Spiders love the ivy in our shady front garden.

I have been waging war on the kitchen ceiling, polyfiller and spatula at the ready. The job would be so much easier if I could levitate. This would save having to climb up a stepladder and twist half-upside down so I can smooth away miniature potholes which bring something of a lunar texture to our temple of culinary experimentation.

The house acts like a magnet for moths. There was a large, fat orange-brown one flitting round earlier, and snoozing on the ceiling is a particularly beautiful moth which looks like a Spanish lace fan. No wonder so many have been hanging out in our house--the bats are out in full force tonight.

I've been photographing a few things in the garden, and have also begun weeding around the grove--which is badly overgrown with mare's tail. I've yet to find anything which can kill off mare's tail without destroying the soil for years to come. Anyway, the good news is that my Lady's Mantle has re-established itself under the contorted hazel--which I've given a sensitive prune so now its branches form a 'natural' arch over the entrance to the grove.

Writing: This month's project for Riverside Writers was to produce a poem of short story on the theme of "one more day". I didn't fancy doing a mopey tale (along the lines of having one more day to live, for eg.) and so I ended up with a very short tale--Party Time, 1,250 words--about a retiring Special Ops agent's last day of work. He has a surprise up his sleeve, but I won't give away more than that.

Bethany Rose currently stands at 56,300 words. Progress has slowed while I've been promoting the Parallel Dimensions event which takes place on July 11th. Oodles of press releases have been sent out for that. Also, I've been editing Rowan and have cut a couple of conversations completely. If dialogue doesn't contribute to the plot then it doesn't need to be there.

A gradual increase of humidity implies the immanence of rain. Outside, birds are singing in the trees or foraging for nesting materials beneath the shrubs in my garden. The dogs are snoozing after a “hard” afternoon helping me fix the brick path, which was in need of re-laying on its sandy bed as most of the bricks had crept badly out of alignment and were clogged with weeds.

Ygraine helped by digging holes in the sand (immediately after I’d got it nice and level, ready for the bricks to go back). Emily ran off with the foam kneeling pad (brand new as of yesterday) and shredded one corner before I could re-assert my role as pack alpha.

Emily also buried a dog chew in the (nicely levelled) sand while I was engaged in refusing a “free quote” from someone who swore black was white that he wasn’t a salesman. So they’re giving products away free? No? Hmm, thought not.

Ok, I’ll admit it; salesmen annoy me. One of my pet hates are phone pests who cheerfully erupt into well-rehearsed waffle about how much money they can save me, even though they know nothing of my finances. And they will learn nothing, as I refuse to discuss finance over the telephone. There is no way of knowing who you’re talking to or who has access to the recorded information.

House-callers hoping to sell windows, driveways and similar are at least honest in their intent. The varmints who pretend to be from “your” fuel company are the ones which have to be watched, as they’re often trying to fool the unwary into sighing over to another company. When they sweetly ask if I usually pay my bills by standing order or by cheque (or some similar question) I point out that if I genuinely was their customer, they’d have all that information already. Then I say thanks but no thanks and close the door, not matter what theatrical prose they then try to launch off into.

Well, maybe they hate their jobs too. But that is not my problem.

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

New slogan tees, hot off the - well, not off the press so much as off Photo Impression 4, but you know what I mean...! All the designs can be swopped onto other styles of t-shirt (either gender, large range of sizes/prices/colours).

Gardening: I've been patiently lifting aquilegia seedlings from between the gaps in the brick path. It's not a job which can be rushed, otherwise the lifting-out of the bricks could easily squash the tender stems, killing the very plants I've been attempting to save. Still, it's worth the effort as they have such pretty flowers and readily self-seed. Hopefully this Autumn, they'll self-seed in the flower beds and not in the most impractical place imaginable!

No news about 7 Waves Radio; I'll keep you posted.

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

Take a peek at my new range of fine art posters, which are also available on bags, t-shirts and greetings cards. You’ll find them on http://www.zazzle.com/AdeleCB either on the main page or listed under New Products. Let me know what you think!

