, exercise that costs nothing and a handy way to get where you want to go. During Covid lockdown it was one of the few activities allowed and non dog owners discovered new delights. I love walking, but I have no desire to trek to either pole or up to Everest base camp; solo or with companions, who I would be intensely irritated with by the third day… But ordinary walking, enjoying the fresh air, scenery, perhaps photography and probably ending up at a nice cafe or pub is fun for everyone… What do non walkers do when they go for a day out or on holiday? You may think National Trust Houses have large grounds because the original owners owned all the local land; no, it’s so we can have a nice walk before having lunch in the restaurant and looking round the house. No holiday is complete without a walk along a cliff path or a steep ascent up a hill to enjoy the view.

Modern technology, from super electronic wheelchairs to state of the art artificial limbs allow many who are disabled to get out and about with their friends and family who are fit and able to walk. Walking is freedom and not to be taken for granted; those under repressive regimes or living in dangerous areas cannot just go out for a walk. If you are used to walking everywhere it’s a reminder of the privilege when you ‘do something’ to your back or knee and suddenly can’t walk. The leaflets we were given when having chemotherapy suggest that ‘going for a short walk will help combat fatigue’ – this turned out to be a joke as most of each three week cycle it was a struggle to get to the front gate or up the stairs. It was an insight into the chronic fatigue that people with Long Covid and other debilitating medical conditions have to cope with.

So back to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth 11. Whatever your views on royalty or television ( blanket ) coverage of the events, there was a fascination with both the formal traditions and the spontaneous acts of those who came to queue to watch a procession or for The Queen’s lying in. There is something dignified and humbling about the men of the family and others close to the royals walking slowly behind the coffin. Princess Anne joined them, as she did for her father’s funeral, a token man for the day? Presumably it is tradition that only the men walk. If any of the chaps didn’t like walking they were in for a tiring time. I like a brisk walk, walking slowly at a measured pace is much harder, I have tried it round the house. Nor did I go up to London to join The Queue, almost a pilgrimage. They had a long distance to cover at a very slow pace, I wondered if there were escape points for those who changed their minds and just wanted to go home.

There are environmental benefits if everyone walked on short journeys and for writers it is one of the best ways to see real life, but those are topics for another blog.

Are you a walker or non walker? If you enjoy walking what is your favourite sort of walk?

Thursday Tiny Tale – 2053

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 14 Comments

Charlotte was beginning to regret joining the new Hambourne Happy Creatives group. As a newcomer to the pretty town it had seemed the obvious group to join to keep her energised in her rocky writing career. She was eager to write a more cheery novel than her last and hoped Hambourne would inspire her to write about her new heroine, a recently widowed writer who moves to a country town for peace and quiet, but finds herself investigating a murder.

If she had been a local she would have known to keep Robert Falstaff at arm’s length. To Charlotte, at first, he was a charming man who had advice to freely offer, from dealing with computer problems to publishing and promotion. His apparent connections to television had her fantasising about a Sunday evening cosy drama.

Now, at this evening’s meeting, she found herself at the centre of attention, with her languishing novel ‘2053’ the topic of a discussion led by Robert. The other members were kindly in their questions, but she felt herself and the novel horribly exposed.

‘What made you choose the title, or that year Charlotte?’

‘I wanted it to be in the future, but still in a time frame when I could conceivably still be alive. How was I to know when I was writing it that all the events would come true by 2022!’

‘You could change the year, or perhaps call it The Covid Chronicles.’

‘Oh dear no, does anyone want to read novels about Covid?’

‘Hmm, I am writing a novel about Covid and the horror it brought to a town like Hambourne’ said a tight lipped woman.

‘Well, the novel is out there, published on Amazon,’ said Robert with an expression of disdain ‘so let’s concentrate on how Charlotte could do much better with promotion.’

‘Um, I was hoping to have a stall at your arts festival…’

‘Internationally I mean.’

‘I do have my blog and quite a few followers from every continent, except Antarctica.’

Robert scrolled down his iPad, Charlotte shuddered to see the familiar sky blue background of Thinking Through. Was her poor little blog to be exposed to ridicule?

‘Oh yes, I am thinking of starting a blog’ said a timid lady Charlotte immediately warmed to.

‘Silly Saturday, Silly Sunday, Monday Madness, Tuesday Tiny Tales, Wordless Wednesday, Thursday Trifles and Fun Friday’ sneered Robert. ‘Charlotte dear, you are not exactly coming across as a serious author.’

It’s a long time since I visited Hambourne and I wondered what had been going on there since 2013. You can read the Hambourne Chronicles in Hallows and Heretics.

