Of mists and magic:

I am feeling brave this morning.  I shall expose my stupidity to all who care to read it.

Words I have misunderstood.

 Two immediately spring to mind, from way back when I was a mere child, and I do mean way back.  You younger readers must appreciate that my childhood was wreathed in a thick mist of- ‘children should be seen not heard’, or ‘if you don’t understand, that proves you were not listening’!  My parents were in actual fact really unusual and allowed us to have opinions and a voice. However in the general climate of ‘us v them’ I still didn’t question as much as a child today would do.

 The first of these two words I heard and used a great deal was dimsy, It was my mother’s word and I always assumed it came from her part of Wales as it didn’t seem to be a word in common usage in London.  I really liked this word.  Used  to describe that brief period of time before the quiet magical moment twilight descended – and there’s another word I have a liking for -twilight – soft, mysterious and deepening evening shadows.

 So as a family we had dimsy which, it seemed to me, was a perky little word to describe the last kick of day and the first nip of night.  How old was I when I finally worked out it was ‘dim-see’ or maybe even ‘dimly see’?  Far too old to be sensible! Was it a Welsh word or just a made up one of my mother’s? I have never researched to find out.  It’s hers, and mine.

 Equally long ago in that distant past I first heard the word moorish. Now I did know about Moors.  They peopled many of my childhood reads.  They hailed from Arabia, that magical land of sultans, flying carpets, hidden, dragon defended gold piles, jewelled heaps and genies in lamps.  I always told Mum, if she requested help with the housework, that if the dusting would produce a genie with wishes I would gladly polish all day and never complain:)

 Arabia had exotic foods such as dates (Christmas treat only)growing in the deserts on the fringes of oasis – so wonderful.  I would allow the sweetness to melt through my mouth and send my mind spinning across the starlight skies.

I always said Jaffa oranges (my all time treat) came from there, never believing others who would scoff.  They were  another sensory delight and in a time of rationing I just knew they came from Arabia.  One of my favourite reads when very young was A Moor in Spain therefore I was well aware that Moors lived in more than one exotic sun drenched land.

 I knew what Moorish meant – it indicated some wonderful foodstuff from far off sunny climes.  Treats of a high order, brought to our tables over land and sea – probably involving ships of the deserts as well as of the ocean.  Maybe pirates and brigands had been involved and if luck was shining bright the dates I ate had been picked by some beautiful Eastern maiden or even a prince:) (I did say I was very young?). Foods which offered an experience of sensual delight. I knew my Moors.

The fact that people would call chocolate biscuits and cake Moorish didn’t puzzle me one jot.  They were using the expression as a generic term. Moorish meant rich magic.

 Well no.

Not at all. It just means greedy lack of self control !!

 Ah well the magic was good while it lasted. I was well into my twenties before I worked that one out!

 Oh so slow, moi!

safe from drowning:)

When I was small, oh so many years ago! as a family we would wander forth to the seaside for our holidays. Complete with ‘lie flat’ surfboards (back in the 50s in UK!) Lilos and swimsuits, with the expectations of hiring small boats. I am not and never was what you could call nimble, and a few aspects of dabbling in the water caused problems.  One was getting from deep water on board any water craft be it lilo or row boat.  I could maybe hoist one leg up and over the side and clinging on for grim death attempt to haul myself up.  It hardly ever worked. Depending on my siblings mood as to whether I was given a helping hand.

Later in my teens I went for a week’s holiday in the Lake District to learn how to sail.  It was a fun, exciting week. I had my first romantic kiss, canoe trips onto moonlit waters that kind of stuff.  We also had to learn how to clamber back on board if a mishap occurred and we were swept into icy waters. Yes! Well! Not good. I have to admit not good. One leg up the side and not a hope in. . . .  well anything – of pulling myself up.  Just drag me along hanging onto the side – I’ll be fine!!!

Later in life I took myself off to learn kayaking – I really enjoyed the ambience of silent paddling, the wildlife unseen except from water, I enjoyed the freedom of calm waters and even, for some obscure reason, enjoyed the rough adrenalin rush of UK seas.  I did not enjoy learning how to get back into kayak if by chance I had failed to ‘roll’ properly – to haul myself up and in. No. It seems I am not handy in getting on board.

I never gave up of course – who wishes to drown:) However it was often a matter of holding up a hand for a pull up, or hanging onto the ropes at the side (Titanic style) maybe propelling self and craft to land by dog paddle power.

I am fortunately a good swimmer and my dog paddle is not to be dismissed lightly either.  My hand grip is not strong so it would have to be an arm around the ropes.

Why, you yawn, are we being inflicted with this sorry tale of dyspraxic ineptitude? Well it occurred to me this week that my experience of social networking is a little like all those water craft.

I do so wish to learn how to.  I do so enjoy the doing. However I do so often feel I am drowning as I struggle to get on board.

From putting together my first website – those long frustrating hours struggling with this new language to the ever expanding social networks, always, it seems, I flounder about in the water next to the boat, grasping this hand, then another, clinging to ropes of words as I try and figure out which piece of unintelligible code goes where. As with the boating there are always willing hands to reach down to try and help, voices to encourage and urge.  Ultimately though it always comes down to – can I haul myself aboard?

