The News in Five Minutes

Right... four months to catch up on and only five minutes in which to do it. Yeah, nooooo problem. Nothing's happened.

If only life were that peaceful!

The reality is that I seem to have been marking almost non-stop, and when I do have some time off, it's so that I can help the long-suffering Tosh decorate. My parents have visited twice to help, too (from Germany, so this is no mean thing). We were finally at the stage last week where we only had ordinary decorating to do; everything structural is done. The valuer from a local estate agency came over to tell us what a rip off the house-selling system is, but at least we now know the figures and can plan accordingly. It should be another couple of weeks before we can actually 'officially' advertise the house for sale, although it's already 'theoretically' on the market.

With impeccable timing, one of the cats is about to have kittens. No, sillies, I don't mean right this second, but certainly any day now. We shall just have to cross all Bridges of Great Difficulty as and when they arise, but the most awkward problem will be what to do with them when we go to Kentwell Hall in July. We're already taking Daisy, who was in a terrible car accident on New Year's Day (see my German blog), because she is incontinent and needs special care sometimes (although mostly she is as easy to look after as any other cat). I have to start training her to walk on a lead, in the hope that we can give her at least a bit of exercise whilst we are at Kentwell. The others will be fed as usual by our neighbour who lives in the field out the back. What if someone wants to view the house? It will smell of stinky cat litter and stuff, if I don't come back at all for ten days. I'll have to come and clean or something, if the agent can warn us in advance of any impending visits.

There, that was the news in five minutes. Time to get back to my marking!

My CyberDeutsch Blog

I'm taking part in a pilot scheme with the Open University, called 'CyberDeutsch'. The course itself is, as might be inferred from the title, an intensive German course delivered online. We are using some new e-Learning tools, including FlashMeeting, which enables video conferencing for up to 25 people in the same group. These meetings are recorded in their entirety, including text chat, URLs and other documents, so it's a great resource to come back to and check up on how you really sound. Once I plucked up the courage to do this, I discovered that I sounded better than expected, which was quite a boost.

The FlashMeetings are a key point of contact with the tutor and other students, but we are also using a number of other tools, including blogs, hence the title of this post, wikis (think of Wikipedia and you have it in a nutshell) and a forum where the tutor and students can post questions, information and general course-related chatter. You can see my new blog by clicking here. We are not studying the sorts of themes usual in other German courses with the Open University, Goethe Insitut and so forth, but are focussing instead on simply communicating.

Personally, I'm finding it very useful, but given that it is a pilot scheme, it's a shame that the majority of other students involved have not yet made their presence felt. I am lucky to be in the group where three of us have been enjoying getting to grips with the new tools and communicating. Of course, if the other students have been eaten by monsters over the weekend, or something, I will feel slightly bad.

I've won!

I've done it! I've finished! No more NaNoWriMo (at least not for this year)!!!

Nearly there!

I have just under 5,000 words to go on my NaNoWriMo challenge. I had a look through the winners' list yesterday, and saw that someone on there had already written 200,000 words. In one month. If there were ever the chance to write mindless drivel, that surely had to be it; that represents an average of just over 7,500 words a day. I wonder whether they really wrote all those words, or whether they cheated? Personally, I've found it difficult enough to write what I have, although I have only averaged an hour and a quarter's writing each day on this project.

Anyway.... I'd better get back to it. Procrastinating may be my forte, but it's not helping!

NaNoWriMo... What NaNoWriMo?

I was really hoping to catch up on my word count today, but a lot of things intervened.

The afternoon and evening were almost entirely taken up with looking up electonrics components and finding out how things worked, then troubleshooting the circuit boards in our RC tank. We are now close to the problem, having found the point at which no power passes. The capacitor where everything stops doesn't appear to be damaged in any way, however, and neither does the board. I wish I understood this stuff.

Anyway, other than about 300 words last night, just after the midnight cut-off for word count from the 19th, I haven't added a bean today. I have a lot of catching up to do this week. I just hope that I make it!

NaNoWriMo Day 19

I've been ill on and off, so have struggled to keep up with the NaNo word limit, but am clawing back my word count today, hoping to be on track again tomorrow. For a moment I thought I wouldn't make it! So long as I can continue to feel OK, then I'll finish with my 50k words behind me. Now that I'm at the 30k mark, it would be silly not to.

We got a second-hand radio-controlled tank, but unfortunately, after a wheel accident (now repaired to be stronger than it was in the first place, lest the same thing happen again), the tank refuses to work at all. All of a sudden, the electronics have died. So far, I can't identify any loose components, and am hoping that the installed speaker which delivers the speed-linked engine noises (ie, when stationary, the tank idles, and when one or other track is in motion, the requisite noise is produced)... yes, anyway, that the installed speaker has caused magnetic problems with a circuit nearby (the speaker was not screwed down and lay on top of a board). I'm going to take the board out tomorrow and see whether there is any visible damage underneath. I don't even have a multimeter to test the circuit, and neither does anyone I know, so I have to get one of those before I move on, too. Then, if it's nothing simple, I have to learn a lot about electronics before coming back to it. I need to, anyway, as the plan is to mod the tank once we understand the basics, adding gun elevation, firing gun and so forth.

