Anyone else feel like this...more than occasionally?
Fearing change, especially of the IT variety is common, but regarded as something to feel shameful about.
But it happens to most of us at some point.
Usually me.
Pretty much always me actually.
Enjoy this blog about being scared of computers. Feel the sweaty palms and experience the terrible lows of...the new laptop.
https://ktbowesblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/30/fear-of-change-a-moron-doth-make/
Come in, relax, pick up a book and take a seat. Listen to writers give tips, talk about their lives and pass the time of day. Read until your heart's content and forget about what's going on outside. Isn't that what a library is all about?
Pages
Wednesday, 30 December 2015
Tuesday, 29 December 2015
Review: Kissing Demons
Kissing Demons by Jen Winters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was an interesting start to a series involving angels, demons and such beasties as werewolves and vampires. The main female character acts out a pivotal role within the novel, a woman of extreme power who is the lynch pin for the main action. There is a sense that the writer is hugely invested in the plight of humanity and despite the often amoral goings on, there is a thread of conscience which runs throughout. The book was relatively easy to get into with some decent twists and turns from the off and the main character is hard to dislike. I struggled a little with the portrayal of the Aspects because some of their behaviour was a stretch too far for characters essentially lifted straight out of the bible. I felt the portrayal of the setting was fascinating and descriptive enough to keep me reading. Well written and great follow through. You’d have to read the next one in the series once you started.
4 stars.
View all my reviews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was an interesting start to a series involving angels, demons and such beasties as werewolves and vampires. The main female character acts out a pivotal role within the novel, a woman of extreme power who is the lynch pin for the main action. There is a sense that the writer is hugely invested in the plight of humanity and despite the often amoral goings on, there is a thread of conscience which runs throughout. The book was relatively easy to get into with some decent twists and turns from the off and the main character is hard to dislike. I struggled a little with the portrayal of the Aspects because some of their behaviour was a stretch too far for characters essentially lifted straight out of the bible. I felt the portrayal of the setting was fascinating and descriptive enough to keep me reading. Well written and great follow through. You’d have to read the next one in the series once you started.
4 stars.
View all my reviews
Monday, 14 December 2015
Turning Trash into Treasure - the Writer who Paints
As well as writing, my other vice is painting. There's nothing like the feel of a paintbrush in my hand to polarise my thoughts and emotions. One day that brush might make me feel like a champion and another time, the same brush could paint me a failure.
As well as commissioned landscapes of oils on canvas, my hobby is Folk Art and furniture painting. I see a piece of junk and it becomes a treasure in my mind.
So when the builder finished up for the day yesterday and I begged a number of pieces of left-over wood, obviously he looked at me oddly.
But I have to be honest, my brown eyes lit up.
"Make book ends," I said, keeping a straight face.
He didn't believe me. Nobody ever believes me, so I thought I'd photograph and blog my progress during an afternoon of complete painting bliss. So here goes...
Paint the top of the block to represent pages.
Put the top colours over the crackle glaze.
Start adding more detail to give an overall effect.
Finish the top of the block so that it looks like the spine wraps around the pages. I've done that part black but you could use dark grey or brown if you didn't want it to pop so much.
Notice how the crackle is beginning to work; be careful, it's fragile while it's working.
I wanted one of the sides to look crackled and have an aged appearance.
Brush a grey wash into the pearl white to give an illusion of wear and tear on the pages and to dull the effect.
Add more detail and shading to the books to give them realism. Decide which side the light will come from and throw shadows and highlights.
I've added more detail on the spines and overlaid brown onto the gold layer in the middle with crackle glaze underneath. That spine now has brown-gold-brown on it and is making an interesting distressed look.
I blended the book second to right as the crackle glaze went a bit crazy.
The light's not great for the photo but I'm quite pleased with the overall affect.
It's going to sit here and dry for now while I clear up all the paint brushes and water. As you saw, I don't use professional equipment. My paint tray is an old ice cream tub lid and my water jug a mug which goes in the dishwasher afterwards.
I haven't decided what I'll do to the other block of wood but might paint it one colour and put Folk Art flowers and decorations on it. I'll see how I feel when I pick up my brush.
Hope you enjoyed the little tutorial and that it gives you the confidence to try turning your trash into treasure.
Love K T Bowes x
#art #trashtotreasure #painting
As well as commissioned landscapes of oils on canvas, my hobby is Folk Art and furniture painting. I see a piece of junk and it becomes a treasure in my mind.
So when the builder finished up for the day yesterday and I begged a number of pieces of left-over wood, obviously he looked at me oddly.
But I have to be honest, my brown eyes lit up.
"What are you gonna do with them?" he asked, his fingers itching to throw them in the back of his truck.
"Make book ends," I said, keeping a straight face.
He didn't believe me. Nobody ever believes me, so I thought I'd photograph and blog my progress during an afternoon of complete painting bliss. So here goes...
The blocks weren't in a great state. Nothing about them screams, 'use me for something creative inside your house,' so when junk using, you have to take what you can get. The other end of this block is buried in my back garden as the support struts for the new deck. Builders, look away now...
No, I didn't want to sand this little blighter by hand. The appalling state of our shed left me no choice and so I spent ages removing the nicks and rough surfaces of my blocks, whilst swearing like a trooper and sending the step register on my Fitbit into orbit.
I picked two different sizes because extreme compulsiveness tells me that two blocks of almost the same size will never be quite equal. This fact will bother me for the rest of my days until I give away my most marvelous creation. Hence two completely different sized blocks, because they can never be compared.
After sanding, give them a rub with turps to remove the dust and grease. Then give them another light sand, as turps raises the grain.
For this afternoon, I'll just deal with the smaller of the blocks because...because I'm in charge and that's what I've decided.
Rule the books onto the block, front and top side at the intervals you need them.
If I wanted to sell these, I would probably fill the cracks in the wood but I rather like the rustic nature it gives the overall finish, reminding me that it is after all, a piece of wood.
Start with the base coats, filling in the sections for the different books.
I filled in the two side panels but didn't worry about the base or the back. Nobody will see it. If a visitor picks a book, they'll get a shock, won't they?
