Tag Archives: women writers

2 Nov 2025 · 6:28 pm

Did I eat that? Yes I did!

Misadventures in food …

This week, I felt the urge to write something light and pithy because it seems to me there’s not quite enough of that in the world at the moment. To that end, I thought I’d describe some of the bold culinary experiments I have undertaken recently. So here we go. One bit of this has been used elsewhere, the rest is virgin territory. First up (do skip to the cake wrecks section if you have read my October newsletter) …

MTM’s adventures in foraging.

One thing I particularly enjoy is getting something for nothing. Enter foraging. Not only does foraging involve getting free food but, in the case of mushrooms, it’s free food that is about one calorie per metric tonne. If you are trying to eat sensibly and healthily and you are doing that with a dash of food group and calorie control, this is a bit of a bonus.

Images of edible fungi (montage) Top row two images top and underside of two beefsteak fungi, these are dark red. Underneath them is a dryad's saddle fungus first top uppermost and then the underside. These are arranged on a slate grey mat on a light wooden surface. Bottom row are two photographs of a parasol mushroom on green grass. Shows a whiteish mushroom with a brown centre and lots of dark brown spots. In colour and marking it's actually very similar to the top of the Dryad's saddle above it. . Underside shows white gills and a beige/brown stalk with white stipe.

In the picture we have: top left beefsteak fungus and dryad’s saddle from above and then showing the underside. On the bottom, parasol top and underside.

For the last three years I’ve been finding parasol mushrooms, dryad’s saddle and beefsteak mushrooms in the same places and putting photos on a foraging group on Facebook to confirm my efforts at I.D. This year, the fourth, I was finally confident that, having had the experts agree with my identification three years running, I could probably pick and eat them without risk of death. So when we had a muggy week last week and a lot popped up, I threw caution to the wind and picked them.

Then I ate them, so you don’t have to.

In a lot of cases there are reasons the edible foods in our hedgerows have fallen out of use. Usually it’s either because they take from here to the arse end of eternity to prepare, there’s something that looks exactly like them which will kill you or they merely taste vile.

These were surprisingly good.

Beefsteak fungus is offputting. It’s red/maroon, glistens like chopped liver and it oozes red goo. It’s always a joy to find one at the furthest point from the car on your walk when you have nothing to carry it in. Bearing it proudly home in your hand, past other walkers who look at you nervously, clearly wondering why you’ve just walked a five mile circuit with a pile of chopped liver in one mitt (yes, that’s what it looks like) can be a challenge if you are easily embarrassed. I found the Dryad’s saddle closer to so I didn’t have to carry it quite so far. Typical as it doesn’t ooze anything. Although it served to hide the beefsteak mushroom so the are-you-a-serial-killer looks from other walkers stopped, which was nice. The parasol mushroom came the next day. I found it walking round the grounds of McMini’s school waiting for the rush hour traffic to die down before driving home.

Montage of four pictures showing cooked and chopped dryad's saddle and beefsteak mushroom. All mushrooms are shown against a wooden background. There are four pictures. Top left is a fred gooey mess in a glass bowl with a fork in it. This is cooked beefsteak fungus. Top right is a brown and white speckled fungus cut into strips showing firm white flesh. This one is raw. Bottom left something that looks like slices of tongue, red and marbled like meat this is raw beefsteak fungus on a cutting board of slightly darker wood to the surface it's standing on. Bottom right is a white bowl contraining cooked Dryad's saddle. It has gone a little darker in cooking so the top is brown and the flesh is beigy brown in tone.

In the picture above we have, top left, Beefsteak Fungus, cooked, Top right, Dryad’s saddle chopped and uncooked. Bottom Right, Beefsteak fungus, chopped and uncooked, and Bottom left, Dryad’s saddle, cooked.

Verdict

Parasol mushrooms are lovely. I will eat more. Dryad’s saddle is supposed to smell like watermelon or cucumber. Actually it’s the smell of a flavour. That flavour is when you pick and eat a raspberry from the garden and there’s one of those tiny brown shield bugs in it. Not 100% pleasurable.

Texture: The texture of parasols is like a shop bought mushroom but slightly more watery.

Dryad’s saddle on the right in the pic, cooked (bottom) and uncooked (top) has a fantastic texture (although you need to use commonsense with which bits are edible and which are too tough).

Beefsteak cooked (top left) uncooked (bottom left). I think we can safely say the texture has to be managed correctly. On it’s own, well, you know that bit in The Blob where it comes through the grating in the cinema? If you don’t I expect you can google it. Yeh well, if you could imagine eating something of a similar texture to that you’re probably in the right area. BUT if you cut it very small, fry it with onions, garlic, tomatos, a glug of wine, herbs de province and throw in a little cream and some pasta and it’s bloody delicious.

Scores on the doors: Parasol 10/10 om nom nom. Very good with onions and cream or paired with scrambled eggs and marmite toast. Dryad’s saddle: 5/10 smells like a shield bug and sadly has a tang of that in the palatte too, only good with other mushrooms I suspect but the texture is mucking farevellous. Beefsteak: 7/10 quite an acidic taste and the texture is gopping so you need to cut it small and cook it with the right things but if you do you stop noticing the texture and it tastes fabulous. I can take or leave dryad’s saddle but will definitely eat parasols and beefsteak fungs again.

And of course, extra bonus points, I’m still alive. Which is nice.

I also had a giant puffball that week but I haven’t mentioned it because I’m confident identifying those so there wasn’t that same will-I-die-frisson.

Cake Wrecks

Shortly after these adventures, still basking in my sense of self-sufficiency, we jetted off to Portugal for a week. While there, I enjoyed a special pudding of the Algarve called, Torta De Armêndoa, or Torta De Armêndoa do Algarve to give it its proper name. This looks like a kind of wholemeal swiss roll with something very reminiscent of custard through it instead of icing. I love this pudding. It is one of my favourite things.

However as our favourite Algarvian haunt becomes a bit more curry-and-chips and a bit less pork-and-clams or fried-squid, Torta De Armêndoa do Algarve has become harder and harder to find … to the point where I was only able to have one portion. Meanwhile, my other favourite pudding, Dao Rodrigues (imagine baklava made with egg instead of pastry—it’s a lot more delicious than it sounds peps) was literally nowhere to be seen. There was only one thing for it. I was going to have to find out how to make these things, and then cook them. Myself.

Knowing that Dao Rodrigues requires special equipment and is insanely complicated to make, I realised this was not something I could learn to do straight away. Torta de Armandoa, though. That was a different matter entirely. I looked up ‘traditional food of the Algarve’ and found a picture of this thing. Then—God bless Google Lense—I searched for it with the legend, ‘recipe for this dish’ and after years of crap results for something similar, with a similar name, which is not the pudding I was looking for, Google finally came up trumps. Woot.

Picture of whole meal looking swiss roll filled with yellow icing.

Torta De Armêndoa do Algarve

Thank you to this lovely blog, where I found this picture and the recipe. I have posted the picture so you can see what the pudding looks like in real life, although I think most of the ones I’ve seen in the Algarve tend not to be iced on top. Anyway, onwards.

The basic gist is that the wholemeal-looking bit is a meringue with ground almonds in it and the zest of an orange.

Anyway, the meringue bit done; egg whites and sugar whipped, almonds and orange zest folded in, I then set about making the custardy-icing-bit which is interestingly counter-intuitive to someone versed in making things like Real Custard, with eggs. Basically, you make a sugar syrup, then you stir in the yolks from the eggs you used to make the meringue. Then, in the antithesis of any sane custard-making technique, you heat it, as if you’re trying to make it go like scrambled eggs, stirring all the time. Instead of going lumpy it thickens up to a similar consistency to butter icing. Weird, but also kind of cool. What I suspect I should have done here, just to keep the whole thing from getting too sickly, is to use two table spoons of the juice of the orange I’d zested, rather than the two table spoons of water suggested in the recipe.

Once that’s done and the ‘cake’ bit is cooked, you let everything cool and then you get the flat tray-baked cake, spread the bright yellow custardy-gloop over the cake. That lovely line from The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus

‘yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye’

was going through my head all the while I did this. Because I’m classy like that. The final results did nothing to dispel that particular earworm which continued relentlessly through my head, on loop as I regarded the results of my labours.

Yes. I give you Torta De Armêndoa, do Algarve.

A swiss roll like cake, but one that’s cracked a lot and is rolled in an exceptionally amateur way, on a plate on a wooden table.

You can see why the earworm persisted can’t you? I mean, it looks more like a surgical truss covered in pus but in my defence here people, it was surprisingly tasty. I present for your perusal a slice on a plate that looks a lot more like the real thing than this somewhat terrifying view from one end.

swiss roll style cake, plain cream/off white plain sponge coloured with yellow icing and a fork beside it on a green plate, with a thin blue rim, placed on a light coloured wooden table.

We had friends round for dinner so I tried it out on our brave diners. Luckily I’d already done them some prawns they’d enjoyed, so they trusted me. Amazingly, they liked it so much that when I offered them a chunk to take home, they rapidly accepted. Although they forgot it—which was a shame—because it meant I had to eat both their slices, with a cuppa, a few minutes ago.

The rest of it is sitting on a different plate with a glass bowl over the top which makes it look like a domed exhibit at some victorian shop of horrors … or possibly an art installation made from surgical waste.

Plate with a blue rim with a circle design at quarters, a red on yellow each side and a yellow on green at the front. On the plate is a swiss roll style cake which has been left overnight with a glass bowl over the top (still in place in the photo). Yellow custard-coloured icing is oozing from between the rolls of the Swiss roll so it doesn’t really look like a cake at all. It’s all sat on a wooden table with other bowls in the background one black with a lid and one translucent plastic with green leaves inside.

I know, terrifying.

Verdict

Well, yes, my Torte de Amêndoa, do Algarve does look like an utter abomination, but it tasted pretty good and more to the point, quite authentic. Despite containing enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma in a large elephant, the presence of almonds and egg seems to have tempered the sweetness considerably. The orange zest also helps on this score.

Looking at mine compared to the original on west coast cooking blog, I think I should probably have given the egg yolks a proper full-on beating, instead of just flapping at them ineffectually with a fork to get the stringy bits out. Think more fizzy-omelette-comme-Mere-Poulard than the somewhat desultory stir that I did.

Additionally, the texture of mine has come out a bit stodgier, I suspect, down to the fact UK ground almonds are ground up much smaller and peeled first. I have bought some straightforward almonds (un salted and unpeeled). Next time I’ll whack a few of these in the blender and see if I get a closer texture to the Algarvian original. I think I’ll also try adding a little of the orange juice to the sugar syrup because it could be a little less sweet, even if it was deliciously eggy.

Eight out of ten, then. I will definitely try this again.

Last but not least …

I have finished my latest book. I’m just doing the final sweep now before I format it and send it off to the beta readers. It’s not my best work, but it’s the middle of three and I have a decent idea where the rest is going to go, so I am extremely happy.

If you want to volunteer to beta read it, you can find more information, and a form to sign up here.

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9 Jun 2024 · 6:02 pm

Stuff

A mixed bag this week so on we go.

On health

Because I have French blood—so if you ask how I am I’m going to smecking well tell you—I’m going to tell you how I am. Before you hesitatingly raise a hand, first finger extended in an ‘excuse me’ gesture and start to explain that you didn’t actually ask how I was at all, rest assured I’m going to tell you, anyway.

Picture of an iced bun with eyes stuck on it so it looks as if it's a miserable face bearing the legend, 'this too shall pass but some other bullshit will come and take its place becausae it never fucking ends.

Once again, I have been riding the vomit comet this week, although I did manage not to actually hurl, merely emptying at extreme speed at 3.00 am in a manner reminiscent of someone upending a bucket. But since I did not find myself vomiting into the small plastic pot I have learned to keep ready and disinfected by the loo for just this purpose, I’ll chalk up this latest round of Mary versus The Virus as a draw.

Another visit to the Doctor and I have new HRT to try—patches—which seems to work better as I am already sleeping more soundly. I have to change the patches twice a week, which is irritating because as we all know there are seven days in a week. Seven is a prime number, which means it’s divisible by one, itself and fuck all else so dividing it into two is tricky. I have elected to go for 3.5 days which so far means 8am on Saturday, followed by 8pm on Tuesday, back to 8 am on Saturday and so on. It would have been much easier if the instructions were something sensible like, change the patch every three days. Never mind. Onwards.

Out and about

Between Saturday’s hurlathon and Thursday’s attack of fire-hose bottom (or FHB as I like to call it) I finally managed to get a gym session in, which is always good, had a swim, did ‘Walk and Whinge’ with my friend Jill or a ‘Grumble in the Jungle’ in this case, since we took the woodland path.

A picture of british countryside, rolling hills and trees, with sunshine and blue sky

Picture from the woodland path …

We also went to see Miles Jupp’s one man show, On I Bang at The Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds on Thursday night, pre my FHB attack. I cannot recommend the Theatre Royal enough, OK, like every theatre, it could do with a couple more loos—even the gents queue out of the door during the interval—but otherwise it’s a lovely venue, the staff are delightful and it’s small which makes is so much more intimate, and therefore, more fun. They also get some amazingly big names in comedy. I saw Frank Skinner there a couple of months ago, I was in the third row back, which was brilliant although I missed Michael McIntyre and Dara O’Brien.

Anyway, if you can go and see On I Bang, I highly recommend it. Miles Jupp’s relationship with his wife appears to be a facsimile of mine with McOther in that he clearly shares the same manic need for tidiness while I got the impression his wife, like myself, might be a bit more louche about that aspect of keeping house.