That's it from me for now. Not sure when I can get back, as I shall be so busy catching up on the last thousand or so NaNoWriMo words in order to get back on track!

NaNoWriMo Day 11

Ok, started kind of late today (11.10 p.m.) and didn't quite make the word limit, but still ahead, so that's OK. I thought it would be difficult, having left it until I was past my thinking best, but it seemed to work out rather well (perhaps thinking is bad for me, after all). I should be writing 1667 words per day on average, and clocked in today with 1417 today. I can't imagine how that happened in 50 minutes, especially given that I did some aimless Internet surfing too. Mind you, that's a typing speed of only 28 words per minute, so it's not so great. I must have spent whole seconds thinking, here and there. Of course, the quality of the words is not under scrutiny here; if it were, I would have spent a couple of days on the same number of words!

I installed the 'War Chiefs' expansion to Age of Empires III on my husband's computer this evening, and he's playing away merrily colonising the World. It's probably because we watched a programme on TV about the world's most recent dictators and their truly awful taste in interior design, earlier, not that interior design plays any part in AoE III, or any AoE, come to that. Mind you, it would be interesting to play a kind of Sims game with global domination possibilities. Perhaps I should market this idea?

NaNoWriMo Days 9 and 10

So... well... Day 9 didn't really happen for me. I have a little chart courtesy of a fellow Open University A215 survivor (who got it from someone on NaNoWriMo a few years ago); on that chart, there is a column for you to fill in your daily mood rating and notes that may be useful later (when?), along with your word count. My mood rating for yesterday was somewhere around a 3 (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the worst). I've managed to complete my word count on the '4' days, but definitely couldn't do it yesterday. However, the good news is that I had done well over twice the word count the day before, and nearly twice the word count today, so I've definitely made up for the lapses.

Today was not at all difficult in story terms. I described a particular character in more depth and gave her a home life. I didn't look over anything that I had already written, working on a different computer. I really think that made it easier to get into today. It probably also helped that I had taken a day off writing. Either way, I made it to well over two thousand words in an hour and a half, and my 'inner editor' was truly ground into the dirt. I'm hoping not to see her again until December 1st.

The days are very grey now, and it grows dark depressingly early. This is definitely not helping my mood, but it's far too early for this to be happening; normally I'm fairly safe until the beginning of January.

We had steaks for dinner and they weren't horrible! (This is a miracle, as we're talking about Tesco's value British beef here, which is dyed in order to make it look more appetizing than it really is). They didn't have that nasty metallic tang that British beef usually has, actually tasting, well, beefy! We accompanied it with pasta shells in lieu of Spaetzle with Rahmsoße over everything. It was delicious, to the extent that, naturally, I ate too much of it and made my stomach regret the onslaught. Still, for once, it was worth it.

NaNoWriMo Day 8 - Aaargh!

Today is odd. On the one hand I feel as though the story is coming together a lot better now. Nought to novel (OK, novel outline) in a week isn't so bad. On the other hand, I had a telephone interview for another tutoring job today and felt like a total, blithering idiot by the end of it. There is no hardship if I don't get this job, but it's an easy one, and was an easy interview, really, I just didn't anticipate the questions well enough and floundered right at the end when I should have been sewing the whole thing up nicely and exchanging pleasantries. What a bummer.

OK... haven't got my word count today yet, and seem to have ended up leaving it until late in the evening every day.... got to get back to it. Felt good, now I don't. *sigh*

... time passes ...

Right, that's better, I've reached my word count and beyond. I managed a couple of thousand words on the story alongside a couple of thousand of text chat words which were about the story, plot development and a number of jokes and scenarios to include in the story, so I've also pasted in some stuff in my notes section. I thought that this was cheating when I began this a week ago, but have just realised that I am skipping over lots of valuable dialogue and discussion of the story this way, when I could actually take the material on board. It's certainly ironed out a few problems this evening. I definitely won't have a proper or complete story by the end of this month, but I feel a lot more certain that I will have met the word limit and fleshed out the makings of a good story (with my own words, written during the course of the month - no cheating there!)

The past eight days have already taught me some interesting things about the writing process which A215 certainly did not do. It isn't as difficult as I had imagined to leave the 'inner editor' behind, although in the past I have never edited that much. However, my approach has always been to think a lot about what I am going to write, and then to write it, pretty much as I want it to be. I couldn't get to grips with the freewriting method in A215, even though freewriting in itself does not seem to present too many problems. Freewriting on an industrial scale is a lot more challenging, but also a lot more beneficial, from my perspective.

I hope that I can motivate myself to do this every year!

NaNoWriMo Day 7

Didn't make the word count today, although it wasn't a disaster, as I had bit up a very small buffer. Must do better tomorrow! I didn't start until the day was almost over, which probably didn't help. Tomorrow I have a telephone interview late in the morning, so as I will need to be alert for it, I will try to get some of my word count out of the way beforehand. I began one of the scenes which needed some thought today, but there ended up with too little time to devote to it. I'm too tired, anyway.

NaNoWriMo Day 6

It wasn't working at all well at first, but then I decided that one of my characters (probably the main one) would be a supply-teacher. It's such a crap job that there is plenty to say about it. Every time I run out of things to say, I can always go back to her and have her do another crap day at school. I really need her to be doing something ele, as I dont' particularl want to think about schools, but at least it will help me to get through some of my word count.

