Petrified Intestinal Gas and other stories

Why do we pick up a book in the bookshop in the first place? Is it the cover? The colour (if you're a bit girly)? Or do do we find the title irresistible?
I have looked through my own bookshelves and wondered how on earth I chose certain books because the titles are enough to comatose even the most persistent amphetamine user. I must have peeked inside because they were all perfectly readable (mostly).
When writing my own novels the title has come fairly early on but what on earth was going on with these people....

The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories by Alsia Surkis

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification by Julian Montague

Warping all by Yourself by Cay Garrett

How I Cured Deadly Toenail Fungus by Mike Tecton

God, Why Did Dad Lose His Job? by Katherine Marko

I found all these HERE and I am definitely going to review my title choosing from now on but for an up to the moment choice of reading....

I Try to Take One Day at a Time but Sometimes Several Days Attack me at Once by Ashleigh Brilliant

...looks like a winner, but I don't think that I can beat this one...

If You Want Closure in Your Relationship then Start With Your Legs: A Guide to Understanding Men by Big Boom

I have ordered a copy!

Just don't tell me it was real

"Of course it's not real." said the knowledgeable friend "There is a severe lack of evidence."

I glanced around. She was right but it had seemed real enough to wake me up in a cold sweat and stay with me for the rest of the day.
Being pregnant at my age would be enough to make me slit me wrists and hang myself from the top of the stairs for good measure.
Strangely, the pregnant part of the dream was nice. I was in my comfort zone. When I had the Feckers I loved being pregnant and in my sleeping gestation I had experienced the same kind of feelings - lots of tummy rubbing and feeling rather smug. What came next was a horror above all horrors.


"It just means that you are hatching something, giving birth to something and besides, look at all the new stuff you are doing already." said the knowledgeable, dream deciphering friend.

She was right. For the last two months everything has been in the 'new' category. Every day sprinkled with mostly bad 'new' but a little helping of good as well. I'm aware that certain dreams reflect our state of mind but what I didn't need was a very realistic nightmare in which the end product was chasing me around the house demanding to be fed every five minutes.

After checking under the bed once again I now believe that it really was just a dream. The Feckers have been saved from an embarrassing coroners report and I am free to continue life without all the nasty leaky bits.
Which now only leaves me with the intriguing question - who exactly was the phantom father?

It's oh so quiet

This has been my home for the last four days - the narrowboat 'Epiphany'. The wonderful John and Fiona, who live on the canal, gave me my own epiphany - how to lose time and not miss it!




I had to learn how locks worked fairly quickly. This is the Caen Flight - 15 consecutive locks going up a rather long hill.
Just over two hours later we were at the top - what a view!


Even though life didn't rise above 3 miles an hour (with a few stops it took us 7 hours to go 14 miles on Monday) there was a different view at every turn.


Apparently I was somewhere in deepest Wiltshire, where this hidden canal world wends its slow way through long barrow country, past the chalk etched hills with Salisbury Plain just to the south.

We could have been anywhere.


I mostly sat at the bow of the narrow boat, with the engine chugging gently and the only disturbance from the odd heron or having to get off for another lovely meal.


As the shadows lengthened at the end of each day I understood completely why John and Fiona had decided to step off the world and opt for this - peace, perfect peace. Thank you.


John and Fiona have recorded their journey from the building of Epiphany to their life on the canal. You can find them here - Epiphany


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Makin' babies with George

Yeah, I know, I kept it under my hat. What can I say? Me and George got together and this is our love child...Scary, eh? The adoption papers are ready next week - phew!

Anyway, it's Saturday, stay in bed and indulge in a little weekend procreation courtesy of this site...

MAKE ME BABIES

I'm off for a few days to get over the birth - back soon.

I got me paints out

Not finished yet - whaddya think?

The morning after a very good night before

The morning after a Gin Club meeting always brings a smile; even before I have got out of bed, and way before my thumping head has registered that the alcohol tanks are still showing 'full'. My route to St Saviour of the Kettle takes me past what once could be described as my dining table. The detritus looks like someone actually managed a piss up in brewery. Demanda's earrings are perched tastefully next to a black olive on top of a dead wine bottle and there is half a punnet of raspberries that were destined for some exotic cocktail but never made it past the Pimms jug. A hoard of pistachio shells reminded me who won that particular competition and I spotted the paper bag I supplied when it appeared that Demoana couldn't breathe anymore.
Text messages on my soggy mobile ask where vital items of clothing and the odd body part might be located, Delilah also asked if I liked my present.
The tradition of presents to the host has developed like some mad un-planned ritual over the years. Mostly we bring gifts of bottled joy, varying snacks to keep up our energy levels and flowers for the one who moaned a lot at the last meeting. I scanned the table. My flowers were sitting askew in their temporary accommodation in the teapot but they were not from Delilah. I was puzzled.
Then I spotted it. Lying on the dresser with a very nice bow around it was a marrow. Why anyone would want to give a newly single, independent woman a marrow I don't know, but it is best not to dig too deeply into Delilah's mind as you never know what you are going to find?

