Thursday 28 January 2016

Never what you think it is!

After having a few sessions yesterday of being unable to breathe, and feeling like I'd been punched in the chest I got a late Doctors appointment, turns out I have a chest infection.

I thought I was doing my allergy inhaler wrong or something like that. I thought I was just tired after doing a whole week of marching, walking, book promoting and going to the gym. I'd been fighting this all week, but I got really light headed and couldn't catch my breath.

So I have to go collect antibiotics, they don't give you antibiotics unless it's serious.
I didn't think it was. Now I know it is, I feel worse. Funny that.

I have to "try" the antibiotics and hope they don't cause an allergic reaction, because of all the stupid allergies I have. So that in itself is a pleasure to look forward to. If I do have a reaction - it's hospital again.

Ummm die of pneumonia or anaphalaxsis?  What a choice.

Yes I know I'm being over dramatic. I'm a writer for God's sake. 

As they said to me at the allergy clinic about trying new foods, just because it happened before, doesn't mean it'll happen again.

Done ranting now. Been told to rest - forgotten how - keeping busy is all I know.

Perhaps I'll just make up next years filing system.  That's easy.
Write a bit more Hilary Long.
 

Wednesday 27 January 2016

One of those days

Chasing around today, getting my puncture fixed, second time in 4 weeks. Oh well.

Feeling rather off, breathless, unable to sleep, longing to move and I can't find a single house I'd want to move to. Getting book orders processed, creating an author page,and working on lots of book stuff.  

Now if I was in an office and getting paid for this it would be work. But I'm not, I work from home, with random knocks at the door for double glazing or to take in other people's parcels as the post office has closed in the village.

Multitudenous phone calls about random investments and pensions.

Cats coming in/out - hungry/wet - angry/tired - needing cat biscuits or whenever I open the fridge to make some tea or coffee there's a little furry face pleading for something, anything,
probably meaty, to come out of the white box and magically float into their little mouths.

Rubbish in the post, funeral arrangements, leave my loved ones an investment, a will writing
service. 

Wouldn't get that in a proper office.   God I miss work.

I miss lining up the camera cards and doing the run throughs.
I miss dragging pups, redheads and blondes into the studio to cable up the lighting.
I miss offering shots to the director and producer.
I even miss the machine room, but not that much.
I miss fetching the rich & famous from the green room 
and taking them where they're supposed to go.
I miss making the end credit rollers.
I miss being creative and graphicy
I miss working all hours on loads of different things.
I really miss the money.
I miss the laughs and drinks at the BBC Club at the end of the day.

I miss who I used to be.

Just one of those days I suppose. In a strange sort of limbo waiting for things to happen,
after all the highs of the book being accepted, comes the what do I do now? Gruntwork.
is the answer. I am my own secretary, finance dept, admin, as well as everything else.

Mustn't crib about all this, it's all a bit Parson's egg, good in parts, the good bits are really
very good.  I've always wanted to write.  Somehow I thought it would be less lonely.
But all writers I've spoken to say the same.

Oh is that the laundry finished?  I think I can hear the dishwasher doing it's last rinse.
Raining torrents now.  I still have to go back and do the author page again.

C'est ma vie.

 


 



 

Tuesday 26 January 2016

The Return of Bebber Nuggins

Last night I watched Moon Boy, a really funny comedy about a wee Irish boy and his imaginary friend. It had us in stitches!  Such a supportive imaginary friend, who after his lad was beaten up by the school bullies said "Ah well, that wasn't so bad was it? We're still  alive."

It was then I remembered my middle sister's imaginary friend, Beanie Booker, she always wore a beret and when she was interested in anything or tried to be funny, she'd twist her lips into funny shapes. Not that I ever saw it, but Carol would be creased up with laughter watching Beanie pull her faces, standing alone in the bedroom having a long conversation with her imaginary friend.

Bebber Nuggins however was a different kettle of fish, he appeared to my son when he was about four and stayed with him until he was nearly nine. Then, The Bebber as we called him, retired to Spain to live on his favourite food Brandy Floss.

I had to set a dinner place for The Bebber, make room for him in the car, apologise if I accidentally trod on him. He grew very quickly apparently and was as big as me by the time Matt was nine.  The Bebber had eight skinny arms two skinny legs, was round like a ball and had a bald round head like a snowman, two beady eyes, a button nose and a great big mouth. On his head he always wore a bright yellow straw boater with red and white ribbon.

