Update from the garret

Sorry for the long delay between posts, I don't know where the time is going to.

We had a lovely week camping with the pups in Cornwall last month. The weather was kind to us and the change of scenery did us all the world of good. We came home with the best of intentions, getting the hall redecorated, have lots of trips away in the van and check out the job boards for a new contract for Dave.

Well the hall/landing/stairs is very nearly finished, only the floor left to lay and a few finishing touchings here and there. Dave has been for an interview for a contract down in Reading and will probably hear if he has it next week. Mind you he's not too fussed either way, Reading is a long way from home so he would have to stay down there all week and just travel home of a weekend but the money is good and they are talking about the job taking 18 months so he thought that he would take a punt. I have very mixed feelings about him taking the job but most of my concerns are probably just me being all silly and girly. It would be great if he could find a 3 month contract more local so that he could come home every night but beggars can't be choosers!

Dave's Mum is in hospital at the moment so he has been traveling backwards and forwards to London for the past couple of weeks. She seems to be on the mend but it could take a while for her to be well enough to be discharged. In the meantime he is commuting between London/Reading and Cheshire on what seems to be a weekly basis - so much for taking things easy from now on....

The pups have recovered well from their operations ( they have both been 'done' - there was no way I was taking the chance of them having puppies) but I doubt if they'll ever forgive me for making them wear plastic hoods.....they were not happy bunnies.....lots of pictures on Puppy Tales as evidence that they did find the paint tray on the landing!!!

Atlantic Sunset

What can I say - the sunsets were beautiful. What this picture doesn't show is the other 20 campers standing on the hill taking the same photo, we must have looked a right sight!

PS this is what happens when puppies don't finish their food - we were attracting so many crows and seagulls I kept expecting Billy Oddy to turn up with a film crew!

Away in a camper

We have been making the most of some of he lovely weather this month by getting away in the camper van. A couple of weeks ago we went through to Formby and had a lovely couple of days at walking the pups along the beach. The weather was so hot Dave and I went a beautiful shade of pink!

With the forecast set to fair we decided to venture down to Cornwall for a week and made for a site we have stayed on before in between Boscastle and Tintagel.

Just imagine waking up to a view like this every morning

If you squint you might just see a black spot on the top of the far hill - Dave told me he was just taking the pups for a little walk!

They were all ready for breakfast when they eventually got back

Writing for a living - I'm going to write a novel

When I left school I was in a quandary, should I try for a job with our local newspaper or take the job I had been offered with Barclays Bank? On the one hand I love to write and really fancied being a cub reporter with the Bootle Times Herald but without a degree I was told that I would be making the tea and collecting the wages from the bank rather than wandering the streets of Liverpool in a trench coat with a high powered camera slung around my neck.

Barclays on the other hand offered a career. Admittedly any career prospects would only have come in to play after my 25th birthday because as a member of the 'women's' staff it was presumed that before then I would get married and have babies and give up working to to find true fulfillment as a woman - (I kid you not, this really was how woman staff were regarded in 1972). Well at least I wouldn't be making the tea and I would be earning £12.00 a week.

So common sense and a lack of confidence set me on the road to a career in banking. And what was my first job? you've guessed it - making the tea - but it wasn't all bad and over the years I had some interesting jobs, made some good friends and found a husband all thanks to Barclays. I never lost my love of writing though and have always kept holiday journals and have even written school plays and a kids panto (for my sins). I have found writing regularly for Spanish Steps a challenge this year. It is amazing how much research is involved in planning a soap set in Spain, everything from the actual location of the set to choosing names for the characters can take ours of searching, to say nothing of the time spent planning plot lines and character development. But I think that it has been worth it and with a growing number of regular readers I can honestly say that I am a 'published' author.

So what's next? Well obviously I would like to start making some money from my writing and hopefully this will come in time but in the meantime I have a new idea. I would like to write a novel, you know the old saying that we all have one novel inside us? well mine is about to burst forth. Not one to take the easy road and lock myself away and just type in isolation I am planning to write my novel online. Instead of having conversations in my head about how I am going to plan and develop I will be talking 'out loud' to an audience of blog readers. I want to be able to explain why the characters are saying what they are saying and do what they are doing. I want to have this conversation and then write the novel in real time i.e the reader will see the novel grow as I am writing it, all the editing, all the changes and probably some of the foul language when I am sitting there desperately trying to work out what happens next.