My plan for tomorrow is to move onto something more interesting, although it seems unlikely that I'll find anything at the rate I'm going. I suppose that it is helping me to find things that I would rather write about, though, even if it is too late for that this time around.

NaNoWriMo Day 5

I slept for a large portion of today, but it was worthwhile. I have a bad case of Sneezer's Ribs, but the cold has pretty much dried up. The remaining swelling from my tooth abscess hardly hurts at all and, despite a distinct feeling of muzziness (probably not aided by sleeping too much), I feel much better and can think more clearly again. Hurray!

My novel has crept along a bit further without too much pain. I was chatting to a friend on Skype today and went through a rough plot synopsis of how the plot is panning out and how it will hopefully progress; it was very, very basic, but probably the most detailed of all of my thoughts so far, so I have added it to the beginning of the novel in the accepted (from the NaNo word count perspective) form of 'Writer's Notes'. It's all new and novel-related, after all. I suppose if I get desperate, I can add my ever-increasing scene list (ie contents) and character outline sheet in the form of additional 'Writer's Notes'. Actually, now that I come to think of it, it's highly likely that I will be this desperate.

Anyway, I've also added a new scene as well as continuing with a previous one, so I feel that I have accomplished something. I'm not really in the mood for it at the moment, but I think that it is important to try to keep up. It's definitely easier today, though, so I think that the last few days have really suffered whilst I was feeling unwell.

Having reached my word limit for the day, I'm off to play games for a while.

NaNoWriMo Day 4

Well, it's been a busy day, but not writing, unfortunately for my NanoNovel. I added a paltry few words this evening, but also managed to see a good many fireworks. My word allowance will still be waiting for me tomorrow, but the fireworks won't be.

We went to a public display, but didn't pay to go in. Instead, we pressed our nose to the chainlink fence along with the rest of the undeserving poor; who would pay £4 a head for their feeble display? Well, actually, quite a few people. We returned to see that our neighbours in the field had a bonfire blazing and a good deal of alcohol flowing, as well as an exceedingly large stack of fireworks laid by ready to keep the neighbourhood awake. Tosh went off to get fish and chips for his tea, but I went over to the field to enjoy the show. We had already taken a bottle of wine over with a card for Eva, who will be sixty-something tomorrow. We arranged for the possibility of her feeding out cats over Christmas, too, as Ryanair's flights to Friedrichshafen have suddenly plummeted in cost for the Festive Season, and we are now booked for a (hopefully) white Christmas in Bavaria.

The only reason I made it to today's NaNo word count was because I also included excerpts from the blog (which spell check wants to change to 'bog') as it fits a key character. Some other day, I'll work around the blog bits and make them fit properly, but for now, I had to bung in stuff from the last four days before I forgot it. My key character has plenty of aspects of me for convenience, so that I don't have to make up too much stuff - I'm far too busy making up everyone else for that! My actual life is nothing like hers, but we are currently 'enjoying' shared dental experiences and I've just given her a stinking cold for good measure. Some of my other characters have already started running the show, which is very naughty of them, but at least it means I don't have to think of anything for them to do. One or two completely new bods wandered in whilst I was busy elsewhere, but I certainly didn't invite them. They don't seem to want to go away, though, so I suppose they can stay, if they keep themselves in enough trouble to be interesting.

Right, well, I'm very tired, having enjoyed a spot of Beirut in Clacton for the evening (and I caught that cold from my character, curses on her), so I'm off to bed. The cold hasn't helped my NaNoWriMo word allowance on either, so thank goodness for a dull four days' worth of blog, as although the ideas are there, I can't type for long without having a teeth-crushing sneezing fit. I expect it will go tomorrow, and I will be able to type for England.

Night night!

NaNoWriMo Day 3

The roof of my mouth is still swollen, the antibiotics are giving my stomach what for, something else is up and I now have to have an appointment to sort that out and, surprise surprise, it has taken a toll on my word count. Still, I'm clawing my way back tonight. I'm not sure why my mouth should still be swollen after the dentist drilled a dirty great hole to let all of the yuck drain out, but there you go. It's tenacious yuck.

I must get back to my ailing word count - another few hundred words before midnight and I'm still on track, otherwise I'll have a bit of catching up to do tomorrow!

NaNoWriMo Day 2

I can see a theme developing for this month already. It can't be helped.

Today didn't go too badly, in NaNoWriMo terms. I have continued to develop my key characters (including one I made up last year) in order to have as many as possible to carry the plot and various sub-plots along (I have those? Yes, it seems that I do, although I've only just realised).

I had to go to the dentist's again today, and spent a lot of the day feeling fairly grotty, but my time in the chair was not wasted, as a plot began to emerge. I came home to an email from Amazon saying that my NaNoWriMo aid, No Plot? No Problem! by the founder of N... has been dispatched; my memory clearly isn't what it ought to be, as I had completely forgotten that I had ordered it. Yippee anyway - I need that book!

And now... I have a headache and the painkillers for my tooth have worn off, so I'm off to stock up before settling down with one of the books on writing which I found in the second-hand book shop opposite the dentist's today.

Night night... *yawn*

NaNoWriMo Day 1

It's here! And I haven't made the first day's word count, yet! Still, there are still over five hours to go until midnight, so it's possible.

