Busier than Usual

I forgot all about posting yesterday. Most of the day was taken up with the very nice man who came to replace our broken CCTV cameras. I didn't want to mention that they were broken until they were fixed, just in case. The new ones are awesome and now I have no excuse for missing pics of the garden, as I can take screenshots.

Bear is working really hard, and I'm very proud of him. Today he came with me to the garage where they checked the tyres. The tyre pressure light had come on - again, and I was worried about yet another slow leak. As it was, a couple of tyres had high/low pressure, which they fixed for free. The that the suspension may be on the way out, and they suggested a wellness check for the car. I've not done many miles since the service in June, but I'm trying to coax the car along a little longer before she's replaced. 

Bear was with me as the garage is next to Wickes, which for those outside the UK is a big store for DIY and home improvement - and garden stuff. The current plan is to put down weed suppressing membrane in the centre and fill the dip with gravel. Bear very kindly hauled the gravel out of Wickes for me. I didn't get pics of the gravel, but I'm sure that I'll be able to show it soon. That is, after bear has lugged it into the garden. 

Writing stuff - I've done a post on Blogger, copied to Wordpress and Substack, about ongoing writing plans. I'll keep everyone updated.

I'm looking forward to after the end of November when it's just one blog. I'll always be posting news on Substack, because that's my newsletter, and it's an easy and cheap way to get notified. 

Hugs and good health to all.

Where Did the Day Go?

I'm just dashing through because I want to keep posting here about non-writing stuff. I've not really had time to read up on the blogs as there's a workman coming round tomorrow and I need to get stuff cleared. Bear was supposed to help, but didn't, so I may have to grumble a little at him. Mind you, he helped bring in the shopping of the delivery...

...except I'd messed up the delivery so we got three packs of the water he likes, two bags of the salad DH likes, and one large bottle of rum (which actually I quite like) which was added to take the total up to the delivery minimum to hold the slot, and nothing else besides. I forgot to update it. When it comes to deliveries, I usually book them well ahead and then tweak it nearer time. Though it doesn't match the order years and years ago when father was here. There was a great deal on Famous Grouse, his favourite tipple, but a maximum of three bottles per order which I'd filled with the previous order. This meant that the order the next day was solely three bottles of whiskey and a bag of cat litter, and the driver judged us.

And bear has done something interesting with his wrist, which dragging in the packs of water didn't help. I still may grumble lightly. I did a little myself, and I ought to get up at the crack of dawn and do more.

A lot was just clearing the various pots. 

And I've been caught up in a load of writing stuff. Anyway I hope to have something more sensible to talk about tomorrow. 

Writing stuff - The next instalment of The Guest is here on Blogger and here on Wordpress. 

If anyone would like a review copy of An Inexpensive Ring please let me know. If you leave a comment on the Wordpress blog with contact details, I won't publish them and I'll get in touch. The blurb reads:

An Inexpensive Ring is a light-hearted short story featuring mischievous kittens, an imminent visit from a mother-in-law, complications with an inexpensive ring, and a choice that could only go one way.

A quick read to make you smile.

It's a free read in the hope that you'll leave an honest review (and if you don't enjoy it, then the hope is that you'll be honest, but also tactful). 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Maybe Not Standing Still

It's been a strange sort of day. My back is giving me fits, so I've not done much physical stuff. I took in a delivery and it nearly finished me off. Bear would normally help, but he got a call to meet up with friends. I'm not going to stop him. Even in these days of social media and smart phones with group chats, it's hard to keep up friendships over distances. The invitation took bear a little by surprise, but I may find out more about what he got up to when I see him - apparently some time tomorrow. 

This meant that nothing further got done in the garden, but I'll have a go tomorrow. Bear may or may not be in a state to help when he gets in. I have no idea what he'll be doing, but he's an adult and a sensible one, so I'll let him get on with things. 

Writing stuff - I feel like I've been working hard with the writing stuff, but I don't feel that I have much to show for it. I've been dotting between tasks and one thing that caught my erratic attention was transferring some of the files from my laptop to my PC. There are all sorts of goodies that I'd forgotten, and now my 'to-write' pile is even bigger!

While I was rummaging, I found a story that I must have written around ten years ago. I tried to submit it, but the story was rejected, and I sort of forgot about it as it was a short story that had nothing spooky or weird about it, just a sweet little tale. There's not much to it, and it's never been on any of my blogs, and I don't want to spend time looking for a place to send it. I remembered that people were posting extremely short pieces on Amazon, so even though this is just shy of 2400 words, I published it. 

I didn't go all fancy about it. I got the cover from Canva and had a couple of read throughs rather than a rigorous edit, but here it is, An Inexpensive Ring.

I put it at the cheapest price possible and on Kindle Unlimited, because I can't bring myself to price things high for a short story. If I find more like that, I'll put them up and see how it goes. As you can see, I've used the Fireside pen name for this. It seems unfair to publish it as Lyssa Medana and have readers expecting werewolves and magic and instead getting a sweet story with a couple of mischievous kittens and the threat of a mother-in-law's visit. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

What's Sleep?