This last week I have endeavoured to pull myself onboard the ROW80 triberr craft.  I found myself in the water, in darkness.  I could hear the friendly voices calling, encouraging but where was that ****ed boat.  I was near.  I was joined to the greater being that was triberr but as I splashed around I did wonder if this would be the first craft I failed to board.

Accidently in the dark I bumped into it.  On the wrong side!  Somehow I groped my way around and then- there they all were- smiling, cheering and holding friendly hands to pull a very bedraggled old lady on board.  Once more safe from drowning.  Thank you everyone.

ROW80

This week pretty well nothing was achieved except for a couple of blogs. The new guide dog arrived and life is proving a little more difficult than my sister expected – but  all will be well. Due to another chest infection and running a temperature I failed to keep up to speed on social networking so many apologises for that.

This coming week I will continue to write blogs including getting well ahead with A-Z blog fest.  On Wednesday I start the NaNoEdMo and so will begin knocking Blue Moon into shape.  Next word count 50,000 words in a month!  It will be nice to get back to my friends in Blue Moon again and I have lots of ideas how it will need to evolve and change.

I have downloaded 60 podcasts to my i-pod and am figuring out how to use those step counters so will be ready for my new life of daily dog walking:(

I hope everyone has had a good week – keep smiling.

Are they clones?

My first attempt at building a web site was a mammoth affair. First there was a hunt for an ethical provider.  Ethical! I was looking for a provider for goodness sake – computers all on 24 /7- where the ethics?  Well, a cleaner one than most then. I was also looking for a local UK one, with a vague feeling that one should promote home grown industry where possible.  I found one.  With eco credentials.  I explored their software for creating the site but my computer took a dislike to it and refused to have any contact with it.  What to do?

That was the first time I met one of those splendid faceless devotees of their job.  The man (and it always has been a man so far) sat at the other end of the email trail with helpful, patient advice. How their hearts must sink after the first million e-mails for assistance, view my signature with dread.  Do they show it? Utter a sharp word? No never. If these fellows are as nice in real life as they are in cyberspace then they are the kind all right minded mothers would wish their daughters to bring home to afternoon tea!

Do they ever sleep? I ask them and can feel them smiling gently as they assure me they do. When? This first one was UK based so I can’t even see the international time zones confusing me.  When I struggle with internet thingies, I am often there in the small hours.  Maybe at 2.30 a.m I’ll stretch my aching back, rub my red rimmed eyes and call it a day – sending an e-mail plea as I do.  When I struggle to the machine a few hours later I find the answer waiting, having been sent at some silly o’clock like 3.00 a.m. He would be there at 11.00a.m and 11.00 p.m. Early morning and early evening.  Monday through Sunday.  Did he ever have a day off I asked once?  Oh yes, was the gentle smile.

Friends suggested he wasn’t a real person but I do not think machines have been made to answer the personal questions, quips and joking references I sent him – no he was a real person.  He was amazing and holding on to his metaphorical hand I finally managed to – ta da – unveil a sparkly website.  Somewhere along the way I learnt about parent, child pages, I learnt about royalty free photographs, I found my way around widgets and Paypal buttons.

There was a man over in USA Pacific Time who ran a site one could put up one’s books and ask folk to post their reviews and comments.  It was a great idea and I thought it would be a good place to be.  It was for the year it stayed but, although one book delighted in its new home the second fought shy and would not, despite my best efforts, even try it.

Yet another person who never slept or took time off – a fellow indeed who would email from his mobile as well as from his base.  If he travelled to another zone he was still picking up the distress calls.  Once, for interest I translated the times and sure enough he also seemed to work the clock around. There have others in this long process of trying to get to grips with cyberspace. I have a fondness for them all.

This year I decided to move my website to another place – still keeping my original platform and when I inevitably came across a hitch and called for help – that original, gentle, kind man answered my call and helped me out.

I am a bit of a dimbo I realise but I also know I am not the only one yelling for help.  So, are these fellows

a) working impossible hours or have they,

b) as I suspect, been cloned!

alberta’s vanishing week

Where oh where has this week gone? Vanished like sun melted snow. I was buoyant and sure on Monday, uncertain on Wednesday and downright indignant today. Gone!

Well it’s not as if they were wasted days, much was achieved here at home with an extra parcel of training being unwrapped for my sister – pre- guide dog arrival – which has been moved forward three days and will now happen at the end of this week.  Another weekend gone:)  Visits from the local blind association with a few new gadgets.

A visit from the pensions fellow – I am now the official carer for my sister.  I never got around to applying after Mum died, so it was long overdue.  Then my Living History Group which had already been moved twice this month convened and because two of the stalwarts failed to turn up I contacted them afterwards to find he had been rushed of to hospital with a heart attack.  He’s going to okay we think but his wife is no driver, nearly 80 and frail so the rest of the weekend has been taken up with ferrying and reassuring.  Life is what came and stole the days away.

Life also brought my friend from forever/editor and her husband to help me finish the dog pen for new guide dog and rescue my sanity!  So alls well that ends well.  This week will bring more of the same and the new dog arrives on Friday morning.

