In (re)search of an answer

Marie blogged the other day about research. It was a great post but I'd still like to know more about other peoples methods. Do you, or don't you? What does it depend on? Where do you do it? How do you start and more importantly, how do you stop?

My reasons for asking are simple - I spend way too much time researching and use very little of the information that I gather. I love research, I'll research anything and everything, storing these little gems of information to deliver to the unexpecting eaters at the dinner table.

It's a disease, I've realised, I can't stop. At the moment I'm looking up the Mayan calender (complete gobbledegook btw - haven't got me head around it yet!), but did you know how many other calenders have been invented? No, neither do I because I got completely distracted by 'Trepanning' - the art of boring holes in the head and then a neat little crystal was often popped into the gaping wound - fascinating . Then I was on to Pok-a-tok, a nasty little ball game involving blood and other wet parts of the body, where the losers were likely to lose more than the game! Did you know that the Mayans also believed in extra-terrestrials?

Yes, I know, discipline. If I had some in this department I would use it. I have no problem setting aside a block of time to write but can be distracted by the tiniest, juiciest tidbit of information which will lose me hours and hours of precious chaptering. How do I stop???

Witch's cat

Island Monkey posted a picture of a new addition to the household.
Beware IM, he'll grow up into one of these - Owen, sock stealin', toe attackin, Lord of the manor. Rubbish in the spider catching department, he prefers to wait until things drop into his mouth!

Wuss

I took my morning cup of tea outside yesterday morning, settled down for a quick read and there it was. That tang, that je ne sais quoi that hovers in the air announcing that summer is nearly at an end. This can only mean one thing to a wuss like me.....the start of 'The Season of the Spider!'

Better get a move on.......

Don't get me wrong, I love nature, in all its forms, but I just wish that nature had neglected to create things with more than four legs that move in sinister ways.

A few years ago, after a particularly nasty incident involving a renegade arachnid, I decided to take some positive steps. A friend, who had thought it funny to wave a spider in my face after she had picked the horror off the floor, had ended up with vomit all over her lovely new shoes - something had to be done!

I spent the money, and did my time with a hypno-priestess who convinced the inner, Inner Minx that one only has to breathe out in order to conquer ones irrational ideas. It works - to an extent. I can now look at a spider without all my bodily fluids escaping and I can do brave things like placing a pot over said beastie should he venture past my blockades.

So, yesterday was spent in a frenzy of pre-autumnal cleaning and all skirting boards, windows, doorframes sprayed with my 'don't come nowhere near here' concoction of chestnut and clover. I can't kill them you see, they're only little, harmless really - except that big bastard in the downstairs loo who deliberately waits until I'm.................

The Art of Meike de Nooy

Approaching Storm - Meike de Nooy

I first came across Meike's work through Buntifers blog. It took me a while to realise that this waterpolo playing goalie also had hands that could produce some fine pieces of art.
Check out her eclectic site here - links to art at the side.

Lonely Moon - short story competition

My entry is is now up on the very interesting Clarity of Night site.

The closing date is sometime tomorrow (Monday), so get your fingers oiled and have a go!

Thanks to Skint for the link to this one

The Minx Get Rich Quick Scheme

It's quite simple really, just emigrate to the US and find yourself a lawyer!

Here are the results of the 2005 Stella awards (named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who successfully sued McDonalds after spilling hot coffee on herself).




5th Place
19 year-old C. Truman from Los Angeles who won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand. Apparently Truman didn't notice that his neighbour was at the wheel when he was trying to steal the hubcaps!

4th place
J Williams, of Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 after being bitten on the bum by his next door neighbours chained up beagle. The award was less than it might have been because the jury felt that the dog may have been just a little provoked by Mr Williams who had been shooting at it repeatedly with a pellet gun!

3rd place
A Philadelphia resturant was ordered to pay a Ms Carson, of Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument!

2nd place
A Miss Walton, from Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a nightclub when she fell from their bathroom window and knocked out her two front teeth. The occured when she was trying to sneak through the window trying to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge! She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses!

