This weekend Sally Cronin featured my novel Quarter Acre Block at her Summer Book Fair. Visit her great blog to read about my book and two other very different authors who have written amazing stories.
I was also delighted to get a five star review on Goodreads for my new book Pandemonica.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239183916-pandemonica
You can also read the review and more about my books on the My Books page
Five years ago there was a dark cloud hanging over us.
In 2020 life changed in ways that affected the whole world, how each country directed it citizens to fend off a world wide pandemic varied greatly. In a town in England in March 2020, Cassie is looking forward to her first day working from home. But life for Cassie and other locals soon becomes strange as they try to obey and adapt to the continually changing rules issued by the government, often with amusing results.
In 2020 life changed in ways that affected the whole world at the same time. Confined to our homes many of us were glad to have the internet; Facetiming family, working from home and for entertainment. Writers could still write and bloggers were glad to link up with each other and not feel isolated. I enjoyed writing blogs, especially short fiction about ordinary folk, inspired by what was going on around me or related to me by others. Most of my tiny tales featured the same few families and neighbours in an English town that perhaps you know. Looking back at these stories, all written in real time, I was amused at the strange regularly changing rules we had to adapt to. The stories naturally formed themselves into a novella. I have not altered them, but I could not resist finding out what has happened to the main characters since. Most of us could not have predicted the upheaval of this current decade, but some people have taken the opportunity of such disruption to change their lives.
The second half of the book is an eclectic collection of stand alone tales, also written in real time. We may have avoided the future portrayed in the final story, or have we?
In March 2025 we were remembering the official start of Lockdown and for the first time I looked back at what I had written in my blogs.
These were strange times with unusual sights to photograph on our permitted exercise walks. Cruise ships moored out in Poole Bay.
Strange happenings, but maybe not as strange as the pandemonium at Tidalscribe Head Office, creating a book and hopefully remembering how I tackled Kindle Direct Publishing for Tidalscribe Tales back in February. Three things are needed for an eBook or a paperback; a title, a manuscript and a cover.
The Covid Chronicles was my working title, but that had been snapped up long ago and there are plenty of books with pandemic in the title, so how about a word that means pandemonium in a pandemic? PANDEMONICA – All I have to do is remember what I called it and how to spell it.
I could not find my word document for the very first story, no problem, copy and paste from my blog – Do Not Try this at home.
I remembered from last time that if you use your own photographs you need portrait shape, not landscape, all of my Covid pictures were landscape. Hmm, how about a desolate promenade at sunset, you might just spot a lonely jogger… it popped onto the Kindle cover no problem. If you like doing the technical side of photography you will know about strange numbers and letters telling you something or other about your photo, or you can just try a photo and KDP will either accept it or reject it. The cover of the paperback evolved to look nothing like my original idea, the sunset was rejected, but how about a desolate beach in sepia tones instead?
An extract from Chapter Two
After two years she now had the house just as she wanted, but that didn’t alter the fact that her independence had been swept from under her feet, transformed overnight by Boris Johnson from a fighting fit recycled teenager into a vulnerable over seventy. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her son had moved back in ‘for a week’ after his divorce, just in time to find himself locked in, locked down, or whatever they called it. Left to her own devices she would have sneaked out, but James was on guard, no doubt on instructions from his sister.
Pop through the ether to have a look at Pandemonica
You don’t have to be a chicken to go free range. Like chickens, outdoor reared pigs and hill sheep, free range humans are well adapted to life outside and wandering free. They don’t need to be shut in or put in a vehicle if it rains or snows.
Like us with the Covid pandemic, free range chickens recently had their life style cramped with outbreaks of bird ‘flu, but unlike other animals, free range humans don’t usually get eaten.
I have been wandering around by myself since I was seven and set off for the first day at junior school. Freedom was at my disposal, well as long as I didn’t take the short cut through the large park, which was like a rhododendron plantation with lots of hiding places. I was allowed to play there with my friends and had no idea why solo walks were forbidden.
Plenty of drivers enjoy walking and leaving their car at home, but for the dedicated non driver there is the added excitement of knowing you have to walk to get to places and buy your shopping.
