Christmas is coming......

Sounds like a threat - especially for the geese, and the turkeys.
I meant to do so much this year and it's been stymied by illness and deaths of relatives and pets. I am sort of looking forward to Christmas. This is our garden today. We are pretty much snowed in.

I hate snow, like illness, it's one of the things that keeps me housebound. Especially when it's over a foot deep. So today I blitzed the house, everything is clean sparkly and Christmassy!

I have given my money to my charities, not much this year as I haven't earned much. So the Salvation Army has enough for one person's Christmas dinner £10. The Blue Cross can feed unwanted Xmas dogs and cats for a week. £12. The Salvation Army can provide hot soup or drinks to those living on the streets £10. The Movember Foundation has £40 to save young men from suicide and older men from prostate cancer. Shelterbox a Cornish Charity that takes a home in a box to war zones and natural disasters £10. Then there are the coins that I throw into the buckets at Sainsburys and Tescos.

I have tried to get an innocent woman released from prison in Iran. I have tried to give National Trust visitors a happy Christmas visit to my place of work.  To me it's never enough.
People in the world sit on huge amounts of money that could do so much good to those who through no fault of their own are suffering this Christmas.

Here is the story of the widow's mite, a coin so small as to be almost worthless -

"He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two mites, coins worth less than two pennies. Jesus said to them, 'I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.'[

How dare you be religious at Christmas I hear some people cry!  

Even the original Saint Nicholas gave away his wealth see below:

Nicholas was born to a wealthy family in Patara, Lycia. When his parents died, and he inherited a considerable sum of money he kept none of it. In the most famous story about his life, he threw bags of gold through the windows of three young girls about to be forced into lives of prostitution.

So give your widows mite or some of your wealth, or your time and love to someone who needs it this Christmas.



 

Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe

Yesterday thanks to Boris Johnson, a young mum visiting her family in Iran, was given a 21 year sentence for training journalists.  She collapsed in shock.

With a Foreign Minister like Boris there is no hope for the future. He constantly puts his foot in his mouth and shoves it right down.

He is constantly guarded and protected from dismissal, when he is the worst Minister in office today.  Others guide him and try and project a moral compass for him but it doesn't work.

As for me I have never felt worse in my health, but this has made me come alive to try and help in whatever way I can.

So it you are reading this, tweet Boris to do something to free her, tweet No.10, tweet your own PMs. Facebook, Blog etc.

This young woman won't live another year under this strain.  Please lovely worldwide readers please push to get this poor lady freed.

Thank you.

Been a while

Sure has, found it hard to write some days.

Today I am waiting to hear if my little rescue cat of a year old has cancer.

Heard from my Doctor that my heart is not working as it should - so that's scary - he's put me on different tablets to sort it out.

Fingers crossed.

I'm so exhausted I can hardly move and finding it hard to look to the future.

Many of my friends are struggling with their own lives, so I can't talk to them.

My husband's career is really starting to take off, while I feel I'm wearing out.

Life Jim, but not as we know it.
Quote from Star Trek's Spock.

 

Hair

This is my real hair colour on the right, my son is on the left - used in a card design for my business in Cornwall.  Called Coppernob Design.

Someone else has taken the name now.  Just as well, with all the illnesses I've had recently the top of my hair is white and the bottom half is red.

Being a redhead is part of me,  I loved it.  My distinctive hair colour pleased me. Both my sisters and mother and father had black hair. Black Irish from the Spanish who were wrecked on the shores of Ireland after the failed Armada attack.

But I like my Irish grandad am a throwback to the Vikings, another invading force. I have freckles and very white skin, not like the olive skin of my two sisters.

I want it back, not just the colour of my hair but my health. I want to have long red hair and be back in Cornwall where I was happiest, looking out of the bedroom window at the cobalt blue sea.

Oxfordshire is pretty, but it doesn't suit me. I feel I've lost my identity here, and certainly my health.  

I want to shop in Truro for a treat on Saturday, go to the Penlee Gallery on Sunday and look at the exhibits and have a coffee. Perhaps it's just a holiday I need, it's been a very hard year.

We're going to St Ives for New Years Eve.  Looking forward to it. It's always fun. Last time it was with friends and family. Since we moved back to be with everybody for some reason we are now "billy no mates" and spend our time mostly alone.  

