SueJEaton

December 25th 

7.22 am

Heaven Forefend! It’s nearly half past seven and I need to be out of the house by half eight at the latest. I have my granddaughters’ Christmas presents and they’ll be expecting me. I know it shouldn’t take an hour to get showered and dressed but the sprouts are still growing and everyone knows they should have been put to boil in the summer if they’re to be ready for Christmas dinner.

I set the alarm for 7 but as the church clock was striking 4 when I fell into bed it’s hardly surprising I slept through it. Also, I need 2, preferably 3 cups of tea before I can face the world. Especially after 3-ish hours sleep.

7.54 am

I am showered and airing. I like to air myself before I dress. When your joints seize up at inopportune moments you can’t be sure your crevices are dry enough not to chafe when underpinnings are applied. Therefore, I air. It is not negotiable, even when short on time. (Except in hospitals. Hospitals have their own rules and are not to be tampered with. See previous post – What I did on my holidays)

7.57 am

I have a glitter related incident. I spray my hair with glitter as it is Christmas but when I remove my finger from the button the glitter forgets to stop.

As a result the settee, the sideboard and I are covered with glitter. So is the conservatory as I race through to put the can outside to spray the garden in peace.

Away from the sprouts, I might add, as they are still growing.

This sets me back quite a bit.

8.14 am

I throw as much bacon over the turkey crown as I can, pour on some mixed dried herbs. (The bay and rosemary – like the sprouts – are still growing.)

It’s soaking outside. A fine mist is penetrating every crevice and I’ve glitter sprayed my hair – quite savagely, as it turns out. They can stay growing.

 

8.19 am

I dig out the Christmas pudding left over from last year. It should be okay, except it wasn’t last year – it was 2008. I dust it off and bin it. We have festive cheesecake and oodles of cheese and port. No one will care  if they have enough port. They might not notice the sprouts are still growing if we start drinking early enough. Note to self – must dig out that bottle of Madeira I found in the back of the cupboard.

8.23 am

I find time to look at the carnage I’ve left. I have guests for Christmas dinner. I know its daughter and her boyfriend but when you invite someone you can’t really expect them to start by washing up and picking their own veg. It’s hardly etiquette. And let’s not forget the fine mist of glitter over the dining table which I set last night. I shall just have to pretend that was part of the festive plan. It’s sparkly. Lauren likes sparkly – I shall tell her so.

8.26 am

The car is soaking. I can’t see out of the windows so set to wiping them dry while the engine warms up. By the time I finish the first are misted up again. I do one more round before loading the presents.

Oops, nearly forgot to get the cheesecake out of the freezer.

8.38 am

Ready to go. The spouts are still growing but what the €µ©ꝅ!

It appears that everyone has left the planet apart from me, a few geese and a lone dog walker. Could I make the 9 miles across the centre of town in 7 minutes?

No.

Did the sprouts ever make it to the table?

Follow me to find out. Merry Christmas!

Decs are up, pressies wrapped – some even delivered, cards written and posted, fish clean. I’ve even been out for some festive socialisation a couple of times. Well, 4 actually, last week. Anyone who knows me will wonder what has happened. No more waiting until the bells ring out for Midnight Mass to cause panic preparations.

 

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There’s just one tiny detail…

My husband, Mike 8-shed Eaton was a bit of a DIY fan. So much of a fan to be exact that I never dared suggest we decorate the house for Christmas in case I came home to find a new wall in progress – or one gone. Despite continual training he never learnt that by ‘decorate for Christmas’ I meant tinsel and not plaster or new tiles in the bathroom.

The tiny detail I have struggled with this year is the lack of a large sack of plaster where the Christmas tree goes. It was one of those things that might come in handy even if you never use it – which we never did. As much as I complained about it long and hard for numerous years it did provide a nice guide as to where the tree should stand without it looking squashed. Covered with artificial snow it provided a neat bench for Father Christmas to sit on and kept the presents from the underfloor heating.

I got rid of it fairly quickly but now find I miss it. The snow just looks a mess and Santa has had to sit on the shelf above. There’s nowhere to put the pressies.

Mind you, I did forget to tell my son that the old kitchen sink leaks so we had a bit of a flood on Friday but all’s well that ends well. I don’t think I could cope without some DIY at inconvenient times.

  As I’ve finished so early I think I’ll have a cup of tea.

I had a lovely night at Hanley Library. Not only did I spend time with like-minded friends but I sold a book! Yeahhh.

I popped back into the sixteenth century on Sunday for an Elizabethan Christmas. I was rather hoping it would get me started on preparing for my own celebrations.

The infamous ‘Grape of Death’ trick had us holding our breaths for fear the jester might choke. Not nearly as scary as his hobby horse, though.

I really go to listen to the Elizabethan Christmas music, preferable to the commercial stuff we hear today.

 

 

 

Some little sweetheart out there thinks that my story, ‘The Toy Shop’ is epic! Thank you. Well done to Wondra Vanian (In my Day) and Mark A Smart (A Dark Reflection), also mentioned in despatches.

I love Wondra’s story too and Mark’s does not help my problem with mirrors – and what may lurk behind them.

Why not try my debut novel, ‘The Woman Who Was Not His Wife’?

It is not a typical science-fiction  novel but contains elements of fantasy, horror and romance and is designed to be a thought-provoking reflection of our own society.

 

… is easy to wrap and fits snugly in a Christmas stocking.

