My love affair is over

And so my three year love affair is over. That slim purple-jacketed companion, by my side since September 2012, has betrayed me. I went to bed with it, woke up with it, dozed to the 'Today' programme as early as six-thirty a.m. on it - while morning sunlight tried to bring me fully to consciousness.

Yes the ipad has let me down. I am in a period of mourning.

 I see, from user groups - whose members are also suffering from an equally great sense of loss - Apple don't offer much support when the ipad crashes. Non-techie types like me have to go to 'settings' and, it appears, switch things off to stop my old ipad 2 crashing even further.

Now I have to wait forty seconds to get back to a page I was using before shut down. I seem to be clicking the RESTORE button at least three times before the iplayer, the wiki page or Sainsburys online shopping site settles down again for my uninterrupted enjoyment. Forty seconds - that's a life time.

Tonight - wearied by said ipad - I played an old video of 'Hannah and her Sisters' on my mother's ancient TV - which we have manoevered into our bedroom, along with boxes of videod programmes recorded in the 90s or earlier. Another lifetime away.

How standards have changed! Why couldn't I get exactly the right hue for the fleshtones of Michael Caine, Mia Farrow et al? Where was the control for that? Why do I have to put up with dark images because I can't adjust the picture sufficiently? And then the story takes over and I stop trying for the perfect picture - content to enjoy the film.

So there's the moral. The more we try for technological excellence the less content we become. The more we feel let down when hand-held gadgets are less reliable than we believed them to be the more irritable we are.

Until, that is, a simple act like picking up an item as old-fashioned as a book makes us realise that waiting forty seconds is no trial. The love affair - giving immediate gratification and instant interaction - has merely turned into a new relationship - requiring patience and understanding. Perhaps the ipad is evolving as I write. Maybe it's doing clever things, things I don't have the wit to understand while I'm messing about with this feature - my blog.

The iplayer on my ipad seems to function better in its current version. Perhaps I'm paying for that improvement by having to press the RESTORE button just to read wiki. Who knows? Apple? Techies? ipadders? Everyone other than I?

In the end it hardly matters. I have an iphone and two lap tops. At least one of these gadgets will give me what I need - or want - when I need or want it.

I first went onto a website around 1995. In 1985 I was using a BBC Basic computer which kept breaking down. That was at work and we had to send for the whole IT team to fix it - and that took far longer than forty seconds. So I've been patient with technology before. Will have to remember what being patient feels like.

Or maybe just get a life.

Hippo in the High Street

I like to read BBC News on iplayer. By the time I get to watch Sky News or BBC News 24 or Al Jazeerah the headlines are already old. The story of hippos in the streets of flood-hit Georgia seemed to take a time to get aired on broadcast news. The sight of a hippo, disorientated, enjoying a fearful new-found freedom, hungry, and a survivor of his flood-damaged enclosure, seemed too memorable an image to be ignored. It did feel like an age before the flood in Georgia made it to big-time news. I believe it was when a white tiger attacked and killed a man, ripping out his throat, that the news was broadcast on TV. The tiger was shot.

More shocking is the notion that no-one knows how many beasts are dead, drowned from the flood, escaped, trapped or merely wandering - possibly injured. Animals are fierce when they are hungry and wounded. I do hope people who have survived the flood can stay safe from wolves, bears, lions and tigers who may be in their back garden while they scrabble about, trying to deal with a flooded house. The volunteers and rescuers are brave folks but everyone is unsafe until the total number of zoo animals on the loose is known and all can be accounted for.

A double-whammy to have hit the Georgian people. I find, more and more, we are lucky to live where we do. Yes the river in Bath could flood - as does our favourite watering hole - The Bathampton Mill, but I don't think we are at risk of being attacked - and likely killed - by a wild, hungry escapee from a zoo.

Let's hope the animals are rounded up very soon. I wonder what might happen if any of the female wolves, lions or tigers were pregnant when the floods hit their cages.That could lead to a whole new problem if a litter is born -  in the next days or weeks - within the city boundary. Wild big cats or wolves with their babies would create a constant source of fear and anxiety for citizens trying to come to terms with their damaged homes and shopping areas, highways and office blocks.

The image of a hippo in the High Street would be surreal if it weren't so ominous.

Far from the Madding Crowd

When farmer Oak smiled ... So begins chapter one - that is if you're reading Thomas Hardy - but not if you are watching this year's film release starring Carey Mulligan. The actors do well against beautiful location shots. But with such lines as 'Whenever I look up there you will be and whenever you look up there I will be' missing totally from the script I wondered whether anyone had tried reading the text. 'The knot of knots there's  no untying' was removed from the script too. The excellent scene where Troy says to Fanny after she's gone to the wrong church for their wedding 'More fool you for so fooling me'  was, yes, you guessed it, absent too.

