Hedgehog Musings, Novels 2 comments

Three ‘new-fangled-electronicals’ I never thought I’d love so much

By on May 19th, 2013

1, We’ve just been up country to celebrate a friend’s 60th birthday. This meant a round journey of 480 miles in one day.  Arriving home at around quarter to one in the morning I was blessing the ‘dear-old sat-nav’ for a problem-free journey.

Yes, a sat-nav! Yes, I am praising that much maligned steerer of artic lorries into winding, too-narrow lanes and jammer of large trucks around tight corners!

As over time our eyesight changed, being the navigator was becoming fraught with difficulties, what with the swapping between pair of specs to read the map and / or specs to read the road signs.  So our first use of a sat-nav was a real eye-opener. DSCF6972

We first used a (borrowed) sat-nav a number of years ago when taking #3 son to University in Brighton. This meant a long journey across the south coast of Britain, in and around town after town after city, after town. A long journey of roundabouts and bypasses. It worked like a dream … only suggesting a ‘off-course’ route along a piece of road we know so well we had no compunction in ignoring it , and when it gave up trying to turn us round, it soon recalculated and ‘got with us’ again.

Now, I would always like to have a map of the route handy, and to have looked at it before setting off – just because it is wise to know where you are heading in case you get an ‘odd order’ from the sat-nav [Drivers of Large Lorries please note !].  On the last trip the odd order was ‘at the roundabout go straight across and take the first exit’. The first exit was a turning left  immediately upon entering the roundabout (hardly ‘straight-across’) .. straight across was the only other turning and had the benefit of being into the village we were heading for.

So, Saturday, even with a navigator available, the sat-nav took away the stress, but with no navigator on hand – the sat- nav is a perfect god-send and one of those electronic items I never thought I’d love .. but do!

2, It seems this next is called a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) or DVR (Digital Video Recorder). Whatever it is called and whatever version you have, it is that thing that records the programmes you would otherwise have to miss – so you can watch them when you have time (and there isn’t anything else worth watching anyway) and does a few other very useful tricks besides.

You  may have gathered that I tend to be a bit busy… and that I also go to a number of different groups and clubs (plus committee meetings for some ) and so the few items I  actually want to watch are often on the wrong time for me to be there to watch them.

So to have something that will record them… and more to the point, be programmable so that I can set it to record them in advance (before I even know that I am going to be unavailable to watch them) is another great gadget that I really didn’t think I was too bothered about .. but find that I am! Add to that the facility to save time by skipping the ads when viewing, and to ‘pause’ live programmes when interrupted (as happens more often that you’d think) and I’m in love.

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3, The last one probably won’t come as much of a surprise to you all. It is my ereader.  I, like a lot of people I know, LIKE BOOKS.. and I do mean I like real paper books, but I LOVE my ereader. OK, so mine is a kindle – but they are all essentially the same – a way to carry hundreds of  books in a slim, light-weight package, that slips into the back of your handbag (so it is always handy when you find you have the odd ten minutes to read) or so you can carry all your possible holiday reading easily and read the fattest and heaviest of tomes without making your hand ache with holding it!

What is more – I have mine set on a larger font (and sideways) so that I do not have to find my specs to read!! YAY! Another blessing ! I love my ereader!

Do you have all or any of these gadgets? Do you hate them or love them?

What ‘new-fangled-electronicals’ have you fallen for despite early misgivings?

Come on, don’t be shy .. do share – you know we all want to know :)

 

Writing 9 comments

Does it hurt to use a laptop?

By on May 13th, 2013

Ouch!

What are you reading this blog on? Is it a laptop? Desk top? Notebook? Tablet?

BLOG POST LAPTOP

Demonstrating the Laptop Slouch
Photo courtesy Remolacha.net pics

Well, it seems that reading may be  fine on almost any, but writing on laptops is beginning to cause those that use them A LOT, a lot of pain!

Now, up until recently, I have not used mine as much as some authors, but there are reports of authors developing severe neck pain, wrist pain and back pain from typing on their laptops.