Perhaps the three big ‘C’s, Covid, Cancer and Chemotherapy have enhanced the delights of being allowed or able to get out whenever I like. I am also only too aware that plenty of people my age or younger are not so lucky, whether struck down with strokes or waiting for new knees and hips. I don’t take being able to walk far and fast for granted.
During covid we were allowed out for a walk and many people discovered walking for the first time, but we weren’t allowed to go anywhere, just back home. The joy of our regained freedom is destinations, meeting your friends for coffee and cake, going to your favourite groups or just going anywhere with people interest.
Whatever the destination the free range human just goes there, no worrying about finding a parking place or nervously looking at the time in case their parking runs out. We just nip down footpaths or cross the river on a ferry. The free ranger is not always on foot, we can jump on a bus if it’s raining or we have shopping to carry. We could jump on any bus and see where we end up. The free range human sees life. The writer certainly sees real life on the bus, but that’s for another blog. The photographer can pause and snap whenever they spot something interesting, which is why I have so many photos in my WordPress gallery.
For our health we don’t need a running machine and step counter, though now I have a smart phone I can’t resist seeing how many kilometres and flights I have done. You can enjoy fresh air, nature and the four seasons or human life and the camaraderie of others ‘on the road.’
Do you like walking or jogging. If so, do you wander locally and walk your dog or are you very adventurous going up mountains and doing marathons?
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.
On BBC Radio at the weekend they talked on the phone to a family who have taken in a young Ukrainian man. They sounded like one of those larger than life families who are so fascinating to we lesser mortals. The parents are both vicars ( one was in training ) and have five children and numerous pets. As Christians they have always used their spare room for whatever needy person has come into their lives, not for them the valid excuses of not enough room or too busy. The children love meeting new people and their new Ukrainian is having lots of fun and improving his English.
Meanwhile on the home front my younger son and daughter-in-law have just bought their own place and I am on my own again. Lots of their stuff is still here so I might not have room for any refugees just yet, especially as the rest of the family want to come and see the many improvements they have done – that’s for another blog.
But far from the terrible war in Ukraine and Chez Tidalscribe, two stories in the news caught my imagination, one local tiny tale and one big story on the other side of the world.
Before Christmas there was a fire in a block of flats in Bournemouth, luckily the elderly residents were safely evacuated and quickly transferred to the Premiere Inn next door. But a News South story the other day revealed they were still there; so close to home and yet so far. They are being well looked after, have their friends and neighbours close and don’t have to bother with cooking. But it’s not HOME. Premiere Inns are usually reliable ( all look exactly the same ) and comfortable as long as you like the colour purple. Very handy as stopovers on long journeys or to stay near relatives who have a full house, but you would not want to live there for months on end. Ensuite bathroom yes, but the furnishings are basically a few shelves, some coat hangers and a hard chair. A lady of 93 was shown sitting on the big bed knitting, much the same position you would find me on a short Premiere break. I prefer to avoid the hard chair, gathering all the pillows and lounging with my knitting, book or iPhone. With all that’s happened, the last place I actually stayed away from home was Margate Premiere Inn Christmas 2019, a handy location twixt railway station and beach, overlooking the shelter where TS Eliot wrote The Wasteland, which still lies languishing on my Kindle… you can read more about the delights of Margate in this blog…
The Wonder of Wetherspoons | Times and Tides of a Beachwriter (tidalscribe.com)
A more chilling story came from China in the news one evening. Anyone testing positive for Covid was being forced into quarantine in the most basic facilities ( or lack of facilities ) but the people screaming and fighting ‘security forces’ were not being taken away for quarantine. They were being evicted from their flats, their homes, so the whole block could be taken over as a quarantine centre; perhaps an effort to improve accommodation for the quarantees! Where the residents were going to live was not clear, but there are so many ways to lose one’s home. Never take your home for granted, one day you may have No Sweet Home.