I had a bad night, and didn't get to sleep until 7am. I purposefully only allowed myself three hours, then an hour's nap in the afternoon. It's left me grumpy, headachey, and my back hates me.

Bear has been awesome. You remember the garden yesterday? Well it now looks like this. 

You remember the flower bed in the middle? When father moved in, it was actually filled in by bricks. However father wanted a flower bed there and pulled the bricks up and added soil and plants. The trouble is, the margin between the bed and the borders is too small to, for example, put a chair or a little table for snacks. The plan is that bear will transfer the dirt (which is awesome black soil) to the bed under the window, lay down weed suppressing membrane, cover the space with gravel until it's level and call it done. He's pottered around between showers and video games and I'm very happy with what he's done. 

Writing stuff - I'm in so much pain, tired, and so fed up that I decided to abandon any hope of getting Further Tales from the White Hart expanded and reorganised and published it 'as is' here. 

I've also given up on translating Back at the White Hart from 46 separate very short stories, many under 500 words, into something that reads like a novel, and I've also given up on refinishing the selection of short stories and Dark Picture. I'll pull them together, check the spelling and grammar, and publish, purely to have all the stories accessible. Apart from anything else, I don't want to publish it on a blog because it's already looking stuffed. Then it's off my mind, off my lists and I'm a little closer to my goal of writing all about werewolves. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Bear is Awesome

I may be slightly biased, and bear is doing things at his own pace, but you remember how the garden looked last time that I played out.

Bear and I have been out and while I've tried to help, bear has done everything that involves using a back.

And I don't know if anyone remembers, but we had an apple tree in a tub and while the blossom was pretty guaranteed, we never got much from it, and as it was hidden under the honeysuckle and I forgot about it, the drought saw it off. Bear cut the dead tree into bits, emptied the soil which I suspect is completely dead, and I now have a substantially sized tub that I plan to fill with a rose.

The soil is really good black earth, and it's wasted on me. Of course, I put in compost and dug it over many years ago, and father had a good play with it, but it's the sort of growing medium that most gardeners covet. Efforts continue, but I doubt that much will get done tomorrow as rain is forecast. My back is hurting, and I have eye strain so I'm happy to be coming to the end of the post, but I had to post to show how well bear has done.

Writing stuff has given me the eye strain, so I've not checked in on the blogs or awesome comments as I would have liked, but you can read how I'm doing with the switch in writing blogs on Wordpress here and on Blogger here. 

It Could be Worse

I can't move very well. I think it's something like a pulled muscle, but it's bad. But it could be worse. Yesterday we had chicken with roast potatoes, peas and gravy. It was all frozen stuff, apart from the gravy granules, but it was nice and I managed to get things into the oven (though DH took things out for me). There was a nice amount of chicken left over from the frozen chicken breast joint, which there should have been at the price of it. Bear and I had it in curry tonight, and there's a portion of the curry leftover as well. Again, it wasn't inspired, as it was the curry sauce in a jar with mushrooms and onions that I'd previously chopped and frozen. 

It got me thinking. The frozen chicken breast was £6.65 (very nearly the devil) for 800g and we got six very ample portions from it, and absolutely could have spread it over more without stinting. But there's a large chicken at Tesco that's on offer for £4.60 Clubcard price that's 1.7-2.1kg (around three and three quarters to four and one half pounds) and the fresh chicken is barn raised. It's not free range, but with all the problems with bird flu, it could be worse. It's roughly a third of the price by weight. And the potatoes aren't cost effective either.

But I have struggled so much over the last few years that I'm concerned that a lot of a proper chicken would go to waste. And with all the problems with farming and the weather, it feels worse than ever to waste food. I've always failed at making stock, and when bear is back at university, a small chicken will be more than enough. I think that once my back is a little less twitchy, I'm going to have to sort out the kitchen and make some decisions. I want to make it easier for me to make a proper meal and that means streamlining ingredients, keeping lists, and being thorough. After all, making the curry was a lot easier because I had the veg that I'd previously prepared and frozen ready, and that made a difference. I need to make realistic choices. 

I haven't done anything worth taking a pic today, as I've been working on writing stuff, so I had a little play with Canva again. I'm not sure about how the text turned out, but I looked for a sunny quote after the eclipse and the end of the relentless heatwave. 

Writing stuff - I've had a few battles with the transfer today, but it's continuing. The latest instalment of The Guest is on the blogger blog here and the wordpress blog here. 

Hugs and good health to all 

Knitting

I got some knitting done for the first time in ages. Partly it was because I didn't want to move around much as my back is stiff, and partly because it's finally cool enough to knit. It's just a basic blanket as I'm still feeling the effects of the co-codamol. I dug it out of the pile of unfinished projects and it was fun to watch YouTube videos while I managed a few rows.