I can see why.. the screen is actually too close to the keyboard, attached as it is, so you are always peering down at it. The flat keyboard does not lend itself to the correct wrist stance — or to supporting your wrists as you are typing. Add to that if you use one resting on your lap or other non-desk height surface, it gives you a slouched back, or worse, twisted and slouched.

To be honest – when writing my novels I prefer to work on a desktop with the raked angle of a stand alone keyboard and up to now it has been possible to ‘shut myself away’ in the study and stay on that one. Unfortunately, I now need to be able to work most of the time in the dining room – to be where my mother (sadly suffering from dementia) can see me and yet to be able to work on my novels. This being the case I am looking for solutions before I suffer from the problems caused by bad posture from writing on a laptop.

So far the only problems I have encountered from over-use of a computer have been from using the mouse.. and this was from copy and pasting when writing primary school reports when the idea of ‘standard phrases to be used appropriately’ was being trialled in the school I was then teaching in. After the second whole day of writing reports I began to get a strange tingling in my lips and a numbness down part of my face. It took me a while to work out what was triggering this .. the constant small movements with the mouse!

Even now, if I do a lot of ‘mouse work’, like when I am editing or correcting after proofreading, I am aware that I must not do too much otherwise the numbness starts again.

One famous author has chosen to eliminate sitting at her computer by standing all the time. Lionel Shriver, author of  ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ among 12 other books, is reported as working on her laptop with it standing on two volumes of The Oxford English Dictionary on an ordinary desk. She chose to do this to avoid the problems associated with a sedentary life-style (another writer’s occupational hazard) but it helps with the other problems too.

In one article I read, Anthony Horowitz (of the Alex Rider series) said ‘writing on the computer is so much more painful than writing with a fountain pen ever was.’  Hmm, me thinks he forgets the arm-crushing writer’s cramp from using a pen … I remember this feeling well from exam times – when forced to write for hours on end, until arm, wrist and fingers would all be tied in a painful knot by the exam’s end, with much shaking to allow the blood to flow and the nerves to relax enough to continue within the last hour!

So, I am looking for easy, cheap, good ideas.

Ones I can clear away quickly and easily come meal times too! Not sure I want to stand all the time – though I’m happy to do that for a while. The most popular ideas posted on the internet seem to be to raise the laptop so the screen is correct for looking straight at and have an external plug-in keyboard at the correct height for arm angle and wrist support. This seems almost as cumbersome as having the desk top computer around. I wonder if any of you have tried any of these methods or have good ideas?

Do you use a laptop computer a lot and have you solved this problem?

Have you suffered from bad posture due to long term laptop use?

Do share – whether you can help or not – you know I love to hear from you

Country Life, Other Passions, Village Events 2 comments

Putting the Fun in FUNd Raising!

By on May 6th, 2013

There are many pluses to living in the countryside, and immediately we are all thinking of green fields, bird song, the lowing of cattle, fresh air, peace (not necessarily quiet – it can be a noisy place in unusual ways) and hedgerows bedecked with wild-flowers. However, here I am thinking of the simple pleasures that may be taken without the censorship of what is ‘cool’ or ‘in fashion’ because, somehow, these things just do not matter here.

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hedgerow bedecked with wild flowers

 

Maybe it is because we know we are blessed there is a lot of fundraising for good causes that goes on out here in the sticks. Not a week goes by when there is not one or even two fund-raisers for good causes within a five mile radius of where we live. These can be as parochial as the fabric of the local church (grade 1 listed building with parts dating back to 1259) or as far afield as a small locally run charity (Tamwed) to enable the rural poor in India to help themselves by growing foods with better nutritional values and supporting mobile health advice and care.

The events are usually the coffee morning, cream tea, pasty and pud, quiz night, craft-fair or bazaar / garden fete variety, and though people try to inject an element of ‘fun’ none of these are a patch on the Evening Meal with Pig Racing that we attended a few evenings ago.

The meal was the main focus of the evening … a chance to share, explore new flavours, and do a quiz that got everyone talking… however, it was the pig-racing that put the FUN into the evening.