Troy is badly cast - imho - the scene where he shows Bathsheba his sword fighting skills doesn't excite. Fanny has no dog to lean on as she struggles to the workhouse. The reason poor Fanny's coffin  
rests for a night at Bathsheba's farm is because the driver of the 'hearse' is too late for the church. While she is cold in her coffin he has been carousing in the pub. The pitiful scene where Troy tries to plant bulbs on her grave, too late a task, and they are washed away by water from the spout in the mouth of the ugly gargoyle above her resting place, is completely missing. Bathsheba spends a night sleeping out of doors - outcast. Shouldn't this have been included? Another key scene which has vanished is where Troy is disguised as a player in a travelling circus and sees Bathsheba and farmer Boldwood in the audience - as a couple - she's been told he's drowned.

Why bother making a film of a book and make it into a typical Saturday evenng TV drama ? With such rich phrases from  Hardy still available to us - why not use these profound words?

Tragedy in Kathmandu

When we were first married Richard and I enjoyed a trip to India and Nepal - it lasted around three weeks. One of my memories from then is seeing wild monkeys jumping over the monkey temple. They were as numerous as squirrels chasing up trees in the woods near our house. Kathmandu was the place where I saw groups of mother-less children living rough, supporting each other, sleeping inside sacks - night after night. Such images don't leave you.
Now it is a place of great tragedy as the death toll from the earthquake rises ever more sharply with each bulletin. I will, of course, make a donation through the Red Cross to help in some small way.

For those of you who know my work I have long had an interest in Sierra Leone. My short story 'Austerity' - about life near Freetown after civil war - hints at medical poverty but in my revisions I will actively refer to Ebola.
On Saturday our house is an Open Studio - part of the Larkhall Festival and one of four art trails around Bath. Richard is donating 20% of proceeds from sales of his framed works - of the people of Sierra Leone - to the Ebola Fund. There is still work to be done in SL. Many families have been displaced and their monies lost through failed businesses, following the horrendous epidemic.  The people of Sierra Leone still need support as they rebuild their lives. If you can please come along and support our efforts ( We are open Saturday, Sunday and Monday) & thanks for reading my blog.

Selective Reading

When is a bookgroup a hindrance rather than a help? When you have sooo much to read more titles simply become overwhelming rather than enlightening! Having just read the mighty Anna Karenina I found it, sacrilege I know, a distraction rather than a help. I don't think I have the tolerance, for the moment at least, for 19th century Russian aristocratic society with its curious mix of wealth and restrictions. Some beautiful phrases and philosophies, of course, but I feel I want to read shorter works. Eight hundred pages - as for Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries - is toooo much. It's simply because I want to work at my own novel - so I need the time and headspace now.
I feel I'm ready to read Polly Samson. As she's published a collection of short stories and written a novel incorporating a family member I feel she might be one for me to watch. So I may miss a couple of bookgroup titles and concentrate on writerly-supportive reading - thereby helping develop my own writing style.


It's a year since mum's stroke and of course one has to be cognisant of the fact that the upheaval has taken its toll; on us - the rest of her family; physically - simply moving mum and her belongings is a massive task; sorting out her house ( our childhood home) and the emotional impact of it all.
It could explain why my back has been especially painful for a number of weeks and why I'm so tired. On a happier note I may be able to use the skills of a professional author in a couple of months time. It would be wonderful to get a rigorous read through of 'Coming of Age' with a critique from a published writer. It's what I need now!

So back to the writing. Selective reading may have to be my priority ...

Mothering Sunday and my birthday

As mum reaches her ninetieth birthday I'm getting closer to another milestone; I'm nearer sixty than fifty now. As well as the solar eclipse on Friday two other worlds have collided this weekend - it was my birthday yesterday - the first one where mum was not able to send me a birthday card nor ring me - and today is Mothers' Day - the first time I won't be able to pick up the phone to speak to her. Hey ho. The times they are a changing. I'm very lucky to have had an attentive and loving mum - many don't - and so lucky to have a mum strong enough to survive a massive stroke - again many don't.

Mum hates the phrase Mothers' Day and insists it's Mothering Sunday. She often went to the Mothering Sunday church service at St. Leonard's and always said it was a special Sunday set aside for girls in service - maids, housekeepers and the like - to go home to see their mothers.

Still next Thursday or Friday we'll go and see her. It'll be interesting to see if she can remember it was my birthday and Mothering Sunday. She'll likely remember some of it.

The surgeon at New Cross hospital have done a good job on her face and she is now discharged. I will be glad to see it healed - last time I saw mum her face was full of black stitches - but in no pain. What a year this has been! The stroke was last April and we are just coming to terms with hospital visits, travelling with her in ambulances, seeing consultants and carers, nurses and nursing home matrons.

