“On Holiday In A Bookshop!” Part One

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At least, that’s what ConstructoBoy said he felt like one day.

He did have a point. We did visit a LOT of bookshops on holiday. But he stopped complaining in week 2 when he found a book on his beloved zeppelins in Hay-On-Wye.
But hey, that’s week 2.  We should start at the beginning (unless we’re writing a novel, where sometimes the beginning is too boring, forcing us to leap instead into writing the Action).

Week 1 was a fantastic week in the Peak District; just Techie Husband, Arty Daughter, ConstructoBoy and me. We stayed in this cottage that you would love to stay in too (unless you have joint problems or you’re pregnant. Long, narrow, steep, uneven, twisty staircase. take note).

This is Brook Cottage in Cromford, just a few minutes from Matlock Bath – and you can see how lovely it is inside and learn more about it here on the owners’ website. (2017 edit – sadly, you can’t anymore. It no longer appears to be for rent). The cottages part of Staffordshire Row, a row of cottages built in the 1720s for the Staffordshire workers brought in to work in the old smelting mill.

Not only was the cottage lovely – handy for a myriad of tourist attractions and lovely walks, located in a scenic village with a fascinating history – but it also had the marvellous advantage of being a 90-second walk from HERE.

Scarthin Books is, if you’ll excuse the cliche, a rabbit’s warren full of books on just about anything you can think of. There are new books, old books, calendars, postcards, a million staircases and tiny rooms off of other tiny rooms… sometimes there are even bookcases on the (million) staircases. And in the midst of this bibliophile’s cloud nine is a little cafe – complete with more bookcases and a magazine rack, so that you can read something intelligent over lunch. It serves the most amazing gorgeous vegetarian food and leads out onto a garden room (more books!).

If you’ve never eaten Homity Pie, make sure you have your first one there. It’s making my mouth water right now just thinking about it. They have a novel (haha) approach to the whole business of running a bookshop – and running a cafe – and the shop is a borderline community centre and tourist attraction in its own right. It’s been on TV, and in a recent edition of Booktime magazine. To see what I mean, pop over to their website, and for goodness sake – if you’re anywhere near the Peak District, pop in! If you spend all day there and they finally throw you out, weeping, as darkness falls, fear not. Wander down the road to the centre of the village and you’ll find The Marketplace restaurant. Not Brewers’ Fayre prices, but not exorbitant either, particularly if you go for one of their special offer menus and, most importantly, we all agreed it was one of the best meals we had ever had. We plan to visit both places again Very, Very Soon.

Tomorrow I’ll rave about the other bookshops we visited. But that’s quite enough excitement for now. And daydreaming about Homity Pie has made me hungry…

2 Great Books, 2 Good Causes

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I’m not quite sure how I’ve left it so long to announce that THE PAPERBACK OF 100 STORIES FOR QUEENSLAND IS OUT!

100 Stories for Queensland

The paperback is available from Amazon for £9.99, or you can order it from Waterstones (although strangely, not online there yet – they are only listing marketplace copies). The ebook is available from here for A$4.99.

Just in case it escaped your attention, one of those 100 stories is mine – Pop. But far more importantly, all the profits go to the Queensland Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal. Grim stories were banned, and although I haven’t had the time to read them all myself yet, I can tell you that, like me, fellow writers Sally Quilford, Simon Whaley and Catherine Miller contributed light-hearted tales. So if you need a smile over your cup of coffee, this will be just your…er…cup of tea.

And now on to plug another good cause and the work of a friend – not writing this time, but photography. The very gorgeous book Quoted Moments is out now, with beautiful photography and inspiring quotes that help you appreciate the important things in life. All profits go to the Irish Cancer Society, and you can buy a copy here for just €15+ p&p, or from stockists in Ireland. One of the contributors is talented prize-winning photographer Val Robus.

I’ve still not heard if my contribution to the New Sun Rising anthology has passed muster – I do know that the publishers have had enough subs to fill four books, so competition is tough! More on that (whether I’m in it or not!) when I hear firmer details.

Nagged By Your Notebook (it could have been a novel, you know…)

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Apologies if you’ve been deafened by my manic laughter. It’s the heady feeling of freedom, you know. That’s what’s to blame. Yes! My advanced creative writing course – and Diploma – are now over. Done. Ended. Finito. Now I just have to wait with fingers crossed to hear whether I’ve gained the right to be an incredibly sad muppet who puts Dip CW after my name.