And speaking of cocodamol, if you want to dream of sentient washing machines throwing spaghetti at your head, I utterly recommend it. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Ouch

I've just done something interesting to my back. I was bending over and it feels like something gave. I've taken some co-codemal and I'm now away off to fairyland.

I typed fairy into the search bar of Unsplash and got this, so at least there's a pic.

Hugs and good health to all

Photo by Simona D'Auria on Unsplash

Not a Good Day

Some things went right today. I got a load more stories posted on the non-spooky blog, and I must be getting to the end of that. It's taking me some time as they don't copy over easily and I've had to do a certain amount of fiddling around to make sure that everything fits, each post has a picture, and the pictures that aren't mine have proper attributions. 

I have a headache. I have a big headache. I'm sure that I'm not alone as the heat does not suit me, and my stomach is telling me that I had something that didn't agree with me, so I feel like death. 

The headache was not helped by the government's alert going off. I'd say that you don't need to tell people not to use things like disposable barbecues or fireworks when the entire country is tinder dry and ready to go up in smoke, but there's a warning for nuts on a jar of peanut butter for a reason.

I am about to write about eight-legged problems. Here is a cute picture of a kitten to soothe anyone accidentally reading when they didn't want to, and it's the last part of the post so you can skip it.

Photo by Tuqa Nabi on Unsplash

Our house is currently over supplied with cellar spiders. You can find them on Wikipedia, if you really want to look. They look incredibly creepy, but they're generally harmless to humans and prey on other spiders. I take the view of live and let live and wish that they'd also go after the fly that got in yesterday and we haven't managed to squash yet. 

The live and let live part was tested when of those spiders decided to hang their latest meal directly over where we were planning to eat ours. Did I mention my upset stomach? DH was a hero and sucked up the scene with the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner, because while I'm happy for spiders to scuttle off into the corners, there are some things where I draw the line. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Blame the Weather

There's a load of writing stuff here, so feel free to skip. However, it's the reason why I've been skimming over blogs and not doing much apart from that writing stuff. 

It's far too hot for me. If we keep getting summers like this, where there's more than a couple of weeks of temperatures higher than 25C, I'm going to have to consider getting some form of air conditioning. It would have to be the portable type, though, as our house is the opposite of open plan. There are currently a lot of fans going. 

I've not done any gardening, because I've been too hot and also I've been distracted by the writing stuff. I didn't really bother with the eclipse yesterday, though I kept an eye on the light levels out of the window. It was strange seeing how the light changed and faded. Bear and DH had a little wander outside, but it didn't get completely dark. I feel that we've been sold unrealistic expectations by films. Besides, it wasn't going to be a full eclipse here, though it was still a little spooky. 

Writing Stuff - The quote that I made on Canva hits the nail on the head. I wrote a post explaining that I won't be posting on my Wordpress writing blog after October, which you can read here on the Wordpress blog and here on my revived Blogger writing blog but it boils down to me not really clicking with Wordpress and that it costs me money in the way it's set up and Blogger is free. Then I sat down to go through 598 posts to work out what I could transfer over en masse, like the collections for Under Dark Hills and Invitation Accepted  and what I had to copy over individually. I noticed a lot of stories that had been saved on my Wordpress blog as drafts were the non-spooky stuff, as the supernatural stuff is sort of my brand. It felt right to take them off a blog that was mainly supernatural, but I liked some of them. We may be looking at as many as thirty separate stories. 

Did you know that you could publish a book on Amazon that is as short as one page long? Nope, I'm not doing that, but I could definitely expand and re-imagine some of my non-spooky stories on there as short reads, and I may well do in the future. However, as I explained in the post, I'm worried about losing the stories and it seems a shame to leave them in the dark. I mean, it's not great literature, but I think that they're okay. So, being unsupervised, overheated and thinking it was a great idea at the time, I set up yet another blog for just the non-supernatural stuff. You can find it here. I've only got about half a dozen posted on there at the time of typing, but it shouldn't take me too long to get things sorted, especially if I stop getting distracted by reading the old stories. I was reminded of one of my favourites, Domestic Demon and it made me smile. 

Thank goodness there's cooler weather in the forecast, and hopefully I won't get too lost in this jumble of posts. 

Hugs and good health to all.

How is it Tuesday?

I've managed to get myself bogged down in some writing stuff, so I've hardly done a thing, though I feel like I've not stopped. It's hard to pin down any concrete achievements, but they're there, or rather, they will be. I've failed with the gardening, so I haven't got a decent pic. Instead I went on Canva and took a few moments. I should have spent them in the garden, but it's currently dark and I wouldn't be able to see much, so you have this.

The poem, The Glory of the Garden, by Rudyard Kipling, is another of my favourites. I was reminded of it when I went looking for a garden quote, and it was a good reminder for me to get a move on!

Writing stuff - I forgot to post yesterday, but the latest instalment of The Guest is here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Still Potatoes

After buying the 500 Potato recipes book, I can see potatoes becoming a thing. 