1st place
$1,750,000 was awarded to Mrs Grazinski of Oklahoma City after she had crashed her brand new Winnebago. Apparently she had set the cruise control to 70mph and calmly left the drivers seat to make herself a sandwich! Not surprisingly the RV left the road, overturned and crashed.
The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around!
(please note - I am now attending 'Moron School' in the evenings).

Anyway here's the English way of dealing with lawyers.....

A lawyer was attending a weekend of Huntin' and Fishin' in the country. He took part in a duck shoot and managed to cop himself a large one. Unfortunately it landed in a field belonging to a neighbouring farmer. As he climbed over the hedge he saw the farmer coming towards him.

"I've just shot that duck, I've come over to get it" he said.

"I think you'll find that the duck belongs to me," the farmer replied "tell you what, we'll use the countryside code of the "three kick rule".

"What's that?"

"I kicks you three times and then you kicks me three times. Then we'll see who gets the duck"

The lawyer weighed up the odds. The farmer looked a bit frail.

"Okay then"

The farmer shuffled over and first planted a hob-nailed boot in the lawyers groin that sent him to the ground. The second landed in his stomach and removed his breakfast. The well placed third took him under the chin and sent his head spinning. Amazingly the lawyer managed to stagger to his feet.

"Right, my turn"

The farmer smiled

"Nah, it's okay, I give up, you can have the duck".

Lookey, lookey here!

Look what arrived today!
Bright, new shiny books from Mr Jones!
Lovely quality, great content and a beautiful blogroll of all his friends!!

Get over there now and buy one for yourself!

The boy done good

"I need a haircut"

"What at five-thirty in the morning?" I said, glancing at the clock and deciding I was definitely still asleep. I pulled the quilt over my head and tried to remember where I was in a particularly vivid dream.

"Mum!"

Big Fecker hasn't got up this early for at least twelve years, it couldn't be him.

"MUM, please, I need a haircut"

Haircuts usually mean trying to impress a girl, a party of immense proportions or a very special ocas......oh yes....I remember......today is the day.

"Have you slept at all?" I asked, crawling from my bed.

"No, not really. Every time I fell asleep it woke me up again".

I looked at his worried face. It was time for a haircut.

"Do you think I'll get any of them" he said as I hacked at his mop (hacking is good btw, no tidy heads for BF).

There were no words, we had gone over and over his worries. His last year at school had been a rocky road, with beer and women burning a hole in his brain more than a Reichstag Fire. Regret had come later, along with two months of fighting to finish coursework and revising things that he didn't seem to have a clue about. It was a swinging pendulum, it could go either way.

I sat in the school car park, alternately praying to a handy God and singing a tuneless song to keep my face from collapsing. Like many kids Big Fecker has had to experience life in order to learn, I just hoped that he had learnt early enough!

I saw him running through the gates, waving the dreaded brown envelope in the air.

"MUM, I got 'em, I got the fucking lot."

Oh shit, now we've got to get through college!!

Beauty in maths - yes really!

I have long been a fan of Fractals - digital, mathematical, mind blowingly clever creations. I don't pretend to understand them - just appreciate the results - enjoy......

For every animal you don't eat, I'm going to eat two!

There are vegans in the house.

Contrary to popular opinion they have not got more energy than their carnivorous neighbours. My family has been up and about for hours but the two fruit bats are still asleep, snoring their heads off under a feather filled duvet - heh!

They are a seasonal favour, friends of a friend in London, who needed a bed for a couple of nights.
They are a lovely young couple but the first words they uttered were "We're vegan, hope it won't be a problem".

Don't get me wrong, I'm mostly vegetarian myself (I don't process meat too well, so to speak), but I am not adverse to the odd meaty treat in the steak department, but this is taking it to extreme! So far they have grated up a few cabbages and have emptied my fruit basket twice over. They shun hot drinks, in favour of some sort of greeny powder.

My fridge is full of dairy delights and animal offcuts, we like our full cream milk and our bacon with a good slab of fat on it. When I stay anywhere else, I make sure that I have a stock of 'quick foods' that I can replace the meat with and not offend my host.

What did they come with? Nothing, not a bean or a lentil burger in sight! Well no that's not true, they came with a suitcase full of supplements to replace all those natural vitamins and minerals that they are denying themselves!