Wirral Bookfest 2009 will go ahead despite the closure of many local libraries. The date for my writers’ workshop is yet to be confirmed, but Riverside Writers’ evening performance, New Tales for Old Byways has now been booked for Wednesday October 10th, 7pm at West Kirby Library. Last year’s similar event, Words from Wordsmiths, drew a decent-sized audience so we’re hoping that with improved publicity for this year things will be even better.

The gorgeous spring sunshine has enabled me to get some gardening done! The Lily of the Valley root-ball has been potted up now; so have the pretty yellow celandines that Mum gave to me from her own garden. Evelyn’s multi-coloured primulas are now planted in one of the borders, their position being limited to a location unlikely to be flattened during our two dogs’ haste to exchange woofing contests with our new neighbours’ two dogs. Ours are female; theirs are male--and it is spring….!

Work on Bethany Rose continues, of course. The total word count now comes to 35,000. I’m aiming at 100,000 again, so obviously there’s much to be done yet. Yesterday an idea popped into my head, which used the title of a book I read some twenty years ago: Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John. It was simply the perfect book for BR to be reading at that moment in the plot. It’s interesting how the mind can hold on to information for so long, even when that data seems almost trivial and without practical purpose.

Who knows how much our subconscious contains, hmm? For example, how many times have you sung along to an old, old tune and remembered the words perfectly even though you’ve given that song no thought for most of a lifetime? It’s interesting how the brain remembers some silly things but then forgets stuff it could do with hanging onto. Or maybe we really do remember everything but are too lazy to retrieve “boring” data from our brain’s memory banks? I suspect there’s a subatomic-sized librarian in there somewhere, pottering around my grey matter, and far too fond of tea breaks for the benefit of her own career.

Our garden is slowly but surely coming to life. The snowdrops are starting to go over now but the crocus look like scattered jewels. Everyone’s daffodils seem late this year. Ours are in bud now but they won’t be in flower for about another week, but these few daffs were open in Ashton Park, West Kirby, beside the bowling greens.

I managed to give the lawns their first mow of the year--and disturbed a huge green-faun frog in the process. He reluctantly hopped away into the hedgerow, out of harm’s way.

In the front garden, Richard has dug out the tangled heap which began life as two separate shrubs and an ivy. A stout bramble had rooted itself right in the centre of these, which only added to the problem. The easiest way was to clear it all out totally. Now we’re left with a bald patch. I’m considering putting in a small frog pond. We get many frogs and toads, and maybe they’d appreciate somewhere to paddle.

Rowan

Work on editing Rowan has slowed, mostly due to me concentrating on writing Bethany Rose. The two are completely different in mood, so it's been interesting to flip from one to the other. The ink sketch above is from my character charts, and can be seen on merch on my Zazzle site too.

I'll be attending a First Aid course tomorrow, run by the Red Cross. The reasons are partly research, partly general practicality--or, in plain English, it might come in handy at some point. I have done some First Aid before but it was, ooooow, centuries ago. Time for an update, methinks.

We have sunshine! Yaay!!! Yellow crocus and snowdrops are in bloom in our garden now. Hopefully I'll be able to get into the garden this afternoon to do some more weeding.

Ygraine had her first haircut of the year yesterday, too. I think she looks cute fluffy but her coat gets tangled so easily, even when she's brushed regularly. Mind you, she loves being brushed; she'll pat at the drawer where her brush is kept to let us know what she wants. Emily has her own method of getting attention, which usually involves clobbering one of us around the ankles with her squeaky rubber chicken or the headless duck. (It used to have a head but it came adrift during a game of tug-o-war.)

We know we're not supposed to be on here....

Wrote 1,850 words this morning, which takes the total word-count for Bethany Rose up to 23,250 so far. Writing the spooky bits is such fun...!

Warm spring sunshine yesterday enabled me to get some weeding done. Today's torrential rain has forced me to postpone further efforts. We have three yellow crocus and a patch of snowdrops in bloom. What happened to the rest of my crocus though? I planted heaps of them four years ago, and there has been less each year. Anyway, yesterday I had no sooner finished weeding a stretch of one border when a cute little robin came to investigate. I was looking out of the kitchen window as I was washing my hands, and saw a wren on the fence.