I was reassured that it was perhaps more than AI as there was a proper author listed, Elizabeth Woodland. She even has her own listing on Goodreads, the site for readers to leave reviews and search for their next book. I had a quick look, and there seemed to be a trend. Her main titles are: 500 Potato Recipes, 300 Best Ever Potato Recipes, 180 Delicious Vegetarian Potato Recipes, and a word search about sharks. I'm sensing a theme. 

It feels like the author has gone online, searched for every potato recipe that they could lay their hands on, and then crammed it all together. There are so many versions of rosti, mash, wedges, and such, all slightly different and filed under different regional names. It's like the old saying Number 37 is the same as Number 18 but with your fingers crossed. There's not really a huge difference between some recipes, but I guess that it's nice to see the different options. 

I didn't follow any of the recipes today. Instead I fried up potatoes, sweet peppers, and onion, added in garlic, italian seasoning and ample gluten free worcestershire sauce, and I very much enjoyed it.

I promise that it's a small pan, and my dinner plate was far from overloaded! I'd had a ham sandwich earlier and proper porridge for breakfast, so I didn't feel the need to add any meat, though I suppose that I could have added an egg.

As for the book, I've picked out a recipe that I'm going to try tomorrow for lunch. It's very basic, but I think that it will be nice and I'll share if I manage to get to it.

Of course, I've got a delivery coming tomorrow, so if I'm cooking it for lunchtime, I'm going to have to be quick about it. I'm working around DH's schedule and whatever bear decides that he's going to do next so I have to pounce when I have the opportunity to use the oven. I wasn't planning on getting a delivery, but there's some offers on, and I prefer to get chilled and frozen food delivered. I'm being picky about which offers I snap up. There's a lot of stuff in the cupboards, but I think that I need to have a rethink. I'm considering going through and working out what I'm realistically going to use in the next three months and donating what isn't going to get used to the foodbank. I bought in loads of ingredients when DH and bear were experimenting with cooking, and most of them were used, but there are still some lurking on the shelf that is unlikely to be used now that we have almost no variation in meals. I am uneasily aware that I haven't touched the opened tub of cornmeal that DH got in for a recipe for two years. I suspect that there are a lot of unpleasant surprises waiting for me. 

On the bright side, at least I'll get the push to be more varied in what I eat. 

I took before and after pics, but I couldn't tell much difference so I'm not posting them. I only was out there for a short while, but I filled a bin bag with nettles which was something. In the process, I got nettled on the face, and I absolutely disapprove of this! Posting here, though, is keeping me going, so thank you.

Writing stuff - I've added another article on research on my blog here. It's amazing how much fun you can have looking around as you try and name your character. 

I'm also putting a link to my friend's video, the one who's writing the Supernovauk music, in with the writing stuff, as it's sort of creative and sharing. This pop song is so sweet, with a story, and I love it. It reminds me of summers when I was younger.

Hugs and good health to all. 

A Few Drops of Rain

We had a few drops of rain this morning. As my back was hurting, I let them chase me in, but I managed a few minutes in the garden.

Posting pictures on here is keeping me going, so I hope that they aren't getting on your nerves.

We're not due for a lot of rain, but at least we're getting some, and I'm grateful for it. The drought is worrying, and it makes it hard to remember that at the start of the year the UK had six weeks with rain every day. I said that if there was a drought then I'd want to see the receipts, and I'm not changing my mind on that. There has to be some investment in water management. It's why I'm still trying to keep growing things (even weeds) instead of just concreting everything - we need places for the water to go and we need plants to keep a little moisture in the air. 

Apart from that, I was stuck with something of a headache, so I pottered very gently. I hope to have more to talk about tomorrow.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Another Five Minutes

I didn't spend long in the garden, and I concentrated on the other side of the house. I went out a little too late in the morning and I was too warm, and my back was hurting too much in the evening, but I managed a little. From this:

To this:

It wasn't much, but at least it was something, and I filled a bin bag with weeds. I also need to practise taking pics from the same place each time to give a fair idea. I may concentrate on this side this week as I need to hack my way through, possibly with a machete, to where the honeysuckle is growing up the drainpipe, which can't be good..

I'm pleased that I made it out to the garden again. I'm hoping that if I keep going, it becomes a healthy habit. 

I also went through my Lyssa Medana email and got rid of something like 1500 emails. There were a lot of old writing stuff that has no bearing on anything, so I could get rid of those. I also got rid of emails that I'd promised myself that I would read and were no doubt full of useful hints and tips, but that were more than two years old. 

Bless mentioned corned beef being expensive in her local shops. I wouldn't say corned beef was cheap but it's not bad for something shelf stable and that is sometimes on offer. That hash had dehydrated onions in as I was hoping to use some up, and I guess the cost was around £4, as it was a big tin of cheap potatoes. It was two good portions that I could have stretched to three, especially if I'd eaten the has with baked beans or similar. Anyway, I have a delivery tomorrow and I'll see what I can come up with for fresh potatoes. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Tiny Steps Continue

I'd seen a lot about the drought in the UK on the news, and my heart goes out to those affected by the wildfires, but it hadn't really sunk in. The garden is surprisingly green, because the white rose, lilac, honeysuckle and fuchsia that dominate our garden are all at least ten years old and have deep roots. Besides, we're at the bottom of a hill that has a spring higher up, and we're near a beck so I suspect that our water table isn't as low as it could be even in this weather. The street looks like this.