Feeling ill and nostalgic today as the year winds to it's close. God 2016 was bad enough but 2017 topped that with cherries on.

For the past six months I have been in hospital, visiting A&Es, at the Doctor, at the specialists, carted off with a minor stroke, just this week already 2 visits for Llabrinthitus a nice new illness foisted on me because I didn't have enough!

Last week only the Hospital, the Doctors, the opticians. Seems never ending.  I feel I have achieved nothing this year apart from keeping alive and I have to thank my Guardian Angels for that - they are amazing.

Even my Sealed Knot adventures have been curtailed. 

I didn't realise how lucky I was until it was all gone, at my best I had a house in Cornwall of my own bought after my divorce, a little motorhome, shared a house in Buckinghamshire with my new husband, had a great job, my Sealed Knot, my family around me, a reasonable amount of health.

Today I sit alone feeling morose, (which is one of the after effects of a stroke), they tell me.
Trying to make sense of it all.

I haven't written much.  No energy.

This is the most I've written for weeks.

Will write again when I feel a bit more cheerful and less sorry for myself.
 

Mistaken Identity

This is a picture of our new cat Molly, 9 months old.

 

This is a picture of Amber, 9 years old and now deceased about 8 weeks ago...

Very similar, we did this on purpose, as we hoped it would help Amber's brother Ted

see below - confuse him a bit - stop him grieving so much and waiting by the hedge for him to come back.

 

 We thought he was playing in the overgrown garden next door, but he wasn't. We found out at the weekend what he was actually doing when one of the neighbours came and accused Molly (sitting in our front window) of eating their cat's food.  Poor Amber was trying to stop the pain in his stomach by "eating out" thinking the pain was caused by hunger.  So all our careful measuring of his special food was in vain.

We explained that Molly was a different cat, younger and female, and did not go out yet. 
I don't think the neighbour was entirely convinced.  

Poor little Molly, she's at last become friends with Ted, see below, and he has a level of toleration of her which was better than we expected.

 
 Cat politics eh? 


 

Another one of those days!

I am supposedly resting.  Woke up feeling better than yesterday when I couldn't actually move. Not like me. I never usually stay in bed till twelve get up eat yoghurt for lunch and go to sleep on the sofa.

So today is apparently better. I have filled in an American Tax form which is a bit of a mission, tidied and cleaned the house, still feel weird, but I put it down to my new tablets.
After dear hubby went back to work today, the man up the road started playing his new drum kit.  He's been doing that all day, and I really can't tell if he's getting better or worse.

The TV aerial packed up, so I went digital, the Now TV box has also packed up. Channel 5 online on the computer only has yesterday's programmes.

I have a headache and toothache that feels like I'm chewing silver paper - a reaction to my new tablets. I bought ingredients to try a new Mary Berry recipe - then lost it somewhere.

I spent yesterday asleep and in the evening we washed our 17th Century pottery that we had not touched from the Sealed Knot Event two weeks ago at Edgehill. It was well sticky, and washing up is not much of a hobby!   I found the jar of blood I'd made and guess 
what ?  It had clotted like the real thing.

Red fruit tea, plum jam and a teaspoon of cocoa powder if you'd care to know - my own invention - and it looked great.  So that, clots and all was poured down the kitchen sink.

Strange thing tho' unpacking the herb lady stuff stressed me out, as if it was a physical reminder of that TIA and the hours spent in Warwick assessment unit wearing 17th Century costume.

I still find myself saying hippopotamus in times of stress - the Doctor told me if I could say it everything was okay.

I hope to be able to drive again in two weeks time after a visit to the hospital for a review.
hippopotamus hippopotamus hippopotamus.  OK I suppose.

So back to tonight - cooking jacket potatoes bacon and mushrooms - simple and filling. I hopefully will find the Mary Berry comfort food recipe tomorrow.

Friday the 13th - it MUST be my lucky day as all the other days of this year haven't been.

Oh well, onwards and upwards.

Have a good weekend everyone.


 

Edgehill

All set up to feed and heal the troops after battle. My Goodwyfe stall was going well, lots of visitors asking questions, smelling the herbs and potions and even my home made blood for the bandages came out perfect.