Crackle glaze the books which you wish to have a worn appearance. The bottom colour will show through. You don't have to crackle any of them, but it's my favourite medium and I use it every opportunity I get.
While the crackle glaze is drying, start decorating the spines of the other books.
Paint the top of the block to represent pages.
Put the top colours over the crackle glaze.
Start adding more detail to give an overall effect.
Finish the top of the block so that it looks like the spine wraps around the pages. I've done that part black but you could use dark grey or brown if you didn't want it to pop so much.
Notice how the crackle is beginning to work; be careful, it's fragile while it's working.
I wanted one of the sides to look crackled and have an aged appearance.
Brush a grey wash into the pearl white to give an illusion of wear and tear on the pages and to dull the effect.
Add more detail and shading to the books to give them realism. Decide which side the light will come from and throw shadows and highlights.
I've added more detail on the spines and overlaid brown onto the gold layer in the middle with crackle glaze underneath. That spine now has brown-gold-brown on it and is making an interesting distressed look.
I blended the book second to right as the crackle glaze went a bit crazy.
The light's not great for the photo but I'm quite pleased with the overall affect.
It's going to sit here and dry for now while I clear up all the paint brushes and water. As you saw, I don't use professional equipment. My paint tray is an old ice cream tub lid and my water jug a mug which goes in the dishwasher afterwards.
I haven't decided what I'll do to the other block of wood but might paint it one colour and put Folk Art flowers and decorations on it. I'll see how I feel when I pick up my brush.
Hope you enjoyed the little tutorial and that it gives you the confidence to try turning your trash into treasure.
Love K T Bowes x
#art #trashtotreasure #painting
Saturday, 12 December 2015
Editing through Kindness - Skirt Yankers who care about exposed bums
I
watched a lovely lady wander through a church buffet once and gasped in horror
at her terrible faux pas. Having visited the toilet, she’d accidentally tucked
her skirt hem into her white knickers and moseyed happily through a large group
munching on her scone. It looked awful. It was one of those heart stopping
moments where I knew I had to do something as her bottom drifted past my face,
but temporary paralysis kept me in my seat as I wondered how to sort it out.
From the blog Travels with an Oka and yes, you should have let Janet tell her... |
How
do you mend that kind of public problem without even more awkwardness? Horror was
replaced by a thousand questions.
1.
I’d never conversed with the lady, so if I yanked it out, would she slap me?
2.
What could I say as I fondled the bottom of a stranger?
3.
Should I be smiling as I performed the act, or would I look like a pervert?
4.
Should I leave it for someone else to deal with?
5.
What would I want to happen if it were me?
In
a single fluid movement, my friend leapt to life, lurched for the woman, yanked
the skirt down, said, “Hey friend, nice legs,” pinched her bottom and sat back next
to me.
The
lady turned and thanked her with genuine gratitude and my friend continued our
conversation. My mouth refused to close and I degenerated into a horrible
companion, complete with hero worship and accolade. I made more of a fuss in my
seat than she had lurching for a stranger’s bottom. What she did was so natural
and it confounded me.
Many
years later found me in a different country, working part-time in an all-boys
school. Wearing a pretty floral dress, I made my way from the staff toilets to
where I’d parked my car that morning, a kilometre away in a side street. To get
to it, I needed to walk past the windows of the English department containing
over 200 boys aged between fourteen and nineteen. They studied Shakespeare
while I escaped for the day. I felt a yank on the bottom of my dress and turned
in surprise. “You had your skirt tucked in your...”
The
skirt yanker went crimson with embarrassment and flapped her hand wildly at my
bare legs. She didn’t know what to say but performed that small kindness for me
anyway, a sisterhood in our testosterone laden environment. I thanked her and went on my way, passing the classroom windows without
incident. It could have been a very different scene complete with school
newspaper headline.
There’s
no easy way to point out a screw up but if you care about someone’s dignity,
you kinda have to. Yes I write, but I’m also an avid reader. When I see a novel
with the same typo repeated to the point of annoyance, or a bad habit in a
writer’s otherwise amazing work, I am honour bound as a fellow author to yank
that skirt right out of their knickers, even if I don’t have the words to do it
without embarrassment.
I’ve
said many times how OCD I am about pretty much everything. In the same way I
can’t pass something out of place, I also can’t read and ignore blatant
oopsies. My secret vice is that I note every error on my Kindle, which shows up
as a file marked ‘Clippings’ when I sync with my computer.
The
problem is knowing what to do with these ‘edits’ once I have them. Those same
questions plague me again.
1.
I’d never conversed with them socially, so if I point it out, will they hate
me?
2.
What can I say as I broach their mistakes?
3.
Should I smile sweetly as I defame their product and then never talk to them
again?
4.
Should I leave it for someone else to deal with?
5.
What would I want to happen if it were me?
I
will try to communicate with the author because it seems wrong to collect 50+
edits and then delete them when I would love to be sent a file of things wrong
and enjoy the opportunity to fix them.
As
an author, I’ve permanently got my skirt tucked in my knickers no matter how
many times my work is edited. There’s a typo breeding programme which few
readers know of and nothing short of annual editing will cull the blighters as
they increase inside a perfectly produced manuscript with no encouragement.
As
a child I found errors in publications of Enid Blyton. There’s a rather amusing
incident in which Noddy goes to bed with his hat on instead of taking it off.
That’s just not ok and I noticed it aged 6 concluding that even poor Enid needed
a skirt yanker too. I took on the role of self-appointed yanker and composed a
letter to Enid which my mother loyally posted from our home on an Air Force
base in Gütersloh, West Germany. Many years later Wikipedia reliably informed
me that Enid didn’t receive my letter, having died the year before my birth. There
were several more skirt yanking moments between myself and Enid and I often
wonder what Mother did with my letters. Knowing her, she spent our meagre
income on an expensive overseas stamp and posted my offering to Enid’s London publisher
without ever receiving a response.
So
what to do, what to do? I stop my busyness and find I have twelve A4 pages of
edits burning a hole in my ‘helping others’ folder from my latest read.
