Lunch is served

The meal went off OK, but I would love to have a slave running around after me, saying, ‘Don’t forget to heat the dishes,’ and putting out crisps and so on. Reminding me to buy soft drinks like bitter lemon and soda would be helpful too. Alas, the nearest thing to the lowly helper in my household is the other half. Those who know him will know that he is not very domesticated, and on a day of entertaining like today, has to be told every little thing, including that it is time for him to get changed, and which trousers to put on. Nevertheless we had a pleasant lunch and afternoon, and felt too full (after cakes as well as lunch) to eat this evening.

I went on line, this evening, to organise myself a PayPal account for the vast wealth that will be flooding into this account from Bottle of Plonk royalties from Virtual Tales (http://www.virtualtales.com/). Sorry, I’m being ungracious. Virtual Tales have taken me on, and I am delighted with this. But e-publishing is an unknown quantity to me, so I have no idea how well Plonk will do. Now I have several tasks ahead of me, including creating a digital signature to send them, so that the contract can be signed without my posting it via ‘snail mail’. They have also asked me to create links from my website, etc. and to send a photo. There’s an article about them in September’s Writers’ News, but I think I originally read about them in an earlier edition. The fact that they were looking for books that could be chopped up into small episodes made me think that Plonk might be right for them.

Dealing with PayPal took me absolute ages. I hate these sites, where you go round and round in circles while they tell you, you didn’t fill that in or this in. Also it is manned by faceless robots back at the PayPal centre, wherever that might be, that never answer your questions, just send you a bit of prepared jargon. I have a question I need to ask them, and I know what the result will be. Just frustration.

I received the current copy of Writers’ News (http://www.writersnews.co.uk/) this morning and found that I had been shortlisted for their Foster Mother competition. I felt sure I had sent them a SAE, but I didn’t receive my story back, and a subsequent story that did come back to me had no attached letter, as is usually the case. Anne - (http://www.annebrooke.com/) - my writing friend, says that they are going through a period of change at the moment, so perhaps that accounts for it. It’s a while since my last WN short-listing, so I’m pleased about that.

Unexpected success?

Last night after I got in from shopping, I went to check emails and found that the telephone line wasn’t working. We checked all the phones, then M went to our neighbours to report the fault. It must have been something to do with the torrential rain, because an hour or so later, we were back on line.

When I checked my emails, I had a surprise. There was an email from Virtual Tales asking why I hadn’t returned the contract they’d sent me. Had I decided not to go ahead with this? I’d forgotten I sent them A Bottle of Plonk for their website. They let people see a first chapter and then can buy the rest as a serial. I thought Plonk would be ideal for this, and it seems they thought it might be OK too. However, as far as the contract was concerned, I didn’t know anything about it. I asked them to send me another copy, which also disappeared. Then I thought to check my other service provider, which I hardly ever use and there it was – all eight pages of it. (Twice over, by now.) It was originally sent on 22nd November.

Being a pessimist, I feel there’s plenty of scope for things going wrong, so no point in getting excited about this. But it entailed a bit of correspondence, as I queried one or two items in the contract. Virtual Tales is based in Washington, USA.

I’ve been preparing for lunch with friends tomorrow. I’m always so slow in the mornings, I have to compensate by working nights. As I’m making a steak and mushroom pie, I will prepare the pastry tomorrow.

Getting things done

My cousin Nick (who I’ve never met, but who is in charge of a huge family tree) sent me the census records for my grandfather and great grandfather on my father’s side for the years 1881 and 1871. Fascinating stuff. They lived in East London and although they, themselves, had, I think about one or two children each, at that time, the total occupancy of the houses in which they lived was about a dozen people. My grandfather was a young man at the time, living with his first wife; my grandmother was a little girl. They married when his wife died, by which time, he had eight children.

I started watching ‘Love Actually’ last night and switched it off after establishing it was a load of rubbish. Why Richard whathisname is so acclaimed, I can’t imagine. I couldn’t put up with the gratuitous four letter words. It reminded me of when my son said ‘Knickers’ as a substitute swear word, when he was about ten. These stupid people regard the overuse of swearing as wit or sophistication. Give me American chick-lit any time. Nora Ephron with ‘When Sally met Harry’, or ‘You’ve got mail.’

The weather was terrible today. When I went off to Guildford, there was a gale and the rain was teeming down. (Later I heard there was a tornado in NW London.) But it quietened down and I managed to park easily, which was great. And I accomplished what I wanted to do and got presents for the kids, and got back before rush hour too. And tonight, I made a batch of brownies. Tomorrow, I have cooking to do for a lunch on Saturday.

Pressure builds up

Inspiration didn’t come yesterday, so I wasn’t able to read at the Guildford Writers’ meeting. But there was plenty of good stuff – everything leaving you wanting to know what happened next.

I had every intention of going to Guildford today, but woke up with a bad back due no doubt to shunting things around in my freezer yesterday – lots of bending and lifting. I took some aspirins and later went to Sainsbury’s instead. M came with me, feeling he should do some strong arm stuff in view of me limping around. So I bought twice as much as I'd intended. I would have had to go tomorrow, as I'd run out of several things.

The first Christmas cards have started to arrive. Must get down to that too and we have invitations to another couple of happenings in the pre-Christmas period. And I should have arranged to have my car serviced. It’s all too much.

I got an unsolicited review of my chapters today, to my surprise, from someone else at the YouWriteOn site – once again, I was criticised for too much in the way of explanation. I just can’t get these first chapters right. It’s not so much that the reader needs to know the back story, but my heroine needs to know certain things before she can go off and start researching the family tree. But I can’t put these things in without there being too much narrative. But I will certainly have to look at the chapters again, when the pressure’s off.