Your suggestions on this subject are not welcome but I suppose you will have your say anyway!

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Red or dead

They were, of course, 'fuck me' shoes, shoes to get laid in, shoes that could scream their lurid wantoness across a crowded room - and they were hers. Did she want them? Could she wear them? She hadn't decided, but they sure beat the sensible work clothes that she had originally gone to buy.
Six months ago she wouldn't have even known about 'fuck me' shoes let alone owned a pair. Things had changed and when the world changes you either hide in a very deep hole or go out and buy red shoes. She had surprised herself with the choice but the shoes were another thing to add to her ever growing list of worldly changes. The realisation that her world was now akin to an expensive shellfish was a revelation. No longer the duchess of the kitchen sink, princess of the toilet cleaner or queen of fucking everything in the whole house, she was quite simply, free to choose her own footwear.

The red devils grinned slyly from the mirror. With five inches of patent sexual come hitherment, the little black dress was transformed. She took a few death defying steps towards the safety of the wardrobe. Practice would make nearly perfect and that would do for the short distance to the post box on Market Street. It wasn't far but it was all she thought she could manage. At this time of night no one would see her but her soul would know that she had actually worn red shoes in public.

By the time she reached the post box her hips had done that innate female thing and developed a sway that Rita Heyworth would have been proud to call her own. She had done it, but here under the lamppost on Market Street the shoes winked at her.
"Click your heels." they said "I don't want to go home yet."
They were right, another worldly change, a step in the right direction towards the bar down the road and a chance to see if her new footwear would live up to their very saucy name.

Dear Americans (Merkans)

As I have been blogging for over two years now I think I am just about getting the hang of your funny accent. What I can't get used to is your constant need to change perfectly good spellings, or your need to call something by a completely different name (I'm afraid to tell you that zucchini are really called courgettes).
I know that we probably gave you all our worst spellers in the beginning but this really isn't an excuse for mangling your original language (mangle = wringer - the thingy with the wooden rollers to get the juice out of washing, good for squishing worms as well).

I have noticed, during my extensive research, that English English has many words for the same thing and when we run out we just make some more up! I have also learned that your pants can go all the way down to your ankles whereas our just cover our bits and I now know that zip code does not mean deciphering a secret message before undressing. I am still a little confused by the jam/jelly/jello thingy but I do understand when you insist on calling chips 'fries' because you gave us McDonald's (thanks a lot).

I know that cookies are biscuits (except when they are choc chip cookies), diapers are nappies but what the hell is a moonpie? Twinkies look interesting but you can keep your Hershey bars (yuk), the dodgy looking super blow pops and will someone please explain hominy grits - it is beyond me? In return I will try my best to explain the intricacies of tea making, yorkshire pudding and umm, marmite (can anyone really explain marmite to the un-initiated?).

I believe that these cultural exchanges will cement our relationship with you merkans as long as we don't venture into any grey/gray areas.

Dangerous pursuits

In the interests of my aging body I am forced to turn my attention to umm, tightening up the things that have become a little loose of late. I am not fat but some areas could be described as 'lying comfortably' rather than 'perky' (my right knee, for instance).

So here's the problem -I am lazy, I abhor violent sport and I do not wish to sweat. I don't want to join a gym (they smell) and have no wish to run anywhere (so inelegant).
A friend suggested getting a Wii, but after some half hearted reserch I have found that it is most definitely dangerous and apart from the completely crap name just take a look at the injuries one can sustain......

...why is the woman with the purple golf ball eye smiling? She should have a bag over her head!

I am not into competitive sport or anything that involves missiles (balls etc). I might fight you over a chocolate biscuit, but if you want it that bad then you can have it.
I am also a witch and so therefore vain so please don't suggest anything like yoga, pilates or breathing exercises because I may end up like this poor soul...

...and those shoes are just horrible.

So please could we discuss some sort of 'lying down' exercise programme that requires little or no movement for a lazy writer with very toned fingers and a flat ass, or we could just sit around and have a few gins?

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The Cleeshay Cops

Cliches - are they much ado about nothing or are they the nuts and bolts of our writing?
Time is of the essence, but I'll make it plain and simple otherwise we'll add insult to injury and suffer the consequences.

In a word a cliche can line the pockets of gentlemen but a rotten apple can spoil the barrel. Beggars can be choosers and a carefully chosen old chestnut can make or break a book. I say, at the end of the day, a little of what you fancy makes the world go around.

I may be preaching to the converted and that you all have a cliche on the tip of your tongue but I suspect that the cliche that doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I may be barking up the wrong tree and a cliche is a whole new ball game to you but don't throw caution to the wind, or the baby out with the bathwater - think before you act. Too many cliches can spoil the broth leaving a piece of writing that is a packet of crisps short of a picnic.

So, in order not to teach your grandmother how to suck those eggs I suggest avoiding the red herrings and the rabbits that are pulled from hats. I don't want to rub salt into the wound but please choose your one and only cliche with care and do as I say not as I do. In this way you will live to write another day because a rose by any other name is still a cliche!