They are leaving today and I have just found the ideal last supper (see picture above).

Not a scrap of meat in sight and no animal products - I'm sure they will love it!

More than just cheese, apparently.

Took a break from ogling the weirdos in Glastonbury and ended up here at Cheddar, in the Mendips. The highest part of this spectacular gorge is over 500ft making them the highest inland cliffs in Britain. Mad abseiling goats can be seen all over the sheer cliffs along with humans who have lost their marbles - I kept my feet fimly planted on the ancient riverbed, thank you.
Further down the gorge are the showcaves, cathedral-like caverns carved out over a million years by Ice Age meltwaters. The constant temperature of 11 degrees all year made them an ideal place to store the ripening cheese that was made in the valley below. Thankfully that doesn't happen today as I like my cheese without the added bat droppings!
The photo above shows The Three Sisters, one of the higest parts and was taken from the top of a tour bus with added zoom and a crick in the neck!

King Solomon's Temple

When Richard Gough discovered this particular cave in 1890, he dragged his family out of bed in the middle of the night, and they sang hymns until dawn! Incredibly they had electric light, so it wouldn't have looked much different - blew away my romantic thoughts of wavering candlelight.

The visceral earth

The mineral deposits from millions of years of dripping water have made stalactites and stalagmites of incredible proportions. The mix of iron, calcite and lead gave the whole place a 'living' feel, quite eerie.

The Mirror Pool

There were a number of these pools around, the clever lighting gave them a 'fairyland' look. Unfortunately they didn't smell like fairyland, that is unless fairyland smells of rotten eggs!

Mi casa es tu casa?

I knew it was stupid as we pulled away from the house last Friday. The trouble was that if you ran the idea past anybody then they said things like "great, built-in house sitters, lucky you" or "Wow, you must be so relieved". Hmmm....

So here's the theory -

The Candidates - two twenty-nine-year-olds, one blood related in the offspring department to the MD, both in good physical condition, if a little zealous about the type of nourishment they consume . They both possess adequate brain cells to have built their own successful business, own their own home and travel the world regularly.

The job - housesitting one large Victorian establishment and caring for livestock for one week only. Gas and electric supplied, along with fresh fruit and veg for Big Fecker (who had decided that a family holiday was no longer for him) and a month's supply of cat vittles for Owen (obligatory witch's cat). The rules were simple - no parties for the Fecker, empty the bin (I remembered that one from last year!) and do your own laundry!

Simple....or was it?

Well no, apparently it wasn't!
First we had a phone call to say that the front door had broken and all callers were now directed around the back, including the stream of Feckerfriends who had taken up residence ten minutes after we had left. Then the microwave 'blew up' and the cat took himself on a starvation holiday in the rafters of the garage for three days.

After that things got worse! Big Fecker had to put on a train for his own safety and collected from a Somerset town that didn't have a train station (don't ask!). Once back in the bosom of his family, and finally dried out from all the whiskey that he had nicked, we heard that a kitchen cupboard had mysteriously fallen from a great height, and the washing machine had packed up.

I sit here now listening to the swearing from the kitchen as the cupboard is put back together. The front door was not broken, they had just neglected to do the double turny thing with the key and got it jammed half way and the microwave had not 'blown-up' either. They had just mistaken the steam from a rogue potato for that black kind of smoke that you get when things are going horribly wrong in the electrical department! Oh, and the washing machine was stuck on the 'no ironing' programme, which holds it full of water until some bright spark manages to turn the knob!

Yes, thank you for asking, we had a lovely holiday, but next year we shall be employing a housesitter of the professional kind. The present ones will not be 'sitting' in my house again and they will have to find somewhere else to store their dodgy looking 'health' foods!!

Wake up you lot.....

....I'm home and ready for action, so where are you?

Off on me jolly holidays....

...see you on the 18th!