Then I had a mini stroke, started burbling unable to speak, my face fell on the left side and I was rushed to Warwick A&E.  It was scary and I was unable to take in what was actually happening to me. My husband noticed it immediately and the Sealed Knot medics sent us off with their Sat Nav - an australian guy who said "You have reached your destination, grab your sunnies and don't let the seagulls eat your chips!"

A week of hospital tests visits and scans and I am home again alone. I couldn't write for a week, I felt nothing, was nothing. Just existed in a middle world of eating, sleeping, tests and tablets.

What next?  More hospital visits, Drs Visits in a week or so. What now?  Me trying to be human again.  The only good thing to come out of this was my son came over from Sweden to see me. Pleasurable and frightening in equal measure.  Was he told something I didn't know?

 Although I look okay in the photo - paranoia and panic rages in every little pain or ache imagined or real. I am on two drugs one to slow my heart and one to thin my blood. I have after years of keep fit and dieting no blocked or furred arteries.

But I can't seem to find my way back to me.


 

Halloween is on the horizon

The leaves are falling the wind is blowing, the TV is losing it's digital signal - get a hot cup of cocoa, a nice warm rug over your knees and read my Halloween horror stories. There are three that tell a tale of loves lost, loves found, and the evils of messing with magic on Samhain. A time when the most darkest of evils can be released sometimes by accident.  Also includes some funny moments or it wouldn't be me writing,



















They link together, tying up mystical knots, a lot of research was done for these books and some of the people in them exist, how strong their powers are I do not want to find out.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Overdown-Manor-Halloween-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01DH2NSQK/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 

Finally, the last in the series  



I am extremely proud of Evil, I have tried to show how the most innocent looking people can be the devil's advocates.  

Read enjoy, pass to your friends - on Amazon Kindle - now.

My books!

Haven't sold a single book in August - but what can you expect ?  It was a really bad month in many ways for me.

Going private to try and sort my hearing out - just hope it doesn't include having an operation. Had blood tests today as I have been coming up in mysterious bruises on my arm. Possibly a re-action to the anti dizzy pills.

So onwards and upwards - massive Edgehill Sealed Knot in two weeks time - so getting ready for that. It's the first time it's a major and it's because it's the 350th anniversary of the battle.  It's only five minutes away from our caravan storage. Taking place at Compton Verney.  

Been looking for houses as well, nothing affordable unfortunately and nothing large or pretty to rent either.

I must get out of this house before something else happens to me. I'm losing myself here.

I 'll miss the garden but not the noisey neighbours who always seem to be drilling, sawing and hammering and smoking horrible cigarettes in their garden so nasty and pungent that it sticks to my laundry when I hang it out.  I have had to stop doing that.

So what do I want?

1) To be well.  Completely - something I haven't had since I was 33.
2) To move to a bigger house with nice neighbours where we can be happy.
3) To have enough money to live on 
4) To write more books and get them published.
5) For my pets to be well and happy - this includes my husband!
6) A holiday

Not so much in the great run of things really. Just to have what I used to have before I moved to Oxfordshire.

Oh well time to stop cribbing about stuff and get on with making it happen.


 

I'm so glad August is over!

August for me was like a bad firework night - there were a few bright sparks, but the rest of it was like a dud roman candle - even worse as if it rained all the time.

September I have always liked, even as a child, going to a new term at school. I loved getting all my brand new exercise books and covering them with wallpaper or brown paper. The smell of the ink and polish and the scratchy collars of a new uniform shirt.

Many years later it was for my son, it was always about buying clothes slightly too big to allow him to grow as the term progressed. New shoes, new football boots, new plimsolls, new wellie boots - none of those could be bought bigger, but replaced every three months as he grew out of them.

At work it was the early start of the Autumn schedules, followed by Christmas, and stings (adverts) for the programmes to come, had to be made.  I loved the smell of the electricity in the studios, getting lost in the countless circles of Television Centre, working deep into the night walking through corridors that lit up as you passed by to save energy.

Then there was the September that I married my husband, today 15 years ago in fact. We got married in Sulgrave House, George Washington's ancestral home, but more important to us a 17th Century House still with it's furniture and fittings and resident ghost!