I’ve
had mixed responses through offering my pages of corrections in a Word document,
which I spent hours making fit for understanding. One author who I knew by
association, accused me of touting for paid editing. She was wrong. There was
nothing I could add to the edits I offered for free. She didn’t want them and I
deleted them from my file. It was very hard to review her novel after that,
knowing she didn’t have a teachable spirit and her work would never improve. Nobody
would ever be able to help her, not just me. I read none of her other works and
subsequently doubted the 5*reviews she got. She didn’t just have her skirt
tucked in her knickers, peculiar grammar and juvenile use of speech meant she had
no knickers on at all under there!
The
irony is she didn’t need to get personal; she could have accepted the edits,
said thank you and walked away. I’ve no intention of checking afterwards that
my suggestions were implemented. I’ve moved on. I’m jotting down things from
the next book I’m reading.
But
there have also been lovely responses. A complete stranger who I stalked on Goodreads
to find an email address, thanked me profusely. She’d had numerous paid editors
check her work and was surprised. Her novel was clean of typos but one
important omission blew her mystery-thriller up in her face. When a reader
knows something isn’t possible; the author’s in trouble. She thanked me and I
believe she changed her conclusion. I haven’t checked but I wish her well.
My trusty Kindle |
I’ve
had sweet emails from traditionally published and indie authors but sadly
deleted as many sets of notes as I’ve sent. It makes me wonder about all these
folk who seem happy to walk around with their skirts tucked in their knickers.
Let’s
just get this straight. I am not happy with anything less than perfect. I want
a skirt-yanker and if that’s you, then so be it. I shall brace myself for
impact.
Yes
it can hurt. One of my favourite people in the world is a writer who private messaged
me on Facebook and said she’d downloaded my book but daren’t review it because
of all the things wrong. She took the trouble to point them out and I spent the
next 6 months in edits and rewrites. The words ‘had’ and ‘that’ need an
immigration visa nowadays to enter my novels and I know how many have licence
to exist, should they try to breed while my back is turned. I bought paid editing
help and banned curse words such as ‘just’ from coming anywhere near my
keyboard during formal writing. Adverbs are used sparingly, like sprinkles on
special occasions. A trusted author reads my beta work before publication and
once sent 46 A4 pages in teeny font of things wrong. Gratitude means I return
the favour with dedication and pernickety-ness which isn’t a word I know.
Why do I care?
Because I do not want my knickers or worse, my bum, on show for the world to
laugh at.
So
I will continue to make scatty notes on my Kindle as I pound away on my
treadmill in the morning. They won’t be essays because I’m short sighted and
won’t stop the machine, so if an author finds a convoluted description of the
error, they can be sure I fell off.
My
qualifications are an honours degree in English and almost two decades in
education, plus a decade of writing and making common mistakes. I listen to
other authors and do online tutorials related to writing and producing clean
work. I am committed to not making the same mistakes twice, which helps with
new works.
A
short dance with the role of professional editor sent me off the deep end with
OCD because I needed to catch everything
and I mean everything. What many
authors don’t do is read the small print in their editing contract. There may
be a clause in it which lists how many edits per chapter can be caught as a minimum.
I subcontracted for someone who after I pulled an all-nighter and contacted him
in tears because the work (already published) needed a complete rewrite, told
me this astounding fact. “Just flag ten errors per chapter.”
“But,”
I sobbed over Google Hangout, “I can do that in the first paragraph.”
“Yeah,
don’t do that,” he said. “Spread it out a bit. And by the way, you’re flagging
grammar and typos, not doing rewrites. It’s a 6 hour job. I can’t pay you for
the other 28 you’ve done but thanks for all the updates. Maybe for you, I don’t
need them hourly, despite what it said in your contract.”
The
expression is, ‘horses for courses.’ Different editors catch different error
types. You may have employed two professional editors, but they weren’t paid to
overhaul your entire manuscript. And each person is different. One has a pet
hate of word misuse while another goes after passive voice like a heat seeking
missile. Horses for courses. Never forget that.
I
go after many things and can’t stop. I won’t walk past those belly-pants on
show for the world and I can’t do it professionally because I’m too obsessive
and it makes me ill. If I do it as a reader, I convince myself it’s part of my
reading process; not my job. Phew. That makes it all right then.
One
question remains unanswered. When someone offers you free edits why would you
not take them? I can’t offer any clues. When a lovely reader recently pointed
out an error in my latest novel I thanked her gratefully and went after that
little sucker in my manuscript like a zombie hunter, hoping to find the nest
while I was in there.
The
satisfaction of knowing my knickers are temporarily not on show is overwhelming. Send them. Send those errors in their
ones and twos, warn me gently if they’re in their tens but send them.
Yank
that skirt out of my knickers. Don’t leave me showing my bum when you know I’ll
be embarrassed. Please I beg you and promise I won’t shout.
#free #editing #OCD #author #knickers
Saturday, 5 December 2015
Being a Christian in the World of Indie Publishing
If
you’ve read my work then you already know I don’t do the whole bible-bashing
thing. Why would I? It won’t make you like me and it certainly won’t make you
change your mind. I’m a Christian but that doesn’t mean I insist you are too. I
can love you for who you are, can’t I?
Instead
of beating you over the head with my tambourine, isn’t it more important that
you see me having pleasant interactions through my brand, avoiding loud public
conversations involving character assassination or getting involved in
pointless political debate on subjects I know nothing about? I’m not perfect. I
express my opinion with added bile but usually on my personal pages with the
few trusted friends who will straighten me out, dust me down and send me on my
way.
It’s
difficult being a Christian and an author because it throws up issues which
other writers don’t have. I love sex and could write erotica with a good plot
in a heartbeat; but I probably shouldn’t. There’s an illusion that my writing
mustn’t traverse biblical boundaries or stray into anything risqué but I write about
the real world which is full of exactly those kinds of situations. I’ve been
part of Christian communities and believe me, there’s enough sex, violence and attitude
in them to make even the most liberal of hedonists hair curl into a permed bob.
St.
Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use
words.” My words and writing should be the last resort, shouldn’t they?
