Christmas story? Find it here!!!

Murkton Christmas lights...?

Hopefully clicking on this link should take you straight to the PDF.  Then just save as normal! The Grouse and Partridge Story for 2011!  9I've managed to get round the lulu ebook hassles although the cover is horrible!!!)

(You can buy print copies, if you want one, at Lulu print edition  but it'll cost £2.50 and whatever they decide to charge for pand p! - I'd go for the download, myself!  If you are one of the 'usual' suspects who gets one in your stocking every year, never fear - it's on its way!!)

The Kindle edition is here Kindle edition although I'm not that happy about the formatting and I may well have another try at it before Christmas to make it a bit better to read. Kindle won't allow me to give the story away so you'll be charged 75p if you select it this way!  Again, I'm working on ways to get round this...

For every copy bought or downloaded this year, I'm donating to Crisis (as usual) and also to the MS Trust.

Merry Christmas

G and P get Kindled!

I was on strike yesterday, like a lot of people in the UK, but because I'm struggling with a foot injury at the moment I wasn't up to marching the streets and waving placards.  Instead, I stayed at home, with my foot up, and among the amazing things I found time to do, I decided to have a go at transferring the last Grouse and Partridge story to Kindle.  It was actually surprisingly simple to do (although the prospect of doing an entire novel is rather daunting!) and it is exciting to announce that, as of this morning, 'A Snoo-Tappit Hiddy-Giddy' is available from Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Snoo-Tappit-Hiddy-Giddy-Partridge-Christmas-ebook/dp/B006GIUWV2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322771429&sr=1-1  for the princely sum of 86p - they wouldn't let me set the price to free!

When I finish this year's offering (Saturday's job!) it too will be available on Kindle at the same price. The usual free PDF will still be available on lulu.com along with the print version, probably from December 17th. 

Best cake?  The sweet mince pie my pal Helen forced me to indulge in with our now traditional Thursday morning coffee from Costa!  That girl is a bad influence!

Advent approaches...

and as the world goes into Christmas hyper-drive, Hamish and I just can't get worked up about it.  I've got too much work on to even start thinking about Christmas and Hamish... well, let's just say I've put him in rather an awkward situation in this year's Christmas story and really he's already got enough on his plate trying to deal with that, with the inevitable 'Secret Santa' issues, the perennial 'What do I buy for Marmalade?' problem and the inevitable cranberry scones thrown in for good measure.

http://www.theliterarygiftcompany.com

Yes: I am writing it.  No, I haven't really got the time (redecorating kitchen so entire contents scattered from one end of the house to the other, a mountain of marking and planning threatening to engulf me and a university course I should be devoting much more time to!) but when has that ever stopped me?  However, if the TUC decide to cancel strike action on Wednesday next, it may well be necessary to postpone Christmas
till January - I'm banking on that day to finish the story and lulu it!  Hoping it will make it to Kindle this year as well... watch this space.  (Only, not too intently!) ( Oh, and Marks and Spencer Key Lime Pie : has to be tasted to be believed!!)

It could be worse of course: this time last year we had SNOOOOOOW!

A (virtual) trip to Killin!

When I was writing 'Scotch Pine' I used the MacNab burial ground at Inchbuie, Killin as a setting for the final scenes of the book.  I'd never actually been on the island itself, although I'd taken photos of the entrance gates and had sourced some photos on the internet.  However, this week I've finally been able to 'visit' Killin, through a BBC TV programme which was first aired in 2008 - Railway Walks.  The episode starts in Callendar at the 'Dreadnought' hotel and travels through scenery very well known to Hamish as it is part of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, before arriving at the Falls and venturing across to the island in the company of the Laird of Macnab.  I was entranced!  It's fabulous and just exactly the way I'd imagined it when I was writing.  If you are in the UK, you can catch it on the BBCiplayer for the next week or so : see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fd1dd for more details.

It made me very 'homesick' - my heart is still in the Highlands!

Completely classic

I've spent this weekend trying to pull together resources to teach one of my all time favourite novels to my Year 9 class.  Jane Eyre is flavour of the month at the moment (although I didn't realise it would be when I chose to do it!) and so, as I've waded through my resources, updating and tweaking them a little bit, I've been thinking about why I love this story so much!

Normally, I'm quite twitchy about film and TV adaptations of classic novels, but with Jane Eyre I don't really mind so much because I actually saw it before I read it: a made-for TV film one evening in the summer holidays between leaving primary and starting secondary school.  It starred the unlikely combination of George C Scott and Susannah York as Rochester and Jane, both excellent actors but (with hindsight!)totally miscast.  However, the story captured my adolescent imagination and I borrowed a copy from my local library.  (Libraries: remember them?  They were so good...).  To say I read the book might be an understatement: I devoured it, although how much of it went over my head at the time is hard to say.  I have vivid memories of sitting in our back garden, in a makeshift tent, eating chocolate biscuits and living the story...