This Anniversary is the first one that we've been apart during the day - we normally go somewhere - usually Lyme Regis or Tregenna Castle, but Andy used all his holidays up looking after me while I was ill.  So he is at work and I'm at home doing paperwork and all the necessaries of life to keep a home going.

Tonight I will cook his favourite, melt in the mouth roast chicken and roast potatoes with green vegetables and we'll have fancy ice cream for dessert.  I bought a film for us to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2.  So we can snuggle down together and pretend we've got to the weekend!

I wish I wasn't still deaf, I hate it. I can hear some things now in my left ear but my right ear is not working at all.

But this is all small beir when I think of those poor people suffering under Hurricane Irma.
I don't understand why scientists haven't invented something to reverse the pressure in the centre of the storm and dissapate it.  Surely raising the low pressure in the eye would stop
it building into a twister.  Only a theory, I know nothing much about this sort of thing. But if in the 1960s the Russians could seed clouds to make it rain - something could be done to stop these storms growing.

Anyway that's enough for now.  Have a good weekend everybody and look after yourselves and each other.

 

Molly

Here she is

Molly Polly Evans!   A real little sweetheart from the RSPCA Cat rescue.  She's fun and loves her new toys, and food and is getting used to Eddie - they've even had a sniff of noses at close quarters. We think she's about one year old and was found in a shed after having kittens. 

Only two kittens survived and have been found homes. 

She's going to be so loved and spoilt!  and so is our Eddie below!

 We will always miss Amber forever - in our hearts

Here are some of my other cats - loved and lost - although at much greater ages which somehow makes it easier to bear.

 
 Sammy and his mum Sabrina - Sammy lived to 16 years Sabrina 18 years

Going Sealed Knotting? Me too!!

I know I had a moan in the last post about stuff, but I am so very very lucky to have what I have and be who I am.  I have a lovely husband, a nice home, tiny but nice,and  food on the table and have two lovely pets. I am not waist high in water having lost everything or in a war zone.  I am so very very fortunate.

Wishing you all a good weekend, and all good things.xxx

My problems are nothing.
 
 

Thursday

Starting to feel better at long last.  Not crying now when I speak about my little boy lost.  It's Thursday and it's been a very long week for me.  I am still not completely well but parts of my hearing are starting to return along with shrill whistles and low tone.

It's been a strange year, a year of replacements, my car affectionately known as Ruby gave up the ghost in May and puttered into the garage to be exchanged for a super duper Mitsubushi 4x4 that was a few years old and very swish.  Now known as Hi Ho Silver because of it's colour. Silver has a female voice and it's a shock when your car talks to you!

The caravan was crumbling away after many adventures and repairs, it was exchanged for a brand new one who, with us, had already had many adventures and repairs!  The washing machine started to chew and grind the clothes and spit them out distastefully sopping wet and dirty, so we sourced a new Samsung that sings jolly tunes to me and speaks.

The tumble drier decided it had had enough and was replaced, luckily because of a recall.

Why does every appliance have to speak to you these days?  I know sometimes I talk to the kettle on long days of writing, but my shiny copper kettle says nothing in return.
Although I complain about the chatty utilities, now I'm deaf I miss them!

So I look at the savings account that we both spent ages building up and we have £34 left.

Um.

We haven't had a proper holiday just a weekend here and there.  Not just because of money - although the palliative care of my poor Amber came to over £750.

No. I have been ill and can't go out, the last time I did, I caught this baterial infection that dissolved my ear-drums. I hope they grow back properly.

Going to see a rescue cat about a year old with a striking resemblance to Amber, hoping this will help Eddie get over his miseries - and us.  So even replacing my poor little cat.

Money is like the tide, it comes in and goes out, taking flotsam with it, and sometimes bringing in jetsam. Flotsam is what is accidentally lost from a boat and floats, Jetsam comes from jettison - goods thrown overboard to lighten the load - and this can be good stuff .

The Washing Machine is singing telling me it's finished and also to come and empty it
so I must go.  I am pleased I can hear this even if it sounds like it's in the distance!

Today the sun is starting to shine and there is enough blue in the sky to make a sailor a pop sock, so perhaps, just perhaps things are starting to look up.