Gin scribblings of yore

Cockles


We stood in trust in tidal bay
our youth laying fears to waste
a-cockling was the sport of days
but never done in haste

As waters fell, we made advance
our small feet lightening mud
trousers rolled above rubber boots
to cleave what once was flood

Lizzy, sister, sturdy picker
and me with giant's bucket, faced
the steam of leaving banks, in time
to join the cockle race

We watched with keener eyes than most
for motes that pointed there
the smallest nuance, the bravest dash
that would bring our quarry near

Our dad said 'there!', he knew these things
his childhood passing from
a time well spent in freedom's realm
and one that we'd take on

We dug the mazing, cloying sludge
for Scappies, Dawgs and Jans
I preferred the Brownie chaps
that were cooked in floured pans

The hours ticked, and silently
we listened to the knell
of tiding clocks that struck the end
of hunting the barbarous
cockle shell

Oh look, it's THAT meme (never one to be left out you understand)

One book that changed my life - 'Emmanuels Book' - Pat Rodegast. And no, not a sex book at all, as a friend asked when she saw it on the table. More of a manual for living comfortably in the universe -where have I seen that before? Anyway tis the Minx bible, of sorts!

One book that I have read more than once - ummm, loads but return to the classics regularly for a yearly fix, just finished 'Villette' - Charlotte Bronte (again).

One book I would want on a desert island - have to cheat here and say a note book, the biggest notebook I could find- a neverending notebook with a neverending pen. Would then be able to write my own book, poetry, gin scribbles etc to hearts content and not worry about getting rescued

One book that made me cry - 'The Pianist' - Wladyslaw Szpilman, truly brought me to my knees in places.

One book that made me laugh -'Carpe Jugulum' - Terry Pratchett, most of his books make me laugh out loud, very irritating for those around you. Loved the Igor character in this one, he had a lisp and a dog called Scwapps.

One book that I wish had never been written - 'Mutant Message Down Under' - Marlo Morgan. A very spirtually uplifting book that had quite an effect on me. I was horrified after when there was so much fuss about it's truth and wished that I had never read the bloody thing.

One book that I am currently reading (sorry don't do them in one's) ....
'Drinking Sapphire Wine - Tanith Lee (bedroom)
'Pandora Inn' - Lliam West (front room)
'The Philosopher Cat' - Kwong Kuen Shan (kitchen)
Oh and reading a bit of 'The Dog Catcher' - Alexei Sayle - in the garden this afternoon, nicked it off Big Fecker.

One book I've been meaning to read - most of the pile under the table by my bed but 'Porno' - Nick Hornby - is on the top, does that count?

Oh dear, what an odd list, oh well....

What's so funny?

Just had an email from this guy, so pop over to Scott Stein and give him your views (never mind that he can't spell 'humour' correctly).
All in a good cause, as he's teaching this, lucky git!

Bedouin Blogsisters

Aren't we gorgeous?

Met Debi, G and the chilluns today and spent the day on the beach with them. We gossiped about each and everyone of you, and decided that September would be a good time for us to get married!
Debi is a complete soul sister, we were separated at birth I think. Despite not being able to eat an ice cream and talk at the same time (at least not in English) she has just become an honorary member of the Gin Co-operative, no question.

We are already planning a Blogfest/blogmeet next year - all welcome!!

Room with a view

...sometimes you can hear the hiss!

Sunday, bloody Sunday

"I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church, to preserve all that travel by land, or by water" - J Swift.

Yes, well, not always the best day, especially when you are trying to get the smother-in-law off on her hols at the crack of dawn. Not only had she rung the house a million times to check we were on our way but when we got there she was no where in sight. This is typical behaviour of the S-I-L, but has no effect on the humour muscle when one has been partying all night.

"A Christian man, is a man who feels repentance on a Sunday for what he did on Saturday and what he is going to do on a Monday" - TR Ybarra.

Sorry, no repentance for any day of the week. Saturday night passed in haze of excess, and my only regret was not drinking enough water to stop the inevitable thick head. And, I'm certainly not going to repent of Mondays sins yet because I haven't even thought them up yet!

"The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still...." - Jean Rhys.

Oh I wish! I would have loved to have had a bit of heavy type melancholia today. Big Fecker was off to a festival in Truro and guess who had volunteered to take the band of hairy hormonals? Well, it wasn't the MD (Main Driver) because he suddenly had a very important football match to attend!
Once home from bus duty, there was a steady stream of well intentioned Sunday visitors. Two of whom required feeding because they failed to realise that I was not cooking for the masses, for once! I will also have to fix my 'reverse' doorbell tomorrow so that they can all find their way out again!