Which is the usual green, though perhaps a little dusty. Then this morning I drove to the Salvation Army to drop off a few bags of books, and across from there was a patch of grass.

That is incredibly dry. I hope that it will recover. 

I went out into the garden this evening. I didn't spend long as it was getting dark, but I managed to cut back some brambles. You can barely see the difference, but the corner now looks like this.

I think that there are some self seeded sweet peas, but for some reason I couldn't get the phone to focus so I'll try and get a pic tomorrow, or whenever I get out there. I've got a quantity of dead-heading to do.

Yesterday's dinner (and today's lunch) was a dish with potatoes in it, but it wasn't from the book. It was the corned beef hash from tinned potatoes from Weary Wolf's YouTube channel, and very pleasant it was too. My version looked like this. 

The video from Weary Wolf looked like this.

Though I didn't bother with an egg.

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Took Pictures

I went out into the garden, and I was finally able to take pics. I wasn't sure how well that they'd come out, as there was a lot of glare on the screen, but I hope that they count, and I've published earlier than usual as I want to post before I forget. 

I've been putting off the garden for ages, but I pushed myself out of the door with the new gardening gloves.

They are neither thorn proof nor nettle proof, despite the product description online. I am deeply unimpressed. 

The garden is a jungle. The first thing I tackled was the brambles overhanging the wall onto the public path at the side of our house.

I can only stand for around five minutes at a time, so it took a few moments, but I got it clearer.

I don't know if you can see the cluster of ripe blackberries, but I left them and I intend to send out bear to pick them later. 

The brambles are all over the place and vicious with it, but to really get to them, I'll need to hack back the rose.

It's absolutely gorgeous, covered with roses and perhaps the best showing I've seen for years. It's one that father planted and it's done very well. I don't think that I can cut it down in full bloom, so I'll just have to prune around it. Perhaps I can bring myself to cut it thoroughly back next spring. 

Gladys is also doing well. It's growing more vigorously than it has for years, although there aren't so many blossoms. 

There's all sorts growing in the garden. I wouldn't be surprised if I found a lost tribe or King Solomon's Mines. I found this little plant, and wondered if it was a teasel, a plant whose seed heads were used in the production of woollen cloth. I'm in West Yorkshire and it was a weaving centre even before the Industrial Revolution.

I had a look online, and as far as I can tell, it's not the plant that the weavers used. At first glance it looked like I could have globe flatsedge growing in my garden, but that seemed unlikely as it's native to the Eastern United States, from Mississippi up to Wisconsin, but not really known in Europe. I'm not exactly sure what it is, and I think that I may have already pulled it up, so who knows?

I spent around an hour outside. I need to be a little careful, as around ten years ago I had an easily treated, not very threatening, very small skin cancer, so I am aiming to go out early in the morning, late in the evening and while it's cloudy, which it is here today. I could only do stuff in short bursts, but I managed something.

The four bin bags aren't overstuffed, but they're full enough to be loaded up in the car and taken to the tip. Apart from clearing the path, I made a very small dent. 

If you look at the picture of the roses above, you can see that there is now a very small difference. If all goes to plan (and when does it ever do that here?) I'll do a little more tomorrow. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

I'm Old Enough to Know Better

I'm getting blog post notifications in weird ways. Some seem to be giving me the notices of new posts then older, then some blogs seem to be missing, and then sometimes I get a whole list of the posts for the last three months all in one chunk. My comments may be patchy.

I don't know if it was an evening when I'd had a drink, or I was just a little more confused than normal, but I bought this. 

I do not need 500 potato recipes. I'm fine making mash and wedges, and I usually prefer pasta. But here we are. It's what happens when I have unsupervised access to Temu. It came from a firm in this country, Smeikal Books, who are selling through Temu as well as Amazon and eBay, and I saved 31p buying it from Temu instead of the company direct, at a grand total of £5.68 including postage. 

As an aside, I just made a mistake where I absolutely should know better. I checked out the website of Smeikal Books and it looks like a source of inexpensive books, which I do not need! 

So now I have a book with 500 potato recipes, a preference for pasta, and an unfortunate urge to try out the recipes. I mean, 500 potato recipes? There's got to be something special in there. I opened the book at random.

The first recipe I saw was Beef and Sweet Potato Stew - that sounded good, and I looked further. I don't think that I'll be making it, though, as it's not just beef and sweet potato. The ingredients list is:

1 large pumpkin around 5kg or 11lb

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1kg of braising steak, cubed

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 fresh red chillies, chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 large tomato, roughly chopped

2 fresh bay leaves (and I have no idea where I'm going to get those as I don't grow them)

1 pint of beef stock

one half bottle of red wine

500g of potatoes, peeled and cubed

500g of sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 corn cob cut widthways into 6 pieces (and I'm not sure about how that would work)

3 peaches, peeled, stoned, and cut into wedges

salt and ground black pepper.