 

Goodbye my little love

48 hours ago my little boy Amber had to be put to sleep, he had mega colon which meant his bowel had stopped working. We gave him two pain free days with us - chasing butterflies in the garden, playing with ducky duck and eating roast chicken. I have been missing him for two days and crying whenever I see his toy, his plate, his empty bed. His brother Eddie has been sitting in the garden for 6 hours now waiting for him to come back. Poor Eddie is so stressed he has cystitus, he's waiting by the hole in the hedge Amber made to come and go and shelter from sun and rain.

 

The best laid plans of Mice and Men and Margarets.....

Well it's been a time since I posted. 
Why?
I have had a serious bacterial illness that left me unable to function and has left me deaf.
Came on like a strange headache, I was in the garden when it started to sway round me and I thought I was going to faint.

I nipped round the corner to the Doctors who luckily was in and had an emergency appointment, he looked me over and told me it was a one off. Probably tiredness.

The next day I was in excruiating pain all over my body and couldn't move, hubby took me to see Dr Edwards, a jolly hockeysticks kind of woman, skinny, fit, tanned, big white teeth and a mane like a horse.
"EEEhhh " she laughed, "Ear infection, it'll burn itself out you have blisters on your eardrum."
Later that night, the pain increased and I was crying in agony, it felt like a burning hot knife was being pushed into my ears, we rang 111 the emergency online doctor and they got us an appointment with the walk in centre at 11pm.

While we were waiting to see the Doctor, I heard loud popping in my ears as if someone was popping balloons or shooting a gun.  Bang bang bang so loud my dear hubby could hear it sitting next to me.

Then my ears bled and seeped yellow goo. God it hurt, it really really hurt.

 When it was our turn to go in, we saw a lovely Carribean woman doctor with pretty dreads and a lovely caring attitude, she took swabs from my ears and told me to ring my doctor and they could give me the appropriate anti-biotic as it was a bacterical infection.

The following day I couldn't stand up, I felt the room swirling around me, everything went dark. I was by now completely deaf, I sat down and felt like I was falling into a pit. I needed air so hubby took me into the back garden and I sat on a chair and screamed in agony and panic.

We visited a Doctor or emergency room every day for a week and nothing was stabilising, we had lots of advice that didn't work - Dr Edwards refused to get the swabs back for us as she thought there was no point, so the locum doctor did and I have a specific infection that can be cleared up by the antibiotic and I was also given anti dizzy tablets.

Dr Edwards told me not to take the antibiotics.

Now it's what three weeks later, I am deaf as a post, feeling bit better, can read, write my blog, do about ten mins of Facebook before I feel queasy - I'll know if I will hear again in another two weeks or so apparently.

Winston Graham wrote in one of his novels, "one day you can be fit, strong, planning for the future, and the next gone."   

I'm not gone yet, I'm still fighting.

Plums!

Made about 2 kilos of plum jam, plum crumble, plum ice cream sauce, and have frozen loads to make sugar plums at Christmas.  Life has been better and not just because of the multitunenous plums.

Garlic has been abundant, strawberries, blueberries are nearly there - pears and apples growing on apace. Sage, Chives, rosemary, fennel, oranges and grapes are all waiting for us.  Our little garden is almost a totally edible experience. Apart from the grass yes - but that's for the goats!!  We also use the roses,lavendar, nastursiums, curry plant, and the Bay leaves growing next to the sage.  We have Aloe Veras by the score. Our freezer is full of cooked recipes from 1625 to 1940s to present date.

We have decided to move away - somewhere where we can grow and sell stuff- we seem to be good at it.  I will still write & hubby still has to work, but we will look and see what we can find.  It's given me a kind of peace knowing we're ready to move on.

We'll pot up as many plants as we can and take with us. I couldn't bear the thought of some-one chopping my lovely kitchen garden to bits to cover with cement - like the guy at the end house did with the little orchard in his garden - or the people next door who prefer paving to plants.

We'll take the blackberries, the rhubarb, the edible sunflowers and everything we can pack, after all, we brought them all here.

So I'm starting to look, peace and quiet to write, a big kitchen so I can cook, room for two cats and a dog and perhaps some chickens, and our garden.  Who knows might even find a derilict castle!!