Mum has, thankfully, recovered from her bedsore, is eating well and enjoys a sherry. She still likes her cups of tea, isn't in much pain and likes to talk. It would be good to see her sitting out but she hates the hoist - preferring the comfort of her bed. Would I be any different aged ninety, following a stroke?
         
On Thursday we went for a birthday meal, a scrumptious fish platter. Yesterday - a dull, cool March day, we went for a bucks fizz and back for our party in the evening. Three of us, from two writers' groups, read fiction to our guests. My reading was from chapter one of my novel 'Coming of Age'. How timely that I interviewed mum long before her stroke so her recall about my great aunt, Eliza Augusta, the main protagonist, was very very sharp. Mina read her short story, The Barn and Sue read a powerful monologue as if written by a thug in a comprehensive school, with a frightening ending.
Each piece had its strengths - and were refreshingly different. It's all good prac for reading in front of an audience.

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It's usually a sign that it's been a hard winter when daffodils are still closed by mid-March - my birthday. In fact it has been a sunny winter, but the last two weeks have been cool so the buds have stayed tightly closed. After a mild winter the daffodils can be over by March 14th, with yellow petals withered and turning brown - this year the plants are up and just ready to burst open. After a very cold winter, sometimes with snow and ice on the ground for weeks, daffodils might still be struggling to emerge from the still-cold soil. Maybe only an inch or two showing above the ground. My birthday is a good marker in more ways than one.  
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Now that I have some of mum's belongings in our house, safe from builders' claw hammers!, I was able to post an ensemble picture of mum and her favourite pieces of china for Mothers' Day aka Mothering Sunday. The photograph of her as baby - one she never liked - and the ornate Italian table centre appear in my novel 'Coming of Age '. The photograph is ninety years old and the table centre belonged to Eliza Augusta. All are important details in my novel. Important artefacts in my family history. Things aren't as important as people but they are reminders of lives led, the people who led them, and our lives as children. Happy birthday to me for yesterday and happy Mothers' Day. I hope mum can enjoy something of it!

A lot to be grateful for

So glad people are telling me they read my blog. I'm equally pleased we are planning another evening of readings - from our own writing - two writers' groups sharing their work. It gives us a chance to get used to performing in front of others. Modern writing and new writers performing quietly, away from the small screen, amidst current re-enactments on television : old events and seasoned campaigners. Cromwell in Wolf Hall to Churchill to Eichmann.

We live in interesting times and I feel there is much to be grateful for. Our country is at peace, we have no burning at the stake nor public executions. No Wolf Hall.  My friends and I live comfortably, with freedom of choice, in warm houses and with plenty to eat, while the temperatures drop outside. Perhaps we owe our freedom and comfort partly to the leadership of a man who fought for Great Britain many years before I was born. Sir Winston Churchill.

It is fifty years since I saw his waterborne coffin being carried on the Thames - through the medium of television. I was a child and knew who Churchill was, of course, but it is the commentary - the phrase ' his final journey' which has remained with me. What did these words really mean? Had he planned his final journey, had he travelled this way before?

It was a spectacle for television - all the more meaningful,  I would say, its being filmed in monochrome against a grey winter sky. A sombre spectacle.

Another sombre spectacle is the filming of the Eichmann trial. Another 'leader' or at least a deputy leader who commanded so much power millions died.

Now to current events. Prince Andrew - who was born slightly after me - is defending himself  by speaking to people of his innocence in front of millions, again through the medium of television. Leon Brittan has died and one newspaper says he will be hunted beyond the grave. Both Prince Andrew and Leon Brittan have denied any wrong-doing. I, for one, am glad I am not in the public eye. I like my privacy and I cannot believe I would enjoy TV cameras being pointed at me. Then I see Emma Healey for the Costa First Novel Award being interviewed by Nick Higham. She's written a book about Alzheimers. She's known now. Her life will never be the same again.

The TV is prominent in our lives and it's so easy to switch between vastly different worlds. We move from those who fought against evil to those who perpetrated it within seconds, using the remote control, (or the press of a virtual button on the ipad). If we don't like what we see we can forget it. Unless of course we are the one at the centre of the storm. The one with the cameras on us. Which brings me back to performance evenings.

Some of us are naturals at reading out our work to an audience. It can be quite scary even to someone like me who taught schoolchildren for 32 years - an 'unappreciative audience' ? But reading aloud to others is nothing truly frightening in the scheme of things - we have a lot to be grateful for in an uncertain world. We are not fighting for our lives or scraping money together to live in an overcrowded flat. Today, hours before I watched extracts about Churchill and Eichmann,  I read about a father and son who died in Syria, not from bullets but from the sheer cold.

It's good to reflect that we have a lot to be grateful for.