If my dratted tooth infection would give me a break, I might be able to concentrate on formulating sentences. Vaguely forming sentences will have to do for now, though, as I still have a golfball-sized swelling in the roof of my mouth masquerading as overflow from the root of my tooth. I still wish they would take it out.

That's enough from me. I'm clearly going to grumble.

Two days to go...

I've just got back from Germany and have two days to organise my characters and plot in readiness for NaNoWriMo... Eeeek! Still, I have a few ideas involving plenty of characters (so that I can switch to a fresh one if I run out of things to say about one of the others during the frenzied writing attack). I have situations available, but not, strictly speaking, a plot. I'd better buzz off and do something about that in a bit.

In the meantime, in an art imitating life kind of a way, I have a disparate group of characters who all share an interest in writing. There are a couple of stereotypes in the bunch to make life easier during the writing month, but they will hopefully tone down a little as the days go by. The whole thing is intended to be a comedy, but may well turn out to be a farce. Still, it's an experience.

Maybe I should quickly catch up on the work that I'm supposed to be doing, first.

One Day in History

Today has been one of those slow days. I work from home, tutoring on undergraduate and postgraduate music courses for the Open University, amongst other things, and motivating myself sometimes takes a little while. After four days of excruciating toothache, culminating yesterday in root canal in one of my molars (one which had been filled only three months beforehand, by a dentist that I shall never be seeing again, although there will be some exchange of letters), I was feeling a little jaded. But, the pain had abated at last.

It made me think of other dental treatment and how it has, in theory come on, but how in reality so little has changed. For many of us, it is still a painful experience, although gone are the days of no anaesthetics... actually, that’s not true either. Last time I had a root canal done, the dentist discovered some remaining nerve on my second visit; much climbing of walls and no anaesthetic later, it was gone. Some years before that, neither I nor the dentist could stop laughing as he (a different one this time) tried to extract another molar and ended up with his knee in my chest in order to gain purchase, whilst I noted that things hadn’t come on much, after all.

Once motivated to do something, I marked MA papers, belatedly as a result of my recent dental trauma. I took a short break between each paper in order to drink tea, eat scones and read Monica Dickens’ One Pair of Hands by way of relaxation, and to clear my mind preparatory for the next marking onslaught. I didn’t bother to dress until quite late in the day – no point; it was only me and the paperwork.

My husband came home a little after five, and we mused on various aspects of energy efficiency for a while, and the fact that B&Q have now begun to see small, domestic wind turbines and solar panels for water heating. Two solar panels or a wind turbine comes at an extortionate cost of £1,500. My parents have recently moved to Bavaria, and it is much cheaper to be ‘green’ there.

This evening, I frittered away some time mooching around on the Internet between marking assignments, when the words 'If the Antichrist appeared, would you recognise him' drifted through to the conservatory in accusing tones. Of course, I had to stop to think about it. Will (s)he be wearing a red carnation? What about a distinctive old school tie? Or possibly a large sign saying 'I am the Antichrist'. No, not sure I'd notice. Anyway, a bit more of the programme wafted through once I was paying attention, and it decided that Nero was the Beast, which sort of took the edge off of any need to recognise him, so far as I could see...

Excuse flippancy. These programmes annoy me. A friend of mine was on Skype, so I sent him a message to ask him whether he would notice the Antichrist either; he thought that if he did, it would be best to pass him along to the Rector at his Church, as he could bore the pants off anyone (the Rector, not the Antichrist - well, assumedly not the Antichrist). Should I bump into Mr A. first, I shall naturally bear this in mind and shove him off up north for tea and crumpets.

I shan’t be going to bed until late, I think. Too little work means too long a day for me. Maybe tomorrow I will fare better.

So many words, so little time...

...and this isn't a follow-on from my NaNoWriMo concerns. I've finished a couple of massive batches of marking and just have one more to get through. Only a hundred and twenty thousand or so words left to plough through, thank goodness. I've realised that if I take another two days over this, it will still be astounding (having lost four complete days to raging toothache). It still doesn't make having had to get an extension on the marking deadline any better though - I had to do that last year too when I managed to get chicken pox!

No time for more, I have marking to do and I must also find something to write for the British Library's 'One Day in History' blogfest. Special offer, one day only!

NaNoWriMo

Well, I've done it. I've signed up to NaNoWriMo and a commitment to write 50,000 words (of crap) during November. I don't think I'll post anything about my progress here, just in case there isn't much to tell. If I get halfway there, it will have been worth it - surely there would be a few good words amongst 25,000?

No other news - have been climbing the walls with toothache, but found a new (hideously expensive) dentist today who did an emergency root canal and, hey presto! no pain. Interesting that, seeing as my actual dentist is keen to drill and crown the tooth next to the one which was causing the trouble, which, ironically, is one he had previously filled - privately, in two minutes - only two or three months' previously. I'm not impressed and am writing to the British Dental Association to claim back my fees. I'm also complaining about the crowns which he did...anyway, as I said, no news other than clawing the walls with excruciating tooth pain, none of which has made me any more humorous.

