This is Me!

No, not that me – me me. Indy Me. She can’t type – you should see her right hand. You know when people blow up a rubber glove? That’s her hand that is!

She says something bit her. Well it wasn’t me. Her beloved asked if it could have been a snake, had she seen one at all when she was throwing the ball for me (I might have known there’d be some hint of blame thrown in my direction). She said she thought she might have noticed if she’d grabbed a snake instead of my tennis ball, apparently they don’t go as far or bounce as well. Not that she’s ever tried throwing one you understand.

Personally I think it was one of those winged buzzy things that come in the bedroom at night. It got her on the back as well

But you don’t want to hear about her.

It’s not easy for a dog of a certain age to keep little people entertained, looked after and clean, but I do my best.

So you’d think I’d get time off for a little R and R (Rolling and Rolling) without being shouted at wouldn’t you?

Well it started a couple of weeks ago when she came home with two of her little people and fell flat on her face in the front door on top of a pile of bags. Luckily she didn’t land on any little people – or me, so that was all right.

I volunteered to sleep in with her and the girls, just to keep an eye on things you understand. I hardly got any sleep the first night. She kept getting up to check the little one in her cot – presumably in case she’d decided to climb out and go wandering about or something. In the end I had to get up myself, so she took me out to the garden. Boy was I thirsty – I nearly emptied that bird bath.

Goodness knows why she was hopping round outside in her bare feet waving her arms at me and shrieking in a loud whisper. What’s wrong with birdbath water? It’s not like anyone was using it at the time. When I got in she tapped her dirty foot and pointed at my full water bowl. Huh , she just doesn’t get it. I mean why would I want to drink clean water from a bowl when I can drink smelly water full of feathers and bits of leaf from the birdbath? I ask you.

Then I got an itch. Well you’ve got to have a scratch haven’t you? And my foot needed a good licking. And then… you’re not going to believe this… she accused ME of keeping HER awake!

The next night I hardly got any sleep. She’d realised the little one was fine, but this time she reckoned she heard a mozzie buzzing. So she got up and checked the girls weren’t smothered in biting insects. Then it happened again. Up she got. Well honestly, a dog needs his beauty sleep you know. But she might have been right about the mozzie – I was very itchy.

This went on half the night, then she remembered she’d got a bottle of citronella oil so she tip-toed round the room sprinkling it everywhere. That was it. I’d had enough. I went off to sleep with someone else. Someone who doesn’t keep getting up and wandering about.

But towards the end of the holiday I decided to give her another chance. This time I took up my rightful half of the bed so I could cuddle the little person in the middle while she, for reasons best known to herself, slept with one foot on the floor moaning because I’d got all the covers – tuh! Anyway, she hadn’t given up the night time wanderings. This time she decided some passing burglar was going to climb in through the window, kill me and steal her granddaughters while she slept. Slept? So she shut the windows. So it got hot.

Honestly, what I have to put up with – you’ve no idea.

So anyway there was this dead crow. Well it was more like a pile of feathers really, but it smelled brilliant and so I got my shoulder down into it and was just about to have a good old roll about when she bellows at me and starts thundering across the field like some sort of mad cow – that’s if mad cows have red faces and bulging eyes.

Mooo she said. Or maybe it was “Get out of that you disgusting little beast!” But she wasn’t that close so I carried on until she was about two feet away when I sprang up and put on my innocent, “Oh were you talking to me?” expression. She knows she can’t tell me off once I’ve stopped doing whatever it was I was doing when she started ranting.

Anyway next day she forgot about the dead crow. But I didn’t. I managed to get my shoulder into it again before she stopped me. Now she’s started taking a different route round the fields, but there will be others! I know there will. And when there are, I am ready, with my shoulder for a bit of R and R.

Meantime, just wanted to let you know what a hypocrite she is, moaning about me doing something one minute, then doing it herself the next. No, I didn’t catch her slurping out of the bird bath or rolling in stinky corpses (I bet she’d like to really), but she kept Tilly awake half the night with her scratching. Maybe she should have got up and sprinkled her citronella oil round.

Just thought I’d put the record straight anyway. She’s the one with all the foibles (not sure what they are but I’m sure she eats too many of them) not me!

Sorry Indy - my turn again!

There was a comment, later deleted, made on my last post about me not posting things on my blog because I wanted to use them as short story ideas.

I realised it would be a good subject for a post – and if anyone didn’t see it, the writer said that they didn’t mind if people pinched their ideas, but seemed to think I did. Wrong. I don’t mind at all.

I’ll explain and I’m sure a lot of you will identify with this. When I get an idea for a story, the minute I start talking about it, 99 times out of 100 the story idea will die stone dead. I don’t know why. It’s as if while it’s inside, festering in my mind, it’s safe, but the minute I let it out – it’s gone!

I think only once since I’ve been writing this blog have I later successfully turned the subject of a post into a short story.

And along the same lines, if I have an idea for a blog then turn it into a story I don’t then blog about it because it’s gone. I’ve used it up.

It does work to my advantage too sometimes because if I am angry about something and I write about it, I find I can lose a lot of the anger, even if the writing is never seen by anyone else. Maybe that is what is meant by leaving something of yourself on the page.