It's supposed to serve 8, and that's not a bad stretch of the meat, but two unlucky souls won't get a slice of the corn on the cob. 

And what the hecking heck are peaches doing in the recipe? 

You are supposed to serve it in the baked shell of the pumpkin. I think that I'll pass. I'm not ready for any recipe that involves an eleven pound pumpkin. I looked further, and there's a recipe which mashes cooked potato with apples cooked with a couple of cloves, which is served with fried blood sausage and onion rings which sounds more plausible, though I may use 'normal' sausages or perhaps chorizo. 

I am absolutely old enough to know better than to get too attached to a book like this, and it's absolutely the wrong time of year for main crop potatoes. I'll share when I cook something from it. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Playing with Pictures

I still haven't done anything worth taking a pic of, so I spent a little time playing on Canva. I have no artistic skills whatsoever, and I couldn't draw anything, not even if someone held a gun at my head, so playing around with the programme is quite satisfying. And, as far as I know, none of the stuff I've used has been AI generated. 

First of all, I dug out a book.

And I'm fairly sure that it's older than AI. I've been dipping into it for over twenty years, and the copyright date is 1997, so someone had to do some oldfashioned research to pull it together, not to mention that there is a massive index. The book is 740 pages long!

I was looking for something with a little glamour, something that was striking. I ended up being reminded by the book, but looking the full thing up online, and found this.

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote some poems that were so wonderful dense with imagery that it's hard to tease out any meaning. I have no idea if this is supposed to mean anything but I love the idea of the star citadels, filled with fire people, looking down on us. 

And while I was leafing through the quotes, I also found this quote from Horace, the Roman writer.

I love the sentiment, but I had a lot of trouble finding a good way of displaying it. I guess that today I had a lesson in working with graphics - and it was fun! I swear sometimes that I'm half magpie, and looking through all the pretty backgrounds and pictures made me so happy.

Writing stuff - Today's instalment of The Guest is here. 

Reading is Good

Jabblog was right in her comment, it's odd having bear home. It's wonderful and comforting and reassuring to have him home, but it's odd. I've got used to one way of doing things, with him many miles away, and now I'm getting back in the habit of him being home, but not quite the same as it was before. After all, he's lived away from home as an adult for nearly a year. And he's done brilliantly. 

Now he's home, it's not exactly the same as when he went away. I like to think that DH and I always treated him with respect as an individual and allowed him to make choices. He's certainly just as respectful and considerate as he's always been. It's just that he's definitely an adult. Today was something of a reminder.

Bear has been clearing out his books. He's getting into reading for pleasure. He's been reading things like Around the World in Eighty Days and the originals of Dracula and Frankenstein. I introduced him to Postscript Books, which perhaps I shouldn't have done if I was a truly responsible parent. They do a lot of remaindered books at great prices, including some amazing academic books, and they were running a three for two offer on cheap classics at the end of last term, so bear loaded up on copies of Dickens and such like - he's so much better read than I am! 

He realised that he was out of shelf space and the two full bookcases and one half bookcase were already jammed before he added anything, so he's had something of a clear out and got rid of a lot of books that he got when he was younger. I took a pic of one for a memory keepsake.

It's just a young kid's book, about a cat that mooched dinners from six different families, which was so much fun, and we read it to him so many times when he was little. It's obviously not something that he wants to keep, but it made me smile. Anyway, he overfilled three big bags for life and I'll be taking them to the Salvation Army. There are some books from when he was very young, and a few more that are nearer young teen, and quite a collection of study guides for his GCSEs.

He hadn't cleared out his shelves since Covid and so it's no wonder that they were overflowing. I've always bought lots of books for him. When he was little I bought books by the armful. The now defunct Book People would have sales where I could order sets of ten easy learn-to-read books that were maybe a dozen pages long and cost very little and I indulged. One year I think that I got him over a hundred of these easy reader books as part of his Christmas/Birthday present, and he very much enjoyed them. 

During Covid, we went through them and took the best ones to donate to bear's old primary school. We took bags and bags of them, probably a few hundred as they were all the early readers that were only a few pages long and I'd been buying them in large quantities since before he started school. I remember that it was during lock down and we left the bags in a corner so that they could wait the three days or so that was thought to make them safe. It was the step between primary school and high school. This feels like the step between teen and adult. 

It's so good that he's home.

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Need to Get out More.

I've been doing lots of sort of writing stuff. I'm reading up on how to write, which is long overdue if you ask me. I'm also writing a few extra bits to go with the collection of Kane stories so that if someone buys the book, they at least get something new.