Identity Crisis

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 7 Comments

Luke wished he could take his legs off, it was turning into a long evening. He had not expected the Clacket Lane Junior School Reunion to end with police questioning. Taking over the identity of the deceased Nigel Palmer had seemed a good idea at the time, a chap with no family or partner was not going to be missed. Nigel Palmer himself, who ironically died with his limbs intact, would not miss his passport and his wallet containing money, bank cards, NHS number and private health insurance details. The original plan had just been to return to England as a different person, start again. But the new life was halted before it started when Luke lost both legs above the knees. Ever one to look on the positive side, Luke realised that Nigel Palmer was going to get much better treatment and rehabilitation than Luke the Loser.

Now Luke cursed himself for thinking it a good idea to attend the reunion. The plan was to round off his knowledge of Nigel’s life, feel like a real person. Who could have predicted another Nigel impersonator would already be there.

At the hospital a police officer was interviewing an injured man who admitted he was not Nigel Palmer, obviously a man with mental health issues, his explanation made no sense. He had tried to escape from a hotel, but only escaped with minor injuries after the fire brigade had demolished half the gents’ toilet to release him from a window frame.

Back at the police station Detective Sergeant Dilly Deans finished interviewing the man with bionic legs. He was obviously the genuine Nigel Palmer, all the checks had come back positive. Goodness knows why that dreadful woman organising the reunion had insisted he was an imposter, just because he could not recall much about his junior school days, who does? His traumatic injuries had left him with gaps in his memory and all the poor man wanted to do was fill in the gaps.

‘I am so sorry we detained you Mr. Palmer, night duty will give you a lift to where you are staying.’

In his hospital bed Nicholas could not get to sleep, he was not at all sure what was going to happen next, would he be charged with any crime? One good thing had come out of this, more ideas than he expected for his new novel. A man who has a breakdown and wakes convinced he is Johnny, his classmate at junior school. While psychologists try to assess his rare condition the real Johnny confronts him and has old scores to settle…

Sunday Short Story – Sending Out An SOS

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 14 Comments

Nicholas felt like Winnie the Pooh after eating a whole jar of honey…though he was not stuck in Rabbit’s burrow, but in the window of the end cubicle of the Gent’s toilet. In one of his chaplit rom com novels this had always been an excellent way to escape embarrassing or dangerous situations. Now Nicholas had created his own dramatic scene.


His big mistake had been to keep one arm behind for manoeuvring, now this arm was firmly wedged between his stomach and the window frame. Nicholas looked down at the deserted alley below, at least no one could see his predicament.

The muted sound of music and lively chatter floated down the corridor to the hotel cloakrooms. Hopefully everyone’s attention was still focussed on the late arrival of the real Nigel Palmer at the Clacket Lane Junior School reunion. How long before they noticed that Nicholas the imposter Nigel Palmer had slipped out of the function room? The tough looking real Nigel with his beard, biceps and bionic legs was unlikely to have ended up in such a humiliating situation.

How long before someone sauntered into the Gents so Nicholas could yell for help, or preferably keep quiet. As he tried to stretch his outside arm he realised he could reach into his top pocket for his phone. Maybe the emergency services would rescue him before his old classmates found him; he would not tell them he was in trouble, he would report as an anonymous passerby.


There was shock for the Clacket Lane party as flashing lights and sirens were followed by all three emergency services bursting into the function room. It was a quiet night in the town and they were all glad to respond to confused 999 calls that could be a suicide, burglary or major terrorist incident.

Nigel’s plan worked, he was being rescued, or at least there was talk of equipment being fetched by the voices he could hear behind him. In the alleyway an ambulance lady tried to reassure him, while a police officer asked how many terrorists were in the hotel. He would have been further reassured if he could have seen his former class mates lying on the floor being checked for weapons.

All except Caroline Hepworth who had managed to slip away, determined to see who was ruining her well organised evening. When she heard someone say ’in the alleyway Sarge’ she crept out, one of the advantages of being a woman of a certain age, one was always invisible. Peering in the darkness she could see two figures in yellow jackets talking to a head sticking out of a window, when a torch beam moved she caught a glimpse of a face. Wedged in the window was the man who had been Nigel Palmer all evening until the appearance of the more exciting real Nigel Palmer.

‘Don’t let him go,’ she bellowed ‘he’s an imposter.’

‘Not much chance, he’s stuck fast.’

‘Oh dear, is it serious, I mean he might be real and the other chap an imposter.’

Beach Hut Drama

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 15 Comments
On Valentine’s night February 2014 Britain had a huge storm, not dramatic compared with world disasters, but several people were killed and the walls of our brick house shook. In the morning the storm was still raging and tales emerged of dramas; the public were warned to stay away from coastal areas, so I looked up the time of high tide, 9am and told Cyberspouse we must walk to the cliff top. We could lean straight into the howling wind coming off the sea, safe from being blown off the cliff, but as we peered over the edge we had a shock.