Bathed the dogs yesterday. I managed to capture them in the bathroom by stealth. Otherwise if they hear the 'B' word they hide under the bed and will not come out! I bathed Emily first as she was the cleanest. I'd no sooner towelled her dry than she jumped back in the bath to torment Ygraine. So then I had to clean the bathroom too--completely.

Sylvia's beloved dog, Gelert, died on Tuesday. He'd had a couple of peculiar wobbly spells recently, and then he had another and died twenty minutes later. Poor Sylvia is devastated. As any pet owner will tell you, shen a pet dies it's like losing a member of your closest family--more so, quite often, as people often far prefer their pets to their legal relatives.

Reminder: Until Friday, you'll still be able to hear Spanish Jones (part one) on http://www.citytalk.fm/showdj.asp?DJID=48793 Just move the curser along almost to the end of the show, as I'm on then.

Forget the big fuss about Obama, here's the real news:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/4303450/Stig-mystery-reignited-amid-claims-he-is-played-by-four-actors.html



The garden desperately needs weeding, and several shurbs need cutting back before spring starts. Otherwise the place will be a jungle even before summer inevitably makes this garden grow inches by the day... the ground's so wet, though, and Incy Wincy (pic above) and his/her buddies don't make it any easier. Those pesky things bite.





Here's a couple of Richard's recent creations; the last one was done on two brothers were were heading off to Iraq to fight.

Ooow, busy day... First I wrote the first draft of a 1,500 shorty for Riverside Writers' latest project which is on the theme of "the punch bowl"--so my tale of an office party is called simply Punch.

Next, the bedraggled hedge in our (freezing cold and distinctly soggy) front garden was returned to order with our strimmer. As I was working, our neighbour drove up in her car so I asked if she minded if I step into her front garden so I could trim both sides of the shared hedge level. She readily agreed. It looked a mess left uneven, so I did it for my own benefit. I left the trimmings strewn on her lawn. She and her two adult sons do have complete sets of fully functioning limbs, after all. *chuckles*

Then I tackled stray dust bunnies under the dressing table, and retrieved the remains of the shredded paper bag which Emily had dismantled under our bed. I even used the stinky "lemon" furniture polish which smells like how marmalade on burned toast tastes.

After that, I finished retyping School, all 5,070 words of it. I'll tweak it to lose the stray 70 before I'm done. This one's a Sci-Fi/Fantasy tale of student pranks and DNA experiments.

And now it's time to peel spuds for dinner! Au revoir!

List of all writers on LiveJournal:- http://domynoe.livejournal.com/80319.html

If you're a writer, editor, agent etc., (and have an LJ blog), you should be on this list.

No writing done today; the sunshine coaxed me to tackle some of the wildly overgrown shrubs and roses in the back garden. My dogs helped. Mostly this meant them running off with the pruned branches I'd put in a tidy pile, which means our patio is now sprinkled with mangled twigs. I'd brush up but the brush-head fell off the pole. Again. Besides, it was time for a cuppa.

Have you read anything by Paolo Coelho? I've just finished The Witch of Portobello, which was entertaining. I liked the way the novel had been structured so that Athena's story was told by all the people around her but not by Athena herself.

I'm now half-way through reading a strange novel called Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, which Richard picked up for me. The story is set on a Swedish sink estate, and revolves around two children and their neighbours. I don't usually bother with novels or films which dwell on poverty; the subject is only romantic to those who've never been hungry for real. This tale has kept my interest, however, if only because I want to see how the plot plays out.

Our area is being fitted with new gas pipes, both the mains pipes and those running into individual houses’ gas metres. Yesterday a man knocked on the door to ask what time it would be convenient for them to have access to our metre cupboard today. Knowing our usually-hectic Monday morning schedule, I said 12 noon and a note was duly made on the gas man’s list on his clipboard.

At 7.45am this morning, there was a racket directly outside our front door as a section of our block paving was ripped up and a hole dug. The soil from the hole was flung on top of my new plants, completely burying them. The loose bricks were hurled against the base of a shrub.

