The People's Friend - Serial Writing Competition

Well here I am back sooner than I thought, but I just had to share this with you and for once it is a proper writerly post.

In this week’s People’s Friend you will find details of their fantastic serial writing competition and I highly recommend having a go.

It’s a long time since I’ve had the time to write a serial, but from my own experience I can tell you it is very rewarding.

And unlike a lot of writing competitions these days, there is no entry fee and there is a proper prize.

All you have to do is buy this week’s issue for all the details and if you’re not already a regular reader don’t just buy it for the competition, take time to enjoy the stories and articles too. I’m looking forward to the weekend when I intend to put my feet up and have a good read.

If that’s not enough for you, there are also details of their Fiction Workshops.

D C Thomson has always had a reputation for encouraging new writers. When I started out in the early 1980s, I found their advice and encouragement invaluable. And here they are all these years later, still doing it!

If you fancy a sneak peek at the stories in this week’s magazine, take a look at Fiction Editor Shirley Blair’s post here. I’m not even sure I can wait till the weekend….

Good luck if you decide to have a go.

Tardy - that will be me.

I love that word – tardy. And that’s just what I’ve been with regard to blogging and reading blogs. And I think I may be tardy for a little longer.

It’s been a busy few weeks. For the first full week of the summer holidays I looked after six grandchildren. Their ages, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10. I know – I’m missing a 9 and I do like things to be neat. Too late now. And by the end of this month I’ll have no 7 but two 8s. The time passes a lot faster than it did when my kids were growing up.

We had a lovely week. We went crabbing twice, but after putting the caught crabs in the bucket and admiring them, we let them go straight away. It seems cruel to hold them in a bucket for any period of time and dangerous for the smaller crabs too.

When we'd finished, we fed the leftover bait to the gulls. No one will ever convince me that these birds should be culled and I hope this government will leave them alone or we'll have no wildlife left.

I took them to Mistley Place Park, a local rescue centre where they fell in love with goats, pigs, alpaca and well, everything really! If ever you're in the area, it's well worth a visit. Mistley is famous for its swans. It is also the home of Old Knobbley. Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, is buried there.

And of course there was the beach and swimming – pool and sea. It wasn't as murky as it looks - the water was very clear which is usually a sign that it's cold!

We did tie-dyeing too which was fun and I was the only one that got dyed. I have a tiny blue mark on one of my fingernails which no amount of washing will shift.

I used to tie-dye T shirts in the 70s but in a completely different way. It would involve lots of rubber bands, my mum’s big Dutch pot and only one colour used. Because there was a lot of dye, friends would come round and we’d cook our T shirts together in the same pot.

I’ve seen the ENT consultant who looked at my sinuses with a camera on a tube thingy and said they were lovely and healthy! Well that was a surprise. I had to go back for a CT scan and I’m awaiting the results of that.

Harley will be two this month. We don’t know her exact birth date, but we chose the 28^th August.

Here’s a photo of her when she was a kitten.

Oops wrong cat.

It’s not just grandchildren that grow up faster these days!

All right, Dusty – I won’t forget you. This summer Dusty has mostly been in the sea (and on Harley’s kitty thingy) and playing with his best friend, Poppy who stayed with us all last week. He couldn't believe his luck having her for sleepovers every day! 

After my tardy summer, I hope to return to regular blogging in September - but who knows, things happen and change and the best laid plans and all that...

Happy Writing!

Getting On

I haven’t posted an update for a while re Dusty and Harley.

Dusty had to have another six week course of antibiotics earlier this year (after I’d posted the last update) for his persistent jaw infection and our vet hopes that if it comes back again, it will be possible to give him more antibiotics rather than operate to remove that part of his jaw. Of course there is no way of knowing how this will turn out and I don’t want to jinx things like I usually do, so I’m saying nothing….

After Harley had her teeth cleaned and came home with sparkly gnashers and a clean bill of health, I took her back a couple of months later for a check-up and the tartar was back. She has dental food, Plaque-off and dental treats. Neal says I am doing everything right and like Dusty, Harley is a mystery.

She has to go back in July for another check and if there is still a problem, Neal will repeat the tests as the one for calicivirus (which was what he thought it might be) can give a false negative result.

It’s so odd because she is otherwise healthy, her coat is as soft as silk and lovely and thick and her eyes are bright. I’ve had a peek at her gums and I’m saying nothing – I don’t want to jinx her either. She loves the big chunky dental biscuits and munches into them with no problem which indicates that her gums aren’t sore.

And we’ve been back to the vet with Dusty as he started holding one back leg up – sort of. He was balancing on his toes, just in the evenings. He still bounces up and down on his back legs in typical spring-er spaniel fashion and out on his walks, he never limps or falters.

He’s been on an anti-inflammatory medication for the past two weeks and has stopped standing on his toes. Today he went back, starved and ready for sedation in case he needed an x ray, but because he’s doing so well, they decided to wait and see. Now he has to stop the anti-inflammatory and if the limp comes back, then he will have to have the x ray.

The worry is that he has a cruciate ligament problem. I don’t even want to think about that and what it could entail.

And me? After five lots of antibiotics, I’ve got an appointment with an ENT specialist in August – almost a year after my problems started. Would you believe within a week of the appointment coming through, I started to feel a lot better? Not completely though, so I won’t cancel the appointment.

In other news, my youngest grandchild starts school in September. Gulp. What a milestone!

New Short Story Collection

I've finally got round to putting another collection of stories on Kindle.

There are twenty stories included and all have been published in The People's Friend. 

In the title story Margaret thinks a mouse is pinching her cakes. Meanwhile, out in the garden, something is eating husband Gordon's chrysanthemums - or so he thinks!

