Monday, June 14, 2010

Domestic gods and goddesses



Kevin Musgrove shares his reflections about his attempts to become a domestic god over in his blog Commonplaces.

It's very funny.  I know that some of you that read this are domestic gods and goddesses. I'm one of the other sort.

And anyway, life's too short to spend on housework. So why not read Kevin's blog instead?

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Gardens


Today ten people in our local area opened their gardens to the public in aid of a local hospice. For £5 we not only got to look at all the gardens we also had a cream tea. It was wonderful.

A woman I met said, "We English are good at coming out for two things, one is the trooping of the colour and the other is to look at gardens." I'm not so sure about the trooping of the colour, I've always thought that was for tourists, but gardens are another matter entirely.

I didn't like to take photos of their gardens, so these pictures are of our garden.


I enjoyed seeing what other people had planted. Now I want to get some foxgloves and some daisies. I've always loved daisies.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Bionic hearing

I now have two hearing aids from our wonderful National Health Service and I can hear again! (Watch it when you're in the kitchen, kids*, Mum can hear you!) Before I only had one and it needed updating, plus my other ear had joined in the strike.

It's not that I'm deaf, not really. Without my aids I can hear cars and aeroplanes and the chink of ice in a glass; I can hear that people are talking and whether they are happy or angry. All I can't hear is what they're actually saying.

But no longer! Watch out world, here I come!

My other superpowers include eyes in the back of the head, reading, and being solar-powered. What about you?


*My kids are 24 and 26. They're still my kids.

Addictive word game


I've found this addictive new word game called KaBauble. You get tiles consisting of four letters to arrange on a grid, then you use the letters to spell out words. It's a bit like a cross between Tetris, Scrabble and Word Search, except that you can change direction as you spell out a word.

It's worth a look.

(Oh, and I cheated by taking a picture early in the day before the real competition came into the game. I ended up seventeenth!)

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Do I need an ebook reader?

I've just bought Bernita's book Dark and Disorderly. I'm going to have to wait to be able to read it because it's not published yet but that's just the start of my problems. I don't have an ebook reader so I'm going to have to read it on my laptop, or rather my Beloved's huge 19" widescreen laptop that's really a "luggable", so I can't take it to bed with me. Maybe that's just as well, though. I gather the book is scary!

I wish Bernita could persuade Carina Press to go into print but that's not likely to happen. It's highlighted the problem I'm having, that there are so many good books available to read online and reading them on a laptop just isn't the same as sitting on the settee with my feet up.

One problem is that there are so many ebook readers to choose from and I don't want to end up with the equivalent of a Betamax. Then I'm not sure that my favourite authors are available in ebook format or at least not at a price that I'm willing to pay. The paperback of Tanya Huff's latest book The Enchantment Emporium cost me under a £5, but as an ebook it would cost nearly £8, partly because it's available in the US and the dollar to pound rate doesn't favour the UK at the moment.

It's all very confusing. I know some of you have ebook readers that you're very happy with so maybe you'd like to let us know how you get on with them. And if you don't have an ebook, then I'd love to know what you think too.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Look over there


Do you follow Simon C. Larter? If not you may want to pop over to his blog Constant Revisions and read a very funny post about the Blogging Cycle.

Saturday, June 05, 2010

The voice thingie

You'll notice my masterful command of the English language in the post title. It can only get better.

Pacatrue has started us on a round of blog voice thingies and mine is below. For a full list of participants you can go here.

This is mine. It's a bit hissy and a bit rushed. I'll have to rely on my English accent to woo you! (Not so effective with other English people, sadly.)

[edited to add: I've just found out that I didn't have the mike plugged in. No wonder it was hissy! Here's a cleaner version. The old one is at the end in case you want to know what the original commenters heard.)


Here's the text of the story if you want to follow along:


The small shop was full of customers poking around in the mixed nuts and searching for vitamins on the long shelves. Tracy was on her own again and she was struggling to serve the long queue of customers when a young lad in a hoodie came in. He went straight to the shop’s one blind spot and soon after there was a loud crash.

Tracy sighed and ducked under the counter. The middle-aged man whose pile of body-building tubs was still only half rung up tapped his fingers loudly on the counter. A woman at the back of the line frowned into the biscuit aisle with pursed lips.

It was always like this when the manager left early. Only last week Tracy had found a young boy stuffing sugar free sweets into his pockets. The security guard had let him off with a warning and banned him from the shop but Tracy would have prosecuted him if she’d had her way. Young people today were all the same.

At the back of the shop, she found the youth bending over with his hand on the neck of an elderly woman who was lying in a heap on the floor. Tracy could feel her heart thumping. Surely not a mugging this time. She couldn’t see a knife but still. Her voice squeaked as she asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“She’s got a pulse,” the boy said, “I think she’s just fainted. We ought to loosen her clothing.” He flushed and moved back slightly. Not a mugger then but a rescuer and a shy one at that.

“I’ll open her collar,” Tracy said. “You call the ambulance.” Maybe there was hope for the younger generation after all.


Original version

Friday, June 04, 2010

Coming soon

Bernita has an extract of the beginning of her book on her blog and you really need to go over there and read it.

I love her clear, simple writing style and I love her unaffected modesty about getting published.

I can't wait to read the rest of her book when it's released.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Words as pictures

I thought this video was rather fun. The pace is a bit off in places but it's worth waiting it out. You may spot a friend too - although only briefly.


words from jacques khouri on Vimeo.
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