“There weren’t any plants there,” was the first response to Richard when he flew out to complain.

“Well my wife didn’t plant invisible plants, did she!” growled hubby.

“Oh, we didn’t see them,” came the next lame excuse.

When the spade-wielding man scraped back the soil, the somewhat squashed remains of my three new heucheras peeped limply from their resting place. The man squinted at them as if they were microscopic and said, “What, those little things?”

“They’re small because they’re new,” I said, biting back a sarcastic retort about young plants generally starting off small. They get bigger later on. It’s the usual way with all things young. (Sarcasm might be tempting, but it rarely helps.)

Anyway, then another man wanted to come inside to turn off our gas supply. This meant no one could get a shower. Richard had to put the kettle on so he could get a shave at least.

Then I looked out of the window to see what was happening, only to discover one of those portable barriers had been set down on top of the very same plants! So I marched out of the house—no workmen in sight otherwise many fleas would have been deposited in many ears—and put it back on the pavement outside. There was absolutely no reason for the barrier to be in the garden anyway, the hole having been filled up again by then. The paving bricks have not been put back.

Late in the afternoon, the gas supply was turned on again and our appliances tested. So there’s this bloke, the size of a modest barn, staring at our new gas fire and telling us it needs a flue. The big open chimney behind it is surely flue enough—two other Corgi gas fitters, both independent of the other, have said the fire is totally safe and it also has its safety certificate. Neither of them mentioned it needing a flue. Even Barn Man said it was safe and worked fine, but it would be “better” with a flue. Hmm, does said Barn Man happen to install flues, I wonder?!!

A similar rigmarole will occur tomorrow, too, as the gas company wants to replace the pipe which leads from our metre to the supply pipe. So why didn’t they do that today, while the metre was disconnected? According to the letter (which I saw being posted and just managed to catch as it blew away up the garden, the genius who tucked one tiny corner of it inside out mail box apparently being oblivious to the phenomena of wind) our metre might be disconnected until 8pm. Ooow, hubby is going to luuuurve that when he comes in from the studio…

Meanwhile, I’ve put bamboo cane wigwams round my poor, battered plants. Here’s hoping they survive tomorrow’s activity.

Some of Richard's recent work:-




Writing

Yesterday saw me in a meeting to make preliminary plans for Riverside Writers’ contribution to the Wirral Bookfest 2009. Last April I only managed to book Words from Wordsmiths at the last minute—quite literally, too; the information was waiting to be dispatched to the printer’s as I was speaking to the organiser. This time around, we’re booked in from the very start which should mean our event won’t clash with any similar event elsewhere.

Provisionally:-

Tuesday, April 21st; Hoylake Library, 11am-12.30.
"Kill Your Darlings!"
A free writers' workshop on developing fictional characters, led by yours truly.

Thursday, April 23rd; West Kirby Library, 7pm-9pm.
"New Tales for Old Byways"
Wirral life explored through original poetry and prose created by Riverside Writers. Horror, humour and beauty - sustained with cheese and wine! Visit their website: http://www.myspace.com/riversidewriters.

Gardening

The storms damaged our robinia tree, splitting a “y” shaped branch down the centre, right down to the main trunk. Richard sawed off the loose section before he headed off to the studio, but this weekend we’ll have to remove the entire branch. The robinia, or false acacia, is one of my favourite trees. It has pretty round leaves which turn bright gold in autumn.

Lurking in the bottom of our vegetable rack were twelve potatoes which had grown long sprouts. Rather than simply throw them out, I planted them in six deep pots. The pots were housing nothing but cobwebs, and I wanted to open up one of the compost bins anyway so I could move it. Whether the potatoes will grown many…well, potatoes (amazingly enough), time alone will tell, but it took little enough effort. Emily helped by burying her new squeaky, fluffy football in the freshly-opened up compost heap.

Earlier this year, Richard had planted climbing roses along one stretch of the trellis fence. These aren’t supposed to be pruned at all in their first year, but they’d grown the odd straggly stem so I tied these up with twine to stop them flapping around in the autumnal storms.