So I’m not being precious about my ideas. A story can be written from so many different angles and in so many different ways. If anyone finds an idea from this blog, they’re welcome to it!

I have countless projects started on this computer that have stalled simply because I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut and felt I had to discuss them with – or even worse – show them to someone. I might just as well have shoved them in a wooden box and taken them up the bone yard with a shovel. They’re dead now. They sit here on my computer, corpselike and dusty.

Yet I know writers who can talk about what they’re doing in great detail, show their work to others and their ideas live on.

So, out of interest, how many of you can’t talk about what you’re working on and how many can talk as much as they want without losing it?

Free Writing Advice

Where? Well everywhere you look! In the old days you had to go to the library, put in an order for one of the few books about writing then wait for weeks until you got to the top of the queue.

Or you could buy a book, but books were more expensive then so if you were hard up you had to put up with the dog-eared, coffee stained, cigarette smelling, crumb carrying, grease marked tomes from the library. And why do people feel they have to underline things, turn over the corners of pages and even cross things out and make comments in the margins? I wouldn’t do that with a book I owned, much less a borrowed one.

But I’m sorry, that title is a shameless device to lure unsuspecting writers to my blog. Sorry unsuspecting writers!

But it is true, there is a plethora of advice on the worldly web and it’s all free. But I don’t think you can beat a writing book if you're looking for advice to be honest. You don’t want to spend all your life trawling round t’internet when you could curl up on the sofa with a book minus distractions. So that is the free writing advice in this post - buy/borrow a book about writing and sit somewhere quiet with it, away from computers and televisions.

And of course most important of all - far more important than reading about it - just do it!

There’s been a distinct lack of blogs from me lately – mainly because every time I start one I think it might be an idea for a story, so there it goes. Like the woman with the wiggly bum walking her dogs round the playing field… She would have been a perfect star for a Take a Break story back in the day, but where to put her now? I’ll think of somewhere.

Apart from that I’ve been a wee bit busy.

Apparently when he’s stopped laughing, Indy is going to write a blog. You have been warned. Laughing at me by the way, the cruel thing! It’s not my fault I tell you in advance, I can’t help the way I am. And I still have a big bruise on my leg! I didn’t laugh at him when he fell down a hole over the fields the other day, nor did I laugh when he got his shoulder into the rotten corpse of a crow!

On a writerly note, I’ve had rejections forming a disorderly queue, acceptances arriving rather more sedately and a commission after several weeks of no news at all – and all this happened while two of my granddaughters were staying here.

And my cabbages experiment – well it didn’t seem to make any difference. The posts getting the most hits are still weird. A bit like me really.

Cabbages in Bowler Hats

Nude shoes. Apparently the Duchess of Cambridge – have you noticed how now she’s one of the royals the press don’t give her nasty little nicknames any more? – has started the trend of nude shoes. I think they’re horrible! Give me a pair of white stilettoes any day, I’m an Essex girl – no that was a joke! I am an Essex girl and I did own a pair of white stilettoes once, but I also owned black ones, grey ones and red ones. This was before I broke my foot and had to stop wearing high heels. Personally I think those nude shoes look as if someone’s pulled their tights on and forgotten to take their shoes off first.

And the cabbages in bowler hats? Tis an experiment. Frances has noticed on her blog stats how some posts get a lot more hits than others which prompted me to look at mine and it is indeed strange. Just a bit of silliness for a wet Sunday.

Tilly says she would have written a post but she’s very busy – as you can see. And yes, that chair really is as grubby as it looks!

I Don't Believe It!

Greyfriars Bobby a myth? All made up to bring in business? I don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. To be honest I don’t care if it was made up. So there!

And also in the I don’t believe it category – The Royal. Anyone else watch that? I love it. I love Doctor Ormerod and his lovely wife, Doctor Weatherill. I love Sister Brigid and Matron and the pipe smoking Mr Rose. I love that it is set in kinder times.

If you’ve never watched it, well it’s too late now because it’s gone. Every series finished on a cliff hanger and the last one of the latest series ended with… well I shan’t say in case any Royal fans are reading this and haven’t watched the last one yet. But I cried buckets and I can’t believe they left us hanging like that. It would have been kinder to us faithful viewers never to have shown that last episode at all so we could imagine life in Royal-land going on as ever it did.

I know one of the nurses has got a job in Holby City – and she hasn’t aged a bit!

I received a free copy of a fat glossy magazine with a hefty price tag in the mail today and so far all I’ve found in it are adverts. I don’t believe that either. I’m going to keep looking – there must be something in there to read! But it was free, so it’s mean of me to moan isn’t it?

This week I bought a heat gun which keeps cutting out. I read the reviews online after I bought it and apparently no one would recommend it. The cheaper one had much better reviews. I don’t believe it! A wise man once said “You can’t afford to buy cheap”. Well he obviously hadn’t bought a blankety-blank heat gun!!

Here’s a picture of Indy in the woods this morning. When we got out there he said I don’t believe it – new smells, squirrels, no other people – fab! Tilly said it was very nice, but she prefers the lane and the fields thank you very much.