It was also clear that the dynamic with which the Jupps handle this difference was very similar to ours.  Jupp comes out of it as a genuinely lovely chap, which he proved beyond doubt on this particular evening when someone in the audience was taken ill. OK, so the whole show was about a similar thing happening to him, plus the aftermath, but it wasn’t necessarily a given that he’d be empathetic. In the event he was the first person to notice, simply stopping, looking out into the audience and saying, ‘are you alright?’

When it was clear that, no, the chap was not alright, he calmly asked if there were any medically trained people who could help, asked if they could bring the lights up and then enquired whether they needed him to stop the performance at this point or just pause. The end result was a pause while the gentleman was helped out of the theatre.

However, the thoughtful and kindly manner in which Jupp handled the crisis was extremely impressive. Concluding, after the chap had been helped out of the auditorium, that he was thinking about offering him tickets to On I Bang in Ipswich the following Saturday but that, if the show affected the man the same way a second time, he might not want them. After the actual interval, the first thing he mentioned when he came on again was that the taken-ill-man was OK.

So that was grand. I passed up a chance to do a comicon in Ipswich today because we were due to go to my Uncle’s 90th Birthday celebration yesterday and I wasn’t sure I could manage two days running after last Saturday’s outbreak, let alone after Thursdays’s extra helping. That was grand. It being Saturday and there being GCSEs we went down and back in the day.

Screengrab from Google Maps showing the amusingly named town of Titsey and the clogged M25

The M25 is mostly down from 4 lanes to 3 all the way round at the moment which means it’s bollocksed at the best of times. This wasn’t too bad, but it was the M11 which screwed us. A lorry side swiped a car and ruptured its diesel tank in the process. We sat for 45 minutes and then they’d sorted out the bollards and we were allowed through along one lane.

Having taken 3 hours, and the rest, to get down there, we decided it was best to leave by about 4, but after a worrying trip to the loo during pudding, I decided it might be prudent for us to leave at once, just in case. In the event, my fears proved unfounded, but had we stayed, and I’d got more tired, they could well have been borne out by my ever troublesome guts. It’s very difficult to predict it for certain, as I’ve no clue what sets it off.

Going past the morning’s crash site on the M11 on our way back, it was still a lane down although they were just finishing up resurfacing it. We noticed there was hardly any traffic and discovered that was because exactly the same thing had happened about five miles further up. There was a tailback for about 10 miles and it looked like they’d closed the road. We were extremely glad it wasn’t an evening do and we weren’t sitting in it on our way down.

This morning, I had a suspicion I was going to be the only member of the choir at church and because of riding the Vomit Comet last Saturday and Thursday night, I hadn’t passed a cursory glance over the hymns, mass setting etc the way I usually do. There are only three of us, anyway, but the other two are consummate musicians and while I can read music, it is a bit hit and miss. I’m there to make up the numbers really. Today the other two were away and it was a choir of one; me.

Picture of the insides of a church reflected in the brass dome at the bottom of the lectern.

The mass was one I hadn’t sung for rather a long time and I was a bit nervous as I hadn’t prepared myself in advance. I managed to sing one of the responses a third higher than everyone else, which was a bit embarrassing and of course, a lot of the congregation followed me and wondered why it was such a strain on their vocal chords.

Luckily one of the altar party doubles up as choir from time to time so he helped out with some of the descanty bits in the mass setting, albeit an octave lower. I forgot the first of four in the gloria but managed to remember the others even if I forgot to go up a note instead of down at the end. It didn’t really matter as it still went with the rest of the chord. In the Agnes Dei, the organist was kind enough to pick the alternative bits out for me, which was very helpful of him.

To my horror, I managed to forget the first three notes of the second (gradual in Anglican nerd-speak) hymn. Naturally it was the one where we weren’t singing the tune printed next to it in the book. It’s one I know backwards, upside down and inside out … until I think about it. Luckily I managed to calm down, stop thinking about it and switch to autopilot by the end of verse three so at least I got it right twice. After that, apart from the aforementioned Angus Dei, I blundered through to the end of the service largely unscathed. There was another slightly sticky moment when we had a hymn which went to the tune of another, slightly more famous hymn, and I had to concentrate extremely hard to ensure I didn’t switch to autopilot and end up singing the wrong words.

Afterwards there were homemade biscuits and having spent a fair part of the week emitting my entire contents, suddenly, and at speed, I had no qualms about replenishing my lost calories by eating four of them. I also had coffee. Mmm. After the first bout of FHB finished, I kicked caffeinated coffee into touch because I’d not been able to drink it for most of March and April while I had my endless crapathon. Previous to that, I had reached the stage where I had a raging headache if denied access to coffee in the morning, not to mention trouble getting out of bed.

Having got rid of that annoying dependency, it seemed a bit mad to re-establish it so I’ve been drinking decaf, except occasionally. However, I have discovered that drinking the caffeinated stuff now gives me a little bit of a buzz! Mwahahahargh! Which is nice.

On writing

My writing is really pissing me off at the moment. I have a story, with a timeline but I am slightly flummoxed as to how I deal with it.

There are two sub characters, a gang member and a kidnapped sausage maker, whose relationship is a big part of the whole thing. The sausage maker is being forced to make sausage against her will and refuses. Her gaoler is trying to persuade her because his boss wants her to make 8 more sausages after which they promise to release her. The trouble is, they promised to release her after she’d made four, eight and then twelve sausages so the sausage maker has refused to make any more.

Finally, the gang leader has the sausage maker’s husband kidnapped, intending to threaten his murder unless the sausage maker makes more sausages. Enter our hero, The Pan of Hamgee, who blunders upon the kidnapping as it happens, and after finding out some more about it, reports it to Big Merv who decides to send a message to the gang leader who has done the kidnapping.

Originally, delivering that message was where the story starts. Then I rolled it back to at the point the husband was kidnapped. I can start it with the delivery, but … there has to be some time before that for the relationship between the kidnapped sausage maker and her gaoler to develop. That either means a prologue or flashbacks. I suppose it’s possible flashbacks might work… I think prologues are like cliffhangers, some people avoid them on principle, and lord knows I have few enough readers without pissing some of them off before I start. But others hate flashbacks.

It’s all extremely irritating and although I think I’ve almost solved it, it’s stalled progress for a chuffing eternity, which is irritating in the extreme but I think I’m nearly there now… probably.

Right with that, it’s time to go and help cook stuff. I also have to interrogate my son about cake.

Afore ye go …

picture of four book covers in M T McGuire’s humorous science fiction fantasy trilogy The K’Barthan SeriesIf you’d like to read something, there’s always a free book. I have some free at retailers, and more free from me. You can find links and information as to where and how to download them here

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2 Jun 2024 · 6:04 pm

Meh.

OK here’s a TMI alert for everyone. This is far too much information, very much TMI. If that’s not your thing, please feel free to pass on this one. The rest of you… enjoy.

Last night I was unfortunate enough to have yet another visit from Cardinal Chunder and Mr S’hitattak. Jeez what is going on? Actually no, let’s stop me there, because I think I may know.

After the Stomach Bug That Would Not Die, coupled with the stress of possibly putting Mum in a home which I knew would devastate her, and all the money worries over the last two years, and then her dieing and all the gubbins and aftermath of that, I have been left a bit run down. When I am tired, the first thing affected is my digestive system which makes it much harder to kick a long-term, double-ard bug bastard with this level of persistence into touch. At the moment, I’m on HRT. After having two coils I now have pills for the progesterone bit and the same oestrogen infused alcohol gel to rub on my legs. The pills have to be taken on an empty stomach. I’m not sure what happens if they aren’t but I’ve assumed it means they don’t work as well.

The instructions suggest I take them an hour before food or two hours after eating. Before the Undead Stomach Bug I would take them when I went to bed which was usually anywhere between half ten and midnight which meant my 7 o’clock supper had between two and four hours to vacate my stomach beforehand.

However, when I am knackered, my digestive system slows down. I discovered this by din’t of throwing up A LOT while I was doing my A’levels. Usually that was caused by eating something too rich, or too late. The meal would then stay exactly where it was, until a few hours later when, if it was something really rich like a pork chop, my stomach would decide it couldn’t digest whatever it was, throw up it’s hands and admit defeat, at which point, I’d throw up.

So essentially, stomach bug aside, I think what has caused the last two attacks has been partly that I’m still recovering, and therefore tired, but also I’ve taken the HRT pill two or three hours after dinner on a stomach that is tired and lackadaisical—not to mention still very full of food. Ever since I’ve been taking the pills I’ve been much more menopausal and have had much more trouble getting a good night’s sleep. You need a good 3 hours to get proper REM in and I’ve been getting two hours unbroken rest if I’m lucky, waking up 5 – 7 times a night like I have a newborn or something. It’s been particularly bad all week.

I tried taking the pill later, in my regular 1 am wake up slot. I’m guaranteed to wake up at 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 at the moment, which is a pain when I usually have to get up at 7. This hasn’t made much difference so far. I could start taking the pill in the morning, which might work because it has to be an hour before food, but not if it’s holidays etc and I’m having a lie in and wake up at 9.30 or if we’re going somewhere and have to leave early and I can’t have anything to eat before I go, and spend the day ravening hungry.

Naturally sleeping really badly makes me tired, ergo the digestive system goes slow, and with each successive night of disturbed sleep the digestion is slower and presumably the stomach fuller each time I take the pill on a supposedly empty stomach at midnight. So, presumably the effectiveness of the progesterone pill gets less and less as there is more and more food on board later at night … so I get more and more menopausal symptoms, until I get so knackered that my stomach does a go slow, and, if I eat something rich like curry it throws up it’s hands and … yeh.

Last night, after feeling a bit more nauseous each time I woke up, I was finally sick at 5 am, while poor McOther was getting ready to go to a car boot. So I literally had to wander into the bathroom while he was cleaning his teeth, carrying a small pot, bid him a cheery, ‘good morning’ apologise, and then proceed to do the level up from farting and coughing at the same time; sitting down on the loo and cleverly emitting copiously from both ends of my alimentary canal. Mmm. Poor man. I bet he enjoyed that. Isn’t life a peach? Let me tell you, this is not an ideal way to start the day for me either. And despite being 5 am, it was clear that my stomach had not even given a nod to digesting my supper. I was also pissed off that I didn’t get to church or do anything fun today because I wasn’t ‘empty’ in time.

So I have to decide if I’m going to have another coil or if I’m going to try the patches first. I slept like the dead with the coil and gel combo and have always struggled with the pills so I suspect they may not be for me. I guess I should give the patches a go as they may work better, seeing as the coil did. So another trip to the Doctor’s on Monday, I think.

There are still another few weeks before my results come back but I think everything barring microscopic colitis has been ruled out.

Still feeling a bit nauseous as I write so it’s rice tonight. But I’ll put a tiny bit of ragu in it to make it more interesting.

On the upside …

I’ve been far too ropy to do anything today so I have sat in the garden, in the sun, in a deck chair in my pyjamas and read a book. I also repaired to McOther’s lounger where I had a very pleasant little sleep so all is good. I just need to be really careful what I eat from now on I think, until I get on a more even keel financially and the Mum admin is done.

I have money worries for myself now. Mum used to pay my brother and I expenses to go see her—‘Darling, you must pay yourselves because it’ll probably be the only bit of our money you’ll ever see.’—and I no longer get those regularly. I am feeling their loss, on top of a succession of enormous and thoroughly unexpected bills and in a very long month the housekeeping is supposed to arrive on 1st of the month but it’ll be the 7th or later this time because of the way the days fall. But somehow knowing the end is in sight helps a bit.

Other upsides, or at least reassuring things. I am having grief counselling about Mum which has started and is really helpful. The counsellor said that it is very common for illness to accompany grief so I feel a bit better about that side of it.

Other news this week …

Yesterday I had a very enjoyable day at Watford Comicon. It was a lovely venue and there were lots of lovely folks there, including, among the guests,  an actual Dr Who (Colin Baker).

Picture of authors at a table selling their books

Thanks Simone for asking someone to take our picture!

There was also a fantastic bunch of traders with some amazing things to buy and look at. Unfortunately there weren’t that many folks in. Maybe everyone decided the last weekend of half term was too much hassle and they just wanted to stay home. Despite it being quiet the punters who did come along were great and I had some very interesting conversations with some lovely people.

The event was staged at Watford Leisure centre and extra bonus, we saw some wild parrots flying around in the grounds afterwards.

The noisy cricket now has two slow punctures so I’m thinking I should probably get my alloys recoated at some point as this is what usually happens, as they get older and more rusty, they start to leak.

Other comicon news, eyebombed the loos.

Picture of a peg to hang things on with eyes stuck above it to make it look like a grumpy face.

Although some things in the loos didn’t need eyebombing.

Picture of a loo roll dispenser that looks like a fat faced duck

Writing…

Yes, I have done some writing this week. My main task now is to do the timeline. I couldn’t get it to gel and it was only as I tried to work it out in my head that I began to realise that what I really have is two books. Jolly dee. Both follow quite happily on from each other without cliff hangers so it should be alright once I’ve sat down and planned the timeline.

Probably …

So that’s grand.

Right that’s it from me. Hopefully I’ll have more interesting things to post next week. In the meantime, remember you can always grab any books I have free from this page, here: https://www.hamgee.co.uk/cmot3

 

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27 May 2024 · 11:51 pm

Let’s try kindness…

This week has been hectic although looking back on it, it’s less that I’ve had a hectic week and more that, after last week’s visitation from Cardinal Chunder and friends I was definitely not firing on all cylinders for most of the time. I finally got back to the gym on Thursday, even though I was still feeling a little ropy.