I am lucky enough to have an extensive herb garden. It is the only place to be on a warm summer day. It is quiet and peaceful, rich with relaxing scents and warm in the sunshine. It is a place I invariably go in order to think and write. Mind you, things can happen to spoil the peace. Awful things. During the summer I had made a cup of my special coffee in my special gardening mug and was sitting watching the weeds grow when I heard a loud and determined buzz and an equally loud plop … in my coffee. A bee – a kamikaze bee at that. I poured this delicious cup of my special brew onto the flags and out fell the bee. Unfortunately, those few seconds it took me to decide that a bee had flown into my elevenses meant that it was curtains for the bee. Legs in the air, it lay there on the flags in a cooling puddle of beverage.

I now use a mug with a lid. The bee population is in enough trouble without them dropping into hot drinks.

Now that the weather has turned I spent a delightful morning this week grinding the herbs I had collected and dried at the end of the summer.  The smell in my kitchen was divine and I was able to find an ending for a short story, ‘Perchance to Dream’ that had me stumped for some time. Happy days.

 

Keep following if you want to read ‘Perchance to Dream’. Coming soon.

 

Last week was Anti-bullying week but we all know that this is an age old problem that seems to persist. So, like that puppy, anti-bullying awareness is not just for one week in November but for everyday.

Unfortunately, however evolved we consider humankind to be, we are human and bullying will continue unless the target finds a way to confront and deal with it. It’s easy for those on the outside to offer suggestions but the very nature of bullying precludes that. You need to be an exceptionally strong, self confident person to overcome such abuse and bullies will always play to our weaknesses.

Sometimes the bullying is more subtle and creeps up on us unawares as happens to Alex in ‘Visible Ink’. Sometimes we are so used to the dynamics of a friendship that we can allow ourselves to be dominated by the stronger personality. We never consider that this is bullying but any behaviour that makes us uncomfortable over a period of time is so.

S. L. Powell’s gentle story of two young friends explores this concept and we discover that there are two sides to the relationship. Alex feels that he is being unfairly treated by his friend but how is Lennie feeling?

This is just the book to help young people deal with the challenges that occur in all our lives.

The author suggests the book is for 9 – 12 year olds which covers the move from primary to secondary education, but I feel that it has a magic that will appeal to all ages.

As a former teacher of children with social, emotional and developmental needs I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who has a child who may be struggling with self-esteem.

I’m still convalescing, unable to drive so I have had more time to read than of late. I have been lucky enough to have had a story included in The Corona Book of Science Fiction and this has prompted me to read the other tales.

It’s up to you to decide what you think of my story, but I found the rest of the book fascinating in its diversity. Star Wars it is not but a carefully arranged selection of thought-provoking short stories.

If you are considering science fiction but are not sure where to start this is as a good a place as any. From human nature in ‘First Contact’, to alien nature in ‘Ribbon World’, there is something for everyone. You can be thrown millennia into the future in ‘The Souvenir’ or experience a near miss today in ‘Let the Bells Ring Out’.

If you are an ardent sci-fi fan, then it’s a definite must buy. Something for the Christmas stocking? 

http://www.coronabooks.com

http://www.amazon.co.uk

 

 

 

November is the month of remembrance, starting with All Souls on November 1st when we think about those we have known and lost. My Dad’s birthday was on November 1st. My mother always considered him a lost soul.

Bonfire Night is also an act of remembrance as we commiserate –  sorry – celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

As Remembrance Sunday approaches I thought I would share the impressions I brought back from a trip to the trenches and war graves in northern France and Belgium.

 

There’s an absence here.      
It pulls at the soul as if
Looking for substance.

God is forbidden,
Excluded, shut out, dismissed,
Buried beneath mud.

In the silence, no
Birds sing; only the poppy
Grows, red in the sun.

 

 
I’ve been away for a few days. I chose one of those nice National Health Spas.

I went somewhere different this time for a bit of an adventure, plus, they could fit me in sooner.
I lazed about in pleasant company with food laid on and no housework while working on taking deep enough breaths to up my oxygen levels to the point where I wasn’t given a hard stare every time it was measured.

On day 2 I was invited to use the shower. I began to think I had booked the wrong break. I hadn’t realised that group bonding and survival skills were part of the package.

Problem 1
1. You are going to have a shower. You need to stand directly in front of the shower in order to apply enough force to press the button that releases the water. The water will run cold for 10 minutes. The water goes off after 5 seconds.
2. There is no shelf to hold your shower gel. You can’t bend.
3. You need to exert pressure time and again to keep the water flowing. This will aggravate the pain in your wounds.

What do you do?

I know this for a fact – my walk-in wet room was going to be a doddle after this.
Did I get a shower? I hoisted my shower gel under my pit and managed to get wet enough to feel better. Cold water is so invigorating, don’t you think? It cleared all that nasty anaesthetic from my system, so I shouldn’t complain.

Working on how to apply underpinnings over damp skin without upsetting anything that wasn’t sore, bruised or swollen took a tad longer.

I eventually managed to secure parole and as I left that I was given this, what was to me, strange advice.
“Try to do things as you would usually do but don’t scrub at the wound.”
My immediate thought was, ‘Why the f*#k would I want to scrub at a sore, bruised, swollen slash across my midriff in the first place?’
I mean, at that moment in time I was avoiding eye contact with said SBSS because I imagined that the light waves bouncing around hurt it. I was never going to even consider scrubbing at it anytime during my life span. I nodded in agreement. I wasn’t going to do anything to impede my escape.

My wounds – I have 3 – have been glued rather than stitched or stapled. A Good Thing I decided at first. No nasty pulling of the skin or visits to the nurse to have them removed. However, a thought did occur to me later as I was standing under my lovely warm shower.

 

We all know what happens to the glue on the back of a label if it’s soaked for too long …