dairy 3 April 2010
It is LASHING rain here in Tenerife right now – LASHING. If I don;t get some proper sunshine I may have to go on an ugly and pointless rampage. On the flip and nicer side, it is a very relaxing time. Pedicure earlier…lunch in town, gym and now loking forward to a glass of red wine before dinner. The local wines (the reds anyhow) are lovely and I am of the opinion that it is impossible to have a bad meal here.
My favourite moment of the day so far has to be richard deciding he won’t do dairy today…so, he wasn’t going to have an egg this morning at breakfast…when I had finished choking on my laughter I explained that hens may live on a farm with cows but it doesn’t render them dairy. ‘That bacon on your plate has as much dairy in it as an egg,’ I told him. In mitigation, he meant scrambled egg (or that’s what he said when tackled, anyhow) and I will allow that there might have been butter or milk involved in the preparation of same…
Saw some Easter processions go through the streets last night and I found them really spooky. The first was accompanied by drumming alone and was scariest for me, though the 2nd had trumpets and a band and was a little less affecting. The thing that gets me is the hooded penitents – they were in long purple, red or black robes – but they wear the tall, pointed hoods that remind me of the Ku Klux Klan. And they were carrying quite graphic scupltures aloft, pietas of the dying Christ and his mother.
mojito 2 April 2010
Well, I made a break for it and got out of the cold, VERY early yesterday morning, and was supping beer and eating calamares in warm weather off the coast of Africa some hours later. It really was/is lovely to be WARM and outdoors. I’m finding it hard to get the book out of my head as I am still convinced I have missed something in there (am too close to it to see what that something/those somethings is/are) but it is now with an experienced copy editor who will surely spot all that is wrong and where the holes are…
And why no blog last night? Strangely, Richard is the reason (well, partly) although he’s normally the one to nag me into it if Im looking lazy or my brain is flatlining. I couldn’t find the WiFi in the hotel earlier (and was a bit bendy after the afternoon beers) SO after a snooze and then 3 mojitos (SO delicious, SO innocent-tasting, SO potent!) he deemed the act of me trying to make sense of the day, and typing said sense, redundant so I tumbled into bed instead. I’m sure all I’d‘ve done was praise mint-based cocktails anyhow…and then at 8.30am this morning mourn the pain in my head they had gifted me (all of which came to pass).
Cloudy today but warm and the odd ray of the sun’s shine is getting through.
Actual blue sky and much sunshine promised for tomorrow – BRING IT, i say…I am well ready enough…oh hang on the sun has now come out – hip hip hip hooray! laters….
lying 1 April 2010
Well, I lie for a living, as we know – today however i shall be mostly lying down and not exactly for ready money. The buke is done, let the chilling out (till the copy editor is done with it) BEGIN,,,
I shall report later, hopefully from a bit of sunshine.
Oh, seems only fair to warn all burglars that there are people holidaying in my various abodes (Easter, you see) while I am prone making a few freckles so pointless coming round to steal anything (also occurs to me that aside from my laptop, which goes everywhere with me I don’t have anything of worth…tis all in the head!)
A really pretty cat came to visit yesterday and had THAT LOOK about it – iI may have been chosen again…if it is still around when I get back there’ll be decisions to me made (how naive of me – as if I have any choice in the matter should the puss have decided I look ok!)
That is all…
wild 30 March 2010
Ah, now…we had SNOW in Dublin today (and a fair bit of it too) = not ON!!! I had 5 full weeks of it over Christmas and the New Year between my travels and I have
1) still not gotten over that and
2) had ENOUGH to do me for a lifetime.
Did nature not hear that Spring was official as of the clocks turning whatever way it is they do when they rob us of the crucial hour we love in bed on that particular weekend in March – eh?