It did leave me a little time to browse the internet more than I should have done. There was also time to write which was good and finally, after some of the stuff I read on line, time to think. Yeh, I know, if I keep practising it might become an habit etc.

Picture of a very still lake and the sky with reflections

It also gave me more time to spend on social media. The result is …  well I did enjoy all those posts about Rishi looking like he’d just got gunked on Tiswas but otherwise it’s all a bit grim. Yes, rant warning ahead. MTM steps onto soap box. Yep. Here we go. You might want to scroll on by but …

Blimey. What a bunch of miserable fucking bastards we are! Seriously. What is going on? I saw a post somewhere about young people and their many genders etc and the poster was commenting on what a load of bollocks it all is.

It wasn’t shrill or tub thumping but it wan’t needed. It was stuff that didn’t need said and yet, it was there and because there seems to be an awful lot of tub thumping shrill stuff about ‘wokeness’ it just felt like another person putting the boot in against kindness, respect and consideration for others, which is what a lot of ‘wokeness’ is supposed to be.

Perhaps I feel it more because my son has so many LGBTQ+ friends. But I get perplexed by this anti woke stuff. I don’t mean the endless pussy footing about in case we cause people offence. That’s just stupid and standing against that is fine. I mean the inability to see the difference between not taking consideration for others to extremes and just not considering others. The anti woke reaction I guess.

The one where the logic goes like this. Bob is LGBTQ+ and has behaved like a twat on telly. That must mean everyone LGBTQ+ is a twat like Bob. Even though there are LGBTQ+ people we’ve known all our lives who are friends and we know aren’t twats! Also, let’s not take the matter up with Bob because even though that would be logical we can’t reach him. Instead, let’s go kick our friend Eric who we’ve known for. years. Eric hasn’t even heard of Bob but he just happens to be LGBTQ+ as well and furnished with our new knowledge of famous Bob, who has been a dick everyone, we now understand that all LGBTQ+ must be dicks and since Eric lives round the corner it makes sense to go smack him. Yes, we’ll smack Eric, even though we have known his family for years and his father is our son’s godfather and we know he’s a lovely man etc etc.

Is this for real?

What fucking prick outside the brainwashed nimby in a police state thinks that one small aspect of a person defines the rest of them?

Also anti woke? Yes of course, because a few morons going over the top about getting offended now means that consideration and thought about other people is a bad thing. As if the fact someone has behaved like an arsehole and got offended over nothing gives the anti-woke brigade cart blanche to go out of their way to deliberately upset different, unrelated people who just happen to have the same gender, sexuality, hair colour (insert your own inane reason here) as famous person who’s behaviour they consider rude, in some warped ‘redressing of the balance’. Or ‘perpetuation of the pointless shit and enmity’ as I prefer to call it.

How old are we all? Three?*

*No. Most three year olds have already grown out of this kind of behaviour.

As the mother of a teenager, I feel beholden to say something.

There is always the disingenuous argument in any conversation about the modern youth’s approach to gender along the lines of x, y or z person has decided that they are a toaster, which stems from a misunderstanding of how they interpret gender, is largely irrelevant to the whole gender/trans debate and merely serves to muddy the waters. A bit like the ‘all lives matter’ mantra, when yes, undeniably all lives do matter, but the whole point of black lives matter was that, to a lot of the ethnic population, it felt like non-white lives didn’t matter. Back to the youth of today.

My son explains that there is a person’s sex, which is what you are born as, male or female and that is irrefutable, but your gender is more like a spectrum which is why some girls are very girly and some are, in many respects, blokes with boobs and a high voice. There is of course, every stage of girlyness or blokishness along the spectrum between.

That makes sense.

Yet still I see so much anti LGBTQ+ or minority of any description crap daily on t’interweb. More than when I was growing up in the 1980s for fuck’s sake. I find my self wondering why? Seriously. Apart from the obvious, are we really going that badly backwards? Question, why does anyone give a shit? Or at least, why do so many people give a shit about trivial rubbish like the way someone else expresses their sexuality? I mean, one; it’s not their business how much man, lady or in between anyone else feels. Two; if choosing to be one gender or another makes a person happier, and therefore more readily able to be kind to others, why would anyone stand in their way? Oh and three; did I mention that someone’s sexuality is none of other people’s fucking business.

I saw a Facebook post just recently; someone in East Anglia getting all hot under the collar because Chichester police dolled up a police car for pride week down in Sussex. That’s where Brighton is, in case anyone needs a nudge. The usual comments asking why they couldn’t spend the money fighting crime followed, from a bunch of people who clearly don’t understand how the allocation of budgets works in government, local authorities and large organisations. Here’s a hint, you can’t take the cost of a £500 vehicle wrap from a marketing budget and add it to a different one. That’s now how it works. I’m not saying it’s good but that’s the way it is in most organisations right now.

These folks who have to complain about everything do my nut.

eyes stuck on a whitewashed window to make it look like two miserable faces

You! Yes you! You miserable fuckers! You’re doing my effing head in.

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7 Apr 2024 · 12:25 pm

Respite and random thoughts about faith…

Blimey, this week’s been a bit of a roller coaster.  As you know, last week I was having extreme difficulties with what felt like bowel-based armageddon. I’m going to relate the happy ending of that story (spoiler: I didn’t die in the end even though I was genuinely beginning to wonder which would go first, the virus or me). I should also run this with the caveat that it is mostly supposed to be funny, and/or reassuring to those in a similar position. But I have no idea which bits of what I write/say make people laugh. I know they usually do, somewhere along the way, the trick is just to make it look deliberate. So if I’ve misjudged this and none of it is funny at all my humblest apologies. I’ll try and find something laminating-bacon-level stupid to do over the course of the week to make things more interesting. Right. Disclaimer made, on we go …

Having cancelled our holiday I then hot-footed it to the Doc’s on Tuesday again, desperately seeking help but also the referral she suggested to see what in god’s name is going on with my insides. She agreed that the referral was a good idea and suggested I have another go at solids. ‘Rice and chicken … and maybe a hard boiled egg, but not much else,’ she warned me.

‘Can I have the egg scrambled?’ I asked her.

‘Yes, but no butter or milk.’

‘Can I have coffee?’

‘With a meal.’

Woot.

‘With a tiny bit of milk?’

‘Yes.’

God love her. So I went home, made myself a small cup of coffee and had a scrambled egg. It might possibly have been the loveliest thing I’ve eaten in my entire fucking life. Trooper that he is, McOther went off and bought some chicken which he divided, making some into a delicious pasta dish for himself and McMini. I decided I would do my portion with basmati rice, chopped onions and herbs, I also added a stock cube. It was surprisingly tasty.

The next day, I felt human. I went and had the first appointment, an ultrasound scan (clear) and then we collected the cat. I had energy. It was wonderful.

That night I felt so much better I decided to branch out with some different foods. The following lunch I had the chicken and bacon in an amatricana sauce that the boys hadn’t finished the night before on lovely big shells of pasta. I did forebear to have cheese. There were no ill effects or indeed any. Having not ‘BEEN’ for 24 hours, I was cautiously optimistic I might, possibly, have turned the corner. For supper I put lentils rather than rice with my chicken and veg and cooked it in the oven with a tiny bit of cider. It was lovely. As I went to bed, I took my HRT pill and the hayfever one, although with real work to do my immune system had stopped yanking my chain and I wasn’t having any hayfever. My hands had stopped aching too.

I normally take supplements. Not many but taking Magnesium L-Threonate has definitely helped my menopausal brain fog and also made me sleep better. I’d read a few days previously that Magnesium supplements can set off this kind of reaction so I’d stopped them. Feeling a bit awake but at the same time really tired, I took one and went to bed. I knew what to do now, I reasoned. If my bottom unleashed armageddon during the night I could fix it.

It did.

Here’s another useful nugget of information people. If you are having the shits in the night, it’s more likely to be an infection, having them in the day is more likely to be IBS or some other thing caused by your immune system pissing you about. Always useful to know that. I spent Thursday drinking diorolite and thinking I was going to die but manfully started in again with the scrambled egg breakfast on Friday. Supper was chicken and rice. I had no coffee, indeed, I am no longer addicted to coffee. I can now not drink any for a whole day and there will be no headache, which is a bit of a bonus. Let’s face it, something good had to come out of all this tsunami of crap. Come the evening I did not take a magnesium pill.

I slept like a fucking log.

Today I am very tired but I am basically fine. I know I have had something grim, I feel very post viral; weak and feeble the way you do after a really bad go of flu, but my weight has stabilised at 10st 13lbs (about 67kg I think) but I had a tom tit today and it was normal for the first time in about 6 weeks … Holy shit (literally I guess)! What a joy that was! I nearly took a fucking photo of it. But I didn’t because even I am not quite that bad, so instead here’s one of the absolutely enormous shit that pigeon did on my car (and long-suffering sister in-law) a while back.

Pigeon shit down the window of a LotusMwhahahargh! What have I sunk to?

And I took a walk up to the market today which feels so much better. At some point I will be having an endoscopy and a colonoscopy (either together in a couple of weeks or separately, starting with the endoscopy next week and the colonoscopy in a month or so).

Any takeaways from this? I probably should have stopped and rested at the beginning but I just. did. not. have. time. And I should have known it was a virus, because it had given my overactive immune system enough to do that the allergies and arthritic pain had all stopped. Well no, actually, I did know it was a virus, I just wasn’t sure if I was going to get better! I genuinely believed it might kill me at one point, because I’m not a drama queen at all. (Yes, that’s terribly melodramatic but, in my defence, I remember my Mum saying the exact same thing after she had pleurisy; as in, ‘It was awful! If I hadn’t had to look after your father I think I’d have happily gone then’.)

Also, I tidied up something I’d got lying about and turned it into a short story which I submitted to an anthology, so that’s grand. And I applied for a stall at the Ely Cathedral Christmas Fair, so that was grand too.

Thank you, everyone who gave me advice. It was actually really useful. I listened to/read all the links and stuff you all sent and it gave me things to try.

Now, if I can make this stick I have a target of getting fit and well by 21st when I have booked to go on a metal detecting rally half an hour up the road. Really looking forward to it as I haven’t been out for ages. And I’m going to go back to the gym. Possibly Thursday or maybe a week on Monday.

Other stuff …

A propos of nothing much, on the way home from the market today, I popped into the cafe next to the church to give them a bit of pay it forward cash. They know some of their customers, are really hungry but can’t afford to pay for a meal so you can drop a few quid in so they can give meals to these people for a reduced rate (or nothing). I then nipped into church to light a candle and say thanks for the end of the tsunami of crap. I tend to pay £1 each for them, I’m not sure if there is an actual price anywhere, but I didn’t have any cash so I did the minimum £5 card thing on the doo-hicky at the back which which is a safe 3 up front, anyway, I reckon. There was another lady in there, who was obviously having a bit of quiet time and as I walked back past her I stopped to ask if she was OK, but she said hello first.

I asked her if she was OK, anyway. I always ask this, because … I dunno … because I think it gives people an option if they need or want to say something, but they can also not say anything too, and it’s an important part of the ministry of that particular church, to me, because it’s a place of welcoming and inclusive kindness.  Then as I got to the door thought about my remaining candles-in-hand and went back.

‘I didn’t have any cash so I’ve paid for a few candles up front, if you’d like to light one on me you are more than welcome,’ I said.

We got talking and she is new in her faith. She’d been brought up a Christian but it just hadn’t really clicked until recently. We ended up having a chat, which was lovely until we got onto the topic of how stuff sometimes aligns uncannily and … ugh, I ended up telling her the fucking ridiculously long Mother Death story which, even in the abridged version, took far too long. I only wanted to talk enough for her to feel relaxed and comfortable and then ask her about her faith journey, because I love hearing how other people came to have their faiths, possibly because my faith journey is so boring, or because I’m nosey, or quite possibly simply because I’m unable to do anything, even being a Christian, without hyperfocussing autistically about it. But also, because I suspect the lady would have liked to have talked about it, too, and that is far more likely to be the reason our paths crossed. But oh no, no. Nothing like that from shit-for-brains here.

If the good lord sent me to listen to her story, all I did was bloody well tell her mine. Perhaps that’s what he sent her for, to listen … poor woman if he did. I was desperate to ask her when I got to the end of her story but I could see she also wanted to be on her own for a bit too and recharge during her lunch hour. So I felt I should leave her to have a chat to God rather than me.

On the upside, I did make her laugh by telling her that one of the windows looked like Jesus jumping on a trampoline, a little nugget that was pointed out to me by one of the lay readers and she did pop in to church this morning for the first ten minutes or so.

On the downside … I comprehensively stuffed judging when it was time for me to shut up and I didn’t even ask her name. I think it was OK. She gave me a hug anyway. But urgh. It’s really frustrating to have a brain that’s really pointy in some respects and then be thicker than mince in others.

The thing is … I think I do have a kind of calling. Not to be holy particularly or anything, mostly it’s to write, but also to be kind … because my parents are both gone it is left to my brother and I to Be The Light. And I have a very strong sense that I must be the light now … it’s just that my parents made it look so fucking effortless but it’s actually really difficult. I’m not the kind of legend they both were were so … I can’t … yet. I might if I work very hard at it and all the stars align.