The Hero of Sidney Street

I've just come from a particularly unhappy waste of time perusing the A215 Survivors conference in which there was a raging and particularly ridiculous argument about feminism. It ended with fond platitudes from the protagonists, which ought to have been a good thing, but just reminded me of an old couple I know who think that they can say whatever they like to each other so long as they wrap it up nicely with a 'my love', or 'my sweet'. Quite sickeningly fake. I have no idea why I am drawn to it. Anyway my husband chose the much more sensible option of watching Cadfael, which is a very much more useful way of spending an hour.

Here is a completely useless piece I submitted for an assignment. I think, on balance, had I not written it at all, it would have come out better. However, I plan to write it properly as a fiction story based on real events, rather than the completely unsatisfactory method used here:

Life Writing assignment (Biography)
The Hero of Sidney Street

‘Would you like to come and see the anarchists, Will?’

‘Oh yers, not ‘alf!’ replied Arthur’s brother. Arthur had sneaked out of his school in Berkshire Street towards the end of the morning and run to find his brother in the nearby Daintry Street School playground. The boys had heard their mum talking about ‘the anarchists’ that morning with a customer through the fold-down counter-flap at the front of their house; he had come to buy a single Woodbine, which was the way the poor purchased goods. Later, despite the usually strictly-enforced silence in Arthur’s enormous classroom, rumours had had been cautiously passed along the lines of children under the guise of rote-learning; the Houndsditch Murderers had been traced to a little house in Sidney Street and were under siege from the police. ‘Peter the Painter’ was said to be in the house, and the police had evacuated families in neighbouring houses overnight. They would be caned for skipping school, but that would be tomorrow; you would never live your life if you always worried about tomorrow!

The eleven-year-old Arthur and his younger brother ran the three miles through Victoria Park, past the market gardens, cricket ground and boating lake, and on towards Stepney. The journey took them through the weaver’s streets where their Huguenot relatives lived, but the increasing cost of living and their father’s drinking had driven them to increasingly worse accommodations. They were both tiny boys for their age, undernourished like their siblings and the other children living in Hackney Wick. Excitement at the prospect of what they might find helped the exhausted boys to run onward, despite their physical drawbacks.

‘How far is it, now, Arthur?’ asked the panting Will.

‘Just down by the Mile End Road, near the hospital,’ replied his brother, puffing equally hard.

The boys eventually arrived near Sidney Street and squeezed their way to the front of the crowds who milled around, vying for a better view. A short distance ahead of them, newspaper boards littered the street, and a swarm of police stamped their feet on the sodden, January pavements.

‘I dunno that I’m happy being around all these coppers, Arthur. I feel like I’ve done something wrong already!’

‘We shall just duck into the crowd if anyone comes our way, alright?” said Arthur. “They’re too busy to worry about us, anyhow.’

‘Can you see anything? What’s going on? I can’t see anything for coppers!’

'There’s men up on those roofs, do you see?' Men, some armed with guns, others with cameras, peered down the street from behind chimneys. A few ordinary people leaned from upper-storey windows, whilst others sat just inside, dandling watching children on their laps.

‘What are they looking at?’ asked Will.

‘Down there.’ Arthur pointed towards one of the terraced houses, a glut of smoke issuing from the upper windows. Police and soldiers hiding in the buildings opposite had guns trained on the house. ‘Blimey, it’s been blown to smithereens!’

‘That’s right,’ said a youth in the crowd, ‘burned like rats in an oven, I reckon.’

‘Oh, what a shame. We’ve missed it all,’ replied the disappointed Will.

‘Hah! You didn’t want to be here earlier, tosh,’ said the youth. ‘The Gardstein Gang’ve got much better guns than the poxy police. They could shoot you where you stand, but the coppers can only shoot thirty yards with their useless guns – that’s why they had to call in the Scots Guards from the Tower.’

Suddenly there were boos from the crowd and cries of ‘Oo let ‘im in?’ as a dark-coated man with a fur collar and shiny top hat crossed nearby, accompanied by a policeman armed with a double-barrelled shotgun. The police forming the cordon holding back the crowd shifted their stance, ready to quell the first signs of trouble.

'He looks important,' said Will.

'He is,' replied Arthur. 'He’s Winston Churchill. I’ve seen his picture in the papers. Mum said he’s the one that lets all those foreigners in, from Russia and places, like Peter the Painter.'

Churchill looked uneasy and stayed close to the wall, in front of a poster advertising a music hall performance of Dick Whittington, then he knelt down on one knee, took off his hat and held it behind him, peeking gingerly around a corner towards the smoking house. Everyone else, soldiers, police and detectives in plain clothes, walked around and talked as though nothing were happening at all.

'Oh no! Scarper!' cried Arthur, grabbing Will’s arm. He had spotted a man wearing an overcoat and bowler hat and carrying a clipboard approaching them rapidly from the side of the crowd – the school board inspector. The boys ran for it, dodging through the crowds again; the inspectors had a very nasty reputation, and the boys were not about to allow themselves to be caught.


A day or so later, Arthur and Will went to Sweeney Todd’s in Bonner Street. The barber’s real name was Arthur Charles, but his unsavoury manner had earned him the nickname. He always wore a long, black overcoat and a bowler hat pulled right down over his ears, even in summer, but an object of derision throughout the year.