 

Hiatus

Well, I've already had a little break from the blog, but I'm going to have a week or so more to decide what I really want to do with my life.

I can't live in this house anymore, however beautiful I've made it, however fruitful and lush the garden has become. The Cotswolds are becoming claustophobic, every time I look round another field is being turned into houses. Little houses crammed on top of each other without a breathing space.  Those who aren't moving are extending so the village is a constant thrumm of building machinery.

I remember the scree scree scree of the house martins as they sail across the summer sky. Now drowned out by diggers and pile drivers and the swearing of workmen wearing just shorts and a yellow armless jacket over massive beer bellies and tattooed legs.

If I lived in the middle of London for instance, jack hammers on the road, buses,heavy traffic and general noise would be something I had signed up for.  Been there done that - moved for a quiet life.  Not happening. 

Today I'm particularly frustrated as I can't get out of my road. Blocked by builders vans and cars. Ask them you say?

Tried, apparently they're all deaf and I'm invisible.

Anyway time to have a think - if I can with the constant thumping in the road and the dog barking next door.   I need to get out.  Need to feel a breeze that doesn't contain brick dust and cement. 

See you in a couple of weeks.

Keep well and safe,

 

Ups and Downs

My books are selling well - so that's an UP.
The Police will issue parking tickets to the neighbours - so that's an UP.
We have a break booked in Cornwall - so that's an UP.

I don't get much sleep because of the neighbours - thats a Down
I am worried about whether we will be able to sell our house - that's a Down
I'm never completely out of pain with my sciatica - that's a Down.

It's all relative really.

I have food in the fridge. A roof over my head. A husband who loves and supports me in everything I do. A brain in my head and good things to get involved in. Two cats to stroke and love.

But I'm tired. I look at myself today I feel exhausted and I have black rings round my eyes like a Panda. 

I just keep going because I have to tell myself things are really not that bad.

Have a good weekend everyone - Hope you have more Ups than Downs.
 

Laugh it off....

I wish I could.  Today I am hemmed in unable to get out because our neighbours across the road have 8 yes 8 cars parked in the road.  The young woman next door to them had their cars parked on her drive and she couldn't get out to work. She asked them to move and had to wait a good ten minutes for one of the men to come and move it. She kept looking at her watch as she was getting late for work.
Then one of the men asked her to go and park somewhere else - hasn't she got a sister or a relative she can park on their drive?
WHAAAT?????

My sister is very ill.  What if I need to get out quickly? What if I have one of my anaphalaxsis?  I am stuffed because the man over the road is an inconsiderate arsehole who only cares about what HE wants.

I wish I could talk to my husband, but I can't phone him at work. He calls at lunchtime. 

Hubby calms me down. Stops me going across the road with a baseball bat and a can of petrol and matches.  OK that's a bit over the top. I spend my life controlling my temper. Half Shoreditch and half Irish with red hair equals a very short fuse.

Another rubbish thing - some moron calling himself Grampy gave me a crap review for 1955.  He said it was full of typos. IT WAS NOT, Amazon checked it, my proof reader checked it, I'm pretty sure they would have noticed.  I checked every word, researched everything I mentioned. He said it wasn't his 1955.  Stupid sod. It was MINE not his.
GRRRRR he didn't even live in London.

JK Rowling is great with critics, when one person gave her a terrible review she just smiled and said "I've still got your money!"  She has one line put downs on Twitter that are brilliant.
She just laughs it off.

Wish I could. 

I'm sitting with a red face and my heart pounding wanting to be anywhere but here.

British General Election 2017

I've never really thought of myself as a political activist, but I guess I have been all my life.
In my time at the BBC I was the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (BECTU) representative at both the Open University and White City. I negotiated deals in conjunction with my Union colleagues to give better redundancy deals during the horrific "Producer Choice" years. Many people came up to me afterwards and thanked me for my work for them. 

I have been a Woman's Liberation supporter from the time I went to Hornsey College of Art and discovered that there actually were many wonderful women artists who were totally ignored. Before that I just thought that all the great masters were men! 

Artemisia Gentileschi.   Raped as a teenager, she turned her art into a weapon.

I have tried all my life to make the world a better place, not ljust for me, but for everyone. I have fought bullies at school and in the workplace, I have fronted up to Bosses over sexual harrassment and even left jobs because of it.