The thing is, maybe sometimes the fact I am a cheerful soul who is, to be honest, a bit of a bell-end is something I can use in a good way. It’s just that it’s a weapon I don’t quite know how to wield yet. I think it’s at the stage where it’s still a bit heavy for me, and metaphorically, I’m waving it round inadvertently cutting off the limbs of people round me and gouging walls the way a 6 year old would if given a real working lightsaber. It’s like a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of a rather overenthusiastic labrador … or my cat.

I think if I was to complete a what disciple are you? quiz, I’d be Peter; lovely guy, really sweet and well meaning, totally solid and practical too, but just … a bit of a wazzock sometimes. If he can say the wrong thing at the wrong time he will (God love you I’m sorry Peter but you know it’s true) and he’s just, so sensible and practical and well meaning and even though he blunders on from gaffe to gaffe he learns (unlike me). Maybe it’s because he’s so obviously human and flawed that I think he’s great … maybe we’re all Peter.

But at the same time, when I think about all the things I saw my parents do, the really amazing, treat-your-neighbour-as-yourself stuff, the overriding thing is that they were not embarrassed. They gave absolutely no fucks for social convention. On all levels there was simply the question, what is the right thing to do here? Oh yeh. That is. Check. Off we go.

The first time I saw a stranger in trouble on the street I stopped but I hung back, waiting for others to act. I was too shy to stop and help, myself. But then I shared a flat with someone who had epilepsy and she told me that actually, it really meant something when people stopped to help if she’d had a fit in a public place and was just lying on the ground. So now, if I see someone who looks like they might be in trouble I make a point of stopping.

If someone’s sitting down on the ground looking tired or weary, or yes, drunk, I ask them if they’re OK. Even if there’s a crowd round them I stop and ask (and the one time that has happened, when there was a crowd I mean, the woman on the ground was having a heart attack and nobody gathered round her had thought to phone for an ambulance, they were all just standing there, gawping. No-one was even holding her hand. So although six people had found her before me, I was the one who phoned). If someone’s begging I don’t always give them cash but I try to ensure I acknowledge their humanity and say hi.

Thinking about it. That’s the thing about my Mum and Dad. If there was some guy lying on the pavement with people stepping over him, my parents were not afraid to go over and check that he was merely in a drunken stupor, rather than seriously ill, and pop him in the recovery position if need be. They were never scared to ask people if they were OK, even if it might have made them look a bit stupid. In some cases they were not afraid to do something a bit dangerous, like give a homeless man a bed for the night.

While I looked on, not getting what was happening, my mum ran across the shingle of Shoreham beach and into the breaking waves to save the life of a child. She didn’t stop to think, ‘the parents might get the wrong idea if I manhandle their toddler’ or not even realise what was happening, like me. Maybe that’s the trick, at every level; getting to that point where the part of your brain that knows, ‘I should act/offer help, be kind,’ subsumes the ‘will I embarrass myself?’ awkwardness as the go-to neural pathway.

My parents were never afraid to step up. So I guess I’m getting there. I’ve got to the bit where I give no fucks about asking or offering or helping. But they were also really good at the aftermath and I’m not (unless it’s a crisis. I’m properly level-headed in a crisis but I’m a bit lumpy at the rest). I just need to get to the listening bit faster when it’s not a crisis I guess! Or I dunno … maybe I just have to hope that this afternoon was a time when the good lord had decided that what that lady actually needed, right there, was a well-meaning wanker. Although I’m not beyond thinking that it might have been that the well-meaning wanker needed a kind lady to talk to.

And yes. I think about everything I do in this much detail, which is why I write books I guess. Indeed it’s probably what makes the books alright. And no it doesn’t drive me that nuts. Although this mix of extreme self-awareness—and at the same time none—kind of dumb at times like Peter (sorry Peter) is sometimes annoying and I know I embarrass my very introvert husband constantly. But I can also let it go quite happily; chalk it up to experience, try to learn and move on. If I didn’t, I’d have probably topped myself, or been admitted to a long term mental institution, years ago. Never mind. I’ve got the no fucks bit down, so that’s a start. And tomorrow is a clean slate, after all. I can start again.

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21 May 2023 · 6:47 pm

We’re not at home to Mr Cockup. Oh no, no, no, no.

Except we so smecking are. Mwahahargh!

Picture of an amber warning light for an automatic gate with plastic googly eyes on it to make it look like an irritated face.

Yes he’s a bit fucked off.

I was going to do a post about writing this week—and accompanying things—but the accompanying things got a bit out of hand and so I’ve gone off on a completely non-writing related tangent.

Do you remember a refrain from the Blackadder II episode where he’s made Lord High Executioner?

‘We’re not at home to Mr Cockup!’ he tells his team. And they fuck it up, of course, and Baldrick says, ‘Shall I prepare the guest room for Mr Cockup, my lord?’

Yeh, well …  Mr Cock-up seems to have taken up permanent residence in the spare room and his omnipresence has affected most events this week. Sadly this time, my inefficiency has impacted on my ‘work’. I put ‘work’ in quotes because we all know that I don’t have time for a real job, since what I do is look after Mum and be a mum. My writing ‘career’ is the thing I pursue in the few minutes a week that I laughingly call, ‘my spare time’.

Here’s the thing. 
For the last, I dunno how long, the cunningist of my most cunning marketing strategies has revolved around the crack dealer’s school of marketing. Give them books, get them hooked and then make them pay. To whit, I have been handing out cards … these cards … (see pic).

picture of two business card-sized flyers advertising free books.

The QR codes send people to a page where they can download The Last Word (top card shown) or join my mailing list (other card shown) and grab a copy of Nothing to See Here… In case, like me, readers can’t get the QR code reader on their electronic thingy of choice to work, there’s a link written out longhand as well.

When I changed ISPs a few months ago, I lost my website. I’d run out of space and there wasn’t enough room on the server to back it up properly … except that I didn’t realise that and so when I got the new site up and running and tried to upload the backed up file it told me to piss off.

On the face of it, this wasn’t so bad. I have an earlier back up which contains most of the material I’d want to keep. Also, I used a lot of orphan pages; that is blanks with information about my books etc but without the menu and distractions that might make people browse away before they’ve properly assimilated how fantastically brilliant my books are and ponied up for one. Phnark.

Those were stored on my computer. I composed and edited them in a very ancient copy of Dreamweaver … 2004 ancient, to be precise … and put them backwards and forwards using the ancient Dreamweaver’s integrated ftp. As a result I was able to upload those to the new site and so most of the stuff in my automations should be working as usual. But things with Dreamwever are getting a bit shonky—it being nearly 20 years old and that—so I’ve been attempting to use an alternative.

Anyway, because I’m so organised and efficient (oh ho ho) I made a list and started downloading the code for all the pages I wanted to use … except that then, I suspect, I saw a shiny thing, or something happened with Mum, or McMini needed a lift somewhere and I got called away, and when I returned, I thought I’d finished. What distracted me is immaterial, the point is I hadn’t finished the job that I thought I’d done.

Yes, it turns out I’ve been handing out these cards like confetti and sending people to my site to download a free book to read and all they get is a 404 error.

Mmm, well done MTM. Bellend of the week award anyone? Ah yes, that would be me.

Balls up discovered, I have now put it right and the page for people to go to when they click the QR code is back in position. However, my gargantuan cockwomblery does not end there. Oh, no, no, no …

It now transpires that the QR code on my mailing list sign up cards points people to a sign up page with my list provider rather than on my site. I did these cards when I had artwork but in advance of publishing the book so I had to guess what I’d call the landing page with a view to making it later—when there was a book there for people to download and I’d written an onboarding sequence. I duly made up a name for the landing page, which involved the working title of the novella rather than the one it actually has…

Can you guess what happened next?

That’s right. I forgot to make that page. I forgot I’d made the link. I forgot that was where the QR code pointed but I had the cards printed anyway. Once again, the helpful QR code was taking them to a page that said oops but this time, rather than an oops page hosted by me, it was hosted by Mailerlite.

Mmm. My professionalism knows no bounds.

Bollocks.

In order to have a neat link, I used a link shortener. 
Needless to say, in the interim, the link shortener in question, Bit.ly, has drastically reduced the facilities of its free account so I can’t just make a new one for bit.ly/hupbook or whatever because I’m only allowed to use the ones bit.ly gives me, you know; bit.ly/1f*5hio;avew or something equally catchy and easy to print correctly and remember. So what did I do? Well, I just duplicated the signup page I have, and renamed it with the name I used when I made the original link. Simple! But also. Ugh. Head desk.

As you can see, my marketing’s been just peachy this week, say I with such leaden irony that if I decide to move this sentence I’ll need a special, heavy-duty winch. Then again, perhaps my … er hem … marketing prowess has been kind of OK because I can tell myself that I’ve fixed a long-term problem that’s been extant since mid January. 
Which makes this a win. Obviously. Snortle.

How did I not spot this problem earlier? I hear you ask, except I probably don’t because I expect you’ve nodded off by this time, but as usual I’m going to pretend, for comic effect, that I did. Er … hang on … oh yes. How did I fail to spot this? Well the QR code isn’t the only thing on there, I have also written out the link … except … it’s a different link which goes to a real page which does exist and will allow them to sign up and download the book. Not a total disaster then but kind of weird, all the same. I’ve left it like that for now because an alternative means changing the artwork.

Going forward (not a phrase I like but probably the best one to use here) people can at least sign up to my mailing list or download a free book with those cards, now. They probably won’t but that’s not the point is it? The point is that they can.

It’s been one of those weeks this week.

Similarly, I ordered a new case for my phone. I needed a wallet case because I like to have a single card in there and be able to go out with just my phone without being caught short of cash. Also, if my wallet’s nicked and I have to stop everything else I can still pay for things in a shop and get cash while I’m waiting for them all to arrive AND I can still buy stuff if I go out and forget my wallet.

However, I couldn’t find any companies that made them for my phone initially and had to buy a normal case—this is me, it has to have a protective case of some sort because otherwise, I’ll smash it. Although even with the protective case I smashed the phone-before-last on day two.

The case it has is great but I have to take it off to plug in a USB stick to download my photos, and as I’m doing the eyebombing book at the moment, I need to keep moving eyebomb pictures from my phone to my computer so, as you can imagine, this has become a sizeable point of pain. I have google drive but anyone who’s ever tried to download anything more than one photo at a time from Google Drive will know a) what a palaver it is and b) that when it compresses the photos into a zip file it leaves three quarters of them out. Massive, MASSIVE ball ache. The USB storage stick is way easier, even if you have to keep taking the phone out of its ruddy bastard case each time. That’s how eager Google is to ensure you don’t bother and pay for extra storage. Money grubbing bastards.

Sorry, where was I? Ah yes.

Having ordered the case, it arrived two weeks later from China and I discovered I’d inadvertently ordered one to fit a Pixel PRO rather than a plain pixel. When I put ‘custom wallet case for google pixel 6’ into a search engine, I have to be very careful that I check the results are not for a Pixel 6 Pro, which is bigger, because no matter what I do, it lumps them all together. I also get annoyingly irrelevant ‘sponsored’ results from companies who don’t make a custom wallet case for a pixel at all. I know I had the right one initially but the internet dropped, I had to reload the page and I didn’t realise it had defaulted back to pixel 6 PRO again. Bastards. That said, it was so rubbish that when it arrived I was almost glad it didn’t fit.

Needless to say, only one other site offering a Pixel 6 (not pro) wallet case popped up on my search results, but apparently they’d changed some vital parameter to ‘custom’ that made BT parental controls ban them. Or perhaps it was because they’re called hairy worm, phnark. Uh yeh … I guess it could be that. Sometime, long ago, in the dim, dark, distant past, we put parental controls on our BT internet access because … you know … McMini.

However, that was eight years ago. We are out of contract and neither of us knows our BT password so we can’t change it. I tried to get this back off BT but was unable to because it was confidential information. So confidential that once it’s been lost, they can’t even tell the actual account holder what their own password is. Likewise, if they spell your name wrong, they can’t change it. I might be able to tone down parental controls via the wi-fi router and I will probably try at some point in the far future, when I’ve nothing better to do.

Alternatively, it might be that only McOther can do it because he’s the account holder and being his mere wife means I’m not secure enough. I did have a secondary account and password which I could do this stuff with but those no longer work, probably because I haven’t used my BT email address, ever.

As far as the account goes, I think there has to be one default email address but we can’t get in because … password … and they can’t send it to us because we can’t get in to read the email. Anyway, they’ve spelled our surname Maguire, the ignorant tossers, so they can fuck off.

Hmm. Sorry. Not ranty or anything today am I? I’m just in a grump because my son has very generously shared his cold with me. Back to my long and rambling story. I just know you’re on the edge of your seat. Mwahahargh!

Luckily, I have data on my phone so I just used that to bypass BT’s draconian system by using my data and my phone, instead. I did try to report it as an error but obviously I needed to know my account name and password for that. Considering I uploaded the artwork, positioned it and chose the text colour using my phone I am actually quite chuffed. See picture attached.

picture of a wallet case for a phone

Mmm … K’Barthan swag.

Nothing much else has happened this week other than my opening what, I suspect, is going to be the most gargantuan can of worms. I asked about getting Mum a care assessment for a continuing care grant; mainly because one of her carers’ grandfather had been given it and she told me that, in her professional opinion, he was no more in need of help than Mum. Her mother, who is also on the care team, agreed. I asked what they did, and apparently another family member had contacted an agency who’d done it for them.

