Old soldiers never die . . .

 

Old soldiers never die . . .

 . . . they simply fade away.

Soldiers of Xerxes' army, based on descriptions by Herodotus and archaeological discoveries.

From  left to right: Ethiopian soldier with bow, Khwarazmian infantryman, Bactrian infantryman, Arian cavalryman

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 Actually, I was thinking of bloggers. Some announce that they are withdrawing from the blogging world for a variety of reasons. Their followers sympathise and hope that they can persuade the leavers to stay. Some stop blogging but continue to comment on the posts of others. Sadly, some die, leaving a space that cannot be filled. Others just disappear without a trace, leaving their forlorn followers to wonder what happened. Some come and go, often promising, when they return, that they will blog assiduously henceforth, creating a burst of activity and then retiring, exhausted, maybe to pop up again in the future with renewed resolve and possibly further intermittent participation.

Bloggers apologise. Bloggers are pleasant people. Bloggers try to encourage others. Bloggers respond to comments and visit the sites of their commenters. There are exceptions, of course.

   Many carry on for years, posting daily or weekly or monthly, sometimes on a set subject, like travel or genealogy. Others flit where the fancy takes them, often finding inspiration from other bloggers. Some posts are short and pithy, others are detailed lengthy essays. Some cause laughter while others bring on tears.

The optimists, the pessimists, the serious and the light-hearted, young, old, gregarious, solitary - all these are represented and all will appeal to someone ‘out there’.

Why do people blog? Why do you blog? There are not always simple answers to such straightforward questions.

Settling, like dust . . .

Settling, like dust . . .

Susannah has had a trying several months/years but finally has found the strength and courage to make the break, long overdue, with her manipulative and disturbed partner. She has sold her London flat and is buying a house near us so that her small son can grow up in a calm and peaceful atmosphere.

Our house has been overhauled and tidied to accommodate Susannah, Frankie and their cat until they can move into their new home, some time in September. I have had little time or inclination to blog but life is settling down again and increasingly I am able to pursue hobbies and other interests.

Naturally, the cats and Gus have their own versions of recent events and their blogs will follow this one.

Writing

I read something yesterday about writing. It was quite strident and ran along the lines of, ‘So you want to be a writer? Stop blogging! Why waste your time on one or two when many more could be reading your novels?’

All well and good, I thought, but I’ll take the one or two over the none and be encouraged by their interest. It’s no good publishing a novel if no-one is going to read it.

However, I have published one* and intend to publish two or three more this year. Whoops! Brave words – must follow them up with action – that is, editing, proofreading and, in one case at least, finishing the first draft (and then editing, etc.) Action will be put to one side for the next week at least as I shall be looking after Frankie. I know, excuses, excuses . . .

(*The Sweets and the Bitters of Love’ is available on Kindle, £0.77 in UK, $1.15 in USA – free to borrow if you’re a Prime customer!)

Blogging

Blogging

My intention was to be a Better Blogger in 2013 but I seem to be in some sort of limbo, waiting for something to happen. On the one hand there is Barry’s mother, Dorothy, old and very frail, who keeps falling into a sort of hibernation in her care home in Dorset.

Two weeks ago she had been asleep for two days, not responding to any external stimuli apart from when the doctor poked the sole of her foot with something sharp. A short while later she woke up and indicated that she was thirsty. Barry and his brother decided she should go to hospital. While there she was rehydrated and given a broad spectrum antibiotic.

Barry’s sister-in-law phoned later to find out how she was and the nurse couldn’t locate her. Eventually she was discovered travelling round the hospital on her Zimmer frame looking for the exit. When the nurse was told that the doctor attending Dorothy in the home said she was dying, the nurse laughed and said, ‘No way is she dying.’ Indeed, when they visited later that day they found her in high good spirits, much of her lost personality seemingly restored, no longer the depressed and aggressive and inward-looking character she had been for so many, many months.