Sent off my short story entry for the Writers’ News competition.

Writing progress

Out for lunch yesterday at Irene’s, (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/blacks.house/) my fellow writing buddy. But not before I had dealt with the mindless Monday tasks of removing sheets, towels etc and filling the linen basket with them. Like Alice, for ever running to stand still, in this aspect of my life. But this morning I’ve loaded the machine, so the contents of the linen basket are reduced by half.

Horrible morning, so far, the sky dark and the rain pouring down and drumming on the roof. But it’s still not cold for December. When I was writing my novel, Tainted Tree, which takes place over a six month period, I kept a database so that I would know what was going on in the garden, what the weather was like on any particular day and what time the sun went down. This web diary could prove equally useful as a reference – assuming, of course, I can go back into my own archive, which I haven’t checked.

There was a good interview on the Today programme this morning. Professor Christopher Marks was on, explaining why we should keep open the Royal Surrey County Hospital. M and I talked about the awful occasion when he had waterworks problems. He woke me up in the middle of the night and told me I had to get him to hospital. He was in agony. I didn’t have time to put in my contacts, but used glasses instead (never quite as good) and the weather was horrible. But the drive to the Royal Surrey is easy, and I got him there in less than 15 minutes. How different it would have been if we had had to cross the ranges to Frimley, or drive along the horrid ‘narrow lanes’ leading to St. Peter’s, Chertsey. Speed was of the essence; they said afterwards his kidneys could have been damaged.

Why are they reducing the facilities of a modern hospital?

I’ve received the first critique of Tainted Tree from the YouWriteOn site. Main criticism – description needs cutting and my heroine doesn’t sound American. I will have to look at it again. However, last night, when I prepared three chapters to send out, I hadn’t seen these comments and I will send it off anyway, without amendment. Today, I’m also going to print out my short story for submission, and see if I can come up with something new for Guildford Writers (http://www.guildfordwriters.net/) tonight.

Lazy weekend

Not much happening over the weekend. I caught up yesterday with ironing - exciting stuff. Bought a paper when I dropped M at the station and read through all the supplements. They are so time consuming. Watched Casualty in the evening where the emphasis was on homelessness. The elderly homeless heroine assured the nurses that (having been a journalist in an earlier life) ‘it’s surprising how quickly you can get used to a new way of life…’ (to paraphrase.) Really? When we were living without electricity for six months, (as described in my book The Fruit of the Tree,) I didn’t get used to it at all. I hated every moment of it.

We’ve just been to our neighbours. Their parents went on a cruise, but our neighbour’s father was thrown to the ground in high winds, broke his ankle and spent three days marooned in the cabin while half the boat was seasick. At one point in a Force 10 or 12 gale, a lifeboat was lifted off the deck and crashed into the neighbouring cabin. The two of them subsequently spent the rest of the holiday in a hospital in Funchal. It sounded like a chapter of accidents, and they were finally flown back to England yesterday and brought by ambulance to our neighbours, (where their car is.)

The shower’s leaking and I tried to redesign the bathroom, but didn’t come up with anything better. I need to draw it out to scale and add little toilets and basins and baths and move them around to see where they fit. But I suspect we will end up with a replacement shower tray and nothing else changed.

I haven’t yet heard whether the birthday present I sent to my youngest granddaughter arrived safely. I bought it in Guildford on Tuesday – twin dancing Barbies. I tried several shops to find it – ended up in Argos. By the time I walked back to the car park with that and three or four other presents, I was worn out from the ups and downs. Several people smiled at me. ‘Poor old soul,’ they must have thought. Either that or I was wearing my pants on the outside of my trousers. Come to think of it, a couple of people chatted to me in the M & S café. Why was everyone being so friendly? There was a man who started telling me about the Lyons’ Corner House in Leicester Square (in past times) and a young mother who was entertaining her baby and feeding her at the table. I tried to think if I could incorporate them into a story, but didn’t come up with anything.

I finally, this evening, uploaded chapters of my novel, Tainted Tree, to the YouWriteOn site. It took me ages and having entered a set of questions about it, giving three answers (only one right), I found myself getting the answers wrong and had to redo it. However, something accomplished.

A Parcel

Very grey and dreary outside and high winds forecast. One of those mornings when nothing much gets done. Can’t blame it on the weather, though. I’ve browsed through my small dictionary of quotations for a title for my Park Keeper story, and ended up with To everything a season. Not sure how appropriate it is, but it’s the best I can do.

A parcel arrived for me – some mail order sheets, gloves and slippers. I now have numerous slippers and none of them seem to fit properly. Needless to say, these are too big. But my granddaughter will enjoy trying them on and slip-slopping around the house in them. She likes to investigate my wardrobe to see what shoes she can try on. She will soon find that they are desperately uncool. Talking of uncool, I also received a free gift - a horrible jacket. So horrible, it almost didn't deserve to be given away. I'll save it for emergencies, or a charity shop.

We are invited to a neighbour for Christmas drinks. I phoned to say we’d like to come, but are usually invited by other neighbours. I said we’d try to get to both. I don’t want to offend either sets and neighbour 2 hasn’t actually sent out invites yet.

I have been preparing tonight’s meal, when my brother in law will join us. M and his brother specialise in male chauvinism, but when Bro. is around, M abdicates his role and is rather quiet as we indulge in sparring matches.