I'm also still thinking about AI. This is why I need to get out more. I've been pottering around and I watched The Great British Sewing Bee last night, but not only have I not done anything to take a pic of, but I'm still thinking about the whole AI stuff still. I even wrote an article on my blog here, a lot like the one on here on Monday, but comparing AI to the Fair Folk, the Fae, that can't quite be trusted. I even did some AI images for it (or, rather, pressed a button on Canva) which was scarily impressive. 

So I looked for a quote and found this, and made up a Canva image without using AI. It's a quote from John Masefield.

I found this quote when I was looking for a quote about computers, but they depressed me too much. This is my second attempt and the text was blurred on that as well. I didn't use AI, so I've spent over an hour on it instead of just pressing a button, but I think that it's pretty and the quote seemed to hit me unexpectedly. Besides, I've a soft spot for John Masefields Sea Fever and I can hear a little of that voice in the quote. 

At least I got out of the house to pick up bear from his friends. It gives me a reason to get out and about. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Death Pants

Do you remember last week when I posted that I was being outwitted by my trousers? It's here, for what it's worth. Well, apparently, the dirt cheap flimsy stretch cotton monsters that I bought last year and have been wearing for the sake of comfort, have been making headlines, including in the Irish Examiner here. Zara has a line of them, but they seem to be popular on all sorts of sites, including M&S who ought to know better. The fancy ones seem too fitted at the waist to hoick up to the armpits, which is a good way to deal with them, but I guess you can adjust the stretchy ones if you want to risk it. They are incredibly comfortable in warm weather, but... I'm not impressed and I think that I'll save them for heatwaves. 

Things are ticking over here. I got a kilo of carrots on sale and I got them sliced up and stashed in the freezer. I'm still re-stocking, but it's getting there. And now that it's a little cooler, I've picked up my knitting again. I started another hat for the Mission to Seafarers.

I'm feeling quite good about it. I've got to get a couple of sweaters knitted before autumn hits. Mine are so threadbare that you could use them to strain peas - and that's the ones without the holes. The fabric is just wearing away, so even if I had Bless's talent for mending clothes, they still aren't worth saving. And I really don't want to go out and spend money on sweaters when I have yarn, a pattern and needles, a new car to save for, and a hole in the roof. Though, to be fair, it isn't a big hole, but it needs to be tackled.

I'm not looking forward to changing cars. Our battery failed on Saturday. DH and I were all set to drive out to the park to feed the birds but the car just wouldn't start at all. We called the AA who replaced the battery for us. Because we pay a fortune for good cover, it only cost us £35 fitted, but it was replacing the original battery. That battery was eleven years old and they only have an expected life of five years. Red has been a brilliant car for us over the years. I'm going to miss her. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Thinking About AI

Cherie mentioned about using AI to make a song and sing for her, as she didn't have the means to do it. My friend in Supernovauk is in that position - they don't have the equipment or voice to create the music that they have in their minds, so they use AI. However, a big however, they write all the words and they work hard on getting the music to exactly where they want it. It's supporting human creativity, rather than supplanting it. However, I wish my friend had the access that they needed to do it without, because I can hear what they want to produce, and I very much enjoy the reminder of dancing till I dropped back in the day, but there is always that tiny lack of spark. 

Too many years ago, when I was in the Girl Guides (British version of the Girl Scouts) I blagged my way through the music badge as I was getting guitar lessons and I ambushed the teacher. I was supposed to produce an original composition, and I did, but it was bloody awful. My teacher passed me anyway, but I was frustrated. I knew how I wanted it to sound, but I didn't have the talent, the technical know-how, or the equipment to get there. At 13, I would absolutely have used AI if it were now. It was a little like Einaudi, I guess, with flowing notes. Here is a link to a real musician.

I'm pretty sure that I'm using AI without realising, like when I plan a route using Google maps, but I've avoided it on the whole. I don't know what I'm doing, and that's the long and short of it, and you can find more of my views here and here on my blog. AI can't do the thinking for you, not fully. Here's an example from Weary Wolf, who got AI to design a week of eating three meals per day for £1 per meal, the video here if you're interested. 

It was sort of functional, but I wouldn't have called it healthy, and it was missing something that had nothing to do with nutrition. Again, you could say that it lacked spark. 

The book world is having fits about AI. Authors who are suspected of using AI are likely to find themselves under vicious attack. There are witchhunts going on that are deeply unpleasant. But I get it. If someone has spent months on a book, then paid out for an editor, which can run to hundreds if not thousands, then paid out for a cover, and some of those are extremely pricey, maybe sell a few copies, and then see someone making a lot of money by publishing a couple of novels a week of stuff that isn't that well written, then it hurts. Most of these turn up in non-fiction, where they can be extremely misleading to those who need help or trustworthy information, or romance novels. I read a lot of romance novels, and I have read the first page of so many books that are utterly dire and obviously AI and I've not read further. It drives me nuts because it's time in browsing and choosing from the Kindle Unlimited titles that I won't get back, even if I've only dipped into that one page. However the pennies from those single pages mount up if there are literally hundreds of titles attracting the unwary and there are those out there who profit from this. If the authors were at least honest about AI use, at least you can make a choice. 