Armed with this information, I rang the agency in question but they told me that if Mum is able to speak she isn’t bad enough. The chap there seemed to think that non-verbal was a key factor and told me to come back when she reaches the pureed food stage. I’m a bit confused by that because if she needs help to stand, go to the loo, wash, dress, cook, clean and can’t even use the phone or turn the telly on by herself then surely that’s 24 hour care. 
To be doubly sure, I rang the Admiral nurses helpline. Sadly they don’t cover where Mum lives so they won’t be able to help with the process but they were able to advise me and said that yes, Mum definitely had needs that made her eligible for Continuing Care. 
Next, I got through to social care at the council who thought I should contact her Doctor. I guess what I really need to find is the local social services number for her and get a social worker on her case. I’m not 100% sure how that’s done, as with Dad I seem to remember it happening automatically. I’ll have to look up his notes and see if I have a number for them from then.

Essentially, Mum needs a care assessment first from the right team. Apparently you can call and ask for one of those any time. Then the results of that are scrutinised closely and financial help awarded … or not. The trouble is, nothing says who you call to get this initial care assessment sorted. 
There are parameters and a procedure, but to the outsider looking in the vaguaries of the system are very difficult to understand, at best and at worst, it comes over as deliberately opaque, whimsical and arcane … Mum ticks most things on the list but, as yet, I’ve found no concrete information as to where the starting point of the system is. As a result, I’m not sure who to contact to have the care assessment done. It’s a NHS team, who does the assessment for the actual application, but I have no clue if we need a ‘normal’ assessment first from social services. I’m guessing we do, although I’ve found a thing that says a district nurse can arrange this, too so I might see if I can get the carers to liaise with them.

There are two agencies who will apply for NHS continuing care on behalf of people, and a law firm with the most ridiculous name on earth—they’re probably really good but the name screams cold-calling ambulance chasers. The only one of these august bodies that quoted a price for their work charged £2,500 and some suggest as much as £6,500 depending on what they have to do. I will have to think about whether it’s worth that. No, it’s definitely worth it, for my sanity, to pay someone else to do it for me because this will be a grim project to try and undertake on my own and, like all the Mum stuff, is a perfect storm of everything at which I am shit.

In the meantime, I’ve started filling out the form on the website of the other agency. I’ve already stalled at how much Mum has spent on her care … well … you know … apart from, ‘everything’ but some of that was the day-to-day costs of running the house. She has a state pension so there’s that on top, as well, though so theory, it’s actually a bit more than everything.
 Everything with brass knobs on? I dunno.

What I don’t understand is this; while I appreciate that they aim to make it hard for people gaming the system, it would be quite nice to set it up so the people who needed this particular part of the system would have some blind clue as to what, exactly makes them eligible and how it works. There are lots of really clear accounts that explain what will happen when you are already in the system and what the steps of the evaluation are. But how to start the process? Absolutely fuck all.

Carers looking after a sick relative who are seeking continuing care for them, or people who are sick themselves and need continuing care … they’re not exactly endowed with an abundance of energy for administriviatitive shit because they have a craptonne on their plate and are already nearly broken. I should imagine many of them will never get money to help with care, money to which they are entitled, because they are too fucking ill and their relatives too fucking frazzled and burned out to even begin to work out how to fucking apply.

Fuckity fucking fuck! Preparing the guest room for Mr Cockup then, even, also as we speak.

Ho hum. Onwards and upwards.

Astonishingly cheap ebook and audiobook alert …

Yes. Spoil yourself with your good taste (Ambassador) and a wonderful free book. Mmm hmm. If you are looking for a fun novella—to relieve the considerable tedium you may be experiencing after reading this blog post, for example—or if you’d like to listen to an audio book in the car, or at work, or on the commute and you are just fresh out of ideas  for fabulous newness … well, you can fix all those things by grabbing a free book.

This book.

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Extras, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1.

It’s free to download in ebook format from most of the major retailers (except when Amazon is dicking with me) while two and a half hours of glorious K’Barthan audiobook deliciousness is a mere 99p or c from Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Spotify, Apple and Chirp (if you’re in the States). It’s also free to download from my web store.

If you think that sounds interesting and would like to take a look, just go here.

 

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24 Sep 2022 · 12:12 pm

Compassion … so fucking underrated

A picture of the queenThis week I was going to write about The Queen, I may not have time to do it justice because I am going to have to write today’s blog post yesterday and speak to you from the past. That means I only have half an hour or so before I’m due to take McMini off to a club. Then, since he’s already eaten I have to come home and eat, then shower and then McOther will be picking him up. Tomorrow, or at least, today as you read this—Crikey! This is complicated isn’t it?—I’m off at 6.30 am to Norcon; and on Sunday too.

The Queen was a reluctant monarch. She prayed that she’d have a brother so she didn’t have to be queen—at that time, a boy took precedence over a girl even if he was younger. She also prayed that her father wouldn’t have to be king because she understood, correctly, that it would do for him in the end. Then she went on to do this thing she didn’t want to do for 70 years. That’s … seriously impressive.

Managing my parents’ finances and watching them gradually losing their sanity is probably a perfect storm of everything at which I am shit. Seriously, if God had set out to give me everything I find difficult he couldn’t have done a better job. It’s all maths and being organised and remembering to do staff, remembering to phone at certain times, sitting for hours on hold, patience, and numbers; a side of my personality which is seriously lacking and an aspect of my intelligence that is entirely absent. If my other brain was like my numbers brain, I’d be living in sheltered accomodation for people with learning difficulties. I’m great in a crisis and so naturally I am given a long-term millstone; a grinding expanse of interminable twilight grey that stretches as far as I can see. I’m one for the sprint, so I have been given the marathon. I can’t bear watching people suffer and so I must. For years.

Thanks for that, God. Thanks a fucking bunch.

Then, of course, I look at The Queen who stuck at it for 70 years, and I’m complaining about seven. Maybe I should rethink my weapons-grade whining levels then. Although not here, because, clearly that’s what this is for. I watched all of the State Funeral, and I enjoyed it too. Oh I know all the miserable republicans will be saying that the money shouldn’t have been spent on the funeral but frankly, I would consider a national event like that more valuable than the pathetic drop in the ocean of public funds the money it cost would entail. Clearly, I lack the miserable protestant fun-sapping outlook to think The Moral Way. President Johnson? In his dreams but thankfully, not our reality. It’s worth the expense for that, alone. I believe it’s actually quite important to have someone in power who doesn’t want to be there. King George VI was a reluctant monarch, Queen Elizabeth II was a reluctant monarch and I suspect Charles III is equally reluctant.

Good.

Sorry Chas but at the same time, I feel your pain.

I suppose it’s hard to see past the luxury but to me, guilded or not, a cage is still a cage. I wouldn’t fancy it myself. Oh yeh, money makes things easier, C.F. my present predicament dealing with the whole Mum Thing, and money can contribute to happiness, but it doesn’t make you happy on its own. Something inside you has to do that.

Having lived in a very small community where everyone knew who I was, even though I didn’t know them, and where everyone felt as if they knew me, and treated me like a long lost friend (lovely in many respects but sometimes difficult) I can imagine what being Royal is like. I lived in a place where everyone expected me to know them the way they felt they knew me, even if we hadn’t actually met before (still touching but also extremely scary) I can tell you that, even from direct experience in a very, very small arena, this kind of notoriety is significantly less fun than people think. If there was no escape? Ugh.

Royals have lots of stuff but only two weeks a year in which to enjoy it. As non royals, the rest of us Brits get four. It’s easy to forget that people with money, or kept by the state, are still human beings like us at the bottom of it all.

Personally, I feel that the debate about costs is disingenuous; a blind to cover the real issue, which is that some nod to a sense of social justice among those in Parliament would be very helpful right now and seems to be distinctly lacking.

Yes. In all walks of life it seems we are still raging at the most vulnerable in pissy, small-minded anger and egging our government on to even greater heights of petty vindictiveness towards the have nots, while it does the metaphorical equivalent of trying to chisel off a fifty pence that’s been superglued to the pavement as a joke while they ignore the huge suitcase of money behind them in the form of corporate tax dodging efficiency. You know, the stuff over and above the 1% companies like Google and Starbucks pay that they’re supposed to be paying.

Also, excuse me but why the fuck are they using my tax money to cap fuel payments? The fuel companies are posting record profits while the vulnerable and poor are choosing between eating or heating. Who should be paying for this crisis? I’d humbly suggest the fuel and energy companies whose corporate greed caused it.

Here’s another example; supermarket petrol. Supermarkets use your loyalty card and credit card transactions as anonymous data to track which products sell best where. They give people a rating based on income, A through to C and possibly D, I don’t recall (it’s a while since I’ve done this kind of marketing). Then they split each group into numbered bands, A1 the richest, A2 less rich, A3 still loaded but not as rich, B1 well-off professionals, etc through to C3 … possibly D3 I have neither the time nor the inclination to look it up for this, a very generalist passing point.

The supermarkets use this information to look at who buys what, where and then provide more of those products in the places where they sell withdrawing unsuitable products for the market demographic in that particular place. There’s no point having shelves groaning with caviar and truffles in a place where most people take home about £20k a year. They can’t afford it.

However, they also use this information to set prices. In areas where they perceive the population as less well off, they will sell the same staple, petrol for example, at a lower price than they will in another area where the population contains a higher number of B and A level purchasers who can afford to pay more.

This is how petrol costs more at Tesco’s in Bury St Edmunds—£1.69 a litre as I write this—than BP petrol does at my Mum’s in Sussex—£1.67 a litre. It’s also why Tesco’s charges £1.59 a litre for its petrol 15 minutes down the A14 in Newmarket. More C-level purchasers in Newmarket Tesco’s, clearly, or perhaps there’s a local garage round there that they’re trying to drive out of business.

Yes, I suppose it depends how you look at this. A Bury resident, might see them as pitiless, profiteering bastards hiking up prices in specific areas, where a Newmarket resident might seen them as kindly benevolent people cutting the prices in an area where people can afford less. They might see it as folks of my ilk, in Bury, who the database classes as better off subsidising those less fortunate than ourselves. If only that’s what it was but I’m afraid it’s a simple case of their being profiteering bastards. They’re not going to sell anything for less than the biggest margin possible and where they can, they’ll carve out an even bigger one … like the energy companies and every other company that gets so big it loses sight of it’s actual customers, the point of its existance, in its bid to grow even bigger, lock people’s spending in with it and no-one else, serve shareholders a nice fat dividend etc.

Frankly, the older I get, the more of a raving pinko leftie I become. I cannot believe we are going to have a recession caused by the corporate greed of our energy providers. There might be a fuel crisis, I dunno, but they don’t seem to have had much trouble providing power and fuel so far. Any shortages have been about logistics rather than scarecity; people panic buying and the stores running out.

How I wish we could re-nationalise the whole bloody lot. Properly. Sure, keep the government at arm’s length and run it as a business but as a not-for-profit or simply a company that is accountable to it’s customers first—the nation in this case—rather than its board or its shareholders.

Maybe it’s just the way I’m feeling at the moment but I’m angry and bitter and everything feels grey.

Indeed, I had a major melt down at the boys the other morning before leaving for Sussex to see Mum in hospital. This was partly because the vertigo was truly appalling. The worst thing was that I woke up feeling fine, but then, as I raised the glass to finish the rest of a pint of water, it suddenly kicked in. The boys laughed and I just lost it completely. I nearly cried as I ranted at them. Not about the vertigo, but just about how I just couldn’t keep a lid on my grief, and how awful I felt about having to hurt my lovely Mum and make her miserable because of the institutional prejudice the State, and the NHS, displays against people with dementia. Because we are going to run out of money. And we will have to sell the house for her care. And every time I think about it my stomach ties itself into a veritable Gordian knot which no amount of breathing exercises and sundry attempts to relax will undo. I think I got so melodramatic that I actually said I wanted to die, and right there, in the moment, I probably almost did. Jeez it’s a fucking hard row looking after dementia people and the NHS and government seem to go out of their way to make it as hard as possible.

Putting the vertigo on top of that was the last straw, I guess. It was a right royal pain in the arse on a Wednesday, too. I was so giddy that accelerating was giving me the spins. I have perked up a great deal since then. But seriously, why no compassion? Why no mercy. Why make it as hard as possible for people to endure one of the most horrific illnesses out there. Oh yeh, because it takes a long time and so it’s expensive. Seriously though, dementia care in the UK needs an overhaul. Fast. And something approaching compassion or empathy in our lords and masters would be a good place to start.

So what is compassion? Well I saw some in hospital the other day; the most gloriously surreal moment but also lovely. An example of someone with dementia being treated, not as a thing, but as a debilitated human, who was worth something. Treated with understanding, compassion and kindness.

While I was sitting with Mum she told me she needed a poo, which involves several staff and a bed pan so I went and got the nurse who told me I should make a sharp exit and sit in the waiting area. There was a little old dear there, who’d been there for some time. She was very thin, with straggly hair and she was cradling a handbag in her lap. I had clocked that she might have dementia because of the handbag and the fact there was often a nurse or carer with her. I sat down and all was quiet for a while until she spoke.

‘You’d better watch your bag round here,’ she warned me.

‘Oh. Thanks. Right. Yes, I will,’ I replied, lifting my bag from the floor and putting it on my lap the same way she had hers. We sat in silence for a moment or two and then she said.

‘Has my friend gone home?’

I guessed she might be making sense of her situation by connecting it with a comparable experience from her past, which is what people with dementia are doing when they have those back-in-time moments apparently. It’s important to say the right thing so they are guided towards a make-sense-of-this memory moment where they are reassured rather than agitated so I answered with a certain amount of caution,

‘I’m very sorry but I don’t know.’