I wore Solidarnosc badges, Grades are for Turkeys not BBC Secretaries, and badges to support our Nurses.
 
Now I am trying to influence people not to vote for an uncaring Government in an uncaring world. 

I also want young women to vote, because in 1918 after years of suffering and deaths of young women, women in this country got to vote. It was a step forward from being a man's possession into being a modern independent woman.
 
I just hope that by tomorrow, the fake Mrs Thatcher and her men in black will be a thing of the past and we will get people who care about what happens to us.

It's often said about BREXIT, "It's the will of the British people."
It wasn't. It was 48% of people who wanted to stay and 7% who abstained and 51% for, it was basically half and half.

A lot of people who voted for it were co-erced into it by relatives/friends/partners etc.  Without thinking or knowing what it would actually mean for us as a country.

We have always been a mongrel nation, so for me immigration doesn't even factor. Anyway what about all the Brits living abroad?

A great deal of people do not think for themselves at all.  A great deal of people refuse to vote saying it's nothing to do with them. Then moan about the Government in place.

Blimey this has been a rant and a half on a miserable wet Summer's day - flaming June indeed. Followed by flaming July and a bloody awful August.

Have a good day everyone.



 

Back Again!

I've managed to get my worn out old laptop going again by sticking a pen in the hole where the on button used to be and working it round like a skeleton key. Seems to work. I've been looking for a new computer but haven't seen one that has all the stuff this one has at the right price. Oh well, at least I'm back again!

What have I been doing?  Well at the Bank Holiday we went to Charlton Park with the Sealed Knot, it was torrential rain, about a thousand Knotters turned up and the only audience seemed to consist of Knottter's families and friends and around 200 members of the public.

So we did what we do best, carousing.  The beer tent had a metal band (no - not robots!) and the medievals provided well priced beer for our sustinance. Hubby made a historical joke to one of them in Stanleys Regiment - said he was surprised they weren't waiting on the sidelines for something to happen!  (You need to know War of the Roses history to find that funny) but the chappie laughed.

A friend said it was like the beer tents of old, certainly was, couldn't hear the band for the chatter, couldn't hear the chatter for the band. All good. Friends old and new chatted, put the world to rights, mainly over caravan maintenance and WW2 aircraft. Ladies conversations turned to children, grandchildren, Balls at Bath and old memories, all very Jane Austen.

Through the torrents of sweeping rain came the cheerful tune of an ice cream van playing "Popeye the Sailor Man" - this guy was obviously expecting a different kind of Bank Holiday Monday. 

Yesterday back at Waddesdon Manor, one of only nine House Hosts who turned up! Most of the rooms were roped off and some closed completely. The house was full of children on half term holidays with their parents,grandparents,aunties and uncles. It was hot and sunny outside, but humid and clammy inside the Manor, so they put the heating on to take the moisture out of the air. It was an exhausting "please don't touch" kind of day. Fragile antiques and poking fingers don't really go together.

Got home, aching and exhausted, eating my tea I felt a weirdness in my mouth and went to see what it was. A bright white bicusped of wisdom tooth had broken through my gum!  Why now? I never needed them before!! (Both of my wisdom teeth on the lower jaw have never come through before - sometimes they had threatened to in my twenties - but then changed their minds!).

So I went to bed exhausted and I have to say, despite new wisdom tooth, none the wiser.

Same old same old.....

I am sitting typing by the window to my garden which is shut, because two doors up Tony who bought the bungalow on the end of this row is having more work done. It always seems to be drilling into concrete somehow. The woman next door is sandblasting her paving stones and mowing what little grass she has left, across the road foundations are being put in for an extension to the bungalow opposite. For a sleepy little village in the Cotswolds there is always lots of noise, someone is always building something!

Last week though, in Cornwall, was quiet. I could hear birds singing, horses neighing, and the rustle of trees.

Just around the corner from our campsite was St Michaels Mount, resplendant under blue skies sitting in pale soft sands. The gulls reeled overhead and boats sailed past quietly.

We visited the art gallery in Sennen Cove and walked along the sandy beach. Again just the rush of the sea turning pebbles over onto the beach and breakers hitting the rocks.