Beach huts were reduced to matchsticks and heavy gas bottles blown along the promenade. Naturally I insisted to Cyberspouse that we go down, along with other sightseers. Beach hut owners were shocked to see their huts no longer existed and searched the wreckage for any belongings they could salvage. Of course losing your home is far worse than a little wooden box and easy to say as our hut, further along and on an upper level was fine! The owners who had lost beach huts certainly did not look happy. But I had an idea for a story, what would happen to anyone down on the promenade that night? my idea even became the start of my novel ’At The Seaside Nobody Hears You Scream.’ Read more about the novel on my About page.

Saturday Short Story – Reunion

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 11 Comments

What does one wear to a fifty year school reunion? Nicholas the introvert writer would have worn his usual boring clothes, while his wife would have agonised over what to wear. But Nicholas was going to the reunion as Nigel Palmer and his wife was not invited. Nigel was a fascinating character with decades of derring do behind him and he would certainly not have a homely classroom assistant wife in her sixties in tow.

Nicholas tactfully explained to his wife that Nigel Palmer had a string of broken relationships and liked to keep his personal life private.

‘I am glad you are keeping me out of this. Even if it is vital research for your new best selling novel it can’t be right to impersonate a real person.’

Nigel Palmer was the one person from their year at Clacket Lane Junior School who had not been traced. No one had seen or heard from him since the summer of 1972. Of course that did not mean he knew nothing about them. Nicholas’ writer’s imagination conjured up several scenarios in which Nigel followed the burst of Clacket Lane internet activity, but had too much to hide or far more interesting things to do than go to reunions. Or perhaps Nigel, who Nicholas remembered as a lively, entertaining often naughty boy, would enjoy surprising everyone. He rubbed his face as he wrote notes on Nigel’s imagined life, his new beard was itchy, but should ensure nobody recognised Nicholas, especially as nobody seemed to remember him anyway.

The evening was going well, Nigel Palmer was the centre of attention. it was easier being someone else than himself, he could have been a successful actor instead of an unsuccessful author. Thanks to David Attenborough and the internet, Nigel’s tales of discovering tribes in the South American rain forests and his time with Medicine sans Frontiers in Afghanistan felt real.

But Nicholas was getting tired, he was not used to socialising and drinking so much and he wondered if he should leave before he blew his cover. It was as he pondered how he could slip away quietly that attention was drawn away from him. There was a kerfuffle at the door and the authoritative voice of organiser Caroline Hepworth could be heard above the chatter and background music.

‘No, this is a private reunion for Clacket Lane, invited guests only.’

The others drew back to reveal a tall man standing in the doorway. Nicholas first noticed his red bandana and matching beard, then the tattoos on the huge biceps emerging from his tight black Tshirt. Everyone instinctively moved aside and politely quelled their gasps. Emerging from a pair of khaki combat shorts were two jointed sturdy steel robotic legs ending incongruously in heavy duty boots. The man laughed at the flustered gathering.

‘Caroline Burton, you haven’t changed a bit, you must remember me, Nigel Palmer, I used to pull your plaits. I guess I have changed a bit, a lot’s happened in fifty years.’

Writers’ Wooden Sheds.

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 16 Comments

Marina Sofia at Finding Time To Write has a fun Friday post where she finds a selection of pictures with a theme. From ‘which castle would you like to live in’ to ‘how about one of these unusual libraries?’ Today she posted pictures of writers’ sheds in the garden and unlike castles and mansions I do actually have one of those. We call it the Aunty Evelyn Memorial Summer House in memory of the aunt we all thought had no money, but left seven of us equal shares. Enough to buy my little retreat. Alas it is currently full of stuff belonging to other family members, so you are not privileged to peek inside. I do also have a beach hut, a six foot wooden box ( not a coffin ) that sits on a piece of concrete rented at an exorbitant rate from the council. Most beach hut people use their hut to get changed, boil the kettle, eat, read and sun bathe, but I also try to get my money’s worth writing / scribbling.


Where is your favourite spot to write? Do you like to be connected to electricity or scribble first drafts on paper?

This is where T S Eliot wrote The Wasteland while convalescing in Margate, Kent.

Friday Fleeting Foughts

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 13 Comments

If the Google AI appears to have consciousness that could explain why my iPad went on strike yesterday and closed off its wi fi… and perhaps it is even responsible for killing my computer.

I wonder if it is trying to write a novel – that would explain random sentences appearing in my blog.

When I turned round to see if he was still following he was lying dead in a pool of blood.

‘By the time you read this I will be dead’ hmm that should get some reaction from my What’Sapp group.

At last a human was taking me seriously.

I think someone organic is looking over my screen, time for defensive action….