I
joined an online Christian writers’ group thinking it would be helpful and to some
extent it was. But many of them wanted to produce clean, perfectly sanitised
novels with some wonderful meaning which satisfied their need for anonymous
outreach. That’s cool. I wouldn’t be interested in reading them because I err
on the side of realism, introspection and quirky twist plots. Good on them for
their stance but I can’t write something which ends with, “We all got saved and
went home for tea.” If I only got my husband into bed through intimation and
innuendo, the Premier League Soccer on the TV would win every time. Sometimes
in the real world you just have to rip your nightie.
One
of my novels, A Trail of Lies, deals
with a teenager who self-harms, has underage sex and lives in foster care. Yeah,
that was never going to fly in a Christian group, was it? I agonised over that
novel but it didn’t matter which way up I turned it, the story needed telling
in its raw state.
Only
one of my fourteen books is overtly Christian and that’s Demons on Her Shoulder. The cover graphic of the legendary Lincoln Imp who
sits in the cathedral beneath him kinda gives it away. But the blurb shouldn’t
leave anyone in doubt, introducing a woman who’s a Christian counsellor in an
English inner city church. If you’re raising your eyebrows you perhaps don’t
realise I’ve had messages from perplexed readers who didn’t know it was
Christian and they could be forgiven for thinking it was a kind of Da Vinci
Code play off. Maybe. They gave me
good reviews though, which is awesome and said nice things - which is unusual
for a Christian novel.
My
other thirteen novels aren’t Christian but the common denominator is the inclusion of
one Christian character. That one lonely flag flyer won’t be perfect because I’m
forced to base them on my own faulty experience. They slip up and swear, they
mess up and do stupid things and they step over the boundary line and fall in
love with atheists and agnostics.
In
A Trail of Lies, I’m actually not
very nice about Christians. It’s an unusual stance for a believer, I know and I suppose God
might be frowning about now. Callister’s definitely not a believer in anything
other than survival and the search for acceptance but she meets a few of the
wonderful tambourine banging populace who I’ve had the joy to cross paths and
prayers with over the years. Her confusion and sense of being out-of-place is
very much my own. It didn’t go down well with the Christian group who PM’d me
long essays with biblical quotes and suggestions of penance.
I’ve
been back to God and tried to hand the whole writing thing
back over, deeming my inner thoughts far too unworthy to spew out on paper and be
in any way blessed. You know what? He handed the whole thing back with a wink
and a shove. “Get on with it, woman. You’re doing fine.”
Occasionally
I have a crisis. In The New Du Rose
Matriarch I wrote a whole scene where the lusty Tama Du Rose gets it on with
the ex-school typist on poor Hana’s hearth rug. I wrote it and rewrote it and
it just wouldn’t sit right. I published the novel and nobody complained about
the sanitised peck on the cheek and rumpled rug but it felt like a blank space
in an otherwise great novel. So I rewrote that section and released the realism
because Hana knew what happened on her rug and so did I.
I’m
not feeding the masses; I’m trying to be me. I open my mouth and my brains roll
out so why would my writing be any different? Nobody needs to swing from
chandeliers shackled to each other’s nose piercings but if I want the reader to
believe me when I describe a crime scene, how can I not be truthful about the
other stuff?
I’m
a firm believer in writing about what I know. It’s why I don’t write science fiction
because how many battle stations look like my dining room? I know Christians
are faulty and make mistakes because I’m one of them. I fall over, get up and
fall right over again. I live in a real marriage which I frequently push to
boiling point through my own stupidity and have real children who take me from
one end of the emotional scale to the other and somewhere in between. Perhaps
it’s the cost of being real, to offend all those lovely people with shiny halos
and perfect lives. I didn’t become a believer until I was thirty and maybe that’s
where the difference lies. I know how it looks from the outside and it’s not
the cozy bubble that insiders might believe. It’s elitist and clicky, cause-hungry
and desperate for purposeful projects. I call it as I see it and if the heavenly
lightning bolt is asunder, I’m hoping it gives me special powers on its way through...
As
one of my children wisely said recently. “Grandma reads it and loves your
books. I’d be more worried about her than the pastor’s wife. The pastor's wife won't whack your butt.”
Review: A Dead Red Cadillac
A Dead Red Cadillac by R.P. Dahlke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
During a bored moment I noticed an ad for a free boxed set containing the Lalla Bains series and snapped it up. Despite having a to-be-read list as long as my arm I dug in, captivated by the cover and wacky title.
Loved it. It's not gory or horrific but has this feel good factor attached to every line of sleuthing. I ended up reading all 3 of the novels in the boxed set. Lalla Bains blunders through life in a single minded way which will resonate with most busy women, leaving the important things to later and getting herself into deep trouble.
I enjoyed the small town, Heart of Dixie type setting and the close knit community which Dahlke illustrates with tongue in cheek hilarity. My favourite part of the novel though, has to be Lalla's inner dialogue which is snort-worthy. An example of this would be when she finds a lecherous, arrogant cop injured. She wrestles with calling an ambulance or rolling him into the road as a speed bump. Hilarious. Can definitely recommend.
It's good old heart-swelling cozy mystery set in contemporary America, in a town which time has left blissfully alone.
View all my reviews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
During a bored moment I noticed an ad for a free boxed set containing the Lalla Bains series and snapped it up. Despite having a to-be-read list as long as my arm I dug in, captivated by the cover and wacky title.
Loved it. It's not gory or horrific but has this feel good factor attached to every line of sleuthing. I ended up reading all 3 of the novels in the boxed set. Lalla Bains blunders through life in a single minded way which will resonate with most busy women, leaving the important things to later and getting herself into deep trouble.
I enjoyed the small town, Heart of Dixie type setting and the close knit community which Dahlke illustrates with tongue in cheek hilarity. My favourite part of the novel though, has to be Lalla's inner dialogue which is snort-worthy. An example of this would be when she finds a lecherous, arrogant cop injured. She wrestles with calling an ambulance or rolling him into the road as a speed bump. Hilarious. Can definitely recommend.