‘Oh. Only she said to wait for her but I think she’s gone without me.’

‘Oh. That’s a shame if she has,’ I said still treading water a bit, ‘I haven’t been here before, though so I wouldn’t know for certain.’

‘She was making up to some bloke, I think she’s gone home with him and left me here on my own.’

‘Oh dear. Would you like me to ask one of the others?’ I asked, looking helplessly over towards the ward desk where the nurses and clerk were in discussion about something. ‘They might know,’ I told her.

‘She said to—’ she began, at which point a nurse walked past. ‘Big boobs and a fat arse, that one,’ she said and then reverted to topic without missing a beat. ‘She said to wait for me but I haven’t seen her for some time,’ then she smiled and said. ‘I’ve not seen you here before.’

‘No, this is my first visit,’ I squeaked, trying not to laugh at her previous comment. Lucky I was wearing a mask.

At this point one of the admin or at least a plain clothes staff, she might have been a consultant I guess, came over and with a smile at me and the lady I was talking to she sat down on a chair the other side of her from me.

‘Hello Edna,’ she said.

‘Hello,’ said the little old dear, or Edna, as I now knew she was called. The newly arrived lady smiled over at me and I tried to smile back in as crinkly an eyed manner as possible so she realised that, behind the mask, I was smiling back and grateful to her for being kind to a dementia sufferer. Edna continued, ‘Has my friend gone?’

‘Yes Edna, she has,’ said the staff lady gently.

‘Oh,’ Edna’s face crumpled a bit. ‘She said she’d wait for me. What will I do now? How will I get home?’

‘Well, maybe you could go back to your room for a little while?’ asked the staff lady. She was so gentle and so sweet with the old lady that I almost wanted to cry (and I definitely wanted to hug her) because … Dad. And Mum but especially Dad because Mum isn’t as far gone as Edna was yet.

‘Should I? What if she hasn’t gone, I don’t want to miss her.’

‘No, I understand. Aren’t you tired, though, Edna?’

‘Yes, I am, very but I think I should wait for my friend.’

‘Why don’t you go back to your bed and wait there, then? You can have a little sleep.’

Clearly the idea of a sleep was very tempting but Edna’s reply sounded hesitant. ‘I don’t know if I should …’

‘Aren’t you tired?’

‘Yes I am.’

‘Why don’t you go back to your bed and have a sleep then? You won’t get lost. I’ll go with you and then, if she comes back, I can come and find you.’

And so they set off, ward lady taking Edna’s arm, shuffling slowly up the corridor, then back, into one of the ward bays and out again … at which point Mum had had her poo, the curtains round her bed were opened again and I was ushered back. I never found out if they got Edna back to bed. When I left the two of them were still shuffling slowly up and down the corridor, looking for Edna’s friend. The staff on that ward were lovely. Nothing was too much trouble and so many of the patients had dementia. Bearing in mind this was a ward to treat infections, the added load wasn’t what any of the staff would have signed up for.

We need more of this. We need compassion, and love and kindness. And I don’t know where it’s gone but we need it back. Maybe if everyone reading this tries to go out of their way to do one kind thing this week. One random act of kindness, it would be a start. Feel free to give it a try if you like. No obligation though.

And now … I must fly because tomorrow I have a six am start. Eeek!

Yep, tomorrow is Norcon. If you are interested, I will be at the Norfolk Showground which is on the outskirts of the city of Norwich, Norfolk, UK, tomorrow and the next day. I will be there, flogging my books to the unsuspecting public and devaluing them by signing them. Except it will be today and tomorrow by the time you read this because … scheduling techology. 🙂

If you want to know more or would like to come along, you can find more information here:

https://www.nor-con.co.uk/

On a completely different note …

Here’s some good news if you like cheap audio books!

Once again, I’m cutting my own throat and having a sale. Kobo is doing a buy more save more deal on audiobooks this September and the K’Barthan Series, as well as Too Good To Be True, are in it. As a result, to make it more exciting, I’ve reduced the first book in the series to 99c on Apple, Kobo (of course) and my own website. For anyone in the States, it’s also 99c on Barnes & Noble and Chirp (which is USA and Canada). So if you want to grab it while it’s mega cheap you can find store links and a bit more info here

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18 Sep 2022 · 5:32 pm

Stuff happened … I even remembered some

Quite a lot to catch up on after the gap last week. Sorry about that, I was out digging, this time near Haverhill. Once again, it was a weekend event with two days’ on the fields.

However, on this one the fields had been ‘fertilised’ with something called ‘green waste’. Green waste is low grade industrial waste so it contains hundreds of tiny pieces of metal. Therefore, if you’re detecting on it, you will have to dig about 20 pieces of scrap; bits of circuit board, wire and—a favourite—the metal bottom bits of car light bulbs. The first day, I found a button, what I think was a Roman tile, a Roman floor tile and an amphora handle. Did I find anything metal among the pieces of twenty first century shite? Did I bollocks. The ground was heavy clay and wet so I had mud boats the size of snow shoes stuck to my boots and I might have been better with a cheese wire than a spade.

The fields were all on the same huge farm, so despite the fact they were releasing some new land to detect on the Sunday, I bugged out and went to a dig that a member of my club was having on his permission. It was the best decision ever, light sandy Norfolk soil and land that I knew. I found two long cross pennies, although one is almost blank, a Tudor button and a gorgeous cloth or bag seal … probably a cloth seal to be honest. I’d cautiously put that as Tudor, too, or possibly 17th century. I’ve had the little o-ring off the back and I’ve found the fronts of these seals but this is the first one I’ve found that was complete.

Interestingly, one of the other club members there had also bugged out of the big rally and both of us went home with interesting stuff, feeling fully vindicated in our respective decisions.

Maybe big rallies are not for me. You need to be fast because no matter how much research you do, you don’t know the land and it’s only by digging regularly somewhere that you begin to learn where the finds come up. That means the folks who are strong and fit enough to dig the highest number of targets in the shortest time are going to get the prize. On the up side, by the end of the first day, or the second day, you’ll probably have started to learn where the good stuff is coming up so you can go to those areas, on the down side, depending on how many people there are per square metre of land to detect, it may be that anything that’s at a depth a detector can reach will be gone when you get there or you find there is only stuff which is very deep and takes longer to dig meaning fewer items recovered and less chance of one of them being interesting. It is what it is but as someone with a dodgy knee who can’t always do a whole day, it’s only sensible to be a bit selective.

On the Mum front, things are looking up substantially. The Good news is that they released her from hospital a week after she was admitted, the bad is that we had to wait for the kit she needed to arrive at home. This being a broken ankle, she gets the stuff on the NHS who are kindly providing her with a hoist and a hospital bed. The bed was due to arrive on Wednesday but was the wrong type so had to be sent back. We were given a revised slot for Thursday; between 12.00 midday and 20.00 (eight pm). If if arrived in time, I had to ring the ward to let them know, which I did.

The following day, the Friday, Mum was put on the transport. It arrived home and the drivers, seeing that Mum’s drive was long, decided to leave the vehicle parked while one of them popped up to the house to see if they could turn round. The carers, waiting in the drawing room, saw her and rushed out. She explained what she was doing and said that yes, she could turn round so she’d go and get the vehicle. Naturally, having actually met the driver, the carers were expecting the vehicle to appear any minute.

It didn’t.

Not wanting to crowd the drivers, and thinking that they might have been going to go drop someone else off nearby first they gave it ten minutes and then walked down the drive. No sign of any ambulance anywhere. Next thing, 40 minutes later, Mum is wheeled back into the ward.

At this point the ward clerk is well annoyed but the transport is contracted out so she can’t find out much about what went on. The reason given for taking Mum back was that they couldn’t get the vehicle into the turning and since she is non-weight bearing, they needed a piece of equipment called a carry chair to get her to the house, which they didn’t have.

However, Mum has a wheelchair so, had they popped back to explain, both Mum’s carers were confident that the four of them could have easily got her into her wheelchair and off the transport, at which point they could have wheeled her up the drive, into the house and then, using the hoist, they could have got her into bed.

But no.

The transport staff didn’t bother to come and explain the situation to the carers. They just buggered off back to Worthing with Mum on board. And THIS, my friends, is why the NHS is running on a shoe string on the one hand, while it gaily spunks what little money it has up the wall on the other; because someone couldn’t be arsed to walk 100 yards up a drive and give an explanation that would have saved deploying another vehicle and two more staff to do the same journey. The Ward Clark told me this has been happening a lot recently. Urgh.

It’s also another way people with dementia are treated as things. My mother is not a flat pack wardrobe for fuck’s sake. It’s not sodding My Hermes dropping a card in. ‘I’m sorry your package could not be delivered, we will try again tomorrow.’ The carers who the driver had met and spoken to were effing there, waiting for the stupid bastard vehicle … or an explanation.

So we had another go and Mum finally reached her house, for the second time, at 5.30 but she was actually unloaded this time. Unsurprisingly she was knackered. Urgh. Head. Desk.

This last Wednesday, when she had arrived home she was on reasonable form but a bit distant. She just looked in pain and unwell bless her and seemed to be very muddled. Turns out she has a morphine patch though, so she might just have been tripping gently. When I spoke to her on Friday she was actually quite switched on. The words she uses don’t always make sense but I think that might be word finding difficulties making the confusion sound worse.

As you can imagine, I’ve done fuck all this past couple of weeks. Its’ been one of those ones when the small stuff mushrooms into a giant wobbly shite ball, like that canned foam stuff you spray into cracks in walls that balloons into enormous yellow bobbles that look almost edible (honeycomb anyone?).

On the up side, my Bruv had drawn my attention to a bin in the hospital which was labelled ‘offensive waste’. Obviously, we found this hilarious because we are both incredibly mature. I even took a vid so I can over-dub the bin saying something suitably offensive when I open it.

On the books front. No. Strangely there has been absolutely zero writing at all. On the other hand, I have boxed up one of each of my books with a covering letter ready to send to Suffolk libraries. Suffolk is in the Public Lending Right this year, which means that I will receive a royalty payment for any books people borrow. Since sending them, I have learned that they are now on their way to Bury St Edmunds Library so people can borrow them. I have used the online system to reserve a book from each of the authors I know and have also reserved one of my own, because I’m sad like that.

Also on the books front, the cosplay costume is done, I think. CF picture of incredibly sarcastic looking author in very messy bedroom. You might be wondering about the goggles. Yeh. Well the thing is, they just seem to raise the level of the costume from alright to Quite Good. So I’ll just have to write them into the next book, OK?

If you think it looks striking, have a squiffy at some of the photos of the event on Google and I think you’ll agree that it’s actually quite understated compared to most people’s and yet odd enough to fit right in. Or to put it another way, eccentric but not to the point where I’ll get mugged on the train … probably.

Norcon, as it’s called is running over the 24th and 25th September at the Norfolk Showground which is on the outskirts of the city of Norwich, Norfolk, UK. I will be there, flogging my books to the unsuspecting public and devaluing them by signing them.

If you want to know more or would like to come along, you can find more information here: https://www.nor-con.co.uk/

Most of the clothes featured there are things I couldn’t get into a couple of months ago so I’m quite pleased. The weight loss does seem to have started up again, at least some of it’s moved this week which is grand. I’m now wondering if the final target item of clothing—a pair of shorts—will fit by the time I go on holiday in three weeks. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility but I’m not going to sweat it if I fail to achieve that one. Even so we are entering the realms of being able to wear stuff that hasn’t fitted since just after McMini was born so it’s quite a thing.

The zip’s broken on the dark blue trousers but it’s a long shirt so I should be alright with some safety pins I think.

Briefly, I have to mention The Queen because she was ace. Both her and her father were reluctant monarchs. Maybe that’s why they were so good. But so far, Charles III is showing every sign of being a similarly excellent King. If I can get my shit together, I’ll do a longer post on this at some point. In the meantime, The Queen is Dead, Long live the King.

I’ve also been following events since her death including the lying in state. It’s been interesting, especially because of the amount of arcane ritual and tradition surrounding the accession of a new monarch and the death of the old one. It’s been an eye opener and I’m particularly peeved that I wasn’t switched on enough to saunter down to the bottom of my street and watch the king’s accession being announced by the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk from the balcony of the Atheneum. Definitely missed a trick there, not to mentionan opportunity to take part in actual history. Then again, it’s been a bit like that this week, I forgot to go to a PCC meeting on Wednesday and I forgot to take my son to Boys Brigade on Friday then again, he forgot too.

Another member of the PCC also forgot or at least, he got the date wrong and turned up the following day. As he’s a world expert in his field, I felt a bit better about being a dunderhead because I can convince myself that intelligent people do stupid things so I’m not a thickie after all. Mwahahahrgh. As we agreed, it’s hard work being a pillock! We have standards to keep to. Definitely attained on my part this week though!

But, returning to the topic in hand, as you know, I like a bit of arcane ritual (rights of Twonkot anyone?) so I’m thoroughly intrigued and taking notes …

On a completely different note …

Here’s some good news if you like cheap audio books!

Once again, I’m cutting my own throat and having a sale. Kobo is doing a buy more save more deal on audiobooks this September and the K’Barthan Series, as well as Too Good To Be True, are in it. As a result, to make it more exciting, I’ve reduced the first book in the series to 99c on Apple, Kobo (of course) and my own website. For anyone in the States, it’s also 99c on Barnes & Noble and Chirp (which is USA and Canada). So if you want to grab it while it’s mega cheap there are store links and a bit more info here

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2 Jul 2022 · 9:15 pm

Siberian hamsters and other alarums and excursions …

Well that was an interesting day. Or perhaps more accurately, morning. But it explains why there has been no blog post until now … that said, ‘now’ will probably be tomorrow (Sunday) in light of what time it is already, and the gargantuan amount of time that the activities of ‘this morning’ involved.