I don't pretend that this will be some kind of literary masterpiece. I am after all just someone who loves writing rather than a proper writer but I can promise that it will be honest. I have always been fascinated how books are written, how the authors mind work, where they gather their information from etc and maybe if you feel the same you will enjoy reading about mine.

In the next couple of weeks I hope to get the new blog up and running - when I do - you'll be first to know

Flood

Sometime there are television programmes that are so bad they are good and then there are programmes so bad they should carry a government health warning 'this programmes can seriously damage your sanity' Tonight's new drama on ITV Flood was so bad that it should be used to teach media students how not to make a television drama.

Imagine if you will that a huge tidal surge has hit Wick in Scotland killing 300 people - the Prime Minister is in Australia so his deputy flies North to see the devastation for himself. Within hours of him returning to London, a discredited scientist who is hated by the meteorological community because he thinks that the Thames Barrier is in the wrong place (keep up, it gets worse) tells COBRA that the barrier will breach in three hours because the surge is heading south and there is a spring tide due - it will come as no shock to hear that ALL the other scientists have been talking out of their bum and our weirdo scientist was right all along, the barrier won't be any use.

OK the scene is set London is about to be flooded. The surge is thundering down the east coast at a rate of knots and the mad scientist's son, who just happens to be a consultant engineer for the barrier, has to hot foot it up the river because the engineers on the barrier think that there is a fault that only he can fix, oh and by the way the chief engineer on the barrier is his ex-wife!

I think that I actually gave up the will to live when we were shown the surge belting along the Thames flooding everywhere in its wake but all we were meant to worry about was the fact that it was heading to central London. Well pardon me for caring but shouldn't we have been at least a tad concerned that everyone living either side of the river to the east of the Thames Barrier has just been wiped off the face of the earth never mind all those people living on the east coast of England!

With a cast that included Tom Courtney, Robert Carlyle, Joanne Whaley and David Suchett, I think the question we need to ask is were they all held hostage and forced to do this against their will or were they just short of money and couldn't get any voice over work?

Traveling around Anglesea

Couldn't believe our luck with the weather, so we made the most of it and toured around a little before heading home.

First stop was at South Stack lighthouse for morning coffee (oh my god I'm beginning to sound so posh!)


Then we drove to to Newborough so that the dogs could have a good run on the beach before we had to set off for home




For a puppy's eye view of the trip and lots more doggy related stuff, check out the new pictures on the Puppy Tales blog

Photos from our Camping Trip

The pups were very happy to sit outside the van watching the air display

Peugot 207

We picked up the new (well new to us) car today. Lesley and I now have a very nice little Peugot 207 and while it might not be as flashy as the Alpha Romeo Gtv it is far more sensible - youngest nephew take note - I will now be able to go shopping without worrying whether I have room in the boot to get 2 cannisters of milk and a family size box of Persil as well as being able to transport the dogs around without serious risk of dislocating my back trying to lift them into a coupe!

Oh my God I've just had a thought - does this mean that I'm growing up - (I hope not)

(lots of pictures of Anglesea, puppies and various cars waiting to be uploaded - watch this space)

Camping with the pups and the RAF

We took the dogs away in the campervan this week for the first time and before you start thinking that we have completely lost our marbles I should add that it was only for one night.

We weren't sure if they would settle for the night or even if we would all fit in but we needn't have worried. The dogs slept slept better in the van than they do at home and apart from making sure that we didn't fall over them when we got out of bed, there was plenty (?) of room for us all.

The only problem we had was that Bella got travel sick every time we moved - the poor thing spent every journey lying there looking very miserable -and I spent many a happy hour trying to clean doggy vom out of the carpet every time we stopped.