The next day she returned to the retirement home she has lived in for the last two and a half years and promptly fell asleep again. This time it was thought it was due to genuine tiredness after her journeying round the hospital. Following that, she was awake, drinking tea and eating chocolates. Now, once more, she’s back to sleeping deeply and eating and drinking very little. We think probably she will go into the local hospital where she will be rehydrated again. It seems the right thing to do rather than allow her to slowly die of thirst.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the country, in Edinburgh, our eldest granddaughter was taken into hospital with painful contractions (not Braxton Hicks) Very worrying, as the baby was not due for another eleven weeks. Marnie was transferred from St James’ to the Royal Infirmary where the facilities for treating very premature babies are better and we waited and waited and Gillian and Paul (Marnie’s parents) became more and more strained. 

After a week, when no further progress was made Marnie was discharged. She wasn’t allowed to fly or travel by train so Gillian drove to Edinburgh to collect her. She then had to go to Dorchester to be checked but was allowed home. She is still having contractions but will not see an obstetrician until Friday this week, almost three weeks since she was first admitted to hospital. Surely it cannot be right for her to continue having contractions for another eight weeks? She has been told she has an 'irritable uterus' - I'll say it's irritable!

However, the baby is pronounced healthy and capable of breathing on her own if she does arrive early. Whenever she puts in an appearance there are some names she should not have. With a surname starting with S she cannot have names giving the initials BS, FS, OS, PS or SS!! J

Interesting times - I’ll keep you posted!

Blogging

Blogging

I was reading Rachel’s post on blogging in Slow Lane Life and it struck me that although I enjoy blogging I don’t write as many posts as I used to. My life has not changed substantially so what am I doing instead? Have other things taken its place or is it just a phase I’m going through? (Why should children be the only people to have ‘phases’?)

I could lie and say I have been redecorating – but no, I leave that to the dogs. I have some embroidery to finish – and more to start. I have shallots to pickle – or will have when they’re delivered tomorrow, that is if Tesco hasn’t run out and tried to substitute them with onion-flavoured crisps. (Some of their substitutions defy belief.)

I ought to pick the crab apples that haven’t already dropped and make crab apple jelly but the garden is a quagmire. It’s time to make some more marmalade, too – and piccalilli and pickled red cabbage.

There again, I should declutter the house, starting with the spare bedrooms, but the thought fills me with . . . exhaustion.

My excuse is that I am writing. One book is being prepared for Kindle publication and I am editing another. It’s a feeble excuse, really, because I don’t spend disciplined – or even undisciplined – hours feverishly tapping out literary fluff. No, I read emails, do some online shopping, catch up on television programmes that take my fancy, replenish the bird feeders, watch the birds, laugh at the dogs, take them for walks, nurse Winston and attempt to clip his claws – oh, and there are the usual household chores, and meals to prepare and eat – it’s a busy life and no mistakeJ Add to that weekend visits from sundry, and sometimes all, family members – and their dogs -  and I can’t think how I have time to do anything;-)

Anyway, the following is an extract from the book I’m editing. (It's called 'Good Fences Make Good Neighbours') To set the scene, Sandra’s son David has just lost his hamster to one of Pat and Larry’s cats and a funeral has been arranged.

At the simple ceremony the following day Beatrice and Damon Yardley joined the chief mourners. The Minter children had wanted to come too, but the girls stayed at school for activities and prep and were never home before seven. Alexander didn’t want to go without them.

Sandra was touched to note that Pat and Larry had changed from their usual scruffy sweatshirts into clean shirts and ties. David carefully placed a cross made from lolly sticks under the mahonia japonica he had chosen at the garden centre. He was quite specific about what he wanted; it was to be evergreen with scented flowers and should not grow too tall too quickly. He chose the site in a sunny corner of the garden, ‘So that Honey won’t get cold.’

