(no subject)

Emergency Fist Aid Training today - my first retraining since I did my

Guiding badge in the 70s!

It'll be interesting to know how much the rules have changed. One of
the most shocking scenes in "Life on Mars" was the reactions of the
1973 ambulance drivers to a critically injured woman - they picked her
up, put her in a van and drove her to a hospital for the "real" medics
to do their job. No blood supplies, no heart monitors, no
defibrillator, no air bagging - no treatment. Life on another planet
indeed.

Oh yes - I am the Gene Hunt of the Girl Guides!

Tragically the wet summer has rendered the Stone Sloop uninhabitable for the duration.

It seemed sensible enough at the time - use the summer months to
undertake work on the cottage to stabilise the crumbling back wall.
(Ironically it is the "new" extension of 1859 that is at risk - the 300
year old core hasn't shifted an inch...)

So I moved out (or up) the more delicate bits and pieces in June, and a
young man spent the several day chipping all the plaster off the suspect
masonry in preparation. The cottage filled with plaster dust, and
arrangements were made to bring a mini-digger up to excavate the new
footings, as soon as the ground was dry enough to bear its weight.

Well, of course, the ground has not been dry since. July ticked on. I
went to Lisbon and discovered Fado. The calendar flipped over to
August. I sat under Hereford apple trees dodging showers, reading about
the Blitz. Watched the roofs of Ludlow steam under the sun. Ate dressed
crab in Brecon, and listened to the Jazz Festival through a curtain of
torrential rain.

And all the time the fell is just soaking up more water. (There is
nothing, but nothing, in the entire world, that looks quite as dumbly
comically miserable as a flock of ewes caught in heavy rain. Even their
ears sag with the injustice of it all).

Now September is barely a week away - and the opportunity to do any more
work this year is slipping away. The plaster dust is still lying
undisturbed over floor, chairs, kitchen table. The back room is open to
the elements. We can only hope for a dry and windy autumn to dry out
the hillside enough to start work before the frosts arrive.

Oh well, perhaps next year will be drier....

There are 3 kinds of rejection letters...

a.) the form letters that are a writer's campaign medals, and end up in
the loo, b.) the ones that come with feedback (thoughtful or otherwise),
which might actually be useful, and should be read carefully once the
sting has worn off, and c.) the ones that kick the crap out your day.

c.) are the near misses, the also runs, the ones you were invited to
submit for, did extra work for, had meetings to discuss, and then... no
thanks, can't go any further, not *good* enough.

Guess which one I got today?

I've just slunk into the RFH for a glass of wine - and found the place plagued
by one of the worst cabaret singers I've been unfortunate enough to encounter in
recent years, singing Beatles covers (flat) and a selection from "the shows"
(badly).

Arghhhh!

Oh - and I've had no connection all day

Not at work, on the laptop, on the phone... couldn't even find the
times of trains.... couldn't look busy at work.

So how come that's the only communication that came through loud and
clear all day.

ZOMG - This flat is too good to be true...

... which of course means - it IS too good to be true. Last night I got
a front row seat to the London flat letting scam.

This is how it works. The scammer advertises a great flat on one of the
listings websites, at just below the realistic market rent, usually
claiming to be a professional who need to relocate and is just looking
for someone to care for their home and cover the mortgage costs. They
just want a deposit to prove that you are not a timewaster, while they
check your references.

I've been trawling the flat listing for sometime, just to see what the
market is like, in case I want to move later in the year. And there it
was, a studio flat, just within my budget, in an area I like, and
available this month. I filled on the online form for more information.

About 5 hours later, the reply came through, with a slew of attached
pictures, just as my laptop battery started to splutter and die. No
time to do more than scan the text before heading home to recharge,
check the details and reply.

The doubts were there from the outset - the price was just too low. And
why would an American student with a nice wood floored studio be moving
in with a boyfriend in Portsmouth. I mean - *Portsmouth*?

And free maid service? Free gym membership?

When I finally saw the photo, all the alarm bells started ringing. How
had a studio become a 2 bed flat? Hang on - that's three bedrooms, all
enormous.... And that fuzzy thing on the wall - a statutory fire
notice...? Hmmm...

So what "Angela" the "American Student" had done was take a bunch of
shots an empty office, dressed with double beds.

And when "she" had my deposit (she was asking if I had it ready to put
down straight away), no doubt she would have checked my references,
discovered that I "couldn't pay", and would return the money "less her
expenses" - I'm guessing her expenses would be about £600...

So. Beware the flat that sounds too good to be true. It's not a
clueless landlord - it's a trap for unwary would be tenants.

Myths of Writing: 1 "If I had more free time, I would write more/better/faster...."

I haven't found this to be true. I write productively, creatively for
about 2 hours a day, 3 at most, and the rest is revision, research,
mucking about.

Free time becomes a hindrance. If I set out on Sunday, with the thought
that I have 8 or 9 hours to commit to writing, I will find stuff to fill
up 6 or 7 hours worth - or more.

So, as of last month, I have *limited* my writing time, to 2 hours a
day, one at 7.30 before work, one at 6.30 after work. Everyday,
including weekend.
For those 2 periods of 60 minutes I write - no reading, revision, email,
phone calls; just keyboard and a glass of wine or cup of coffee.
Possibly music.

My productivity has shot up. I'm easily producing a 55 page draft in a
week. Lunchtimes are for revision, sometimes email, blogging, etc.
Travelling is for reading and making notes.