But apart from that we had a great time and the weather on Angelsea was very kind to us, sunny and cold. We stayed on a farm just outside Rhosneiger and had a brilliant view of a snow capped Snowdonia in the distance. The air was clean, the fields were green and lush, the lambs were gamboling about with abandon and the peace was continually shattered by the noise of the RAF flying in and out of Valley - brilliant - it was like having the best seats in the house for our very own private air show - Dave was in his element!

Start of a new term

Dave has driven Lesley back to York today.

I was hoping that I could have gone with them but try as we might we couldn't fit three grown ups, two dogs, one very large holdall 2 carriers of books and 3 bags of groceries into the car plus a full size bookcase. I thought that we could have taken the campervan but Lesley said that she would disown us if we turned up looking like the Clampets - cheek - it's a v.posh little campervan.

(I think that we embarrass our daughter sometimes!)

Selling the Alpha

We had forgotten the joy of selling a car privately. The last time we updated we traded in the old car but this time we wanted to sell my Alpha Romeo and Lesley's KA to buy a small car that she and I could both drive AND fit the dogs in.

There was no way they would fit in the back of the Alpha and besides which we couldn't get Lesley on the insurance for it. They could (just) get into the KA but it was a real performance trying to persuade them to hop into the back so it made sense to change both cars at once.

But first we had to sell the Alpha - you would not believe the number of mad men out there who are trawling Auto Trader looking for Alphas. Dave had put a really good advert on their site, comprehensive description and lots of snazzy photos but we still had phone calls ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, although the best had to be;

Hi are you selling an Alpha? yes Is it a Lusso? No Does it have leather seats? No it has Alpha badged cloth seats - only the Lusso has leather So it's not a Lusso then? No it's a GTV So what shade of red is it? Its silver Shit I've phoned the wrong advert......

We eventually sold it to a chap from Sheffield who travelled over on the train in a snow storm to buy it - the guy from Cornwall who thought that Runcorn was somewhere in East Anglia presumably thought that it was a bit too far to travel to buy the car as a surprise for his wife (without even seeing it!) - bless!

I'm going to write a travel book

I love travel books, any travel books, the more obscure the better but the one travel book I have never seen is the one written from the point of view of the person left at home waiting for news from the son/daughter/partner who is travelling.

It could be a whole new genre.

I would find it fascinating to learn what the wife of an intrepid explorer is thinking when she is left at home for months on end having to cope with going to work, getting the kids to school, getting the washing machine repair man in because the bloody machine has flooded the kitchen floor again while worrying whether soft lad has reached base camp without losing three toes to frostbite.

or what her Dad really feels about his little girl hitch hiking across Europe to Morocco. Just how cool is he with the fact that she could be getting a lift from an axe wielding psycho who keeps a picture of his dead mother on the dashboard.

and whether the parents of a son doing the Gap year traveling the world thing knew that they would slowly be turning grey with every new country he visited. I know for a fact that his Mum never imagined that she would feel permanently guilty when she was cooking dinner knowing that her little lad was eating noodles for the third day in a row.

So I've made my mind up I am going to write the antidote to travel books but not till James is home - because God forbid I should embarrass him with the ramblings of a mad mother who wants to warn every parent out there who has just been convinced by their fresh faced offspring that everyone goes travelling these days and I have planned against all eventualities, so Mother what can possibly go wrong!!!

Insomnia

Insomnia is infectious.

I can't remember the last time I slept for a full eight hours, in fact I can't remember the last time I had five hours unbroken sleep. I used to blame Dave's snoring - my god I was a saint to put up with it;-) - but since his heart attack he hasn't snored, although I do think that it was a bit of a dramatic way to solve the issue! but back to the insomnia- I have absolutely no problem getting to sleep, as soon as I close my eyes I'm away - my problem is staying asleep. Isn't it amazing how little worries become huge problems at four o'clock in the morning. When Dave first came home from hospital and I woke up to silence, I panicked, why wasn't he snoring, should I get a mirror to see if he is still breathing, then he turned over, I nearly cried with relief but then I lay there awake until the morning because I couldn't get used to the silence!