Bonner Street was full of shops of various types, and many of the local boys hung around the area making nuisances of themselves rather than return home to a drunken mother’s or father’s fists, even in the damp winters. Just up the street from the barber’s shop, Arthur and Will knocked at the door of Sigournay’s, the funeral director’s premises. Sigournay came to the door.

‘Ere, what do you want?’ he asked.

‘Got any empty boxes, Mister?’ they asked, and ran away before he could give them a clip round the ear. All the boys did it, but Sigournay never seemed to expect it.

When they got to Sweeney Todd’s, there was already a customer in the chair, so Arthur and Will read the Police Gazette whilst they waited. There was a picture of Churchill kneeling on one knee, holding his hat behind his back, just as they had seen him. The photograph was captioned ‘Hero of Sidney Street’, which made the boys laugh.

‘Hero?’ said Will. ‘He was no hero. He was a cowardy custard!’

‘What’s that?’ roared the barber. ‘Don’t you dare speak ill of your betters, my lads!’

‘Oh blimey, not again!’ said Arthur, grabbing Will’s arm and dragging him out of the shop with the barber in hot pursuit with a broom.


Arthur, or Pop as I knew him, was my grandfather. He lived from 1899 until 2000, and maintained excellent recall throughout his life. During his final years, he told stories about his life which his daughters recorded in careful detail. In this way, he left a legacy of an ordinary man’s memories of life in the East End for the first half of the twentieth century, after which he moved several times, ultimately to Southend-on-Sea. He was amongst the youths who greeted Lenin and also saw Ghandi. During World War I, his protected job making sea-mines saved him from the call-up. He vividly described the effects of the Depression and the friends who ended up living in dugouts in the riverbanks, some of whom committed suicide rather than wait to starve.

The last time I saw him, two weeks before his death, Pop turned to my husband who shared his dislike of the ‘Hero of Sidney Street’ and said:

‘I’ll give your regards to Churchill when I see him, then, shall I?’

1,250 words.

It's not over yet...

LZX203 Motive; Moving on in German, finished with exams in Cambridge yesterday, followed by the deadline for my ECA (a written submission in lieu of an exam) for A215 Creative Writing today. Finally, some sleep... well, would have been great had it not been accompanied by the headache which I've had for over a week as a result of increasing lack of sleep, grown to monster proportions. Now I just feel light-headed, and I'm off to bed again, soon.

So, you would think it would all be over, but no; I have a quarter of a million words of MA dissertations and mid-MA projects to mark next week (not including appendices and associated fripperies), followed by a batch of mercifully short pieces the week after.

If I can just make it to 22nd October... then I'm off to Germany for a week's break. Can't wait!

Does the sun still come up in the mornings?

A month of deadlines, another few weeks to go. I am exhausted but can barely sleep at all any more. And I think my backside has now melded to the fibres of this chair seat. I know that if I try to stand up, I can't.

I've been working on preparation materials for my German exam tomorrow, whilst juggling marking and the final deadline for my writing course. The word allowance for the writing is 2500 (plus a further 700 words for a reflective commentary), to be divided fairly equally between 'two of the taught forms' of the course. In my case, I chose fiction and life writing. Managed to edit the fiction to 1250, but the life-writing could do with grooming, or possibly a minor cull, although it is ostensibly already 'finished'. One of the cats managed to print it out twice, too.

Right now, I am sitting in the conservatory with a cat either side of the keyboard wondering whether I will ever stop and pay them some attention. A couple of kittens are running around my feet because they now think I am a inanimate scratching post and next door's spaniel is sitting on their back wall with his nose squashed through the picket fence, staring at us all with a glazed expression, possibly mirroring me. It's quite disconcerting.

Fortunately, after tomorrow (once I'm shot of the coursework), I can move onto marking a quarter of a million words of MA dissertations on paper - no more computer eyes - then ten days after that I'm off for a break in Germany, visiting my parents. Oh glee! I'll be able to sleep again by then, surely?

I have to get my nose back to that grindstone, if a kitten hasn't run off with it.

Hurray! Found my settings, at last!

I was even thinking about starting a new blog, but finally, I have my settings again. What a pain. Still, at least I should be able to dredge up a few things to post. On the other hand, as 260,000 words of MA dissertations and projects arrived for me on Saturday, I may be rather busy marking. Added to this, I have my German exams on 5th October and my Creative Writing ECA to *cough* write (I was going to say 'finish', but why fib?) by 6th October. Oh yes, and I'm behind with some other marking, so I'll be frantically trying to finish that over the next couple of days, too. Still, the light at the end of the tunnel is a trip to Germany later in four weeks, by which time all my deadlines will have passed and I will be FREE!!!! Oh happy day.

The sad recent news is that our second oldest (but still not old enough) cat, Pickle, had to be put-down on Thursday evening. He had been going downhill for some time, kept going with the odd vitamin and antibiotic injections, but he suddenly deteriorated to the extent that he was not likely to recover. He was fighting for breath and had fluid on the lungs and had also been attacked by another animal, causing a horrendous wound and loss of the use of his tail. He could barely walk on that last day. The vet, who has two cats himself, was very sympathetic, knowing how much we would miss him, but he had to recommend euthanasia for Pickle's sake. There was no talk of cost, but I suspect that the vet already realised that if there were any hope, we would pay, but that we wouldn't really be able to afford it. Somehow, a few weeks before, I already knew that we wouldn't be taking Pickle with us when we moved to Germany, but I didn't want to think about it then.