So, here we have a short video clip from the evening – the people at the far end of the race-track are the ‘racing-pig ‘owners’ (for that race) They had the privilege of naming the pig and the chance to take home the race-pig owners prize … and the responsibility of catching the pig at the end of the race!

PLEASE NOTE - IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON THE EMAILED POST YOU WILL SEE NOTHING HERE. CLICK ON THE BLOG TITLE AND IT WILL TAKE YOU TO THE BLOG PROPER – WHERE THE VIDEO CAN BE SEEN!

What was the most FUN fundraiser you have ever been along to?

Do share (we are always looking for more ideas) and you know I love to hear from you!

BOOKS, Novels, Slate Craft 7 comments

Physical work as distraction therapy

By on April 29th, 2013

So, that’s it.  The Angel Bug has been sent out to a number of readers for a read-through by fresh eyes, as both my proofreader and I have read it so often we can’t see what is there, what was there and what isn’t there anymore – editing can throw up errors you, yourself, just can’t see.

Now, some of these readers know my style of writing and like it, and some have not read any of my novels before, but are avid readers, and then there’s one in the USA.

The latter because in The Angel Bug one half of the story is told from the view point of an American, and at times he also interacts with other Americans in the USA. Now, I have tried to make sure that he thinks and talks in the right slang and idiom for an American, but what do I know? I’m UK born and bred! Anything ‘off-note’ however, should jump out at a bona fide American and then I should be able to remedy the problem before The Angel Bug is published.

Here’s a conundrum for you …

UK = ‘This is a herbal mixture’  USA = ‘This is an herbal mixture’ (said ‘This is an ‘erbal mixture’  the American using the original pronunciation of herbal – hence the required ‘an’ as indefinite article.)

So, how would you render this in a book that, hopefully, will be read both sides of the Atlantic? 

My solution – ‘an herbal’ when the words are in the mouth of an American, ‘a herbal’ when in the mouth of a Brit.  I’m hoping that this will make ultimate sense as it is read.

Now, I am sure you are thinking that you have read traditionally published books written by either Americans putting words into the mouths of Brits ( or visa versa), and they have been wrong, wrong, WRONG!  Or situations – like the ‘muffin shop’ in a Dartmoor village selling blueberry muffins, ( back at a time before the UK had heard of muffins that were made of cake  -  and not the traditional English Muffin – bread,  let alone had whole shops for them) – which particularly sticks in my mind along with the ‘Chalk pits on Dartmoor’ that the  American author also had. (They are  actually China clay)

However, any serious indie published novelist will have realised from reading the blogs on writing, publishing and reviews, readers are frequently far more critical of indie published works than they are of traditionally published works, and as a book can be bought via the internet anywhere in the world …  you ‘d better get that world and its use of language right.

Unfortunately, it is the self-publishing writers who slap their books up without even proofreading them that has brought this hyper-critical gaze to indie published works. Simple fact – no matter how good you are at spelling, grammar and use of the English language - you cannot proofread your own work. Your mind will always read what it expects to read. Hence those great but tricksy ‘can you read this’ lines that get sent around the internet with letters missed or replaced by numbers looking a bit like the letters .. and yes! You can still read it!   S1M1L4RLY,   Y0UR M1ND   15   R34D1NG   7H15   4U70M471C4LLY   W17H0U7   3V3N   7H1NK1NG   4B0U7   17.

So, why the title of today’s blog?  Physical work as distraction therapy.

Well, sending out your novel to new readers is a bit like sending your first child off to school for the first time…. a bit nerve wracking. So I find distraction and pleasure in physical work instead. (Strangely, housework is no good for this therapy – well, that’s my excuse!)

In this case making some beautiful reclaimed slate coasters, out of Delabole roofing slates that may have been on a roof for two hundred years or so … and now are transformed by cutting, filing and, the amazingly revelatory, rubbing down with wet and dry paper – that shows what time and the mineral content of the slate have made of it. Each one different. Each one attractive in its own way. Love them :) Do click on the picture to see them better!