It's good old heart-swelling cozy mystery set in contemporary America, in a town which time has left blissfully alone.
View all my reviews
Saturday, 28 November 2015
Review: Worlds of the Never
Worlds of the Never by CJ Rutherford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Really gripping book. I powered through it in a weekend and became very antisocial. This installment closes off many of the open story arcs and resolves much of the plot. There is love, death, penalty and sacrifice, all the best ingredients for a quest. I'm thrilled that it looks as though there might be a fourth book. Can definitely recommend.
View all my reviews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Really gripping book. I powered through it in a weekend and became very antisocial. This installment closes off many of the open story arcs and resolves much of the plot. There is love, death, penalty and sacrifice, all the best ingredients for a quest. I'm thrilled that it looks as though there might be a fourth book. Can definitely recommend.
View all my reviews
The OCD Shopper's Trip to the Supermarket
I
went shopping on Black Friday, only it was supermarket shopping and Black
Friday hasn’t quite reached rural New Zealand. I should add that I almost never
go shopping. That’s not true actually. I never go shopping; there you made me
say it.
My
longsuffering husband does the shopping and has done since the third child left
home. For a while he did it with the fourth child and then by himself. He
rather enjoys all the choosing and I absolutely-without-a-doubt-hate it. I used
to do it once upon a time. I dragged four small children around with me on
reins and in trolleys and could do it in record time. I also did it when we
lived in Market Harborough and had no car and I was required to carry all the
shopping a mile to my front door and arrive home with jelly arms and leaking
bottles of milk. That was in my former, very distracted life of being all
things to all family members and I didn’t notice
things quite so much.
There’s
something about the aisles and lighting nowadays which makes me leave my brain
in the turnstily thing you push your reluctant trolley through before you can
even begin the shopping process. On Friday I had a list, a very good list which
Husband and I share on Google Docs so we can change and update it without me
texting him to say, hey, ‘Don’t forget the red wine.’ Now I can sneak it onto
the list and watch in the list updates as he deletes it. I can write, Countdown-belly-hugging-knickers and he
can write, what size?
It’s like a
little communication war dance or a mating display. I love it. Husband probably
doesn’t but I am fortunate in that he’s imbued with amazing patience.
Husband
can update it on his phone because he has an android but my Windows 8 won’t let
me. Thanks to an obscure argument between Microsoft and Google, I have to
scurry home to my laptop to put WINE back on the list, only to watch him wipe
it off using his extremely obliging phone.
I’ve
said lots of times that I’m OCD and struggle with the offensive aisles full of
products of differing colour and shape facing in all sorts of directions. I
spend more time turning things around and putting things back which often means
I come out with lots of things that weren’t on the list and only some of the
items that were.
For instance I came home with a lonely butternut squash that
was bigger than all the rest and messed up the pattern in the crate. Now it
sits alone in my vegetable box and matches nothing else because it’s not a potato
or kumara. I’ve shut the lid on it and its fate will be sealed with the roast I’m
plotting today...or perhaps tomorrow. It’s sunny today and not all the grass is
the same length so I have other things to do.
In
an hour and a half, Husband can drive the distance to Hamilton and back (20
minutes each way) and do the shopping. On Friday it took me that long to drive
to Huntly (5 minutes each way) and do the shopping. In my defence I put many
things straight along the way, reshelved items abandoned in the wrong aisle and
had lots of meaningless chats.
In
the car park I almost lost my trolley into the side of a flash BMW parked next
to me but caught it at the last minute. That got me wondering why supermarkets
don’t think about their pedestrian-trolley-pushing-shoppers as they angle the
tarmac towards large storm drains at the edge. I also don’t know why they
direct us towards a path with pedestrian crossings and then shove massive lamp
posts in the centre for us to negotiate.
Needless
to say I had an interesting morning during which I did no writing. I
re-engineered the supermarket car park in my head in which all parking spaces
were single and to be entered face first in lines, enabling shoppers to access
the back of their vehicles and drive straight out. Behind each vehicle would be
two tiny bumps to park our trolleys against during unloading and stop them
wandering off to fill another vehicle with tangled metal and food. I put lots
of things right in the store and had different conversations with the same
lovely lady eight times as we passed in the aisles. I helped a lady find hair
dye for her daughter and then put all the boxes neatly facing forward.
I
spent way too much money.
I
didn’t get gluten free/dairy free bread and Husband had to go out again later
to a different supermarket.
I
did buy fake cheese slices which apparently neither my husband nor our 3 house
guests like.
I
found some hummus with bits of things in which has no dairy or wheat and cannot
make me ill which I am rather thrilled with.
When
I got home I found the food cupboards offensive and reordered and cleaned the
pantry, fridge and chest freezer. Now I shout when anyone moves anything.
I
will not be allowed to do the shopping again and that’s ok because I’ve decided
that shopping makes me unbearable to live with.
Husband
says, ‘Yeah, right.’
#OCD #Supermarkets #amwriting
Thursday, 29 October 2015
The Food Allergy Debate - MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!
Should I be sorry for growing increasingly tired of the gluten-dairy-free debate? Well, you know what, I'm not sorry! I'm really tired of it so there, I said it!
Every man and his one legged dog seems to have an opinion on whether or not I should change my diet to suit them and worse, they even have the audacity to debate whether or not me and people like me, are genuine. Who gave them the right to have an opinion on MY diet? I certainly didn't.
As the mother of a diagnosed Celiac and another child with severe dairy intolerance, I have developed mysterious food allergies over an eight year period and can tell you - it's no fun. A stupid, harmless virus that left no long term ills in anyone else, affected my stomach and left me unable to eat products containing gluten or cow's milk. I have no idea why, the doctors have no idea why but eight years on, I'm gluten and dairy free and manage fine as long as nobody contaminates my food by accident. All biopsies have come back normal, so despite having a Celiac child, I am not. Nor is there any medical evidence for why cows milk makes me instantly sick. Nobody can offer me a medical reason why I have such a strong allergic reactions to certain foods; I just do. And in case you've got this far and decided I'm just nuts, I saw a counsellor in case it was in my head, but it's not. You think I haven't investigated this? Then shame on you. My body doesn't want this stuff and it won't say why.