The sun has been shining the skies blue and really there’s nothing much to whinge about! On the writing front progress has been okay.

1:  Blue Moons had another 3000 words added, a great deal of thought on the part where the body has to vanish and 1/2 slightly knotty problems of faith and ethics resolved ‘ish.

2: Three blogs have gone up –on this site you can read

a) A fine Romance- my contribution to Valentines Day and again                              b) on this site a continuation of my blog on reading                                                          c)  Over on Alberta reads I put up a short blog on reading groups, recommendations and rereads and
d) On kiss afrog -the first part of my spider phobia . Also                                               e) on Sefuty Chronicles another peice on diminishing resources .                                         So a good week on the blogging.

3:  Have re-registered for NaNoEdMo for March where hopefully Blue Moon will be licked into shape!

4: Managed after a lot of whinging and help to get connected to ROW80 tribe

5: Networking on FB, Twitter, Novel Publicity, Rachael Harrie Campaign and Goodreads quite a lot achieved there in the odd moments of the days

6: Have made a great start on A-Z  challenge ideas, research and pictures

7: Exercise? well I am exhausted – all you who work out every day, who do hot gyms and long runs will fall on the floor laughing at my attempts – take care you do not pull any muscles with the humour:) I have walked 7 miles this week!! 7 miles.  I will have you know this is probably the most I have walked for years.  It is amazing, and worthy of comment.  I did not enjoy any moment of it but am I proud of myself. Well up on exercise goals

This coming week I am leaving the novel alone, getting ahead on blogs, and networking. Hours available for writing will be limited and bitty so going to be realistic.

How did everyone else get on? – good I hope.  All the best for coming week.

Still addictively buying print!

While discussing the various means of absorbing fictional tales recently I began contemplating the various forms.

 I am a book lover, it’s in my DNA, from a long line of book readers. Complain, if one dared, of boredom in my childhood home and we would be firmly led to the overflowing bookshelves. We had no ‘out of bounds’ or ‘censored’ books, as far as I am aware, of course Mum and Dad may well have kept any such from view!

 I always had one or two books at the very least on the go, a book for every mood. Indeed I still have the trio of books I read only when feeling ill: Black Beauty, Smokey and Beautiful Joe, all absolutely guaranteed to make me sob my heart out – just right when tucked up in bed feeling sad! Maybe I will re-read them one day. In my adulthood it was Georgette Heyer I turned to when ill; her historical romances could make me smile, even laugh, she had a wit that made even the most stubborn of colds feel better.

 My distrust of film to narrate books was learnt very early on, apart from a couple of exceptions it appeared to me the medium ruined a good book. Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird and the Fellowship of the Rings spring to mind as exceptions. Of course, film cannot deal well with the physiologies, insights, complicated emotions or slow thoughtful pacing and indeed that is not what film is about, film is a visual experience.

 So is film like a play? I am not so keen on plays either, so maybe for me, brought up so solidly on reading, my receptiveness to a tale will always struggle with the visual.

 Thinking around this aspect I examined what childhood books I had still left in my possession 6 decades later. They were, in comparison with children’s books of the past 50 years, fairly devoid of pictorial content.

 Our family were also quite late in acquiring a television set, so that I was well into my teens before I could ‘watch’ stories on a regular basis. Most of my early theatre experience had involved comedy or music of some kind The Whitehall Farces, Operetta and musical. So my synapses are obviously underdeveloped in the visual storytelling department!

 I did enjoy going to the cinema, saving my pocket money, walking to places to save the bus fares towards entrance tickets. My friend from forever/editor and I would spend most Friday and Saturday nights in the dark watching the silver screen. These were tales I never read, such as westerns (I have never had any desire to ‘read’ this genre ever, they are to be watched) and musicals.

 I was introduced to audio books in my 40s when I was exploring this possibility for my sister whose sight was vanishing like burnt away mists. She was also a bookworm and we needed to find a way. It took her a long time to switch, to accept she could no longer ‘read’ her stories. It took me even longer to even try them.

 When I nursed my mother, over the years, I listened to many audios because, as another of the family bookworms laid low, we had persuaded her to try them and once hooked she would listen for hours with great pleasure to old favourites and new delights. I had perforce to listen as that’s where my life was, in her room. I discovered the most curious thing. I heard the stories, some very familiar, to me on a whole new plane of experience.

 If I ‘listen’ to a book, forced to wander through the pages at the speed of the reader, there are layers upon layers of new experience to discover. I have more than enough time to listen to the ‘words’, the construction of the sentences. Time, especially with the classics such as Dickens and Thackeray, to enjoy the descriptions.  It is worth the time. I know that realms of purple prose are not fashionable these days but those Greats could summon up whole environments, listen to the words – glorious. I found I was enjoying the experience.

 However film, apart from a brief foray in my teens, is a medium I know little about. If there is a choice between seeing a ‘drama/film’ or ‘almost anything else’, I will usually choose ‘almost anything else’.

I now have books on my e-reader as well as on my shelves and Audio books waiting patiently for the day I will need them, but always at heart I’m a ‘reading’ girl. Still addictively buying print.