Originally, McOther and I were heading off to a car boot and from there to the garage to get his car fixed. However, when push came to shove we realised he wouldn’t have time to do the boot and the garage so he went to the garage and I eschewed the boot and went to the market instead. I also have some secret knitting that I wanted to do in his absence. More on that story … later.

McCat came running in and to my complete and utter horror, I realised he had something hanging out of his mouth. Something grey, with a tail.

Remember a few years ago when that McCat brought that vole in? I can’t find the original post but it ran under the fridge in the utility room and then to the units where it disappeared and I never saw it again. I always hoped it had found its way outside again but then the room began to smell and it wasn’t McCat’s earth box or McMini’s socks. Yes, it died and I did find a post I did later about discovering its lifeless body in the washing machine while I was on the phone to my mum, six months after its disappearance. If you need to jog your memory, it’s here.

So there’s McCat running about and there’s another chuffing vole with it’s tale and arse hanging out of his mouth one side and it’s head and front paws the other side. It’s squeaking,

‘You absolute cockwomble! Put me down immediately! Ow! That fucking smarts you smecking furry gobshite!’ etc. Actually I have no clue what it was saying but I think we could safely assume that it’d be something along those lines so that seems about right.

Come here you little bastard! I shout (because I’m classy like that) and rushed after him. I’m speaking to the cat at this pint, obvs. not the rodent in distress.

Luckily, I cornered McCat in the hall and because it was his vole and not mine and he was not dropping it at any cost. I was therefore able to pick him up and carry him to the door, deposit both of them on the mat outside, shut the door and lock the cat flap before he could bring it back in.

There was no rescuing the poor little critter now, so it was best to leave them to it so he killed it quickly. I grabbed my kit and ensuring that I didn’t let him in, I went to the market to do my shopping.

Upon my return, McCat was lying on his back on the door mat chirruping and burbling in his most loving manner. He showed me his tummy and it was clear that the dead vole on the mat beside him was a gift. Yes. This was an effort at reconciliation.

‘I know you are head of the house mummy,’ he was saying, ‘but I just couldn’t give up the vole. My natural instincts wouldn’t let me but you can have it now.’

Likewise, I cannot guarantee that was what he was saying but I know the mentalist tabby git so well now that I suspect that was a pretty good approximation.

Naturally, I thanked him for his gift, because it was only polite. Then I explained that it was a lovely thought, but if he didn’t mind, I’d just pick it up with this trowel here and pop it in the dustbin. I thought of burying it but he’d only dig it up again.

I went inside, put away my purchases and I was just bumbling about the house when I heard McCat scampering about. Uh-oh, that was the kind of scampering he does when he’s playing with Mr Squishy (his favourite toy) or when he’s playing with something else …

‘Squeak!’ said somebody, who was very definitely not McCat!

‘Fucking fuck!’ I yelled and leapt into action. McMini had a second vole cornered behind a box in a corner and of course I arrived, grabbed said box and the vole disappeared underneath the book case. But wait, not quite underneath. He was under the large books on the bottom shelf that stick out, leaving a tiny half inch gap between their bottoms and the floor.

I started removing the books but by this stage McCat had lost interest, the absolute bastard, or maybe he’d decided that I’d claimed the vole. Whatever the cause, he’d wandered off. The room we were in was full of places where a small vole could hide, die and then smell impressively. I was determined to ensure that when I poked it out from its hiding place, there were no other crannies for it to run to. In short, despite trying to rescue it from McCat I could have done with a tabby backstop and I’d definitely have preferred to let him kill it quickly it was that or a second round of let-me-die-under-your-furniture.

I surrounded the vole with a wall of heavy hardback books. Got a piece of cloth and grabbed it. I picked it up and took it outside. It looked as if it had had a nasty bump on the head but I left it to recover near the place where I thought McCat had caught it.

McCat locked in, I went out and had a look.

The vole was not well. It appeared unable to move its hands. It was clearly injured, it was squeaking and it was in distress. I rang the vet and explained that I had this rodent that was probably a vole only now … looking at it … I wasn’t 100% sure and could they help.

Clearly if my furry friend was, as I was beginning to suspect, a young rat, I wasn’t too bothered if McCat murdered its family. If it was a vole, I should probably take it somewhere for treatment and leave McCat locked in. McCat’s vet informed me that they had a pigeon and chicken specialist but nobody who was too good on small feral critters. They recommended I phone a different vet surgery, which I did.

I explained that I thought I might have an injured rat but that I didn’t know and though it seemed a bit nasty of me, I felt that, if it was a rat, I was OK about letting McCat out to murder the rest of its family, because there are millions of rats but that, if it was a vole, I’d keep him in. I also explained that I thought it might be dying, that the kind thing to do would be to kill it but that I wasn’t a farm kid and I doubted I could dispatch it cleanly without subjecting it to more physical and emotional trauma. Our cat used to catch mice when I was a kid and Dad used to have to kill the ones she hadn’t quite killed. He was really good at delivering a swift blow to the head but it always used to upset him … not to mention us.

Bring it in, the vet told me and they would take a look at it.

Going back to the ‘vole’ which very much might not be a vole, I decided I’d wear gloves to handle it. Good thing that, because it was a great deal livelier than it had been when I put it out and it bit me as I tried to catch it. Although the bites didn’t break the skin they did pierce the gloves. McOther was home by this time and helped me put it in a cardboard box. I walked up to the vet’s with it and they took it in to have a look.

Turns out I was right to doubt and it wasn’t a vole after all. Just call me Manuel but it was a bona fide Siberian hamster although it escaped the ratatouille so that’s nice. I do know we have rats in our garden, but … yeh. Probably a good thing if the cat eats them then. The rat did, indeed, have some kind of head injury which was making him unable to move properly and they put him to sleep so he didn’t suffer any more.

And the vole last time? Er hem. Yeh. That was a rat and all. Even with a light bite, the vet warned me about Weil’s disease and said that if I start to develop cold symptoms I must go to the doctor’s and explain what’s happened. Me, I’m just wondering what my half-rat-half-human superpower might be.

Other things

It looks alright on the claret one (right).

What I should have been doing this morning was working on my latest and top secret knitting project while McOther was out, which is his fabulous birthday present. OK, this is me, so you know, by now, that it’s not a fabulous present especially if it involves my knitting prowess, which is more knitting prowless to be honest. On the upside, it is something he’ll use and enjoy … he’ll use and at least there’s thought in it. It’s a wine sock. Yeh. Don’t all fall over with excitement.

People who like wine do blind tastings, which basically means you put the bottle in a sock, except socks are a bit shit because they make the bottom of the bottle uneven and more likely to fall over. Enter the um … wine sleeve? Wine sleeves leave the bottom of the bottle clear so it will stand up, no matter how drunk you are when you place it on the table.

I’ve made the bit for the neck of the bottle too short. The bit of metal over the cork can give tasters in the know a bit clue, so I need to unpick five rows of ribbing, add six rows of plain knitting and then do the ribbing bits again. It looks shit flaccid but when you put it on the bottle … yeh, OK, it still looks a bit shit until you get to a claret bottle … then … Oh yeh. Ish.

Oh alright. It’s a disaster really. I decided to use some wool I had left over from making a pair of socks for McMini and a pair for me. But there wasn’t quite enough to get it to the shoulders of the bottle. I didn’t want to buy another ball of wool to do three stripes of fancy knitting so I bastardised another ball of similar wool and to be honest, it almost looks deliberate. I will have to knit him another less bodged one as well, clearly, but this is a nice start.

Other news …

It’s a long time since I’ve mentioned McMini here. But rest assured he is no less eccentric. He is older, and even more sarcastic, but still a delight (to his parents anyway). He did once tell me that he wanted to do the teen thing and rebel against us but he liked us too much. I’m not sure that’s anything we did, it’s just luck of the draw. Luckily there are some people at his school that he prefers to rebel against more.

Anyway, last week we were we’ve been watching the tennis as a family and supporting one player, the underdog, naturally, because we’re British. The audience on the telly were mostly supporting the other more famous player. Between each point there were shouts from the audience,

‘Come on Oojah!’ or ‘You’ve got this Thingy!’ etc.

Then as it all died away after the ‘quiet please’ one bloke right up in the gods at the back shouted something that sounded like, ‘bollocks!’ into the silence.

‘That sounded like, “bollocks!”’ said McMini. ‘Did he just shout, “bollocks!”?’

Next point, same male voice did it again and again, McMini said,

‘I’m sure he said, “Bollocks!”.’

McOther and I admitted, giggling, that it did sound like it and he might be right.

Next up to serve was the player we were not supporting. She threw the ball up and as she swung to hit it, McMini shouted, ‘Bollocks!’ and she served a fault.

She served again and in spite of McMin’s rousing cry of, ‘Bollocks!’ it was in. The lady we were supporting returned it and as the other swung her racket to hit the ball back, I shouted, ‘Arse!’ and it went into the net.

‘Woah! She can hear us!’ shouted McMini.

It opened the floodgates. They played a tie-breaker with McMini and I continuing to shout bollocks, arse and for some reason, follicles. Our lady won. I made a cheer which reminded McMini of an impression I do of Dad doing an impression of one of his teachers dropping dead in the middle of assembly (he yelled ‘eeeeeruuuuuw!’ and keeled over apparently). So McMini adds the part of the story following that which is the boing, boing diddly boing this teacher’s wooden leg made after he’d measured his length.

Despite this coming out of nowhere, I knew exactly what McMini was referring to and started to guffaw at which point McOther who was actually watching the tennis turned to us briefly, smiled indulgently in an oh-here-they-go-again sort of manner and reverted his attention to the TV.

McMini and I sat there crying with laughter and all was right with the world.

It’s competition time …

OK. Have you ever seen extreme ironing? If you haven’t it’s worth looking it up because it’s mad.  Here’s a potted summary.

Let’s do our own variant Blog peps! Extreme Reading. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Here’s how it works.

1. Get one of my books. It has to be an actual M T McGuire book. No other authors’ books are admissible. You can use a paperback or your e-thing with your e/audio book open and showing really obviously.

2. Go the area you have selected in which to read in an extreme manner, be it upside down, hanging from the ceiling. Tobogganing down the Cresta run, *sitting in the fountains at Trafalgar Square in your swimming cozzie or whatever.

3. Get photographed in your extreme reading position and then submit your photos to me. I think I will probably put them to the public vote.

* don’t do actual this though. You’ll get arrested.

How do I submit my photo MT? I hear you ask.

Well, I don’t to hear you ask but let’s not complicate this. Let’s pretend, for the sake of making this section that tiny bit more interesting, that I did. Here’s what you do.

Attach your photo photo to an email. You’ll need to give me your name and me some brief details saying where and when the photo was taken (date, place/town and country) and any witty commentary you wish to make about it. Then send it to me by email with the header, EXTREME READING TOURNAMENT, like that to list at hamgee.co.uk. You can send a maximum of two entries and it will cost you nothing to enter.

If you want to, you will be able to share the entries you submit on the Hamgee University Press Facebook page. I’ll make a specific post and pin it to the top so you can comment and add a photo but that’s not obligatory because I totally get that not everyone does Facebook. I wouldn’t do much social media if I didn’t have to.

Small Print: Nothing above 3mb please or Google won’t deliver them to me and a maximum of two entries per person. You may have to resize mobile/iThing photos to get them to me.

Obviously, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t do anything dangerous or stupid. This is an extreme reading tournament, it’s not the Darwin Awards or a game of who dares wins. Happy snapping.

And finally …

The Last Word is available in Audio.

If you enjoyed the short story, The Last Word, the audio of that is also available or at least, still available. If you need it, here’s a quick reminder of the blurb.

When Mrs Ormaloo brings the terrible news to the Turnadot Street Businesswomen’s Association that the Grongles are going to burn some more banned books on the night of Arnold, The Prophet’s birthday, Gladys and Ada decide to Take Steps. They even enrol some of the punters from their pub to help out. The books are in a warehouse being kept under guard. Gladys, Ada, Their Trev and the rest of the group embark on a plan of devilish cunning to rescue as many banned books from the flames as they can. But the key player in their plan is Humbert and there is no guarantee that he’ll cooperate.

Corporal Crundy is determined not to mess up his first assignment since his promotion. It should be easy. All he has to do is guard some books. Yeh. It should be a piece of cake but somehow that’s not the way it turns out.

To find it, go here.

 

 

 

 

 

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15 May 2022 · 5:26 pm

Still hanging in there …

Still here … 🙂

There’s been a bit of a long break and I thought I should probably pop in here, if only to reassure you that I’m still alive. There is a reason for my absence. First up, I was away on holiday for two weeks, during which I incredibly cleverly managed to get COVID 19. We all had it, the boys for a couple of days each. Me? Like all colds it went on for chuffing ever. First a week of really bad allergies during which I consulted a pharmacist in the resort and as it only appeared at night she reckoned I was right in thinking it was allergies.