So, without a medical certificate to wave over my head like a truce flag when I enter the debate, I must apparently sit with the 'fakers', the 'fad tryers' and the 'weirdoes'. Thanks for that.
I watched the online posts from the Irish cafe owner who banned vegans unfold across the internet like a pair of badly elasticated granny-knickers. Oh dear. While I don't appreciate the way he handled himself, I'm inclined to agree with him. I ring ahead before dining out or stick to places I know sell food I can eat without getting sick. It's not fair to assume a chef will ignore the other forty regular customers to nip out to the supermarket to cater for me without prior warning. Why would I derail someone's business like that? I'm not that selfish. I regularly go out with family and enjoy a glass of wine while they eat; I want to be part of the experience so don't exclude me from that too. If I'm invited for dinner, I take something I can eat and make it big enough to share because I don't want to be a bother.
I once starved for a whole weekend at a church camp in Rotorua because the chef - who was warned about my diet a month before I arrived - didn't think I was genuine. He apologised a few hours before we departed for misjudging me, having watched as I lived off soy bread I brought myself for an entire weekend. At the time he said he was sick of catering special meals for gluten free people who poured gravy over their designer meals. Or whipped up individual portions for a dairy free person who then doused it with cheese sauce. At the time, I thought fair enough but now I DON'T!
How dare he? I PAID to be on that camp just like everyone else. Did he run around smacking people around the head because they slurped ketchup all over his shepherd's pie? NO! What gave him the right to starve me because he thought I was faking or might add something else to his meal? Isn't that my right?
Yes, I've stood at gatherings where I've been catered for. Not satisfied with their four tables of food, others do seem attracted by my tiny take away box and gravitate towards it like vultures towards a carcass. I've also watched others 'try' my small portion and leave me none. That's not nice either. If you want different then order it. And I'll stand next to you and eat mine.
There must have been a lot of hype because it made the NZ national news recently; that doctors are concerned by adults removing staple items from theirs and their children's diet without medical advice. What the heck? Do parents of overweight children drag their offspring to the doctor just before pumping them full of sugar-laden-energy drinks to ask if it's ok? NO! Do they give them supplements to offset the effects like most parents cutting out gluten or dairy? PROBABLY NOT! So they can obviously hurt their kids but we can't try and sort out inherent problems for ours without criticism.
So a parent living in a nightmare and scratching around a problem at home is wrong are they? Why?
Well, for wondering if all the crap sprayed on flour in its storage state might be making Jonny run up and down the walls at bedtime. Or if all the rubbish injected into and fed to cows might be causing his face to look like a fifty year old with shingles. They're trying to get by and solve issues, just like everyone else. They need the effort you put into condemning them to support them and make helpful suggestions.
I want this debate to just go away. It puts people like me even more under the microscope as if it's not bad enough already. Is it fun clutching my home made salad or distinctly marked cardboard wrapper with GF/DF in neon marker pen, while someone scoffing chicken nuggets breathes all over me, asking,
"What happens to you when you eat gluten or dairy?"
You think that's not bad enough? Imagine his face when I tell him. He won't be hungry for a while. And that's without mentioning the eczema, headaches or feeling poisoned for days.
I'm over it; I'm really over it.
I don't have to justify myself to you. You get boozed up on Saturdays and eat chocolate until it runs out of your nose and I'll eat rabbit food and say nothing. Do I make you justify why you need that massive four-person lunch or the three vodkas before you go to work? NO!
You feed your kids what they want and I'll do the same, but mind your own business. You don't start a debate about what my kid's missing out on and I won't stare at the thighs on yours as it sips that sugary drink and chows down on those nuggets!
Let's talk about something that really matters but basically, leave my diet alone!
#dairyfree #glutenfree #foodallergy
Every man and his one legged dog seems to have an opinion on whether or not I should change my diet to suit them and worse, they even have the audacity to debate whether or not me and people like me, are genuine. Who gave them the right to have an opinion on MY diet? I certainly didn't.
As the mother of a diagnosed Celiac and another child with severe dairy intolerance, I have developed mysterious food allergies over an eight year period and can tell you - it's no fun. A stupid, harmless virus that left no long term ills in anyone else, affected my stomach and left me unable to eat products containing gluten or cow's milk. I have no idea why, the doctors have no idea why but eight years on, I'm gluten and dairy free and manage fine as long as nobody contaminates my food by accident. All biopsies have come back normal, so despite having a Celiac child, I am not. Nor is there any medical evidence for why cows milk makes me instantly sick. Nobody can offer me a medical reason why I have such a strong allergic reactions to certain foods; I just do. And in case you've got this far and decided I'm just nuts, I saw a counsellor in case it was in my head, but it's not. You think I haven't investigated this? Then shame on you. My body doesn't want this stuff and it won't say why.
So, without a medical certificate to wave over my head like a truce flag when I enter the debate, I must apparently sit with the 'fakers', the 'fad tryers' and the 'weirdoes'. Thanks for that.
I watched the online posts from the Irish cafe owner who banned vegans unfold across the internet like a pair of badly elasticated granny-knickers. Oh dear. While I don't appreciate the way he handled himself, I'm inclined to agree with him. I ring ahead before dining out or stick to places I know sell food I can eat without getting sick. It's not fair to assume a chef will ignore the other forty regular customers to nip out to the supermarket to cater for me without prior warning. Why would I derail someone's business like that? I'm not that selfish. I regularly go out with family and enjoy a glass of wine while they eat; I want to be part of the experience so don't exclude me from that too. If I'm invited for dinner, I take something I can eat and make it big enough to share because I don't want to be a bother.
I once starved for a whole weekend at a church camp in Rotorua because the chef - who was warned about my diet a month before I arrived - didn't think I was genuine. He apologised a few hours before we departed for misjudging me, having watched as I lived off soy bread I brought myself for an entire weekend. At the time he said he was sick of catering special meals for gluten free people who poured gravy over their designer meals. Or whipped up individual portions for a dairy free person who then doused it with cheese sauce. At the time, I thought fair enough but now I DON'T!