Itchy and Scratchy

Having got to the stage of being swathed in bandages, so much has the this weather provoked my eczema, I have to say that I wish the sun would go in once in a while. It was cool for a couple of hours this morning (still T-Shirt weather), and for the first time in six weeks, I didn't itch. Had to give up on the fan because my neck was so dry, despite getting up every couple of hours in the night to apply goop (prescription moisturiser, resembles something from Dulux) that my head wouldn't turn any more. What I'm wondering is, if we've had this weather for the past six weeks, who on earth's got ours? And am I surprised that they're not giving it back? 'Ooh, I wonder whether we should get the itchy humid air-soup back, or shall we stick with this cool, breezy bliss?'

All this points me towards the inescapable fact that I cannot avoid appointments with the Behaviour Modification Clinic any more. When I come back from Germany, therefore, I will add a clicker (such as one might use to train a cat to do tricks) to my happy assortment of handbag bumph (inhalers, ointments, tissues for weeping eyes and purse for if I manage to stay out long enough to want to buy anything). Mostly I stay at home. I can't even afford to sweat because it makes my skin burn and some days my eczema is so bad that I can barely move. This is not fun, and if there is something I can do about it, even if it does sound as though I will be in therapy and potentially treated as though itching is psychosomatic (and it isn't, that is a known quantity, before you wonder), then so be it. I am ripe for change.

Kittens

I've been busy lately, and so, apparently, has one of the cats. Phoebe, who looks barely larger than a kitten herself, had three little ones of her own, apparently effortlessly and happily. The middle one did not seem to be able to get a look in at feeding times, and we had to hand rear it. It went well for about a week, then sadly, it contracted a lung infection and died. I think that was all the more sad because of course, if you have to get up every couple of hours to feed the little thing, you become quite attached to it, despite efforts to the contrary.

The other two kittens are ginger, cute and fat. They were less cute the other day because they were riddled with fleas, but we used one of the only effective treatments available for beasties of that age, and they are now comfortable, flea-free and almost three weeks old. Phoebe, is jumping the gun slightly with their development, having brought a mouse in for them on the first full day of their existence, and having hoiked them out to the front door yesterday, where she had deposited a pigeon for their consumption. She'll be enrolling them in university next.

Another element keeping me busy of late has been my parents' move to Germany. Last weekend, my husband and I spent many, many hot. dripping hours helping to cram a removals lorry full of their stuff. It turned out that Big Yellow Storage had rented them a room several cubic metres larger than they had actually said, meaning that we still have some of mum and dad's stuff here, ready to ferry off in their caravan when they come over in August to go to collect it, go to a re-enactment, and help us with a little more renovating. Although the lorry left for Bavaria last Sunday, it still hasn't arrived! It broke down about 100 miles to the north of mum and dad's new place a couple of days ago, and this morning, the removals men were off to hire a 7.5 tonne lorry from a nearby depot. This means that they will have to do two trips from their stricken lorry to mum and dad's place. Luckily, my parents are very laid back about the whole thing and laughing at the catalogue of disasters (there's a lot more, particularly regarding the inefficiencies of NatWest). Still, it's far too hot to carry on with all this energetic typing, so I'm off...

Hurray! It's raining!

Well, after many sweltering days, it's finally cooling off with a spot of rain. Bliss.

My parents have been camping locally and visiting each day, having moved out of their old house last week. I've been pretty much holed up marking and writing TMAs of my own, but should be free of work by the end of today, at which point I can spend more time with them (whilst we all continue with the renovation of this house). They're moving to Germany in just over a week, so have been working like maniacs to get everything into store ready for a moving team, all in a heatwave, of course. Mum's lost half a stone and Dad was losing a pound a day, but sadly I'm as round as ever (well, I've been sitting around writing essays, so I'm not like to reduce). My single lengthy venture into the outdoors to dig up a number of plants from mum and dad's garden to transplant to ours resulted in a cracking headache and some night-time throwing-up. Needless to say, I don't emerge until the evening, as a rule. Despite this, I come from a long line of people who don't seem to burn easily which is fortuitious, as virtually every sun cream I have tried brings me out in a vibrant red rash. Perfume as an unnecessary added ingredient (even in the creams designed for 'sensitive' skins) is really not helpful. Grumble grumble moan.

Half way through that paragraph, it stopped raining. Oh well, at least the air is cooler now and I can carry on marking in comfort.

Help me, I'm melting!

Save me from this stifling heat! It's been consistently hot for whole days at a stretch - unprecedented. It would be nice to enjoy this sunny weather, but we have been clearing out the back yard preparatory to doing a lot more house renovation. Thirty degrees is really not the weather to be lugging heavy things about the place and digging the garden, especially after throwing up a lot only a couple of nights ago as a result of too much digging.

It looks as though tomorrow will be even hotter, so we're changing tack slightly and painting the front windows and walls instead, because at least that involves standing relatively still. The sun is around the back of the house in the morning, so the front will be beautifully cool. Well, maybe not cool, but it won't be like the inside of a cowboy's chaps.

Here is another poem, possibly finished... I don't really know.