Then, on our last day at the ski resort, I woke up with a temperature and a full blown cold (I get a temperature for the first couple of days with most colds, I’m rubbish at them). The cold turned into a two week sinus infection. After that there was a period where I felt very post viral. Once I’d been clear five days I went to church (I sing in the choir) and at the end of the first hymn I was surprised at how weak and sweaty I felt. I think it’s pretty much gone now but I’m still really tired and I feel terrible about all the people I met and spoke to over the second week on holiday, when I was huffing COVID cooties over everything. I sincerely hope I didn’t give it to any of them.

On the up side, although I didn’t know it was COVID I knew I had a cold and I felt it was only polite, in the current pandemic, to wear my mask for every and any interaction with other people. I also sanitised my hands to the point where they were so sticky I could probably have used them to climb up the sheer sides of glass buildings. Probably.

Hopefully all that protected everyone from me. I think masks probably stop more coming out than they stop going in. I hope so. The fact it was Easter and everything was shut also helped as it meant I didn’t sit in restaurants infecting people the way I might have done if any of them had been open.

While I was feeling drippy and post viral, I ditched anything that I absolutely didn’t have to do. So that meant everything except a bit of writing here and there, my monthly newsletter and Mum stuff, of which there is a craptonne right now. I also included ditching the blog. Although, I’m beginning to think that ditching blogging might not have been such a good idea. Not in the long run.

Overwhelm

I didn’t mean to talk about this today, but I’m going to because, fuck it, this is my blog after all.

The thing is. The Mum stuff has been really hard. There was so much of it that at first I was afraid (I was petrified!) Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. At first I did just go into fluffy-bunny-in-the-headlights mode but after a few weeks of going, ‘shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!’ I managed to belt up and did what I always do in situations like this. Ignored it and pretended it would go away. No! I stopped looking at how much there was to do and divided it up into little tasks; began at the edges if you like, chipping away at it one small job at a time. Phone this, post that, check these etc. Trying to do one small thing each day.

Net result; I’ve finally broken the back of it. I should be smug and yet, I still feel a bit overwhelmed with it all at the moment. I know why, too. I’m coming up to the anniversary of Dad’s death and I miss him, real him. When Dad was sliding into insanity, I could always ask Mum stuff. But now Dad has gone and Mum is sliding into insanity and there is no-one to talk to. Well no, there is but I’m making these decisions without the ultimate authoritative input of the demented person’s spouse, whereas when we made them about Dad it was simply a case of discussing it with Mum.

This is the hardest and loneliest thing I’ve done. It’s worse because I know my brother doesn’t really agree with what I’m doing. I love my brother dearly and I don’t want to fall out with him but the stress of continually going against what he wants, and what is actually the most sensible course of action, is a bit grim. The trouble is, the sensible thing isn’t what’s best for Mum, and if I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror every morning for the rest of my life, then I have to do what Mum wants. Even if she is as mad as a box of frogs. Even if, were I to ask her aged 50, she’d be horrified. It’s a bit of a shit position to be in.

Also, with the mountain of stuff I had to do, and the fact I was recovering from COVID and couldn’t do much else, I did have to have a bit of a sprint at it eventually. Drop everything and sort it. This approach is OK for a short time but with the COVID it went on longer and … I suppose I’ve looked too hard into the face of Mum’s dementia for too long and that always leads to trouble.

The trick with dragging the millstone up the hill is to know what’s happening but at the same time, not acknowledge it. Like some warped Magic Eye picture, I can see the image but I mustn’t uncross my eyes and let reality creep in or I will be undone, and god knows I can’t be undone.

If I allow myself to think about what is happening in the wrong way—or at all really—there are tears. But not useful, get-it-all-out tears. They’re the pointless crappy ones that achieve nothing and just fill your nose with snot.

Also. I’m so fucking angry. I’m absolutely incandescent that my parents were promised free health care and then, at a point when it was too late for them to do anything about it or plan for alternatives, it was taken away. Oh I could rail against the Government, and NHS’s institutionalised discrimination against certain mental illnesses while it happily treats others but what’s the fucking point? I could write letters, I could write to my MP and get the usual boilerplate reply referring me to the statements she has made about the issues that most concern her  on her website. She doesn’t even pretend to give a shit.

All it will get me is a sore throat or numb fingers. I could keep on asking the powers that be why, if two people have the exact same symptoms, one can be treated on the NHS for free and the other is forced to pay—not just their money but their house, possessions and everything they own, simply because their illness has a specific name. I could ask why people with dementia are taxed to the tune of all they own, unless they’re fortunate enough to die first. I could ask them if that’s just. Or right. Or building back better.

I suppose it might make me feel I’d made myself heard but I doubt it. Trying to do anything about it is like pissing in a wetsuit. Doubtless it will give me a nice warm feeling for a moment or two but it’ll make fuck all difference in the long run.

And I suppose it doesn’t help that we seem to have one of the most morally destitute bunch of stone-hearted cocksuckers ever to darken the doors of Parliament running this country right now. A bunch of feckless, misogynistic lounge lizards who also, unfortunately, appear to be completely teflon.

We have someone at the head of the nation who is an international joke and, possibly, one of the most unsympathetic and bone-headed premiers since Cromwell. Except, stone-hearted, empathy-free bastard that he might have been, at least Cromwell appears to have had some kind of moral compass and seems to have genuinely believed he was acting to help his people rather than just blatantly helping himself.

The present shower appear to pride themselves on having the kind of moral standards that make the Emperor Nero look like an exceedingly uptight nun.

Sorry, where was I?

Mum stuff and it being hard. I guess what makes it hard is that everything takes ages. Twenty minutes on hold, minimum, for a three minute telephone conversation. Then there’s the whole fact that we are mortgaging Mum’s house so we are basically gambling on how long she has to live. And we can only mortgage half so if she lives more than four and a half years, we’ll have to sell the house and move her into a home anyway.

Then

I guess what I’m saying is that it is possible I need to do some serious self care.

If you are looking after someone with dementia, this is probably the point where you’re hoping I’m going to share some amazing coping mechanism with you, right? God in heaven! I wish I could. But to be honest there just isn’t one. I guess the almighty (who I’m also pissed off with about this) has just decided that the camel WILL through the eye of the needle and 50% of people over 70 will get gold plated entry into the Kingdom of God by din’t of a whistle stop visit to hell before they die. Going nuts and spending everything they own on care.

Seriously though, one of the things not writing my blog for a few weeks has taught me is that actually, it’s pretty vital I that write my blog. By venting all the anger and weirdness and tension on here I get to be effortlessly normal in the Real World.

Well. No. That’s not exactly true. Normality is always an effort but you get the picture I’m sure.

For example, having a Basil Fawlty style rant on here and will make people laugh. It might make them think and it might make them sympathetic but by making it funny and airing it here I can cut the sense of overwhelm I feel down to a manageable size. Laugh at it and it loses it’s power and all that.

Conversely, having a Basil Fawlty style rant in real life leads to awkward silences. I’m clearly not funny enough to carry it off face on. Or maybe I’m just too desperate and too angry. Like a young woman I saw on Live at the Apollo a few years ago who did a fabulous stand up routine about nursing her mother through cancer. It was so powerful, but it was also painfully raw and the audience looked like they wanted to hug her, not laugh.

Even worse, by not ranting it all out here, it spills out when I talk to Real People. Yes, I have fallen into a terrible habit. When people ask how I am, I’m fucking well going and telling them.

This is not good. This is so, so not good.

I do not want to turn into the kind of person people hide under parked cars to avoid. I don’t want to be the dear woman my mother used to hide in the coat cupboard from (she was lovely but she was enduring very tough times and she talked soooo much).

Am I there yet? I don’t fucking know! But I fear I’m perilously close. I’m going to meet up with some of my old school friends this week and I am actually quite nervous. I have lost so many friends by meeting them during a crisis after a long time apart and then being too intense, too weird and too chatty to the point where they quietly delete my details from their address books and move house.

A big part of the stress is that I’m appalling at this stuff. Seriously. In my 20s, I had an IQ of 149. One point off genius level. But the side of my brain for maths is … it’s so stupid. Brain 1 is sitting there looking on in complete incredulity as Brain 2 tries to understand compound interest. One side of the house is mercury quick, the other is like wading through semi congealed tar. It’s weird and frustrating and thank God McOther has agreed to attend the mortgage meetings with me so there is someone there to ask pertinent questions and understand it all straight off.

Then there’s a fair bit of guilt. One of the things that cropped up, doing all of this, was how badly I’ve taken my eye off the ball. I confess that while Mum was reasonably well and not deteriorating as much, I kind of let things slide. I wrote stuff and did things with my spare time that normal people might do. IE nothing particularly looking-after-Mum related. She was very frail after Dad died, and although I knew that the Almighty is far too hell bent on crapping on us all from the stratosphere to do us the mercy of having Mum’s money outlast her, there were three years of it and logic said it should.

I really should have known. Again, it might be easier for us to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of God but I’m sure that, with the help of a blender I could— yeh alright. Moving on.

Returning to my derelict duties I discovered that Mum’s payments from Dad’s work pension had stopped and that she is on the lower rate for one of her benefits when she should have been on the higher one since she started to need carers at night (April 2019).

Gulp.

On top of that, I realised that if the council tax definition of severely mentally impaired goes on levels of dementia alone, she should be eligible for a council tax disregard, which means her council tax payments are waived. As these are over three grand a year it seemed quite a good idea to get the forms for those and ask her Doctor if he was prepared to sign them. If he doesn’t, I am now at the point where I can safely say I’m spending over 35 hours a week on Mum and I will claim carer’s allowance with a clear conscience, instead, and bung some of that her way. (You can’t do both).

None of this is quick. Oh my goodness no. But I stayed on hold for the prerequisite 20 minute plus to each of the august bodies I was required to contact and got the forms sent out. In the case of the pension, although Mum had signed a chitty to say they could talk to me, it was too long ago. They gave me an email address to send my power of attorney to and then told me I’d have to wait 10 – 12 working days before it would be ‘on the system’ and I could ring to ask my question again, at which point, they assured me that they’d answer it. I put a note in my diary to ring on the magic day and relaxed knowing the forms would arrive at Mum’s while I was away and I could pick them up a couple of days after getting home.

But then I arrived home and discovered I had bastard COVID and I couldn’t get to Mum’s to pick the forms up before they expired.

Can you guess what happened next kids?

Urgh. Yes. That’s right. I had to phone them all again. I swear the Man has decided that the new way to keep us down will be to give us pointless shit to do, like sitting on hold for a fucking eternity to ask a question that is answered in about ten seconds.

So over the past couple of days I’ve been writing covering letters and filling in forms. In black ink and in capitals. Needless to say, I ballsed up the forms extensively but hey, Tippex is my friend. I sent one form to Mum’s for her to sign with instructions to the carers as to what they needed to add (her list of meds) and bless them, she signed the forms yesterday and they put them in the post. So that’s one job done that I’ve been meaning to get round to for several months.

Meanwhile at the beginning of the week, I sat down with the next round of paperwork the mortgage broker had sent, filled that in, decided how much we needed to borrow and sent it off.

Yesterday, I filled in the council tax form and sent it to Mum’s doctor, with an SAE to send it back if he signs it. Once that comes back to me I can send that on, or apply for carer’s allowance if he can’t sign without a pukka diagnosis. Mum is doing fine thinking her memory is crap. She can maintain the illusion that it isn’t dementia, even though she kind of knows it is. But if she formally hears she has it she’ll be undone. So I can’t get a diagnosis if she has to be told about it too, it’s too unkind.

Good news is, the fucking mountain of administriviatative shite is nearly all in the bag, except for signing up to the actual mortgage, which will require the services of a solicitor. Oh yes and getting rid of the last of Mum’s shares, which are in an old family firm but needs must. They have to go.

This is not the end, or even the beginning of the end but it is the end of the beginning for this particular period of intense Mum-based activity. Once we’ve got this bit done she’s set for another three or four years and it’s like I can see the end of the tunnel on this batch now, after which there will be a calm period.

Sure it will be horrible when the mortgage is spent and we have to sell the house and put her into a home, but there’s no point agonising over that until it happens. I guess what I’m saying is that, I should be able to write some more soon.

Talking about writing …

There is an outside chance I will finish the current W.I.P. this year. There are 102k words of it so far and I have a horrible feeling it’s going to be three books. I might be able to break it up into 50k instalments though. We are only half way through but it’ll need tightened up and when I’ve done that I suspect I’ll have three 50k instalments, two 85k novels or one absolute monster. As the other books are short but the first book featuring Goojan Spiced Sausage is also 85k I’m thinking two at that length would work really well. Otherwise one 50k and one 85k (if I can keep the prose spare enough) would also work with the some books short, some books long nature of the rest of the series.

Lastly, I’m thinking of entering Too Good To Be True for a sci-fi book award. The books have to be over 50k, a stand alone or a first in series. I’d be entering it as a stand alone. Unless it isn’t. Decisions decisions. The competition is adjudicated by sci-fi bloggers. They’ll probably hate it. They usually do. But what do I know?

Right. Until next week, that’s me … although it might be after next week, but it might not because I have to tell you about my pathetic efforts to do a calorie controlled diet and my new electric bike! Woot. I’m also thinking of doing a kickstarter to raise funds for the next book in the Hamgeean Misfit series, Starting at $10 but it gets all the other books too, or something like that. Let me know in the comments if you think that’s a good idea.

If you’re bored …

Why not try the audio box set of the K’Barthan Series from my shop with 30% off. If you’d like to give that a go, click on the link and type ARNOLD at checkout.

K’Barthan Box Set Audio in Reduced Circumstances

Alternatively, if you enjoyed the books and have the inclination, why not write a review of one of them. A list of them, with links to them on the main stores can be found here

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