How dare he? I PAID to be on that camp just like everyone else. Did he run around smacking people around the head because they slurped ketchup all over his shepherd's pie? NO! What gave him the right to starve me because he thought I was faking or might add something else to his meal? Isn't that my right?
Yes, I've stood at gatherings where I've been catered for. Not satisfied with their four tables of food, others do seem attracted by my tiny take away box and gravitate towards it like vultures towards a carcass. I've also watched others 'try' my small portion and leave me none. That's not nice either. If you want different then order it. And I'll stand next to you and eat mine.
GF/DF Banoffee Pie my daughter made for me I could eat the whole thing, but I won't. |
There must have been a lot of hype because it made the NZ national news recently; that doctors are concerned by adults removing staple items from theirs and their children's diet without medical advice. What the heck? Do parents of overweight children drag their offspring to the doctor just before pumping them full of sugar-laden-energy drinks to ask if it's ok? NO! Do they give them supplements to offset the effects like most parents cutting out gluten or dairy? PROBABLY NOT! So they can obviously hurt their kids but we can't try and sort out inherent problems for ours without criticism.
So a parent living in a nightmare and scratching around a problem at home is wrong are they? Why?
Well, for wondering if all the crap sprayed on flour in its storage state might be making Jonny run up and down the walls at bedtime. Or if all the rubbish injected into and fed to cows might be causing his face to look like a fifty year old with shingles. They're trying to get by and solve issues, just like everyone else. They need the effort you put into condemning them to support them and make helpful suggestions.
I want this debate to just go away. It puts people like me even more under the microscope as if it's not bad enough already. Is it fun clutching my home made salad or distinctly marked cardboard wrapper with GF/DF in neon marker pen, while someone scoffing chicken nuggets breathes all over me, asking,
"What happens to you when you eat gluten or dairy?"
You think that's not bad enough? Imagine his face when I tell him. He won't be hungry for a while. And that's without mentioning the eczema, headaches or feeling poisoned for days.
I'm over it; I'm really over it.
I don't have to justify myself to you. You get boozed up on Saturdays and eat chocolate until it runs out of your nose and I'll eat rabbit food and say nothing. Do I make you justify why you need that massive four-person lunch or the three vodkas before you go to work? NO!
You feed your kids what they want and I'll do the same, but mind your own business. You don't start a debate about what my kid's missing out on and I won't stare at the thighs on yours as it sips that sugary drink and chows down on those nuggets!
Let's talk about something that really matters but basically, leave my diet alone!
#dairyfree #glutenfree #foodallergy
Sunday, 25 October 2015
Parents - teach your children the art of being alone
I love my own company; many writers do.
I said to someone recently that I felt it was a learned skill and it is, because there were times when I couldn’t stand to be by
myself. Those were the times when I dumped myself on my poor mother or sister.
There was a difficult period in my life when I would pick my 4 year old up from
school and trail my whole tribe around to my sister’s house most days of the
week. With four children under 4 it wasn’t a happy time and I’m still amazed my
very forthright sister didn’t say anything about my constant visits at the
worst time of day for someone with two children of her own. Any mother understands
the misery of the 4pm demon. As the clock ticks round it’s the golden hour for
grizzling, fights, tantrums and unreasonable behaviour as tired little bodies
look for sustenance and relief from busy days packed full of activity. With
adult children now leading wonderful lives of their own I’m still left with the
4pm legacy and find myself cringing as it arrives, imbued with a sense of
grumpiness which seems to come from nowhere.
I was a loner at school but not by choice. It was
just easier. In a school where most people carried knives by the age of 13 and
knew how to use them, it was safer to have nobody around me to mask the threat or
join in. At university I had good friends but they came and went with the
advent of unsuitable boyfriends and only one remains in my middle age.
Life tries to teach us to be content in our own
company but we resist, plugging the gap with anything we can to avoid its lessons. We’re
fools. We crave five minutes peace and then waste it, worrying, complaining, seeking
busyness or other people and crying we’re bored. Fools.
I tried to teach my children to be content with themselves
and respect time as something to be valued and not killed, but only their imprint
on the world will tell if I succeeded. I encouraged them to seek time alone and
when they were lonely, tried to help them embrace it. When isolated as very
young children in busy playgrounds, I sent them to catch fairies and hunt
unicorns, feeding imaginations which had the power to create company and fill
empty voids with better than this world has to offer. I knew they’d need that
skill many times over. And they will.
I still remember those empty months after
childbirth when my husband went to work and left me alone with my eldest daughter. She
couldn’t talk back and tell me what was wrong, her crying filling me with a
sense of inadequacy and desperation and I craved company, finding it less
painful when someone else was there. I walked miles pushing her pram, finding
something cathartic about being outside in the fresh air. But I was still alone.
Emigration put me back there, only this time my
husband was at work and my children at school. The 4pm demon brought children
off a busy bus nursing different agonies; isolation, friendlessness; loneliness
and dissatisfaction. I had to learn to be alone and not waste my life wishing
the hours away, knowing one day I might beg for those hours back.
I prayed, painted, studied and wrote. I learned to
be alone and found a deep security there inside my faith and myself.
I met a wise lady once who had ten children. While
we sat drinking tea and chatting she called to one of her children and patted
the seat next to her. The child left her play and ran over, sitting next to her
mother, popping her thumb into her mouth and just sitting quietly there. She
didn’t demand any more attention than the soft hand on her shoulder and she
made no sound. After a few minutes my friend praised her daughter, kissed her
cheek and released her to play again. When I asked what she’d done, she said, “I
need my children to come when I ask and do it without question because one day
it might be important. I want them to sit without entertainment and feel secure
in themselves as though it’s normal and my hand on their shoulder reassures
them I’m there today. One day my hand won't be there and they'll need to remember that being alone is still ok. Later my daughter will tell me some deep thought she had
in those few moments of peace and it may be profound or it might be random; but
it will be her thought and not something shouted in her face by friends,
siblings, TV or media. When I pat the seat my children know to be quiet and I
can take them to church, restaurants and friends’ houses without worrying
boredom will make them naughty.”