Matt drew him for me once or twice, Bebber wasn't a good influence as imaginary friends go, he was quite often drunk on Brandy floss and wrecked things, now this is the weird bit.
Bebber would wreck things in a different room sometimes while Matt and I were talking together, then come in and tell Matt what he'd done.

Then he left for a month to go and get married. He and his new wife lived in Spain.
When he came back from his honeymoon to carry on the tough work of imagining
as he called it, he wasn't exactly a changed man.

One day Matt and I were sitting at the table and as usual I laid a place for the Bebber.
"Don't need to do that, he's gone." Matt said seriously.
"Is he coming back?" I asked,
"No, he's retired to Spain to live in the sun and eat Brandy Floss with his wife."
After that Matt never mentioned him again.

But what if he did come back?  That got me thinking Matt is 33 now, how would the
deal with the Bebber now?

So last night I started a little imagining of my own. A little book called "The Return of
Bebber Nuggins."  Should be out soon.

Strangely while writing this, the page cleared itself and was very hard to get back,
so perhaps he's here already! 


Monday 25 January 2016

Another Brilliant Nantwich

The weather was good. I say good, not too cold, not raining, as about 1,000 Sealed Knot re-enactors marched through the High Street.I'm a member of the Kings Guard and we were at the front of the march.The Royalist chants rang loud and clear through the streets:
For God and the Cause, the Church and the Laws, Charles King of England, and Prince Rupert of the Rhine.  To be answered by the Parliamentarians chanting from the
back. 

Some stunningly beautiful horses were leading the march down and following on behind.
I turned to look behind me as we marched down. It was a magnificent sight, it would be in small measure what a real army would have looked like, the flags rolled ready for action,
the armies wearing their black armbands for young mum Stacie Jordan and the 100 years young Andrew Gillett.He was the organiser of Nantwich Holly Holy Day, and appeared every year in full 17c dress, even commentating in his nineties.But both lost their own battles last year. So the armbands were worn as a mark of respect for them.
 
Hundreds of visitors lined the route to the Millfield.  I felt proud to be back and marching with the Kings Guard again. I could see the back of my husband's head, and wondered what it would have been like for the real civilian wives following the armies.

We were told not to smile, we were after all marching off to war. Husbands and wives might
die in the fray to come. At the end of the day the real 17c Nantwich may lay in ruins.


It was difficult not to enjoy the moment, we knew we weren't going to die, at least the possibility was very low. We knew that the curry houses and chinese restaurants and pubs that served food would be full of regiments that evening gossiping about the battle and exchanging stories of battles past.

Later the pubs would resound to really bad singing or shouting to music,as many merry
Knotters celebrated yet another brilliant Nantwich weekend.

I did about half the march last year, it has taken me two years to recover from a mystery virus that put me in hospital and nearly finished me off. Every year I try and do a bit more,
last year I walked as far as the Wilbrahim Arms.  I did make it to the church to see the
Rosebowl competition, but it took me a very long time. This year I did the whole march 
down and did crowd control as the Rosebowl was judged.

"Please don't walk through the muskets." I guided a  middle aged well dressed chap out of the way.
"Why not? They're not real." He snapped back.
"Yes they are, and they're loaded."  I smiled at him.

So after that I went to the Nantwich Bookshop to try and show my book to David Williams
and was told to come back on the Sunday.  Long story short. Steve the bookshop owner
is going to sell my book for me, even as he says, it was 365 days too late!

I was really pleased. Not only is my book now in the Bodlian, Oxford and Cambridge libraries and the National Library, it is also in Buckingham Palace's library as I sent a copy to
HRH Princess Anne, who it is rumoured was once in the Sealed Knot Cavalry in her younger days. 

Best of all it is in a bookshop!! One that I have visited and loved for years. When I was very ill and couldn't do any Nantwich thing, my husband and I sat in the bookshop's coffee shop.
We watched our friends march through a raging thunder and lightning storm to fight on the Millfield. The Tudor windows rattled and steamed up, as I watched the pikes and colours
go by, we were warm and cosy sipping tea and I was trying to eat a jacket potato.  At that time I couldn't eat very well.  I just wanted to be well enough to do a proper Nanters again.

I'm nearly three quarters there!  Just need to go on the field next year God willing.  One thing about being so ill is that I've started a bucket list something I never said I'd do.

Organise an SK  Event   TICK    Sealed Knot Trinity Oxford
Write my history Book     TICK    The Women of the English Civil War
Write a murder mystery   TICK   The Hilary Long Mysteries
Get well                           TICK    Very nearly!
See Richard III interred   TICK   This experience was part of history

So many more things achieved last year in a frenzy of I've got to do because...

