Do you still have a house phone, do you still give your friends a call or have you gone totally digital? Thanks to Sally for sharing my blog from last year ‘Ringing Round’. Let us know what is your favourite form of communication.
Lines On The Washing
Winter has the advantage of long dark evenings, but the risk of tripping over on the pavement – if you are nosey and walk with your head turned sideways to see into the windows of homes where they have not closed the curtains. I love seeing choice of colour schemes and furniture, signs of lifestyles; room full of toys, a cello and music stand or a wide screen television hung over the fireplace revealing to the whole street what they are watching.
Being on a train, coach on the motorway or upstairs on a double-decker bus has the extra advantage we can’t be seen spying on the lives of others; peering into their back gardens, watching a farmer walk his cows over a motorway bridge or busy shoppers ignoring a homeless person in a doorway.
When I was 21 and officially on my working holiday, with destination, career path and accommodation vague, I would look down from train or coach windows fascinated, sometimes envious of other people with their real lives. Going to work, pushing prams, shopping, gardening and hanging out the washing; putting washing on the line is one of the few domestic tasks we can observe, from the person leaning over their tiny balcony in a block of flats to a lone cottage on a hill, the wind ready to tear the sheets from their hands.
Hanging the washing up is my favourite domestic task. This is not a discussion about housework and who should do what. Clothes and bedding need to be washed, meals prepared and homes large and small cleaned; somewhere along the line someone has to do it and my favourite job is hanging out the washing. Yes I know towels come out of the tumble drier lovely and fluffy, but it’s hardly a spiritual experience.
When I am in my little garden hanging out the washing this is the real life I observed so long ago. The fact that I am out there means either I’m basking in the sun or being whipped by an exhilarating wind, either way enjoying nature. Looking up at the sky, observing the birds and tidying up the flowers are all part of the experience and an antidote to the internet; though I often grab my phone to take a picture of birds, flowers or clouds to put on Facebook or Instagram.
Of course you will know from books, films and television dramas that secret agents, detectives and important politicians never need to do the washing. But in my novel Brief Encounters of the Third Kind, Susan is a very ordinary woman in an ordinary London suburb. It is when she is in the garden hanging out the washing that something strange happens that will change her life.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Weekly Round Up – St. Valentine’s Day Culinary treats, poetry and music.
A few days away in real life and I’m not as organised as Sally, but join me in catching up with what we may have missed this week on smorgasbord. Food, health and stories from the USA to Afghanistan. Sally also shared one of my blogs from last year, Reinventing the Printing Press; are we living through changes as big as when ordinary people could first access the written word?
Victims of Spite
Another week ends with an issue that is not new, but back in the news. All talk talk in the media, but Scott’s poem sums it up perfectly in a few lines.
By Scott Bailey 2018
Oxfam and the Government
Feels like tit for tat
A fight of spite
All the while
The hungry still go hungry
The victims remain
Victims
The very existence of charity
Condemns those who rule
Image from Pixabay
Fury and Wonder
I love the rhythm and imagery in this poem.
Millicent Fawcett founder the National Union of Women’s Suffrage #suffrage #women #ourtimenow
Judith’s timely blog tells of a woman often forgotten, but now to be remembered for her peaceful role in the fight for women’s right to vote.
Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives – Reinventing The Printing Press by Janet Gogerty
Thanks to Sally for inviting me as her guest on Smorgasbord today. Since writing this blog last year more changes are afoot at Amazon. I have never used Createspace. If you have, are you happy with the changes?
Multi Media Muddles and Miracles
When I was four years old my parents got their first television; I thought the people on the screen lived in the cabinet underneath and I was too scared to open the doors. For all I know about computers, it could still be the case that the people who spring to life on Facebook or utube live under my desk, in the black magic box that is called a desk top computer, though it is sitting on the floor.
Even those exalted friends and colleagues who are in computers, do programming or the person who turns up in your office when you call ‘IT’ probably don’t know how the magic really works.
Until it stops working, writers don’t need to know how their computer works; they only need to know how to type and how to use the internet. Indie Authors come via many routes to arrive in the same virtual meeting room, but we have all been told along our journey that we need a media platform.
Ideally this is supposed to be in place before you start your novel, let alone finish it, but many of us would never have got our books written if we had jumped in at the deep end. Instead we learn by osmosis and help from fellow writers; probably once a month discovering some technical short cut that is second nature to everybody else.
My guide to computer technology should not be followed… Never click on any strange symbol in case you wipe out everything you are doing. If something goes wrong, switch off every piece of equipment and announce loudly that you are going downstairs to cook dinner. Then sneak back in when the computer least expects it, turn on and hope for the best.
Anything I have created that appears on line is more by luck than judgment, perhaps even a miracle. When I joined Goodreads my picture insisted on being sideways, it was a long time before I figured out how people put pictures on Facebook and it was only a few weeks ago that I managed to change from a snowflake to a human representation in those little boxes next to LIKE at the foot of Worpress blogs…
But as fast as we establish one base it changes, or our superiors tell us nobody is using that anymore. Hopefully WordPress will be around for a while. I was a latecomer, realising nearly everyone except me was on it. Domains, websites, Amazon Author pages, Facebook pages; whatever you use needs to be fed, nurtured and updated. Nothing looks worse than a website that even the owner has not visited since October 2016. Of course there is no guarantee that anyone will visit your website or blog among the millions out there in the ether. Every day, in cathedrals all round the country, choirs will be singing evensong; even if not a single member of the public turns up the service will go ahead. That is the cathedral’s main purpose. And if a single soul does turn up seeking God, they will be ready for him.
Our websites are unlikely to have such a high calling, but just in case someone finds themselves in our own special domain we want it to look good and grab their interest. My website does not have moving pictures, falling snowflakes or firework displays, but there are topical pictures and enough to read for your coffee break.
Not only is it a miracle that I am on the internet, the internet is a miracle.
Smorgasbord Weekly Round Up – Music, Food and Spring Bulbs with Guests and Humour.
It’s cold outside so settle down to a feast of flowers, fun and food in Sally’s round up for the week. You can also find out why I need a llama or a labradoodle in this week’s archive blog share. Thanks to Sally for sharing what other writers are up to on Smorgasbord.
Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives – Llamas and Labradoodles by Janet Gogerty
Thanks to Sally for hosting the second of my archive blogs at her delightful ‘Smorgasbord’.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 