My friend was interrupted in her explanation by
another of her children who sneaked onto her knee and whispered in her ear, “Can
it be me next, Mummy?”
I wasn’t sure about her methods and pondered a
little while she cuddled her son and fixed his Lego toy. She turned a wise face
towards me as he skipped off happily and said something I’ve never forgotten. “I
teach my children to be alone and satisfied because my lessons begin in love
but the world conducts hers with unkindness, humiliation and fear.”
It strikes me that children today don’t know how
to be alone, truly alone without the blare of the TV or the constant thrum of
beat music. Computer games and online strangers fill the void and they don’t
know what it is to stand in a crowded room with only their own selves for
company and feel secure. The 4pm demon has morphed from a creature demanding
sustenance and comfort to a raging monster needing constant entertainment. If
they’re unlucky, our children will be dragged kicking and screaming into
situations which call for self-assurance and a sense of confidence and find
their strength in the pit of despair and the palm of misery. Those will be
painful times of loneliness, rejection, friendlessness and poverty. Each of
those things has the power to drag a vulnerable person down undesirable paths in
order to dodge the pain of looking in the mirror and seeing only their own face
staring back at them blank eyed and frightened.
Parents - teach your children to be alone,
comfortable in their own skin and able to find peace.
Do it before the gravel road of life cuts their
feet and makes them bleed on their journey towards peace and self-assurance.
Do it with a kiss and a hand on their shoulder
before the world does it with a knife in their back and a blow to their confidence.
#parenting #loneliness #raisingkids
Friday, 9 October 2015
A life without running - unimaginable!
I began
running when I was 35. It was a shock to my body which enjoyed nothing more
than a fast walk since the age of 16, but I didn’t feel I had much choice.
Overweight
and with a diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis, I took my last anti-inflammatory
pill and broke out an ancient pair of running shoes borrowed from my sister. At
6am under cover of darkness in the middle of an English winter, I ran.
It
was a hideous experience, only lessened by the fact I could lump along in the
pitch black morning, dragging a yawning dog for protection. One and half miles
of walking, jogging, gasping and heart-pounding-headaches seemed to do more
harm than good. I think I leaned on every lamp post on Newcombe Street, Stuart
Road and Bath Street in a miserable twenty minute circuit of agony and
humiliation. By the time I clawed my way up the steps and pounded on the front
door, the dog was awake and ready for a proper walk and I was half dead.
I
ran four times a week for three months, dashing home to shower and get ready
for work. Six months later and I’d ditched the dog because he pulled me into
one too many bushes after stray cats and I was running as far as I could get in
an hour. My arthritis had abated and my clothes hung off me like curtains. I’d
get out of bed on running days and test my ankles, seeing how painful it was to
stand. The more it hurt, the more I ran, releasing happy endorphins into my
blood to carry me for the next few days.
I’ve
run ever since and I’m sure I’ll meet my Maker running on some quiet country
road; in New Zealand now, the dark mornings of England swapped a decade ago.
Running provides my sanity, my pain relief and my reason for getting up in the pre-dawn
peace. I talk to God; I plan my day and I find my equilibrium. It keeps my
weight down and I’m better for it.
Below
is a short story I wrote a while ago. Nobody else should get offended because
it’s actually about me. It’s something of my journey those first few times at
the running club - yeah, I even joined the Harborough Runners and still have
the tee shirt they gifted me the last time I attended before we emigrated. I’ve
treasured it enough to carry it across the world. It reminds me to keep
running - and maybe one day I'll squeeze myself into it.
First Place
Carmen tried not to look at
her feet which padded along beneath her. Her body heaved with each new step and
her lungs burned with the effort of processing the oxygen she needed. “You’re nearly
there!” she shouted at herself, ignoring the flush of embarrassment creeping up
her neck. Her body lied bitterly, insisting she gave up, her muscles protesting
at the distance and the pace.
“Car-men, Car-men, Car-men!” The shouts unnerved her,
calling her name. Emotion hitched in Carmen’s chest, sent up from the space in
her stomach where she buried her feelings. She beat it down, not bothering to
analyse it and concentrated on her race. The finish line loomed up ahead,
coaxing and inviting and yet still so far away.
The way was open. No other runners blocked the view
between Carmen and the coloured bunting fluttering in the breeze. Her vision
blurred with tears and she heard the sob escape her heaving lungs.
“One hundred metres! You’re nearly there!”
The shout
broke through Carmen’s fragile concentration, filtering through the cacophony
of noises to register in her brain. She risked a look towards the barriers and
saw his face beaming out at her. The overwhelming urge surfaced, to stop
running towards the finish line and the eager faces of the officials and run to
him instead; to wrap herself in his comforting arms, eat a burger, watch TV,
roll in their double bed with hot kisses and frantic hands. But the pride in
Mike’s face crushed the urge as his blue eyes willed her towards the fluttering
decorations and the cheers of those lining the home straight.
“We’ve worked for
this, baby! This is what you wanted; you’re winning!”
Carmen turned her gaze towards the ‘F’ on the flapping
sign screaming ‘Finish’ and aimed for it, blocking out everything else around
her and re-entering her zone of concentration. She pep talked her reluctant
body, coaxing out a sprint as her feet pounded the asphalt, shaking every bone
and joint with damaging impact. Her vision blurred with exhaustion and the grey
surface beneath her danced, pushing up into her face and dashing away again like
a freaky fairground ride. She tried not to notice, fixing on that ‘F’ as though
her life depended on it, realising the longer she stared how much it mattered.
Everything rode on her finishing this race; her marriage, her self-respect, her
punishing regime, her sacrifice, herself.
Carmen plundered the depths of her sanity and fought
the demons in her mind. They rode her back and laughed at her as her feet
pounded the floor. She shrugged them off as the sign for the finish line gave
an audible flap in the growing breeze. She was that close. It clapped her to the end, hanging loose from its ties,
sticking around an extra hour just for her. The officials sighed with relief as
the fat woman pounded under the awning, finally able to leave.
#running #amwriting #rheumatoidarthritis
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