Covid has not gone away by any means, but officially in England we are back to normal; yesterday was the second anniversary of the day we went into the first lockdown. I have had my end of treatment visit to the oncologist so officially I am back to normal. For all of us the past two years have been strange. Perhaps because it is spring, or because Ukraine makes us appreciate our mundane lives, but everything seems more vivid, interesting, exciting even. I haven’t been further than a walk round Poole after my hospital visit but every walk, every coffee stop is ‘an experience.’
But we do have to face the fact that our town centre shops were already in decline and life is going to be hard and drab for many people with the economic disaster of Covid and Ukraine. Shopping therapy is going to be a thing of the past, though there is still coffee…
Looking on the positive side people have made new on line friends, got to know their neighbours better and become more empathic, helping those who have been isolated and those whose financial struggles were made worse by Covid.
For those of us who have lost partners and loved ones we see the proof that life always does go on, returning more and more to our previous lives doesn’t seem right, but unless we move to a different place or go sailing round the world, it is almost inevitable and a comfort. Some parts of my life have been rejigged while others miraculously slot back into place. Our writing group has resumed in the library; our tutor and founder is now ninety, recovered from a broken hip and more on the ball than the rest of us!
A few weeks ago my friend was making coffee for the new monthly coffee morning at my local library – one of their activities to welcome real human beings back into the library. I went along for moral support, just as well as only two others turned up, both mature chaps who have just returned to England. We had a really interesting hour and it turned out one of the men, Mike, went to a writers’ group back in the USA. I told him about our weekly group and he turned up the next week and has really enjoyed his two sessions. Our tutor was glad to have someone else who also remembered the war ( WW2 ) for our new chap was born in 1935 and spent fifty years in the USA after he and his wife emigrated. He is adamant that he is back in England for his ‘last years’ ( he is very spritely so there could be a good few last years), despite leaving all his family behind; a story that is his to tell not mine, but he is obviously making new friends as well, with the philosophy that every day he is going to engage in conversation with a stranger. This week another new bloke turned up at writers’ group, invited along by Mike.
It has been a strange few weeks. I received an email from my old high school friend in Australia who I have not seen or heard from since we were teenagers at college; fifty years of having no idea how both our lives panned out. She is helping with a research project on founder members of the college and with some difficulty ( as with all the girls who had married and changed their names ) managed to track down this website and found my email address on the contact page; I think that is the first time someone has used the contact page! It was really interesting catching up, though I have no idea what she looks like now!
If you walk dogs, walk or cycle everywhere and work in your front garden, you see familiar faces and smile or chat. Since Covid people seem even more likely to engage, with the silent sub text ‘Isn’t it nice not to be wearing masks and be out and about?’
A lady often passes by on her bicycle with a sweet poodly dog attached alongside, ears flying in the wind. I can’t help but smile and she gives a cheery nod. The other day she was on foot as I arrived back at my front gate and stopped to admire my front garden. It is hardly worthy of Gardeners’ World, but has burst into colour with bulbs out and the addition of the ubiquitous primula to fill in gaps in my tubs.
‘Are you a friend of Carolyn?’
I was pretty sure I didn’t know a Carolyn.
‘Carolyn and Amos round the corner?’
‘No, I definitely don’t know a Carolyn and Amos.’
‘Oh, you would certainly remember if you did know them. You look like one of Carolyn’s friends.’
I am still pondering if I have met Carolyn and Amos, perhaps anonymous faces I pass by often. And did she mean I am a twin of a particular friend or just look like the sort of person who would be a friend of Carolyn’s? Has the lady with the bouncy auburn curly coated dog only been greeting me for several years because she thought I was a friend of Carolyn’s?
Do you feel your life is back to normal, have you made new friends or found old ones during Covid?
‘…so next week it’s back in the hall; of course you can wear masks if you feel more comfortable doing so and the chairs will be spaced out.’
The chairman’s announcement was greeted positively by most members at the zoom meeting of the Lens Lovers camera club. Down in deepest Devon the local village hall was slowly coming back to life with activities, from Beavers to barobics, that had last been enjoyed early in 2020.