Oh for the sun – oh, hang on, I’m hopefully getting some as of Thursday…
and…NO!…still wrestling with the last chapter – but it is SO CLOSE…getting up at 6 to finish it and press SEND…good times…
fussy 29 March 2010
ARGH! I have now got all fussy about the writing – well, I am anyhow, but VERY fussy has arrived. Re-reading rewrites (a dizzy thing to contemplate, let alone do, I assure you) I keep changing my mind but also (NOW it chooses to happen, NOW, when I am inches from having to deliver) new ideas have decided to descend – FECK!
I have decided to dedicate the novel to The G Cat because if she were here with me still I would be able to tackle this in my stride and with a hairy bona fide by my (stressed) side…she always had a way of reducing things to simplicity and, if that didn’t work, she walked over and back the keyboard and left stuff for the copy editor to make grammatical sense of – some of my finest moments, I don’t mind telling you. I didn’t KNOW the extent of my luck with that creature (though I long suspected it was great and here I am now, sure of it).
Roll on Thursday when I am scheduled to lie down/implode/explode/generally STOP all endeavour….
otel 28 March 2010
Saw a hotel in the distance on the way in from the airport tonight and the ‘H’ was missing so it was a proper ‘OTEL’ and that seemed right and good to me…
Not quite done with the rewrites yet, so a VERY early start is scheduled for tomorrow to nail all down. I suspect the longest bit will be me transposing all of the handwritten stuff I have on the printed version back onto the manuscript on the laptop…and deciding on more little changes and tweaks on the way…then going back to what I already had…Still, I can smell THE END, in a good way.
2nd blog... 27 March 2010
Oh yes, the new donglero worketh…for the time being…suddenly I sort of love technology again (this present state will almost certainly be a shortlived euphoria/honeymoon period)
skirt 27 March 2010
Well, I found the black skirt I thought I’d lost – it was in a drawer under a heap of cardis, for no really good reason…now for those nice knickers to turn up!
I have a new dongle (my mobile internet access thingy) to try in a while – I have to wait a couple of hours for it to decide whether it’ll bother connecting from the shop to the ether and back to my computer (or at least that’s my understanding of what the nice young man in the shop said – we were, effectively, speaking different languages because he understood what he was saying but I might not have cos it was technological – no matter as I assured him I’d see him later if the fecker won’t work).
Could be a double-blog day if this new yoke obliges me…
blurb 26 March 2010
EEK, the blurbs are written for the book…it’s becoming ALL too real now. As is the notion that everyone is waiting for me to deliver the rewrites so that the next steps can be taken. I need to wrestle back control over it all, something I’m having difficulty with right now, on many fronts. For instance, I was drying dishes today and let my mind wander a moment and then couldn’t find the dishcloth I had JUST been using…I had put it in the cutlery drawer, though it took me quite a while to figure that out…Also I seem to have misplaced my really pretty (and I thought unforgettable) umbrella last night though I h full of everything I set out with, barring the umbrella) and it is LASHING rain now in Soho…I seem to be losing lots of things lately, or leaving them in strange places. I couldn’t find my favourite black skirt today and a really good pair of knickers (the only pair that match my current favourite bra) have disappeared also (no, sadly NO racey reason as to why). It could be argued that living in 3 different places throughout the year means things will get scattered but I was SO SURE I knew where those last 2 things were as they are ‘regulars’ that travel with me between venues…I need a wife, probably…I certainly need help (you can take that how you will – it is indeed intended as a multilayered statement)
44 25 March 2010
Well, the dongle is still on strike and I am miffed with it to say the least…if it’s not careful it will see the wall approach it at speed and whack it too, while it’s about it…
I have been having a lovely 2 days workshopping some comedy scripts at the BBC. It’s great to get out and meet other writers and actors and directors. We get good work done and also have a laugh – most welcome right now. The blues are sort of stepping aside now, I am delighted to say. Mind you, as tickled as my brain is, I have not yet come across a splendid idea I could, well, STEAL for my rewrites, but today IS another day so I remain hopeful (and thieving).
I had a bit of/too much perspective today that put a lot of things in order in my head – basically a close friend just heard that her ex-husband has died, aged 44. He was wealthy and successful and happy too, far as we know, and died of skin cancer. There is no time to waste, my dears…