Sometimes I just lie there plotting new story lines for the soap; what is going to happen to Fliss and Martin now that she knows Martin was going to leave her for that little tart? Will Lizzie's stall become La Vista's answer to Ikea? What is Sonny up to in Barcelona and will Michael really follow him there to find out? Will Liam and Cassy get all the work done on the finca in time for their paying guest next spring? and Gloria, what about her, can she really be as boring and nice as she seems or does she have a dark secret? So you see there is so much whizzing around in my head it would probably be better if I just gave up on trying to sleep and fired up the computer instead, but that would be cheating, at night you should sleep, your body need that time to get it's act together for the next day.

So most nights I just take myself off to the loo, have a drink of water and try to get back to sleep. If I am very lucky I can convince myself that I am really tired and that my pillows are the most comfortable things ever invented. I then lie there imagining I am on a sandy beach with the warm sun beating down on me and hope that I will drift off....

I just wish somebody would tell the puppies that.....they have started waking up at five o'clock in the morning, I don't know why, they have warm cosy beds, plenty of water and don't seem to need to pee, the only thing I think is Insomnia is infectious. I'm stuffed!

Where is the time going to?

I don't know where the time is going, it's the 11 March already and I haven't done all things I've planned to do.

It's not as if I am having long lie-ins and lazy days, with two puppies in the house I am pretty well guaranteed an early start and busy days spent mopping up wee and making the house puppy proof but even so the days are just flying by.

I'm managing to get some writing done, not as much as I would like to but enough to ensure that I don't have too many panics about deadlines for the next few weeks. Todays episode of Spanish Steps is all about the aftermath of Martin's heart attack and I can promise you that I wrote this LONG before Dave had his but the coincidence is pretty scary non the less. I hope the kid's are wrong when they call me a witch

Hotmail is driving me mad!!I

If you try Googling Problems with Hotmail you will get over 1 million hits. I am sorry that they are having problems but what is all the secrecy about, why were 80 million affected and no apology or explanation given. Times on line has a good report on the incident but they are non the wiser either. Come on Hotmail, shit happens but unless you say sorry your customers aren't going to stay loyal for long.

It's early, I'm tired and I'm having a rant

I have just published Episode 15 of Spanish Steps (Sophie is over in Spain for Martin's party but is acting like a queen bitch to her long suffering mother) and thought that I would check my hotmail while the puppies are quiet.

Here comes the rant...adverts on hotmail...specifically optical correction adverts...I wear glasses...I have no interest in having an operation to correct my sight...My life is not impaired in any way by wearing glasses (except when I open the oven door and they mist up)...I don't feel a freak because I wear glasses...Wearing glasses never stopped my from doing all the things I wanted to do...Before I was married wearing glasses NEVER stopped me getting a boy friend (believe me, it is a myth that boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses) So why do these adverts insist that those of us who need face furniture are freaky specky four eyes who are just waiting for the day when they can face the world without glasses...And if this operation is so bloody good why do you see optitions in glasses?...rant over (the puppies are getting restless)

Horses

It always used to make us laugh when we first moved here that people used to say 'I can remember when this was all fields' but now I find myself saying the same thing, is that a sign of old age?

When the kids were little they used to raid the vegetable rack for carrots to take up to the horses in the field in front of the water tower. Well the horses are still there but now they are surrounded by 'executive style homes' (they still like carrots though)

Town Park

As part of Dave's physio he can now walk 30 minutes a day, still on the level, no hill treks obviously, but it does mean that we have been able to enjoy this cold sunny weather. The other day we took and stroll around to Town Park. It is ages since we've been there, which is mad as it is only 5 minutes away, but since Billy died we just didn't have an excuse for walking through it.



It doesn't have the landscaping of a more traditional park but on a day like this it has a beauty all of it's own.


The ponds have been cleared ready for the frogs and newts to spawn

The puppies are going to love running across the fields

The ground was very wet which made the walk a 'bit of a challenge' why they can't put in more paths I'll never now.

It really was a lovely walk

Come on Warrington BC, loosen up, you have a beautiful park, just get rid of some of the signs (and make the car park free!!)

Saved the best 'till last

It's no wonder the ducks are swimming round in circles!!!!