Pumpkin Spice Sky

I looked out of the window, and everything looked orange. I wondered if I was having a bit of a do, but DH agreed, everywhere looked orange. To reassure myself, I went out and took pics. There was the most amazing orange sunset, which my elderly phone camera didn't capture properly, but I got a couple of pics of the glow in the street, including one which shows a rainbow.

There are no filters on these pics, just the effect of a vivid orange, pumpkin spice, sunset.

I was looking through my next Tesco order. I'm finally near the end of the massive order of washing sheets I got a great deal on a year or so back, and they are on offer, so I'll top up. It's not a brilliant deal, and it's not included in the '4 for the price of 3' deal on cleaning and laundry products currently going on. I remember when those sales were worth noticing, and they included the Tesco own brand products which I bought by the bucket load. Now I'm just picking up some laundry sheets. 

One thing I will not be picking up is Laundry Shampoo. It's on offer at Tesco, and I don't care. I don't care if it's 1p per pint, I am not buying any detergent for clothes called Laundry Shampoo. I just can't. 

Here's the screen print

This is available at Tesco, and I'm not buying it

I mean, what sort of laundry detergent is called Icing on the Cake fragrance? I don't want my clothes to smell like cake. I'm traditional, and if they're going to smell of anything, I'd like something fresh like citrus, or lavender, dammit! They even have what they call Cleansing Perfume which is like Febreeze but three times the price! 

Blogs that I'm following still aren't showing, but I'm trying to find ways around that. I apologise for anyone that I'm missing. As far as I can tell, comments are working, both leaving them and receiving them, but it's a concern.

As you know, I've just made the executive decision to leave Wordpress and go all in on Blogger. Ha! After driving myself daft, I'm now eyeing Blogger with some suspicion. I don't think that it's a moneymaker for Google, and I don't think that it's being kept up to date. I'm fine keeping my witterings on here, but I'm not sure that I want to risk my writing stuff. Because I'm obviously still fully stocked with idiot juice, I'm now looking to transfer to another sort of platform. I could go all in on Substack, but I don't think it's the right form. I think it's more for a newsletter, and possible audio (I'm considering recording myself reading Cats in the Bible to see if there's any interest at some point, but nothing promised at the moment).

I'm not keen on carrying on with Wordpress. To be brutally honest, I want a free platform, that's easy for an old dear like me to use, and that allows me to share a certain amount of free content with readers. Blogger would be fine if it works. I'm just not sure what to do if it doesn't. 

Feeling Sad

It looks like we are going to have to give up on our car. There's something interesting gone wrong with the clutch and In n Out can't easily fix it. They could replace it, but it gets complicated with the AA guarantee where we just pay them £35 under the policy and they cover repairs. They are likely to insist on repairs, which means that the poor car would have to be towed to a specialist garage, and it may be written off anyway. When DH was talking with a dealership about a new car, we were offered £150 part exchange. This may have been generous. Anyway, I can't see a repair costing less than double that. 

It's ridiculous. I just wanted to cry after talking to the garage. But it's the first and only car that I've driven on my own, and I'm going to miss her so much. 

I'm currently in full mope mode, and I'll allow myself to wallow tonight. Then I can look forward to learning how to drive a different car.

Here's the first pic of red that was ever posted on my blog, back in April 2019. 

So much has happened since then, and that car is stuffed with memories. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Missing Bear

I miss bear so much. It's not really a conscious thought. It's just that I find myself tiptoeing past his door when he's hundreds of miles away, or planning a food shop around him, or turning around to talk to him and he's miles away. I can text, but I don't want to be too clingy. I texted him when I left the grill on and nearly set the kitchen on fire, and the problems about the car, but it's not the same.

The car is still at the garage. The lovely man from the AA believed that it was a clutch cable problem. However the clutch is still able to go into reverse. It's sort of engaging with the engine but it's not engaging properly. The guys at the garage aren't sure what's going on. We've made a tentative approach to a garage for a new car that was on their website. It's huge. I mean, it's massive. I'm not sure that I'll be able to drive it. And our little Citroen C3 has been such a star, and I don't want to see her go.

DH got me a little notebook to cheer me up. 

It's a real hug as I love my notebooks. 

Writing stuff - I feel like I'm swimming against the tide, trying to tidy up a load of loose ends. I hope that I'll have most of it sorted by the end of the year. It's been fiddly writing stuff all day. I've posted about plans here (Blogger) and here (Wordpress) if you're interested. There's quite a lot going on over the next couple of months and there should be some more books coming out soon.

Thank you for all those who have supported me by buying the ghost books and for any reviews. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Annoyingly, if I search Amazon for An Apprenticeship of Ghosts, I don't get a result. I only get a result from An Apprenticeship of Ghosts Medana. I hope that it doesn't mean that you can't find the book on a casual search. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

It's Not My Birthday (Again)

My writing name has a birthday today. Facebook asked for it when I set up the page so I made up a date and it's sort of spread since then. I'm hiding from Facebook because there's usually loads of notifications, and last year I got locked out of Facebook for thanking too many people for birthday wishes. It feels even odder, because I think I've met two or maybe three people on my friend list for the writing name and I have over three thousand friends! Or perhaps 'friends'. Some are people that I talk with regularly, some are accidental friends or people chasing business or just awesome people that I don't know very well. I feel guilty because lots of lovely people are sending me good wishes and I don't deserve them. 

I've also not caught up with the blogs. Blogger has finally started playing nice to give me my usual links, and I've decided that I'm going to set a time, settle down with a nice cup of tea and enjoy myself. 

I've not done much today, and I've done less worth taking a pic, but here is a view of my latest impulse buy - an orange shaped candle.