Anyway must go.  

Speak soon.

Mx

 

Thursday 21 January 2016

Once more into the breeches dear friends

Nantwich this weekend, and a small Cheshire town opens it's doors and its heart to a rowdy bunch of well-meaning 17th Century re-enactors for Holly Holy day.  Signs saying SK OK will be in pub windows meaning that we can go into the pubs in kit (or our clothes as we call them!)

The Rosebowl tournament will be held outside the church - each regiment in turn will show their drill expertise, which changes year by year as more information is found out about the actual 17c drills, or for the sake of health and safety. So it will be practised, and the winner of the Rosebowl is chosen on turnout, expertise and not laughing or messing about.

http://www.battleofnantwich.co.uk/ 

Very hard the last part! It's the first fight of the season and everyone is raring to go, some get the 'red mist' and forget it's a re-enactment and have to be dragged off, but everyone has a smile on their faces.

Old friends are met and bear hugged, new friends are made, and old soldiers remembered.

We will be wearing black arm bands this time for a young mum called Stacie Jordan who leaves a husband and three small children. Also for the loss of a young man called Andy Gillet. 

We will think of friends fighting other battles, Don and Jean Stitchbury as Jean ambles off  the battlefield for the final time. 

Della Aylett, who used to drum and fight with pole arms as a Pioneer (women's regiment), struggling with dealing with an operation that went badly wrong, and making her look as if she had escaped the hangman's noose.

Sconces will be passed, tankards raised, for everyone everywhere who were part of the Sealed Knot.

The Carousing starts in the restaurants and curry houses, and finishes with lock ins in the 
Pubs.  There will be snogging, humping, and good natured ribaldry.  Like the real civil war there will be people from all walks of life taking part.  

I think of the people we re-enact, for which the Battle of Nantwich meant life or death.
It really wasn't a party for them. It isn't always a party for all of us. But the cameraderie
and warmth and common interests keep us together and we support each other.


Looking forward to it, I'll let you know what happens after the weekend.

Yours in the cause.

 

 

Tuesday 12 January 2016

Let's brighten up my posts with some Period clothes I have made.

 My dear husband in Regency dress that I made for him.

2. My younger sister at a Sealed Knot event in a cloak and kit I made for her.
 3. My husband in pirate kit I made for him.

 
4.Close up of the Regency waistcoat fully lined in gold satin
 
5.My friend in a gold and old gold banqueting dress I made for her

6.Burgundy crushed silk underskirt trimmed with gold braid that I made.


Thursday 7 January 2016

No to Humble Pie

For a while now I have eaten humble pie. But no more.

Strangely as a 17th century re-enactor I have actually eaten humble pie made of deer's testicles, it tasted like a toilet stain smell!  The worst of the worst.

I have since I have stuck my head over the parapet been shot at several times. I have a high IQ which is threatening to some. I actually have the same IQ as the Wolowitz character in the Big Bang Theory - and thank you - a programme that makes clever people human.

I visited my friend Della in hospital in the Radcliffe yesterday, while we were talking a young thug about 14 years old was explaining to his mates how the Doctor examined him.
"Pulled my leg out - right?  Got this pain right? Went up my leg into my back. Gonna fucking stab that Doctor up right? Gonna get him for doing me."

Erm...hurt yourself badly, (probably escaping from some nefarious act) put in one of the top hospitals with the best doctors and you're going to do what?  Haven't even got a quarter of a brain cell have you?

At school I held myself back even though I was in the top class, as I didn't want to stand out and get picked on.  Went to Uni at 16/17 - early obviously - was totally lonely and miserable as everyone was older and could go to the pub afterwards and not have to go home for their tea.

So now, I have had toxic ignorant people telling others, that the life I lived was a lie. That I didn't do all the things I achieved. That I am "mental" and need to be put in a home.

Strangely like Sheldon, of BBT I have been tested, and I am smarter than the average bear
to use another well known quote!

If it wasn't for people like me and my husband and my family and friends, there would be no television or entertainment packages, or special effects, or computer games, or healthcare or books or exciting things to do.

Life would be feral and stoneage - brutal short and boring.

So I'm not going to apologise for all the hard work I put into my books, or the all TV programmes I filmed and edited, I'm not going to apologise for raising tons of money for charities. I'm not going to apologise for being in the top 2% of people in the world for intelligence.