Paul Gibbons, New Member of the Year 2021, was horrified by the news, how was he going to get out of this? That he was a brilliant photographer was never in any doubt, all the images he shared on screen were his. The travels financed by his ill gotten gains had provided the opportunity to snap polar bears before they snapped him as he liked to joke. He did not mention that he was in a helicopter at the time. From the sands of Namibia to the trains of Siberia, from the Antarctic research station to local Devon scenes, he had tantalising tales for show and tell and had given regular talks far more interesting than their guest speakers.
It was Paul’s mother who had passed on the link to Lens Lovers’ zoom meetings; a friend from the old holiday home days had thought she might be interested. She wasn’t, she never wanted to see a camera again after her husband’s photography fatality, but she thought it would be an excellent diversion for her son during his lockdown. She had assumed he would tell the members he didn’t actually live in Devon.
Paul had not intended to deceive the club, but he had looked up their website and saw members had to live within a fifteen mile radius of the village hall to join, even for zoom meetings. At the time it had been a bit of a laugh, but he had become pathetically addicted to the fortnightly meetings. The many photos of socially safe lockdown rugged walks brought back childhood memories of more innocent times and then later the happy family holidays with his now ex wife and estranged children.
Zoom camera club hardly compared with his world wide adventures, but it was more exciting than Facetime with his mother and the weekly ‘Moving Forward’ sessions with the group. With digitally produced scenic backgrounds anyone on Zoom could be anywhere and his tropical island setting gave no clue to the cramped misery of his bleak bedsit.
Paul put on a smile for the squares of friendly faces as he rubbed his chafed ankle.
‘Yes, great news, though I might not be at every meeting, I think it’s time I booked a holiday.’
‘Oh well done Paul, does that mean you’re in remission?’
For a moment he wondered what Barbara was talking about, then remembered he had implied he had Multiple Sclerosis to explain why he had not been on the local outdoor shoots for fit, covid free members. Why had he mentioned holidays, he could have got away with implying he was still CEV, clinically extremely vulnerable. Though last week he had lied that he had just had his fourth vaccination.
‘Lucky you’, said Eddy, the oldest member ‘the only place I’m going is down Memory Lane.’
‘Well we are looking forward to meeting you in person Paul’ urged the chairman ‘and the hall is very disabled friendly, no trouble with your wheelchair and you can bring a carer, even if they are not a member.’
‘Oh thanks, all being well then…’
The only place Paul would be going on holiday was Memory Lane.
He glanced down at his electronic ankle tag, as if it might have miraculously disappeared. Even if he was living in Devon and not hundreds of miles away in a dreary city suburb, his curfew did not allow him out in the evenings.
Is getting back to normal life post Covid realistic? Are we Post, what is reality and what is normal life? No, don’t know and goodness knows…
Pandemics, epidemics and natural disasters have been normal for humans since we started wandering around, or at least wandering around in large numbers. Natural disasters were not disastrous before there were human settlements to destroy. Unless you were a dinosaur; even for them, getting back to normal life after a meteorite collision was never going to happen. Even Gaia was probably upset with giant meteors, just when she thought she controlled everything.
But for those of us who thought we were leading a privileged, or at least comfortable safe life before Covid, getting back to normal is what we both crave and fear. Some of us cannot have our old life back, while others are glad of the opportunity to start a new normal. Few of us believe our leaders have handled the crisis well all the way along. Every nation and state seems to have had different rules and while England is rapidly dispensing with restrictions ( I think, unless it’s all changed again ), on the other side of the world ‘Saint Mark’, Premier of Western Australia Mark McGowan, continues to try to protect the citizens of the Hermit Kingdom from Covid and the outside world.
‘In Western Australia, where there has never been a major Covid outbreak, Mr McGowan warned WA residents more restrictions could be implemented as new infections rise. With the state’s grand February 5 reopening now shelved indefinitely, tourism companies on the west coast will be unable to benefit when the rest of Australia flings open their doors to foreign tourists on February 21.’
https://www.wa.gov.au/government/covid-19-coronavirus
Of course it helps when your state is bordered by ocean and desert with only two roads in. Life has carried on more or less as normal. I don’t think people have been prevented from leaving, but they might not be able to get back in.