I fear most people will think it means Care Work and try to drag me round to Auntie Rose’s house to change her colostomy bag because it’s come loose and it smells funny. Sigh…

Meanwhile, some things never end. And one of them is my love of stationery. ArtyDaughter came back from town the other week with a delectable little bit-smaller-than-A6-size project book in different shades of blue. This will be perfect for my handbag – small enough to fit in snugly, and with those lovely dividers so that my random thoughts can be organised for easy access later! Perfect.

And a few weeks earlier, ConstructoBoy got a box full of Waldo Pancake goodies for his birthday. (Be still, quivering heart; how can I not have known about these things before?) Amongst these treasures was a notebook:

Waldo Pancake Notebook - I could've been a novel.

 

Yes, I know. The front cover is enough to make your writing procrastination guilt come hotfooting it through your door. But the worst is yet to come. This quote is unfinished.
And when you turn it over, you see the end.

…instead of a stupid little notepad, which is what I am.’

You see? It really is a notebook that nags.
And they have other weapons in their arsenal too, these Pancake people.

There are others, but these were a few that I thought all the writers out there could relate to… 😉  In case you’re tempted, you can buy them – and lots of other funky bookmarks, coasters etc – here

ConstructoBoy, great writer though he is, has not taken the hint and started a novel (though he did consider it. Bless the boy.) Instead he is writing down the details (lined pages) and drawing relevant pictures (plain pages) of a computer game he is designing. It features a lot of tanks of different kinds, and he is determined to get every fact right…

Thank heavens for the internet and Usborne’s Second World War cards 🙂

A (Very) Tardy T to Z

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Yes I know it’s late. But I hate to leave a thing unfinished, so…

T ‘is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language’ Wikipedia.  And of course, according to the rest of the world it’s what us Mad Dogs and Englishmen drink all the time! Seriously though, tea has a fascinating history and you could do worse than watch the Victoria Wood documentary Victoria’s Empire to appreciate the impact that humble beverage has had on the world. Truly amazing.

U – the first word that occurred to me was underdog. An internet search bought up multiple companies offering to fight for your accident and injury compensation, and a film starring James Belushi (and a dog). I think this says a lot about today’s world…

V – varnish. Apparently this is not just a wood-preserving finish but also the name of an HTTP accelerator. This word also makes me think of the cliche ‘unvarnished truth’, which for some reason I love – but, being a writer, I am therefore forbidden to use it Except Occasionally In Dialogue.

W – woad. Because I love the word and blue is my favourite colour. Woad is a blue dye made from the flowering plant Isatis tinctoria, and has a history stretching back millenia.

X – a silly non-letter that’s normally said as Z. I refuse to discuss it 😉

Y – yak. Sorry, but once it had pinged into my brain, that was it. I had to go and see which area they’re indigenous too, as I wasn’t sure. Himalayan plateau, apparently. What was rather more disturbing was this:

ARE YOU TOUGH ENOUGH?
  • OVER 400KM OF THE MOST BRUTAL MOUNTAIN BIKING TRAILS ON EARTH!
  • NEARLY ALL FORMER COMPETITORS CALLED IT THE TOUGHEST EVENT THEY EVER DID!
  • IT DESTROYS BIKES, DEVOURS BODIES AND BREAKS MIND!
  • IN 4 YEARS ONLY 8 INTERNATIONAL RIDERS HAVE FINISHED WITHOUT ASSISTANCE!
  • OVER 11000M OF CLIMBING, PEAKING AT 5,416M!
  • IT’S MOUNTAIN BIKING IN THE HIMALAYA

    ITS YAK ATTACK!!!

If this sounds like your bag, man (or woman), then I suggest you visit this webiste and sign yourself up immediately…

Z is for zombies. Can’t get away from the bloomin things these days, they’re everywhere – and you could be forgiven for being sick of the sight of them (yes, cliche alert, but this is a blog, not a novel. I must admit to enjoying the zombie mini-series Dead Set, which was set in the Big Brother house. Davina McCall was worryingly authentic. Charlie Higson’s The Enemy  is also brill, and I’m waiting to read the next one; it’s been a long wait for me, as I was lucky enough to read the first one a lot earlier than most mere mortals.

So here we are. We got to Z in the end. And as I have a glut of unused cliches, what can I say but Better Late Than Never, Good Things Come To Those Who Wait, Nothing Ventured – Nothing Gained, Better late than Late, and, of course:

All Good Things Must Come To An End.

Adieu, A to Z Challenge. Or is it only Au Revoir…

I’m back! M to S

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For various reasons I’ve not been able to blog daily on this challenge as I expected – for one thing, I had 10 days in Scotland without internet access!

Therefore I Must Cover the rest of the Alphabet in Just 2 Days. Eeeek.