Just back from the village, and what did I see when I walked up my garden path to my front door?

My best camelia lying crushed on the floor, its main stem snapped.

Five years to grow it; one second for some clumsy idiot to ruin it.

Yes, the scaffolders will be receiving a flea in their ear from me in the morning....

I didn't have to grant them permission to put the end poles of their scaffold on our side of the hedge. The least they could do is respect our property.

Anyway, I've just taken photographs of the roof with the scaffolding in the frame, so if they leave any broken tiles behind I have visual evidence that our roof was fine before they walked over it.

2,802 words done today - and it's only 1pm. How did that happen?!!

Ok, now I'll go in search of lunch in preparation for a deadly confrontation with the bramble which has sneakily grown in our front garden. Wish me luck.



Oh, yes - Tim Hulme and I will be appearing on 7 Waves Radio this Friday, between 11am and noon (GMT). If you live on the Wirral or nearby you can tune your radio to 92.1 FM. Otherwise, you can hear the show via their web site at:- http://7waves.co.uk/live-across-the-wirral/

I don't know which of his stories Tim will be reading, but he's an excellent writer so do listen in.

I'll be reading Beautiful, which was published in Quiet Lives (Amazon Shorts, 2008). It's the story of a woman's determination to live life to the full despite other peoples' assumptions about her. If you've ever felt disappointed by what you see in the mirror, this story is for you.

Having been silently nagged out of enjoyable languor by the length of the lawn, I hauled our mower onto the grass in readiness to restore some semblance of respectable order. That’s when I discovered that one side of the mower’s handle was hanging off.

Now how had that happened? It had been attached when last stowed away. I would have noticed, otherwise. Somewhere between the lazily waving grass where the mower now sat and the cupboard where it usually rested was the widget which held the handle on.

Could I find it? No, of course not! Despite spending over an hour rummaging around on my knees looking for the black plastic screw-like widget, it remained in hiding.

Using the mower with only one side of the handle fixed in place would have been hopeless, if not possibly even dangerous. And naturally there seemed to be no way of using some other cobbled-together device to hold it safely and securely together.

“Oh well,” said hubby, later that night, “it was on its last legs anyway. Let’s buy a new one.”

Perhaps you can already guess what I found when I mowed the lawn with the new machine. Yes, there it was, lounging upon a dandelion like a yob on holiday – the missing widget

An overcast but pleasant day; the dogs took me for a walk along the beach, possibly because they'd heard me muttering under my breath once too often.

I've been writing a synopsis for Rowan and polishing the existing one for Tamsin. How can 300 words (or thereabouts) manage to be so fiddly? I'm now at the stage where I can't even "see" what I've written, I've been staring at the same two bits of A4 paper for so long. Days, even.

Gardening has kept me busy, too. I've opened up one of our compost bins and spread the new soil along one of the borders, mowed the lawn and done rather a lot of weeding. The eco-friendly weed-killer bought to annihilate a patch of nettles seems to have encouraged it to grow faster than ever. It’s right at the entrance to the Grove, too, so if people enter that area they risk getting stung as they brush passed.

Have I mentioned the Grove before? I forget… Picture a circular lawn, which has the four quarters marked out by “standing stones” (actually, they’re more like crouching lumps of red sandstone but let’s not get too pedantic here). To get inside, a person has to first walk along a narrow path which enters the Grove from the west. There are various symbolic plants growing around the circular lawn. And no, the nettle clump isn’t one of these.


Beside the entrance to the Grove.

The strong breezes swirling over Wirral today are mild compared to last night’s gales. That was a wild one!

My dogs want to play out in the sunshine but they hate the wind. They’re terriers, for goodness sakes – supposedly outdoors-loving. Actually, they much prefer a warm spot on the couch. However, a paddle on the beach, a swim in the marina or a scent-laden wander through the woods is welcomed just so long as it’s warm, dry and offers nothing stronger than a whispering breeze coming in off the sea.