These are going to the St Dominick Craft Fair – I can’t sell them from my slate-ware website as they vary so much I’d have to photograph and put up a special box for each one!

And while I worked I did not think of  The Angel Bug, all alone, out there … but I did allow my mind to wander and to wonder, what next? To listen for the voice of my next narrator ….

 

Have you any favourite howlers from traditionally published novels?

How do you take your mind off things?

Do share – you know I love to hear from you … it takes my mind of things :)

Nature Notes, Other Passions 6 comments

At last … Spring’s sprung!

By on April 22nd, 2013

I’ve not actually been doing Nature Notes this year ( after all, one year can be much like the last in nature-watching) but over the weekend I really felt Spring had Sprung!

Friday was the first day the new kids went out on the grass and I wished I had my camera with me as they bounced and sprung all over the place – kicking up their heels so high they threatened to flip right over. A video of that would have been good!

It feels like the garden flowers have all started blooming at once, the large sweep of daffodils in the orchard have at last burst into bloom, and everywhere there are large clumps of primroses, celendines and, if you look in the right places, violets. And our first Swallow has returned …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday I went to the beach for the first time this year, along with two of my sons and their girlfriends (down from London for the weekend).  A few hardy people went in the sea swimming (sans wetsuits) others, with wet-suits on, were surfing, the sun was bright (though the wind a little chill) and the dog had a whale of a time. She appropriated a hole, dug previously, as her ‘nest’, enlarged it a bit to fit and spent time retrieving cuttle-fish bones ( of which there were many on the beach, and take them back to her den.

 

 

 

 

Finally,  just for a bit of fun… the dog kept scooting the sand back when she was digging her nest out more …  it looked a little like she was doing a moon walk .. only 7 seconds – but enjoy:)

What makes you feel like Spring has sprung?

Do share – you know I love to hear from you!

BOOKS, Novels, Writing 14 comments

Judging a Book by its Cover

By on April 14th, 2013

This week I have been trying to get a handle on what I want on the cover of my new novel ‘The Angel Bug‘.

Traditionally published novelists often get no say in what goes on their cover. I heard one author complain that the cover of one of her Romance novels showed a blonde wearing tweeds, when it was obvious to anyone who’d even read the first chapter of her book that the main character was a brunette and wouldn’t have been seen dead in tweeds. (She said that it was set in the countryside, and she guessed that’s as far into the description of the novel as the illustrator had read)

The other extreme is deciding totally on your own what to have on your own book cover. And there’s the rub… what impression to convey with the cover? It is definitely a tricky choice because some people DO JUDGE BOOKS BY THEIR COVERS !

Now, I have the offer of a professional job on the cover, once I have an idea of what I want .. so I have been trying a few rough mock-ups myself – finding this easier than explaining in words what I want. (The words that come out of my mouth seem to get translated into a different language as they go into someone elses ears)

The Angel Bug is set at the (world) famous Eden Project (in Cornwall) – at least for the core of the novel… so I thought I’d try to combine a picture of this with the idea of a ‘bug’ or ‘bacteria’ and change the picture of Eden to look like something you might see down a microscope.

Ok, effective-ish but WHAT MESSAGE WAS IT GIVING?  Having shown it to a few people I realised it wasn’t coming over the way that it was meant… it was looking a bit sci-fi..ish, a bit ‘weird’ and probably my usual readers wouldn’t pick it up.

So I tried the same idea without the inverted colours… now it just looked messy.

I won’t show you the weird effects I created trying to make it look like Eden was sat in a petri dish.. or indeed under an actual microscope – the images were too rough and I deleted them before thinking about this blog post!

I tried with a different picture and different view – better, I thought, but still the book looked like a sci-fi or a thriller…. neither of which it is, though,I suppose, it does carry some small elements of both.

original photo Neil Kennedy wikimediacommons

Another colour change and I felt I was working towards something that might not frighten off my readers … but did it convey the right image of the book?

At this point I really don’t know … I do know that it needs more thought and more feedback … or perhaps I’ll settle for the ‘blonde in tweeds’ and be done with it …

What does this cover say to you? Would you pick it up to read the blurb?