So prepare yourself for a whistle-stop tour through the first things that pop into my head concerning these letters…

M – M is for marriage, of course, because I spent this morning on the equally fascinating occupations of writing reports and watching the Royal Wedding (yes, simultaneously. I’m sure the reports will be fine….). The trees in the Abbey were a lovely idea and the bride and groom looked genuinely over the moon. Good on ’em, I say. Despite having been married myself for nearly 19 years (OMG! How did THAT happen?), I’m not an out-and-out proponent of marriage; I don’t believe a piece of paper will keep you together, and in some circumstances I don’t believe it should, either. Staying with someone long-term is all about commitment, determination and accepting change in each other. I don’t necessarily think a wedding day delivers those things.

N- noise. The reason this leapt into my head – well, if you were sitting beside me, you wouldn’t need to ask. Constructo Boy turned 11 this week and he has his two best friends around for a sleepover. They are currently in the opposite room with Arty Daughter looking at aggravating videos on YouTube (currently they’re watching the one that repeats ‘We’re taking the Hobbits to Isenguard, to Isenguard, to Isenguard, We’re taking…’ ad infinitum.
It’s mildly amusing. The first three times.

O- Omar Sharif. You see? Literally, honestly, the first thing that leaps into my head. Now I’m stuck, because I know nothing about Omar Sharif, except that he’s in Lots of Things. Oh, and he was fantastic in the hilarious The Parole Officer (which everyone should see).

P – pennies. Ooh! What can I learn about them? Just scanned the Wikipedia article (thanks, Wiki, I’m proud to donate to you!) and offer these two paragraphs that caught my attention:

Old English versions of the word penny are penig, pening, penning and pending; the word appears in German as Pfennig, in Dutch as penning, and in West Frisian as peinje or penje. These words are thought by some to have common roots with the English word “pawn”, German Pfand, and Dutch pand, words which mean “a pledge or token”.[1]

The penny was introduced into England by King Offa, the king of Mercia(from 757 until his death in July 796), using as a model a coin first struck by Pepin the Short. King Offa minted a penny made of silver which weighed 221?2 grains or 240 pennies weighing one Saxon pound (or Tower pound—equal to 5,400 grains—as it was afterwards called), hence the term pennyweight.

Q – oh no, I have a dilemma. Two of Terry Pratchett’s random thought particles entered my mind at the same time: Queen and quiz. Well the Queen was looking chipper at the wedding today, although personally I would never dress in yellow unless I was threatened with torture. She wasn’t wearing matching shoes, perhaps feeling (correctly IMHO) that yellow shoes were a step (ho ho) too far. But the beige shoes did clash. Sorry, your Majesty.

As for quiz, Wikipedia says:
The first appearance of the word is from 1784 and means an odd person. This sense survives today in the word “quizzical”. It was also used in the term quizzing glass, a common accoutrement of British Regency dandies. It later acquired a meaning of to make fun of, or to mock. How it acquired its current meaning of a test is unknown, but that sense did not appear until 1867 and then it was in the United States.

The OED2 has a citation from 1847 where the word appears: “She com back and quiesed us”, which could be a clue to its origin. Quiz as a test could be a corruption of the Latin Qui es, meaning “Who are you?” American Heritagesays it may be from the English dialect verb quiset, meaning to question. In any case it is probably from the same root as question and inquisitive.

There is a well-known myth about the word “quiz”, which says that in 1791 a Dublin theater owner named James Daly made a bet that he could introduce a word into the language within twenty-four hours. He then went out and hired a group of street urchins to write the word “quiz”, which was a nonsense word, on walls around the city of Dublin. Within a day, the word was common currency and had acquired a meaning (since no one knew what it meant, everyone thought it was some sort of test) and Daly had some extra cash in his pocket. However, there is no evidence to support the story, and the term was already in use before the alleged bet in 1791.[1]

I’d not heard this myth. Fascinating!

R – rabies and rats. Strange but true; these seemingly disagreeable subjects are both mentioned in my light-hearted story, Pop, which appears in the 100 Stories For Queensland. How can this be true, I hear you cry. Buy the book and find out, I reply! And donate money to a great cause at the same time 🙂

S – Scotland. I love Scotland. I don’t love the journey there – not when we’re stuck in the everlasting roadworks near Scotch Corner, or the ones (rife in Scotland at the moment) that last for miles and require you to go at 40 miles an hour for no apparent reason. But I do love the journey up through the Cairngorms to Braemar (via Glenshee and the A93), then on to the in-laws. The only things that ruins Scotland’s beauty, for me, is that darn tendency of theirs to build everything in shades of grey. Lighten up, oh ye architects and builders of Scotland! Some of your houses really are blots on the landscape.

If you’ve survived this far – congrats. You have tomorrow to look forward to – T to Z!