When I was around 14 or so, the BBC produced their adaptation starring Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke which I still consider to be the definitive version. In fact, when I read the novel now I cannot do so without hearing their voices speaking the lines!  Much later, Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson stepped into the roles in a production which was just about perfect until they mangled the ending.  (Like North and South all over again:  why can't scriptwriters trust that Victorian writers actually knew what they were doing???) 

It's one of those books - like Great Expectations and Little Women and To Kill a Mockingbird - that I have to go back and read again every few years.

I know why my twelve- and fourteen- year old selves loved it so much - it was entirely down to that complex, saturnine, brooding hero with his dark, dark secret  - but my now (much) older self finds that I'm drawn more to Jane's character  - I am impressed by her feisty-ness, her determination not to lower her standards even if  the cost is a devastating one, her capacity for forgiveness and the depth and complexity of her love.  Oddly, too, St John Rivers - the character I originally felt to be completely unnecessary to the plot - fascinates me now: a man who loves deeply but ultimately rejects love as a merely unworthy character trait, missing out on so much in the process.  

And what of Edward Rochester? Well, I still adore him - of course - but I can see him a little more clearly these days.  He's really a weak man, wounded and vulnerable, arrogant and proud, not really a proper hero at all, when all's said and done.  And, in truth, all the better for it.

A book of contradictions, it is far-fetched and contrived: a gothic romance - but somehow also very real in the way it deals with the themes of love, betrayal and inequality. It has events of pure melodrama but lines that ring with truth in your ears long after the book is closed. It is a real masterpiece.

And so I'm off once again, taking up my proverbial candlestick and stepping out into the dark, shadowy corridors of Thornfield Hall, in search once more for the truth behind that 'praeternatural laugh' and the deep dark mystery hidden on its third floor - I can hardly wait!

I never knew this until today...

but having sat down and flicked through 'Scotch Pine', I suddenly realised Allan Drover is left-handed!  It had never occurred to me before, but when he is attacked by the mousetraps in the biscuit tin he damages his left hand - he keeps pressing the 'a' and 's' keys together because his little finger and ring finger are taped together!  Now panicking in case I've made him right-handed at some other point in any of the stories!!

Summertime, an' the livin' is easy...

...which makes for something of a refreshing change!  I've been off work for ten days so far and I must admit that a disproportionate amount of that time has been spent sleeping to try and get over the exhaustion of the end of term.  We had a very emotional last two weeks with lots of goodbyes and surprise presents and meals out and bouquets of flowers... and then the holidays came crashing in and now we're in the middle of them and I'm not quite sure how we got here! 

This, by the way, is a deserted Covent Garden market at about 11pm last Wednesday night.  We'd just been to see the wonderful Tam Mutu as the Phantom in 'Love Never Dies' (again!)and walked up from the Adelphi through the Market.  I just had to stop for photos!  The night before we'd been lucky enough to see David Tennant and Catherine Tate in the hugely enjoyable production of 'Much Ado about Nothing' at Wyndham's Theatre in Charing Cross Road, a late Victorian gem of a theatre - and one I'd never been to before.  Fabulous seats for both shows (although LND wasn't full the audience were vociferous and the cast as brilliant as ever!  This show does NOT deserve to close!) London was lovely and worked its usual magic: we explored Chelsea this time and, having been flattered by the attentions of a group of utterly charming Chelsea Pensioners, were given a personal tour of the Royal Chelsea Hospital Chapel and Great Hall!

From there we went to the Chelsea Physic Garden, a place I've always wanted to visit.  It is a haven of peace and tranquility despite being right on Chelsea embankment, beautiful plants and lovely places to sit and enjoy it all.  And there, in the Tangerine Dream Cafe (yes - really!!!!!!) was the Cake of the Week - probably of the month - Lemon Drizzle - perfect with a strong black coffee although the other options all looked just as tempting! 

It cleansed the palate just as London always cleanses my mind: somehow things seem much clearer after a couple of days of refocusing there!  Came back and ruthlessly savaged the 'new project' and got it to a place where I think I can continue with a first draft.  Don't know why I'm so scared of this one - I have to keep forcing myself to write it!!! Finally, I've made a rather unexpected decision to enrole for a university postgraduate course - part time and distance learning - to start in September.  Part of me thinks I'm certifiable, but I feel if I don't do it now, I probably never will!  We'll see what happens...

This last photo was taken just after the last one - and seconds later they switched the floodlighting off!  It's St Paul's Covent Garden, the Actors' Church - the one that features in the opening of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady - and it's one of my special places.  I've never seen Covent Garden this deserted: I half expected a ghostly coster to show up on the photo, carrying baskets on his head as they did when it really was a fruit market...