No more Humble Pie - no more trying to prove myself to others. 

Love me or leave me.

 

Tuesday 5 January 2016

Domestic Bliss

I need to get on with proper work, but my mind is blank. Sometimes the words fall out of my head to land on the paper and as my characters react to each other, I watch it like a film.I  just write down what they do and say.   Sometimes I try and control where the action is going, but like free-range avatars or even humans they shoot off in their own directions with me shouting "hang on a minute, wait for me."
 
Not today, today is a blank. Round the village american army scout helicopters are circling for some reason. Noisy and low, people coming out of their houses to look. Only the village cats running for cover.  In the Radcliffe Hospital a friend of mine is fighting to have the operation she has just had that went wrong corrected.  She's told "I am ending this conversation now." by the Doctor when he realises he's been caught out, and that my friend is very intelligent and taking notes in shorthand.
 The butcher round the corner in the Garden Centre is very jolly surrounded by his animal body parts, I love animals, but I do eat them. I am a carnivore after all.  He asks how the books are going.  The ones I've got on Amazon are selling well I tell him.  He seems pleased. 

Today has been domestic, the bad thing about working from home. The electrician came to fix the shower, sorting out car insurance, mots, doing laundry, phoning friends, it's now ten to five and I have created nothing on paper today apart from this blog.

But at least I've done that.

I'll cook spaghetti bolognese for tea.  I haven't bothered with food today unless you count 
half a tub of ice cream, a quarter for lunch, the rest for tea break with a cup of tea. But I have to feed my husband who I make sure eats like a King, while I eat like a naughty child.
Only eating little bits of stuff that I 
1)Fancy 
2) Am not allergic to
3) Don't have to cook.

Speak soon. Bye....

 

Monday 4 January 2016

Edward the Black Prince.

It's very hard to type with a cat snuggled so tightly into the laptop that I can hardly move. Eddie is very persistent as cats go,also quite bad tempered.  Not as bad as he used to be.
He was abandoned,which is enough to make anyone pissed off. 

Found in a hedge near the vets when he was about 2 weeks old.  I got him when I had taken one of my cats to the vets to get vaccinated, the vet held a tiny black kitten up by the scruff of his neck, who was hissing and spitting.
"Do you want this spitfire or shall I put it down this afternoon?" The vet asked.
So guess what?  We had Edward the Black Prince, to use his Sunday name, back at the house that afternoon and were feeding him milk and soft kitten food with a pipette.

He was so tiny we put him in a big cat carrier with a mini cat tray (lid of ice cream tub filled with litter), a toy mouse to snuggle up to, a nice warm clean towel which we made tinto a kind of tiny bed for him. He was about two inches in length and in between the black fluff there were needle sharp teeth and claws.

We had three cats at the time Rosie, the equivalent of a female gladiator, muscular, beautiful, fast, Sabrina, a grumpy tubby little madam, and Samson, her son, a giant ginger bear type cat of very little brain. Samson used to sit by a mousehole in the dry stone hedge in the garden, with his mouth open, hoping a mouse would jump in.

Strangely to my knowledge this worked twice!

Eddie's favourite game with Samson was to take a running jump at his chest and hang there on Samson's lovely thick fur like a little black alien.  Samson tried to back away from his tiny attacker by walking backwards with Eddie still attached. Getting Eddie off was a feat in itself and we never had enough plasters for our fingers!

So now here he is - leaning on me heavily and snoring- crimping my ability to type with both hands, nine years old and much loved.  He loves my hubby more than me and follows him everywhere, I come a poor second.  If Andy's around, whatever he's doing Eddie insists on helping.

I cut Andy's hair over the holidays and Eddie was fascinated, held his head up for me to do his, so I made snipping noises above his head with the scissors as I stroked his fur and he loved it.

Strange boy!  

Andy's at work today, it's cold, it's raining, the laptop and me are warm - no brainer for a cat
who's a bit cold.

I was going to write about other things, but as usual Eddie has taken centre stage. He's a good escapologist and was only found at the vets after a lot of dramatic shouting "It's a lock down!" when he escaped after going for his check up, which for him included a lot of teeth and claws inserted into a young veterinary nurse.

I waited for what seemed hours, and he was eventually found as a tiny skeleton turned up
in the corner of an X ray for a dog. He was hiding in the X ray machine! 
 
Well Eddie shove over lad - it's time for a cuppa - yes he likes tea.  Once he smelt me drinking coffee and smacked me with his now almost lion sized paw. He hates coffee.

Nice to write again.