My weekend

Yesterday I drove for half an hour into the wilds of Mid Devon and went for a walk along a wooded river valley protected by the National Trust.

I needed to get Ellie away from all possible sources of illicit sport so that I could have a peaceful walk for once (Ellie’s illicit sport being one neighbour’s pheasants and another’s rescue sheep and chickens, as well as all the children on bicycles who appear at the weekend).

Apart from one family also out walking their dog I saw no one all morning. The river burbled and the leaves drifted down like snow. Ellie ran free.

In the words of Van Morrison, wouldn't it be great if it was like this all the time.



The enchanted wood



My poetic aunt Annabelle has recently had her autobiography published in Norway where she lives to rave reviews. Partly at my insistence, she has now translated it into English, and Frog and I have been reading it for the last two days, riveted. It is called The Girls’ School (Pikeskolen in Norwegian).

She has so much to write about – what it’s like to live in two cultures at once (English and Norwegian), losing her mother at the age of six and her current battle with an obscure illness called myasthenia gravis to name but three of the themes.

Please, English publishers, take hold of this book and give it the attention it deserves.

Spot the dog

Fits and starts

Many apologies for my long silence. I am still here.

As I’ve said before, I’m a person of small brain and can only concentrate on one thing at a time and, as I’ve had absolutely no ideas whatsoever about what to write here, I think that my brain must be occupied with Novel at the moment.

Contrary to what I said in the last but one post, I’m still on the first draft. I discovered that while I knew roughly what happened in the second half of the book, I didn’t know how it happened. So that’s what I’m working through at the moment – in fits and starts.

I find this stage both the most exciting – when inspiration arrives – and the most terrifying – when inspiration departs. With later drafts you have something concrete to work on – words you’ve already written, however bad they are – but at this stage all you have is the mush in your brain and the divine spark that transforms it but which isn’t under your control.

I think I’m coming to my main character’s lowest point and I find it hard to put both her – and me – through that. It’s also hard to see her getting things so wrong. It’s like admitting to one’s own failures. (It is admitting to one's own failures?)

Is this all interesting to anyone apart from other writers? Or to anyone? I don’t know. In case not, here’s a picture that I took a few days ago while walking Dog. I always get Lord-of-the-Rings-ish at this time of year and this path reminds me of the (first) film.

Several pictures, not many words



Sunbeams





More sun, more trees



Dead oak tree and view



Nearly-new moon



Toadstool row

Mini update

1.      My new walking boots are great. My feet have almost stopped hurting.

2.      Ellie is a year and a quarter now. When we took her to the vet for her yearly booster injection, the vet complimented us on her behaviour. A lot of dogs with her mixture of breeds (springer spaniel and collie) turn into problem dogs, apparently. I wasn’t sure whether to be depressed or pleased.

3.      I am suffering from a strange complaint. For the last four weeks my lips have been cracking, peeling and bleeding. Sometimes they swell as if with collagen implants gone wrong. (Frog, bless him, says he can’t see any difference from normal.) In desperation I went to the doctor and, as usual when they hear I’m almost vegan, she wanted to do a blood test to check for my iron levels. Results on Monday.

4.      I have plunged into Second Draft of Novel and am quite pleased with how it’s shaping up (at the moment, today, touch wood, fingers crossed). Hence the sketchiness of this post and my recent silence.

Ellie in clover