Do you judge a book, in the first instance, by its cover?

How do you select books to read?

Do share – I’d love to hear from you… and you never know it might help me :)

Hedgehog Musings, History (local and everyday) 4 comments

Long Distance Relationships

By on April 7th, 2013

Today, Sunday, was my youngest grandson’s Christening – yeah that’s him (above) in his christening robe giving me a sermon on having missed it. And, how much I would have loved to be there with him, his mum, his dad (my eldest son) and his two older brothers (my only other grandchildren) but they all live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and I can’t get over there at the moment.

Really I am lucky as both the other boys were baptised here in the UK  in our local church where my son and his lovely wife were married. It was fortunate that both their Christenings could be arranged to coincide with long visits here.  This new event started me thinking about long distance relationships and how lucky most of us really are now.

When my parents moved some fifty-five miles from the East End of London out to a village near Maidenhead it was a HUGE move. At that time, 1954, they didn’t own a car and if they had, the journey would have taken far longer than the now estimated one hour fourteen minutes as the M4 had not been built even as far as Maidenhead. In fact, I can recall travelling up to see relations in London in the mini that we had by the time I was about nine and the M4 was open … it seemed an interminable journey even then!

My grandparents were known to me from the summer holiday when they would visit, and Christmas when we would go ‘up’ to visit relations in London (everyone else in our family).  Hence I remember odd things about each of them, the gran who taught me how to knit every time she visited more than once, leaving me a pair of knitting needles with a block and a half of a scarf started under her careful eye -  that I never finished. (I never did get on with knitting – which is strange as I’m into every other craft) The other gran who always seemed to wear a ‘traditional’ wrap-around pinny almost all day – which I found odd. One grandad always whistling a tune, the other always full of all sorts of information. In between visits they might talk on the phone with Mum and Dad … but I don’t ever remember talking to them on the phone.

image courtesy Ian Britton freefoto.com

My Aunt and her family moved to Australia in the early sixties. It might as well have been to the moon, back then. A phone call perhaps once a year – letters on birthdays with a photo slipped in with the card. The thought that they could fly back and visit was beyond imagining at that time.
When I went away to college – even though it was not very far away – the only contact my parents had with me during term time was the Sunday evening phone call, usually brief as there was frequently a queue at the hall of residence telephone box and it wasn’t done to keep others waiting forever!

Today, though my eldest son is in Malaysia, I see photographs of him and his family almost every week when they post them on facebook, and we have a skype video chat at the weekend, with the first and main portion being the grandchildren talking to granny! (and grandad when he’s around) They show me drawings, read to me, tell me how they are getting on at school, tease me, even try to tickle me … and I do similar mad stuff back. I have met and played with the boys, apart from the baby, and when we do meet every eighteen months or so, there isn’t that halting shyness as they’ve seen me every week. I am lucky, but I still miss the cuddles!

And then there’s my youngest son, also on the other side of the world, even where he is, on an island just off of Thailand, I am able to keep up-to-date with him via skype and facebook. We are so lucky!

And it is easy to think it is the same for everyone, but as I have been finding out from my niece on her blog (armywaglife.wordpress.com)  one group of people who do not enjoy such an easy long distance relationship via the internet are those overseas in our armed forces. Hard to believe in this day and age – but true – even in Germany. It’s a very new blog – but well worth the visit.

So, do you keep up a long distance relationship with family or friends?

Is it easier for you now than it used to be ?

Do you remember the days when you had to queue for a public phone to call someone? – and then they had to be at home!

You know I love to hear from you – please share your thoughts

Cooking, Hedgehog Musings, History (local and everyday) 8 comments

Hot Cross Questions

By on March 30th, 2013

Baking hot cross buns on Thursday so we could have them at breakfast on Good Friday morning set me thinking about how come, in our house, we eat this  ‘tea-time type’ bun for breakfast … and why, when supermarkets have them on the shelves for months, do we only eat them on Good Friday at home … and whether this was just a quirk of our family.