I like at least one day off from the madness that is my life. Today it was somewhere in the far distance, obliterated by family duties and things on the need-to-do-right-this-minute list. The only consolation being that the Smother-in-law will be away for at least three weeks - oh joy!
So...

"When the great markets by the sea shut fast.
All that calm Sunday that goes on and on
When lovers find their peace at last
And earth is but a star, that once had shone" - JF Flecker

Maybe next Sunday then!

The String Vest

I put the words together a couple of years ago. At the time they flowed like some beautiful river, pounding down a mountainside and gathering in a lake of chapters that made perfect sense. I loved every minute I wrote them, hardly waiting until the kettle was boiling in the morning before adding to the word count and staying up late into the night to storm my way through another chapter.

It all made perfect sense, the plot was a dream and came together without a conscious thought. I allowed it to go where it needed to go, we were in harmony, blood sisters. My characters padded themselves out to become nicely rounded individuals, and my research fitted in like a well worn glove, seamlessly sliding in to the whole to create a realistic and believable world.

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

Have I been suffering from delusions of writing all this time?

Now I look at it and I find that it resembles one of my grandad's string vests, full of enormous holes that need to be patched and repaired. The more I look, the more there are. They are growing by the hour, horrible loopy things, hanging in a tangled mess of unresolved threads.

Hang on, hold up, wait just a minute, I still have a little faith...don't I?

Oh shit, better get a move on......

The sun has just set on another day.....

....just taken from me bedroom window (just click for added gorgeousness!).

btw - spoke to Debi earlier. She sends her love from the banks of the River Teign in deepest Devon - which is about half a mile from where I used to go 'cockling' as a child. My sister is about half a mile in the other direction - small world eh?

Useless goes home

We know we did the right thing. Our stupid dog couldn't go on any longer.

The vet said it was the kindest thing we could do for him....so why do I feel like I have just committed murder?

Sisterhood

I was here today, in Padstow, meeting up with my lovely sister. She lives in Devon, about two hours away, and we try to meet as often as we can, which isn't as often as either of us would like. She is staying in Padstow for a couple of days with her husband. She had bought him a cooking course for his birthday, at the Rick Stein resturant (a famous fishy chef), so we took advantage of this and spent the day drinking coffee on the quay, and catching up.

My sister means a lot to me, we are the only members of our family left, apart from a distant aunt and three long lost cousins who fail miserably in the communication department. We have been orphans for six years and are now very close, but this wasn't always the case.

She started it, by telling Mum and Dad to take me back three days after I was adopted. How rude can you get, I was only six weeks old - I made her pay for it for quite some time!

I regularly stole her platforms and wore them to school, and nicked her lipsticks that house rules stated I was too young to use. I dobbed her in when I could and locked the door when she was late in, forcing her to try and climb in my bedroom window. She, in turn, pushed me out of the apple tree when I was seven and gave me an arm that resembled a hammock. I told the nurses that she had hit me with a hammer! She also gave me a black eye with a wooden spoon, but I got her back by putting slow worms in her new patent leather boots.

She left me in a dark lane once, with a bat stuck in my hair (we laughed about that one today) and she also released my prized collection of caterpillars that I had hidden under my bed in a shoe box. I scratched her Donny Osmond records with Dad's pen knife and pushed a plastic spoon into the un-cooked macaroni cheese that she had made at school - it turned orange.

Later, when she got married we found that we actually had quite a lot in common and as I caught up in maturity our childhood spats became less and less. We became inseperable when our parents were diagnosed with cancer within months of each other. Any remnants of our past squabbles disappeared as we fought health authorities and hospitals to give our parents the best care we could.

We have been orphans for six years now, and never has there been two sisters as close. We speak on the phone at least once a week and exchange emails every other day - all good sisterly stuff.

Today she told me I looked like a twat in my new stetson and I flicked coffee over her new white top - some things never change!!

Minx Linx

Please go and welcome Lee at her new Lowebrow blogsite - lookin good!