Sandra remembered burying beloved pets in her childhood garden. When it came to the point of covering the stiff bodies with damp earth she always felt a pang they would never feel the sun again. Even as a teenager, she couldn’t rid herself of the irrational thought that it was wrong to shut out the light. She had always wanted to tuck a warm blanket round the cold body. She took her son’s hand now and led him into the kitchen. Everyone sat down at the circular table at the dining end of the room and tucked into the sausage rolls and quiches and vol-au-vents and pizzas Sandra had cooked earlier.

As the children were finishing their ice-cream, Pat and Larry slipped out of the room. When they came back, Pat was carrying a soft cat bed and Larry had two pottery bowls in his hands.

‘Where would you like this, Sandra?’ Pat asked.

‘I think you’d better ask David,’ she smiled.

‘Well, David?’ said Larry.

‘Is that mine?’ said David in a hoarse voice. ‘Are we going to have a cat, Mummy?’

‘Look in the cat bed,’ said the men.

David got down from his chair and went slowly to look. Peeping out at him was a shiny brown Burmese with large chartreuse eyes.

‘It’s Nutmeg,’ he said. ‘What’s she doing here?’

‘She’s come to live with you, David. We’ve been looking for a good home for her and she likes you.’

David shook his head wonderingly and was quite speechless. Sandra felt tears pricking her eyes and chided herself for foolishness. Quickly she pointed her camera at her son and captured his joyous expression.

‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ David managed at last. ‘Please may I hold her?’

‘Of course you may – Nutmeg’s yours now and you can hold her whenever you like. She’ll never tire of having a fuss made of her.

Bloggarts

How did they get there?

One of my blog posts has sprouted 29 links. I’ve no idea how they arrived but there they are, bold as brass! A couple of them are from a blogger who has not posted anything since February 2010.

Do these links come like thieves in the night? They certainly weren’t there yesterday. The thought of A. N. Other sneaking into my laptop and creating havoc has me quaking in my boots – well, my shoes, actually. Arethere impish blogging fairies like the boggarts – I suppose they’d be bloggarts – intent on mischief?

The bloggarts take liberties with my laptop in other ways, too. There was the case of the missing cursor, for instance, and the links I appeared to have put on other writers’ blogs, but hadn’t. There’s the case of the shifting font; I will have chosen one that I like but even as I type the whole page changes to a completely different typestyle and colour that I would never choose in a million years. Suddenly, this turns into this. Sometimes it returns almost immediately but often I have to adjust it with Home, Select All. Tiresome!

Maybe I should make offerings to the great gods of cyberspace. What would be a suitable donation, I wonder?

On the other hand, perhaps it’s just Blogger playing silly fools again. It has been misbehaving this week, first not allowing me to comment on other people’s posts and then denying me access to my blog. It didn’t sulk for long but it was annoying.

Two years!

Image courtesy of chrysalismusic.co.uk

Happy Birthday, blog!

I started this blog two years ago today. I didn’t know when I began writing what pleasure blogging would give me, how much I would learn from other bloggers around the world and what very nice people I would ‘meet’.

So, to all you readers out there, whether you’ve popped in just once or you’ve become a follower, thank you for your encouragement, your kind comments, your interest. I never realised that being followed might actually be something to appreciate  – but that’s the difference between following and stalking, I suppose;-)

Conservatory roof update

I'm feeling more confident about the roof now. Yesterday two men appeared at the front door. They had come on the off-chance of finding us in. They were fitters from the company that we've contracted to replace our roof. They were working in the area, about four miles away, and decided they'd visit and take measurements and have a look at the job they have to do.
Naturally, we were caught on the hop and being the houseproud person I am I had no worries about inviting them into the house. What? You mean some people don't have saucepans and dishes on the floor for bio-wipe? (Bio-wipe is executed by the dogs before the items go into the dishwasher) Doesn't everyone throw the dog bedding out of the bedroom window onto the patio below when it needs washing? I admit I hadn't got round to tidying up the cat litter and it can be a bit crunchy underfoot. Oh, I blush when I think what a slob I am but what am I doing now? I'm blogging!