So where is normal life happening? The fewer restrictions the more worried are the hierarchy of the vulnerable. Clinically Extremely Vulnerable at the top perhaps, CEV a term to distinguish from those merely immunocompromised? However people are classified and however many jabs they have had – we’re up to four now – those worried about their health or their loved one’s health are still sticking to Zoom meetings, shopping on line and isolating.
But going back to normal is not good for the planet. However heart breaking this pandemic has been, Covid will not reduce the population enough to save Gaia, or rather keep her safe for us to live on. Have most of us forgotten we are meant to be saving the planet, have we forgotten how sweet the air was during that first world lock down, when streets were empty of polluting vehicles and people saw mountains from their city windows for the first time?
The new normal is unlikely to be a return to the simple life, or a rapid scientific breakthrough to heal Gaia while keeping our lifestyles. So it’s back to reality, unless you want to hide from reality with all the new skills you learnt during lockdowns. Have a pyjama day and hide under your duvet watching Netflix and ordering delicious meals from Deliveroo.
I had a hospital appointment the day after our delayed Christmas, for planning, which sounds more like a council department, but is to measure up for radiotherapy. Handy hint – always re-read your hospital letter the night before. I was supposed to do a lateral flow test. I had never done one as I have had regular PCR tests at oncology outpatients during chemotherapy. Luckily Team AK had half a dozen boxes someone had given them as the tests were hard to acquire over the Christmas season; the whole country had been told to do them frequently before visiting. Luckily Team H were still with us, with school and work they do them all the time. Fortunately I wasn’t on my own as chemotherapy has left me with peeling finger nails and peripheral neuropathy, making undoing or peeling open anything difficult. I read the instruction booklet carefully, set the kitchen timer and announced I must not look at the test result for thirty minutes. ‘No, twenty minutes’ said someone. ‘You have to check for the pink line after five minutes’ said another.
‘What pink line?’
There was no pink line, the test was null and void. It was suggested there was not enough magic fluid in the squeezy phial. Two more test kits were opened so we could use two phials. The pink line appeared and in half an hour I had a result. My son-in-law said I had better photograph the result in case I needed proof. It had taken a team of five, three tests and two self assaults on my throat and nose to get a negative result. Thank goodness I had not left the procedure till the morning.
Not all tests are exactly the same I gather and they probably have different names according to where you live. I wonder how anyone living alone with bad eyesight or hands that don’t work one hundred per cent manages to do these tests, let alone busy parents who are expected to test their children every time symptoms or contacts occur. I have also concluded from my limited circle of family and friends that we are divided over testing, the same as we are divided over mask wearing. Some families test continually and demand the same of visitors while others have never taken a test.
Parents with school children are testing frequently. Fortunately a positive result in children usually means mild symptoms and time off school, yet again… A recent survey reveals that since the school term started three out of four grandchildren now have Covid…
We had our second, proper Christmas on Tuesday 28th as Team H felt well enough to drive 180 miles on Monday and had negative results. People still get coughs, colds and winter lurgies nothing to do with Covid. It would have been a waste of totally rearranging and child proofing the house if they couldn’t have come at all! With my son and daughter-in-law living with me it has tripled ( octupled? ) the amount of equipment needing protection from three and six year old boys, not to mention the mountain of Christmas presents they had given each other.
A favourite children’s present, sent by Nanna in Spain via Amazon, turned out to be very popular. Seasick Sam is a game, along the same idea as Buckaroo, but they just liked playing with Sam. You see how much food you can stuff in his mouth before he is sick. We five adults had Secret Santa with all presents to be bought locally or in charity shops and we all came up with a great selection.
Writing did not take a back seat as six year old wanted to write his own Frightened Freddy Lego story and being six it revolved around vomiting, with Seaside Sam having a starring role and toilets. We took lots of screen shots and edited the pictures on the computer. When I suggested we start writing the story he said ‘I think I’ll make the story longer…’ who would be an editor!
The next day we edited more photos and whittled them down to 33. Then he narrated and I typed, no easy task with someone who bounces around like Tigger the whole time, whilst leaning on my desk… We printed it out and sent the photos to his mother’s ipad in time for the deadline of going home .
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 