Currently reading: Love Lessons by Joan Wyndham - the diary of a 17 year
old in 1940s Bohemian Chelsea driving male painters crazy with a
extraordinary mixture of naivety, and a callous teenage enthusiasm for sin:

"All this talk had got Rupert quite excited so we lay on the sofa, and
got into some rather peculiar positions with R howling, 'I wanna seduce
you, I wanna seduce you!' At that interesting moment the sirens blew
off. I jumped up to check the black-out, pulling my blouse on and
looking for my shoes. 'Gosh,' I said, 'I must go, Mummy thought I'd be
back by ten.' Rupert didn't answer, he was lying on the bed face
downwards, making strange groaning noises. As I was walking home, heard
bombs in the distance and saw flares."

I adore every line of it - I feel 17 all over again...

Ouch - a lavatory wall just fell on my foot

Seriously. While I was peeing.

A huge 8 foot section of laminated chipboard, on a solid steel frame,
tumbled without warning from the office loo, bounced off my little toe
and came to rest on the floor beside me with a crash that shook the
building.

I have escaped with the tiniest nick, just below the toe nail, and a
new respect for the dangers that lurk in public washrooms.

Sirens over the Thames - suggestions for a playlist please!

I've been drafting out a TV pilot, set in London 1941. In the first 4
minute the protagonist is caught on Hungerford Bridge, looking East over
the Thames as air-raid sirens sound.

Last night a scooted out of the Festival hall (good spot for reading
with a glass of wine - lots of big sofas) with my ipod on shuffle - and
what came up as I stepped onto Hungerford bridge for the first time
since I downloaded it...?

Very overcast - not a good night for a bombing raid, so I think I will
sleep easy.
Perhaps I should go to bed under the table, in an overcoat, with a torch
and powdered egg to hand, just for research purposes.

(Of course, the situation in the Caucasus adds a horrible edge to the
retro feel of the week - a superpower invades a neighbour over concerns
about an ethnic minority in a border region? Sudetenland, here we
come. How long before Brown shows up at Heathrow, waving a piece of paper?)

Now, why do I have an air-raid warning on my Ipod?
(What - doesn't everyone?)

Well. for the last few months I have have been setting up playlists for
different projects. It started casually enough - I just clicked on a
track that felt right, and let it run.

Gradually these have evolved into playlists, little aural puddles to
suck on to the Shuffle, sit in while I write.

Yesterday I set to work on a playlist on BlitzKids ("Wild young people,
up to no good in London 1941 " or "Bonnie and Clyde - with Petrol
Rationing" - ).

As well as the siren, I have already got some good plaintive numbers, "A
nightingale sang,,," and "I get along without you very well..." - but
I'm looking for more, unusual numbers, particularly "naughty" ones - the
sort of stuff that 1940s Daily Mail readers would have clamoured to ban
as having a "bad influence on the young."

Anyone got suggestions?

Ludlow Rooftops and Cooking Ham in a Cotttage

A perfect moment of happiness: Saturday afternoon, leaning on sun-hot
the parapet of a tower in the ruins of Ludlow Castle. The town slopes
away steeply from the red sandstone castle wall to the river, in a bowl
of wooded green. A wedding party is coming out of the church - on foot,
because the streets are so narrow - and the bells boom and fade as the
breeze changes direction. One of the chimneys below is smoking. Who is
crazy enough to light a fire in August?

Haul: two boxes of strawberries from the streetmarket, and a second-hand
wristwatch from a flea market. £7.50, and it seems to keep time.
It's the first time I've had to wind a watch in 20 years.

Recipe: Cooking ham.
I learned by accident how to cook ham without turning it into a piece of
salty leather.
Very easy, but takes time. You just have to be lazy, and let it be.
1.) soak in clean water in the pan you are going to cook it in. Forget
about it, read a book.
2.) Drain off soaking water, refill to cover, bring to boil on the stove
top. Simmer for 30 minutes or so. Enough time to get another chapter
in. When the chapters done, lots of scum will have come to the
surface. Spoon it off, and top up the water from the kettle.
3.) Add 3 tablespoons of marmalade to the water.
4.) Bring at back to the boil, and stick it in the oven at the lowest
possible setting OR put it in a hay box, packed around with crumpled
newspapers, blankets etc.
5.) Go out for the day. Don't worry about getting home.
6.) Roll home. Switch off oven if you're using one, otherwise, just put
your feet up, and wait.
7.) This is the crucial bit: Let the ham cool down in the pot, in its
marmaladey bath. That's the secret bit. It relaxes and sucks the juice
back in - just like you do when you rest in hot water.

Roughly an hour before you need to feed anyone, coax the ham out of the
bath and into an oven tin. Save the bath water for pea soup tomorrow.
Strip off the skin and most of the fat. Sprinkle what's left with brown
sugar - or more marmalade...
Bake for 30 minutes, just enough to brown the sugar and fat - that's
enough time to clean and cook some potatoes and cabbage.

Cheats Cumberland Sauce.
1/3 of a bottle of wine, 3 tablespoons marmalade, zest and juice of one
orange. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Never tell anyone you spent the day mucking about, letting the ham do
all the work. Tell them you slaved over it, and suggest they do the
washing up.

Monday - Friday:

Ok, I blinked. It was the wretched mosquitoes; by Tuesday morning I was
in the sort of agony that leads people to rip their lower limbs off with
their bare hands to get relief.

I don't mins sharing a bit of blood from time to time - but why do the
whiny little buggers have to leave huge great burning wens in their wake?

I didn't have the patience to walk the extra 10 minutes towards an
independent chemist (stopping every 100 yards to scratch) so I dashed
into Boots and begged for antihistamines.

Apart from that, I kept to independent shops and market stalls all week.

This would have been easier if I didn't need to leave the house at 7am
to write for 70 minutes before heading into work. Over coffee.
It's surprising how few West End cafés open before 8.30. The streets
are deserted, the espresso machines silent.

I've found a Portuguese run bar, with a fan, and coffee at £1.10. I
suspect I am now a "regular", because by Friday I was getting free
refills.