As with every question today, I was quickly on the internet to research it, however, as you will know, you need to choose your sources carefully. I am indebted to recipewise.co.uk for an excellent rendition of the whys and wherefores of the hot cross bun – from which I have extracted the core information I sought.

To start with, Hot Cross Buns for breakfast is not just a family quirk. (phew) It seems that the practice of eating the Hot Cross bun (also known as Good Friday buns) for breakfast goes back at least until the 1600s, with evidence from Pepys and. later, from Samuel Johnson in ‘The Life Of Samuel Johnson’, by James Boswell, published 1791: “On the 9th of April [1773], being Good Friday, I breakfasted with him on tea and cross-buns … On April 18 [1783], (being Good-Friday) I found him at breakfast, in his usual manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross bun to prevent faintness”.

As to the history of the bun I am jumping ahead. Like the origins of Easter Eggs, the ‘spiced fruit bun’ probably evolved from the pre-christian celebration of the spring and dawn goddess Eastre where in Anglo-Saxon times ‘a bread dough was studded with dried fruits and baked in small loaves’. As Christianity spread these were ‘marked with a cross’ and linked to the crucifixion on Good Friday and so ‘absorbed or acquired’ by the Christian religion – and as they were within the Lenten season they were a real treat yet eating them was blessed.

Indeed the practice of marking all bread-doughs with a cross was widespread by the Middle-ages – particularly as it was thought that the sign helped ward off evil spirits and prevent the bread going mouldy or stale. However, with the rise of Puritanism, this widespread use of the cross was seen as  ‘superstitious’ and thus ‘Popery’ and was frowned upon and eventually only the sanctioned ‘Hot Cross Bun’ was permitted to have the cross marked on it, and only to be eaten on Good Friday in remembrance of the crucifixion.

By the early 1700s these delicacies were sold on the streets by baker’s boys and coster (barrow) boys and women (with baskets instead of barrows for this day) Their cry of ‘One a penny, two a penny, Hot Cross Buns’ is a rhyme that was also brought to mind and sung to myself as I baked our buns and is a popular Nursery Rhyme today.

Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny – Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny – Hot cross buns

The superstitions that were prevalent in the Middle-Ages started with the belief that the cross on the dough warded off the evil spirits lingered on. It is said that a hot cross bun all made and baked on Good Friday before sunrise will never go mouldy and if kept in the house will protect it from fire. Which reminds me of the famous pub The Widows Son where they used to hang a new Hot Cross bun from the ceiling each year on Good Friday. The story behind this being that a widow’s son was due home from sea on Good Friday, and she baked him Hot Cross Buns. However, he never made it and was never seen again. Every Good Friday she made him a special bun right until the day she died. Her cottage later became the pub and the tradition began of hanging the ‘widow’s son’s hot cross bun’ from the ceiling. Unfortunately – the ‘protection from fire’ part of the superstition wasn’t working well as part of the pub burned down in the 1980′s. However, they continue the ceremony today with a special bun placed in a net by the youngest of the local Navy Reserves who come to the pub for the occasion.

Who would have thought there was so much to know about a fruit bun! And if you’d like my recipe for Hot Cross Buns – go to the recipe drop-downs.

So – here come the Hot Cross Questions:

When do you eat your Hot Cross Buns? Tea time or Breakfast? Let’s take a poll here!

What do you think about the supermarket practice of having Hot Cross Buns available from before Shrove Tuesday to well after WhitSunday?

Do share your thoughts – you know I love to hear from you!

Hedgehog Musings 3 comments

One in 5.5 percent

By on March 25th, 2013

This weekend we celebrated an event that it is said only one in 5.5 percent of couples achieve.

It was my parents’ Diamond Anniversary – 60 years married.

We were commenting on how difficult it was to find Diamond Anniversary cards and my husband said that it was no wonder as it seems that only 5.5 percent of all couples that marry get to celebrate their Diamond Anniversary. (And the card manufacturers weren’t going to have a large range for such a small percentage) Anyway – this got me wondering about the other 94.5%.