There are also stories of romance, new babies, friendships and weddings, all with love at their heart.

Margaret's Mouse & Other Stories is available for Kindle from AmazonUK and Amazon.

The Perils of Forgetting Your Camera

Phone cameras are great. But there are times when you need the Real Thing.

We went to the 70^th Anniversary of VE Day Open Day at the Harwich Redoubt Fort. It’s always a great place to visit with the kids. Then we had a stroll round Old Harwich and ended up sitting on the Ha’penny Pier with drinks from the café.

We then went down onto the pontoon and watched a very nice man and his lovely little boy (and beautiful dog) crabbing. He let the children hold the crabs and pull in the lines, then we all watched as they released the crabs to race back into the sea.

We thought we’d missed the flypast by the P-51 Mustang, but as we were heading for home, it zoomed overhead. We watched all the wonderful manoeuvres, hearts in mouths as the pilot flew low over the trees before soaring upwards.

I took some photos with my phone.

Brilliant isn’t it? It was there - you'll have to take my word for it. Just out of shot.

Here it is again.

And another.

Yes, I know - it's a seagull.

You wouldn’t believe how many photos of the sky I had to delete. But I did manage to get a couple – more by accident than design.

I particularly like the one above of the plane flying over the Dubs.

Seagull and plane! They're both there, honestly.

I feel very lucky that I did not have to live through the times my parents did. Very lucky.

Naughty, Very Naughty

I can’t believe it’s been such a long time since I visited my blog. Naughty, very naughty as Pompidou would say. Has anyone else watched Pompidou? I loved it – the kids did too, particularly the first episode.

I was going to say it must be warming up. My little Harleybird planted herself in the pot with the rhododendron and stayed there all afternoon soaking up the sun. Meanwhile, I put my winter boots and my warm dog-walking jacket away. So yes, you can blame me for the temperature plunge.

I recently read Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey’s debut novel (recommended to me by my friend Jan – thank you, Jan). It is the first time for a while I haven’t been able to put a book down and I read it over about four days.

The Terrible Twosome like to keep an eye on what’s going on outside. They wag at the postman even when he brings me big brown envelopes and they wag at most dogs, but if they see someone/thing they don’t like (escaped carrier bag/cat-who-beats-Harley-up/threatening looking leaf), the tails go rigid and there’s barking. Lots of barking. Fortunately they seem to like most people/dogs/cats/birds so there isn't a lot of noise - thank goodness.

Hibernating!

It’s been a while since I was here and I’ve neglected the poor old blog a bit. I haven’t been about in Blogland much at all. It feels almost as if I’ve been hibernating.

I think because I decided to stop visiting Facebook (well, I do still pop in now and then, but I’ve probably missed a lot) I’ve tended to stay away generally from the internet.

When I took Dusty for his post-op check in Newmarket between Christmas and New Year, he’d had a flare up of the infection which they said was “disappointing”. I was given a choice of waiting to see if the antibiotics worked or having another scan. I decided to give the antibiotics a chance.

But I came away worried. If the infection came back, the vet I saw said it would mean another scan, an operation and the possibility of removing part of his jaw. “They manage very well after such surgery,” the vet told me. The problem is when an infection gets into the bone, it is hard for the antibiotics to get to the site.

It played on my mind so much that I made an appointment to see our own vet Tom in January, but an emergency came in and I saw Neil instead. He was very kind and reassuring and took plenty of time to talk me through what might happen. I know the infection could come back at any time so I can’t say he’s better, but we’re taking one day at a time.

At the same time he gave Harley her annual check-up and boosters and found her teeth absolutely thick with tartar and her gums all red and sore. What a shock!

So she was booked in to have her teeth cleaned, given an antibiotic shot and had cultures taken to send to the University of Glasgow just in case there was some underlying cause of the gingivitis.

In the meantime, my lovely friend Pat (thank you, Pat) recommended Plaque-off for Harley, so I got some and she loves it on her food.

The results came back clear. No obvious cause. The only thing I can think is that it had something to do with her poor start in life – she was thrown over the sea wall with her brother as a kitten and luckily someone saw it happen and saved them.

So she now has her Plaque-off and special dental food which I mix in with her normal food, plus any treats she has are dental ones, like Toothies. Her gums look fine at the moment and she’s going back for a check-up in a month or so. In the meantime, Dusty is keeping a close eye on her!

Every day after his walk Dusty has a bath. I make sure there is no sand or dirt or grit left for him to lick off. He only goes out in the garden on a lead so there’s no chance of him rooting round and picking anything up such as cat poo, bugs, thorny branches or stones.

And he doesn’t have any of his chewy toys any more, just his treat ball. It sounds as if I’ve taken all the fun out of his life doesn’t it, but he’s just as happy and even happier when Poppy is round to play. He runs for miles along the shore and over the marshes so he gets plenty of exercise. So does Poppy. And she sleeps a lot!

As for me, the sinus infection came back. I had another course of antibiotics which caused all the usual nasty side effects – and didn’t work anyway. I tried the steroid nasal spray which made me feel a lot worse. Then I got myself a neti pot which I found unpleasant – it’s like a little teapot and you pour water up one nostril and it comes down the other one. I react badly to decongestants, so I can’t take those – sigh. Never happy am I?

Pat suggested Homeopathy (thank you again, Pat), so I’m giving that a go now along with a saline nasal spray, but I’ll go back to the doctor if it doesn’t clear up.

Honestly this blog is starting to read more like a list of ailments and moans. I’ll try to think of something more interesting and uplifting next time.

Almost everyone I know has been ill one way or another this winter, but there are snowdrops out and the daffs are in bud and the days are getting longer. Spring will soon be here! What a lovely thought.