And now the days are gradually warming up, it’s weeding time again. Weeds seem to have an innate ability to grow three times faster than “real” plants. They also seem to have the knack of lodging themselves tightly against the stems of desired plants, so that the only way to eradicate the pesky things is to risk destroying their unintentionally protective host.

Some weed-killing products claim to zap the weeds without harming other plants. Clearly the manufacturers should have explained this more clearly to the leafy residents of my garden, who either ignore the product altogether or wilt en masse.

My dogs enjoy a spot of weeding, too, and are always eager to lend a helping paw. In Ygraine’s case, this means digging holes. Lots of holes, anywhere. Well, the avid human gardener is digging holes, isn’t she? Westies do like to join in.

Our Jack Russell puppy, Emily, has almost grasped the idea of “fetch”. This means that I have to make sure the patio doors are closed, otherwise when I return to the living room I’ll find a pile of muddy dandelions on the couch. That not everything thrown to one side needs fetching is something she’s not quite figured out yet.

The algid sky is doing its utmost to remind me that January is still winter. The weekend, however, saw us enjoying a long walk over Caldy Hill. The dogs love it up there; there’s so much for them to sniff at! It’s a wonder their little noses aren’t worn out… A whole world is available to them which we’re oblivious to.

Riverside Writers met last night, and a lively evening it was too, with three new members joining us. January’s writing project had been set on the theme of ‘the diamond wristwatch’, and as always everyone had produced completely different work, including a smattering of poems – unusual for our group, as poets are thin on the ground.

Over the weekend, Richard managed to plant most of the climbing roses, which we’ll train up the new trellis fence. There is room enough for more roses yet. I do like roses, particularly the perfumed varieties. Plus they’re tough plants which can withstand Wirral’s microclimate, which ranges from baking heat in summer to tearing oceanic gales in spring and autumn.

Hmm, yeah – it’s that time again! Note the invitation above. Do feel free to pass that on to any interested parties, by the way. I hope to find you all in the Circle of Hands chatroom.

These photos show recent tattoos created by Richard. If you wish to see others, simply click on either image and you'll be whisked away to my Flickr photo hosting site, where oodles more can be seen in the Tattoo Studio set.

We spent part of the morning at Carr Lane Garden Centre, in Meols, where we bought six climbing roses of various sorts, plus one shrub rose to be planted on Poppy's grave. The climbers are for the long stretch of trellis fencing along the bottom of our garden. I fancied a large wind chime which had lovely deep boooiing! sounds - but wind chimes rapidly become wind clangs when the oceanic wind picks up around here!

Right - back to work for me... Toodle-pip!

On Friday 4th, I attended a supporters' event at the new Echo Arena in Liverpool. Due to my role as an ambassador for the city throughout its status as the European Capital of Culture 2008, I had been invited, along with other ambassadors and volunteers, for a preview of the building.

Several local bands, including Major Major, Forsaken and The Farm, performed on stage, with local radio DJ Pete Price introducing both them and braving the mic to sing “When you Walk Through a Storm” – a rather clichéd choice, in my opinion. This event enabled the arena staff to have a dry run prior to its official opening celebrations.

While the plain interior is entirely utilitarian, this new arena can seat 10,000 people, and will herald a new era of entertainment in Liverpool, which apparently boasts the fastest growing economy of any other British city.

However, a cardinal crime was committed by the catering, which ran out of milk. No milk for my cup of tea? Bah!

Sooooo, what else is new….

The word-count for Rowan now stands at 57,300. I wrote chapter 43 yesterday, wherein Jason shows his true colours – so that was fun to create.

We’ve had a pile of trellis fencing delivered, and we’re now waiting for the builders to install it along the back of the garden. This is to replace our old trellis which collapsed, creating a glorious tangle of thorns, climbing plants and weeds which had to be removed before the damage to the trellis could be properly assessed. Having done that, we immediately decided it would be easier to give up and start again with a new structure.

Earlier this week, I mailed out the latest newsletter for my Yahoo! group. If anyone wants to join to receive this FREE monthly email, all you have to do is send an email to: adelecosgrovebray-subscribe@yahoogroups.com