When you think of the troubled times that many who could have achieved this milestone have lived through then it is, perhaps, not so surprising that so few do.  My parents married in 1953  when my father was 26 and my mother 22. Many, not much older than them, would have met and married during the war – and of those, many men never came home, and quite a few women were killed in air-raids etc. That my generation have not been involved in a war that called up conscripted men and women must have increased the number likely to survive to reach their Diamond in the future.

Health can also take its toll of one or other partner. As a simple example, we are fortunate to live in a time and country where women are less likely to die in childbirth than they were even 60 years ago.  As health care has improved so more people are living longer – making it more likely that  both partners will be around come that 60th married year.

Against this we have to put the larger number of marriage breakdowns. With divorce becoming easier in the time since my parents wed, for better or worse, there are many more splits than there used to be.

And in the future?  Well, the trend for people to marry later in life will mean that those couples will have to achieve an even greater age to reach that Diamond number. Will that affect the percentage?

It’s strange that each of the first 10 years get a ‘material name’ yet when you reach the other end it is ten year gaps. Is any one year worth celebrating more than another?

Do you think that the percentage of people celebrating their Diamond Anniversary will rise or fall over the next twenty five years ( picking a number out of the air)?

So, what do you think ? You know I love to hear from you – do share your thoughts!

Country Life, Hedgehog Musings, Slate Craft, Village Events No comments yet

The pace of rural life ……

By on March 19th, 2013

So you have been drumming your fingers on the desk and wondering what exactly was missing …  and then you realised … you hadn’t had your email from the practical hedgehog! And why.. because she’s had one busy weekend – where her fingers have not had time to hit the keys.

Rural life can be exceedingly busy if you throw yourself into local events and organisations. Take this weekend when we had the culmination of the Great Parish History Quiz.

No use just hitting the internet on this quiz -  all answers could be found without a computer – though only some were available online, and then only if you looked hard enough. The questions referred to our parish only, making it very specific. You needed your two weeks to visit places in the parish, to hunt out the interesting bits of information.. like ‘Who has a black memorial slab near the priest’s door in the church, and what is the symbol on it?  answer: Reverend Nicolas Sharsell and the symbol – skull and crossbones. (My boys always thought he must have been a pirate – where in truth he was a solemn minded man of the puritan cloth)

Final answers could be posted in the box up to 11am at the History coffee morning, for which I had spent the whole of Friday baking cakes and putting flowers in vases for the tables, to say nothing of the other times I had spent helping to create the quiz, making and distributing posters, road-side signs and quiz sheets. Not that I was alone, on the day a whole team of wonderful people turned out with cakes, raffle prizes and help to run the event!

And that’s part of what living in a rural village is all about – being part of the community, joining in, helping out, supporting events.  It brings people together and heightens the feeling of belonging. I have lived in a city and belonged to organisations there, but there each remained separate; living in a village is different. When you join in with things in a village you become linked to the whole village.

At eleven the answers were given out and, at the end, I took away the entries to mark. Which I could not do that day, as I had other errands to run, my car to load for a craft-stall the next day and a 60th birthday to attend in the evening.

Cards from prints of Jo Totterdell's botanical paintings (click to view)

Next morning, bright and early, with feet still a little sore from dancing to great 60s hits in high heeled shoes, I set off for an open garden event in aid of Hospice SW. I took with me my annmade slate-ware, local botanical artist Jo Totterdell’s card selection, to sell on her behalf, and the quiz sheets to mark.  I am pleased to take Jo’s work along as I think it is exquisite and so I’m also giving you a chance to look at some more of her lovely paintings here. You won’t find these on the internet anywhere either.

A weekend when different things I am involved in collide and make me over busy is a fairly frequent occurrence… I am told it is my own fault for trying to do too much.  There – that’s my excuses for a late blog – the pace of rural life :)

Is your life full of different clubs, groups and societies or do you go for the peaceful life?

Why are some of us, seemingly, programmed to ‘get involved’ while others are happy not to?

And do you feel more relaxed now that you’ve heard from me? :)

Do share your thoughts – you know I love to hear from you!