It seems the seaside is quieter than a tiny village in Oxfordshire which is desperately trying to "come up."  We only planned to stay here a couple of years, do the place up and leave, but illness, Brexit, and other unexpected events forced us to stay.

I don't hate it.  Here's my garden in early spring:-

 I just want to be able to sit in my garden without earplugs - that would be nice - but even nicer would be to live in Cornwall again. I didn't realise how much I missed it, knew it, loved it, and needed to be back on really familiar ground again.

I started life in London, then moved to Hertfordshire, then Buckinghamshire, then Northamptonshire, and now Oxfordshire. But Cornwall is home to me, there's no logic to it I know, but I have a pull inside me when I'm away from it that no other place has given me.
If we could sell up here I'd go back tomorrow. It's a real place, for example Cornishmen call a dwarf a dwarf - they even have dwarf Olympics!  And the people who take part are proud to do it!  The Cornish don't change their past or their ways to suit the times, they are and always will be awkward sods, and I can't wait to go back!
 

Holiday

I'm supposed to be on holiday - but I never seem able to stop. I found out yesterday that my new book 1955 see below:

 Was listed as 113 in the Amazon Storytellers competition - there is over a thousand entries - but I need to be in the top 100 to be read by the judges.  So I am giving it away FREE for  five days starting Saturday. What takes it up the ratings are reviews.  Please download and review - be truthful - as it helps me become a better writer. But obviously not too harsh as I won't be considered!  Write to me on my authors page if you want!

What do I win?  An Amazon promotion worldwide.  Fingers crossed.

This year I have written three books, entered new stories into prestigious competitions and brought out the Hilary Long Stories in paperback which is in the proof reading stage at the moment.  Here it is:

 Here's the back with some reviews:

Today I'm supposed to be on holiday, but I can't stop working. I've forgotten how to have a holiday. It doesn't help that I hurt, I have a flare up of rheumatoid arthritus due to the trendy new virus that laid low the Queen and Elton John. I'm on my super strong painkillers today
so at least I'm upright!

I have a big world to get out into and I have to get well to do it. I have to put the lap top down.  STEP AWAY FROM THE LAPTOP !!
 
 

Pigeons

I have time for these poor creatures, many of my friends hate them in their gardens but I don't, I feed them alongside the other birds.

Meet Julius a war decorated hero.
This is his kit, he flew taking messages with all this stuff to save HUMAN lives.

White pigeons, decorative, kept in dovecotes in Manor Houses, for food, eggs and message carrying, in the 15th, 16th, 17th century. Pigeons kept the poor from starvation.

These poor inoffensive birds bring wonderful restful cooing sounds to my garden, they used to bring tourists to Trafalagar Square in London, but pigeons are no longer there. They have been destroyed.

In the 1970s when I lived in London there was a running joke - Keep London Clean - Eat a Pigeon!

In the North of England Racing and Homing pigeons provide big business and lots of pleasure for people.




So please don't decry the humble pigeon, they have a reason to be here, and without them
some of us wouldn't be.

New Car

Yesterday I got a new car!   

Well new to me anyway, and many years younger than Ruby, my old Kia Sportage.  It's a silver Mitsubushi Outlander with black leather seats and it has blue tooth on board phone and a panic alarm, it talks in a cultured English voice and is automatic. It has a 200 page instruction book on all the other stuff that it does as well.

I'm a bit scared of it!

Also, yesterday my new book 1955 went up on the electronic shelves of Amazon Kindle,

and my dear long-suffering husband designed this 50s detective noir cover for me. 

I've been entered for the Amazon Storyteller competition, and I'm a bit scared of that as well.

I don't know why having such good things happen gives me the heebie jeebies - it's like I can't trust it and it will all be taken away as it was a mistake!  

I've been trying to feel the fear and do it anyway, and got stuck outside the butchers as the car sat refusing to work for me!  I had to call the garage and they said I'd not followed all the correct procedures and so it locked me out!

My own car locked me out!

I have to go to the supermarket today - it's all a bit Mother Hubbard in my kitchen - so off I go.  I may be some time!

Read the first few pages of my new book free, or buy it it's on special offer for 99p. Please review it, it gives me a better chance in the competition.

Thank you everyone.