It's from Morrisons and it smells ORANGE!!!! and I'm sure that I'll find a use for the container at the end. 

The car is still in the garage. They're getting to it, but they're busy, and I guess that ours isn't an urgent repair. We don't do a school run and DH works from home, and I get so much delivered that we can manage. I still feel out of sorts about it. I guess we're going to have to go car shopping sooner than we had planned.

It doesn't help that I'm missing bear. I thought I'd get used to it, but he's been great company over the summer, and now he's not here. I'll be counting down to the Christmas holidays.

Writing stuff - first THANK YOU to everyone who has bought my book. I cannot tell you how much of a hug it feels, and I hope that you can enjoy them. 

The last but one instalment of The Guest is here (on Blogger) and here (on Wordpress). For those who missed it, I've an article here about some changes I'm making when I publish, and I'm feeling quite a few changes in the air - hopefully less than the chaos I unleashed by switching over blogs. I'll keep everyone updated.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Could be Worse

The clutch just gave out. Of course, it all started going wrong at a busy junction close to Leeds City Centre and in the middle of a load of industrial estates at rush hour. According to the nice AA man, who arrived two and one half hours later, it's the clutch cable.

But it happened just as DH picked up the hire car to take bear back to university tomorrow, so no-one was stranded after the AA towed Red to the garage (and the man was absolutely lovely!). And it didn't happen on the moors above Ilkley after the satnav sent us on an unexpected tour of the less paved roads. 

However, with other things, I feel absolutely flattened. I'll catch up properly later, but here's an out of date pic of the garden with a block of mulch on - it's that compressed coir stuff that needs water adding and then it poofs out. Nothing has apparently died yet. I need to add another block.

And the link to an article about a change in how my books will be published that isn't strictly my choice is here (blogger) and here (wordpress). I'm getting a little tired of all the changes, most of which are my fault, but it's still tiring. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Happy, Happy Days

I was away last week, on holiday with DH and bear. I don't like to let people know that the house will be empty, so I didn't warn that I'd be away and not posting. But here's a quick overview and I'll start catching up with friendly blogs and get back into the rhythm in no time. 

We didn't go far, it was just in the Yorkshire Dales, only around an hour's drive, but nicely in the country, quiet, and a chance for a little bit of calm together. It was a self catering AirBnB cottage, and it seemed perfect. I mean, it had a woodburning stove and a reading/knitting nook.

And you had to cross a bridge to get to the front door.

I was deeply grateful for the woodburning stove, as the boiler stopped working and we didn't have hot water or heating apart from that for the first few days. It can't be blamed on the host, or even on the repair man. I listened to him on one of the mornings when he turned up with a different part and worked with the equally baffled helpline operator to get things going. 

Bear enjoyed a chance to learn to light fires, but after DH took over, the stove had two levels - out or blast furnace. The host was wonderfully generous with firewood and kindling, and we took shameless advantage. I shivered or scorched, but I did enjoy watching the fire and it was generally relaxing. 

Catering was a tiny problem. If we needed to, we could have driven into a local town for food, but I'd organised a Tesco delivery for the start of the stay and there were seventeen substitutions. Most of them made more or less sense, but it was tricky trying to recreate a rough meal plan. There was a (very small) village shop, and we were never going to starve, but seventeen substitutions! I'd never seen anything like that ever!

The kitchen was equipped. The trouble with self catering kitchens is that they're not like your kitchen at home. If I'm going to heat a can of soup at home, I know which jug is good in the microwave, which bowls are a good fit, and I have a favourite spoon. A strange kitchen slows you down by about half a step, not to mention using a strange cooker. 

Our cooker is accidentally quite good and expensive. We got an insane deal on an electric cooker with an induction hob which, after much patient service, burst into flames. The insurance couldn't replace with the equivalent because it was no longer sold so we got an awesome upgrade. The AirBnB's cooker wasn't the same. It was an electric cooker with an induction hob, but the oven ran enthusiastically hot and the hob limped along very slowly. It was one of those where it was a good cooker if you were used to it. 

The house was nicely decorated, and it was clean, but it wasn't clean clean. Still, it made me feel a little better about my own housewifery skills or lack thereof, so I'm not calling that a fail. And they had a bathroom smaller than mine! 

The picture, past the reading room, is of the main house bathroom. It's about square with a walk in shower that runs off the boiler so wasn't available at the start. It's tiny. I think that if I was going to go to the trouble of installing a bathroom, I'd use the whole room and go all out, but who knows? That may have been an important study at one time. The bedrooms were lovely. 

And on the way home, the satnav decided to shred our nerves by taking an unexpected shortcut over the moors on single track roads. DH was driving, and he's a much better and more experienced driver than me, but I'm more comfortable with those sorts of roads and I was so glad that I wasn't in the hot seat. It was all high stone walls and blind corners, and we had no idea what was going on. 

I could probably find more to grumble about but the house was obviously a gothic horror story waiting to happen, and while I almost finished the back of a chunky sweater, I let my mind drift. There were dozens of doors that were not only in odd places, but locked and bolted. This one in my room apparently leads to the house next door.

There was a dark painting on the landing, which ought to have had secrets woven into its story.

And there was a memorial stone in the small garden. 

I took this pic at the last minute, as whenever I went out there, I forgot my phone. But how can you resist a cottage with a memorial stone in the garden?

DH wants to go back. Bear is uncommitted. I'm looking at perhaps staying home. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

In Haste

Yarn has happened.

The second pic doesn't do it justice.

Lavender has been planted through weed membrane that bear laid. 

And I've finally got around to publishing An Apprenticeship of Ghosts.

Hugs and good health to all.