Inside Out

Soul's window, grimy, broken, boarded-up;
beyond in darkness lies a barren hall,
its vaulted ceiling filled with nightmare's stench,
illusive, transient, shaking silent walls -
dreams perish in this sepulchre to thought-crime.
Shades of years forgotten haunt the shadowed
places of this desolate, silent void.
Shattered glass gleams treach'rously and gashes
unwary aggressors, no fool unbloodied here.
Metallic slash and hack of rusty swords.
Within, screams lacerate the air, despairing -
corroded blades drip poison from without,
but cannot reach the psyche in its tomb.

A Villanelle

I needed 19 lines of poetry (well, pseudo-poetry in my case), so what better way than to compose a villanelle? The link will take you to a real one.

Memento mori for English flags

These tattered remnants of a fiesta
Free now from their life of noise:
A symphony of polyester

Fallen on the streets to fester,
Nothing more than broken toys,
These tattered remnants of a fiesta.

How they have the nerve to pester
And flutter along the road in convoys,
A symphony of polyester.

Tarmac graveyards beg to sequester
Red and white tributes to ‘our boys’ -
These tattered remnants of a fiesta

Wear the livery of a jester.
Witness how this team deploys
A symphony of polyester.

It’s time now for the long siesta.
No longer are they brave envoys,
These tattered remnants of a fiesta,
A symphony of polyester.

Just when you think...

...you've finished your work, some more comes along.

`So, what's been happening in PoodleWorld of late? Well, some IKEA kitchen cupboards have been built, a wood floor has been laid, some painting has been done and many essays have been marked, none of which has left time for much else. Nevertheless, last weekend we toddled off to Blickling Hall in Norfolk on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far. As a result, our tour of the gardens was limited to gazing out from the relative coolness of the building, wishing that we had a camel's ability to conserve liquid. Our drive home deteriorated into a new form of 'I-Spy', in which we counted the fallen World Cup football memorabilia strewn along the roadside. The record, sad to say, was held by a stretch of road leading into Clacton which sported 22 flags gasping their last vestiges of footy strength as they fluttered weakly in the wind.

We also spotted a couple of signs for a 'Stately Car Boot' which was not, in fact, referring to the vastness of the luggage storage of a particular make of car, but advertising second-hand sales in the grounds of stately homes. I don't know whether the concept of a car boot sale is an English phenomenon, but it ought to be, as there is a cerain seedy tackiness to the whole affair. The amateur car-booter turns up in a battered Fiesta filled with tat and deals directly from the boot of the car. However, for years now, a wave of professional car-booters has swept the nation, turning up in, at the very least, a Transit, or possibly even an old Luton van filled with boxes of goods and racks of clothing. The Luton boys have the edge, using the tail-lift (if they have one), as an impromptu stage from which they perform to the crowds. What is odd about most of this second-hand tat is that most of it isn't second-hand. You would hope not, anyway, given the number of food stalls. But getting back to the 'Stately Car Boot', that whole idea brings to mind images of tweed-clad middle-aged posh couples dealing from the boots of their Jaguars and Mercedes...

Tweed-clad Lady Thingummy: Do come quickly to take advantage of one's most temptingly wicked offers to date - a delightful fox fur, only slightly worn; our last five gold-plated supermarket trolley tokens with a Waitrose logo; Royal Worcester cake stand, special offer if one also takes the tea service. Come along, don't be shy - stiff upper lip and all that!

German Day

Today I shall be writing mainly in German... but fortunately not here. It's German TMA day and I have to finish off my work on media invasion, record my presentation and post it off to my tutor for my other Open University course, LZX203. I should have done it yesterday, but that was tricky because the sound of drilling in the kitchen (we are in the middle of renovating our house) was louder than my voice on the tape, besides affecting my ability to concentrate. At all. Today I have only the sound of a broken stair being chiselled away from the frame with a wrecking bar, prior to being replaced (I expect there will be more drilling). No problem. The sound of splintering wood will surely enhance my presentation. I wonder whether my teeth will sound like that on Monday? I'm off to see the dentist, you see...

Snuffle

Well here's a joy. I woke up (late) today sneezing and snuffling, went downstairs to get a pack of paper tissues and discovered that the outer packaging was sticky with some kind of perfume stuff from the supermarket. Then I rubbed my eye...

...ten minutes and much washing of burning eye later, I discovered that the damned perfume wouldn't come off my hands, causing even more sneezing and snuffling because I'm allergic to virtually every chemical perfume in the universe. Several hours and numerous trips to wash my hands later, the evil stuff is virtually gone. Unfortunately the sneezes and snuffles are still here. Curses on it, and I have a German TMA to record today! I wonder whether I can go into extra time to accommodate the sneezing? Will I lose marks if I sneeze in the wrong accent?

Once I had settled back down in bed, feeling suitably sorry or myself, the postman arrived with a large batch of essays to be marked. Obviously, I pulled on various outer clothes because it's far too embarrassing to go to the gate in pyjamas in the afternoon. I was actually hoping that it was a delivery of books from Amazon, otherwise I might have let him leave a card to avoid the sneezing efforts of rushing around. At least it saves a visit to the sorting office.

Now, wheezing feebly and sneezing more than ever, I think the best option is to go to sleep!

Aaargh! Can't go to sleep! The car tax is due! :-(

Cheerio. :-)