It's like a deal with a devil, though. It's incredibly tempting. I have maybe twenty or so outlines for novels. I'm not young, I'm not in good health, and I'm not confident that I'll be able to write them all. The thought of getting AI involved is soooo tempting. It would be my ideas, and I'd almost certainly re-write any text as the stuff that AI churns out is gruesome, but... It would feel like cheating. And I couldn't hope for my work to have that spark. 

Even more tempting is the idea of AI art. It's taking the livelihood of genuine artists who have that spark, but I can't affort to pay someone to draw the beautiful stuff that I imagine. I definitely couldn't draw or paint something myself as I have a negative amount of artistic talent and I'm not sure that I could be trusted with a paint by numbers. It's like a devil's bargain, whispering in my ear. I can imagine what I want, I can see it so clearly, but I could never produce it, not without either paying a lot of money to an artist or using that tempting AI. I feel like I'm being tempted like in those Medieval legends. I keep telling myself to avoid the pictures and stick to words. At least I feel that I can be competent with those.

For the heck of it, I went onto Canva. Until now, I hadn't used their AI function, and I've been warned against using their book covers as there are elements that are AI generated and lead to online lynching, but I wanted to try something. 

I clicked on the AI assistant, and I wrote book cover with a raven flying holding a ring on a ribbon. That is all I wrote. I didn't put in any suggestions about colour or style, just the basic idea. I got this.

I only put in that brief description. However not only did it generate the picture, but it also generated the title, the subtitle some secrets are worth any price, the tag A throne A curse A choice that will change everything and the name, Eliana Vaelor. I checked. At the time of typing, there isn't a book with this title on Amazon, and there is no record online of anyone with the name Eliana Vaelor, author or otherwise. AI went in fully committed.

I find it scary. I also feel drawn to writing the book. For now, though, I think that I'll concentrate on what I can manage without AI, just to be safe.

Hugs and good health to all.

Outwitted

This morning, I was outwitted by my trousers. 

It's a long story that involves apparently standard length trousers that are a health and safety risk when worn normally but function okayish when hoicked up to my armpits. I'm 5'7'', or 170cms, and I'm not short, so I'm not sure how that worked out, but I nearly fell on the stairs twice after catching the dratted things before I realised that my ankles could still be demurely covered when the trousers were covering my bust. Now that I may have cracked it, I'm not so bothered, as they have pockets!

And that was a wake up call. In the past, I've suffered badly from clinical depression. I can still feel reasonably cheerful, but my mind shuts down. I'm hitting the 'thirsty but getting a drink is too complicated' level now, which is a dratted nuisance. I'm not very functional, but now that it's been brought to my attention because I was getting bamboozled by basic clothing, I can perhaps do something about it. 

I've no idea what sort of posts you'll see, but I'm going to concentrate on celebrating small wins, and being as calm as I can manage. I shall definitely be avoiding watching the football. In the past, I've worked best with using tiny bits of creativity, managing to get a little physical movement going, and getting my mind stimulated. I shall also ask bear to do stuff for me. I try and avoid it generally, but for the first time that I can remember, bear isn't trying to get ahead of studying for next year, he isn't working towards exams and he isn't snowed under with coursework. As the garden is barely a step away from being declared a wilderness, I'll get him working on that. And he's always been happy to help. 

Mind you, the heat isn't helping at all. It doesn't suit any of us. Like most British houses, our home is designed to keep the heat in, and it faces south. It's great on a frosty but sunny December day, when I may not even put on the heating despite the cold outside. It's not so good at the moment, but we're managing okay with fans. 

Writing stuff - yesterday's instalment of The Guest is here. I'm struggling a little with the writing, but it's a great way to work on creativity, so I'll keep perservering. It's hard to dig out sparkling prose when it feels like you're thinking through treacle, but I'm absolutely not giving up. 

I've almost sorted out the collection of Kane's short stories. I've entitled it An Apprenticeship of Ghosts and I have a cover from GetCovers.

I'll let you know when I've finished with it, but I want to add plenty of new content so that it still has value even for those who've read my writing blog.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Bear is Home!

He seems happy, looks healthy, and I swear that he's grown at least an inch! It's the end of his first year of university, and he has survived!

Apart from him, I keep getting hit by AI in the social feed. I found this video, and I know that it's AI and that it uses a facsimile of Stevie Nicks' voice and Fleetwood Mac vibes - but...

It's a video and song about a cat worrying about getting old and whether their human will be able to manage. It breaks my heart. Someone has used AI, and I'm still not comfortable about the voice, though it's far from an exact copy, but they've used it as a tool and included their own creativity and ideas. 

Maybe that's what AI can do - support independent creativity. I'm unlikely to use it as I'm still fighting battles with spellchecker, but I feel that I don't understand enough to contribute properly. All that I know is that I was ready to cry at the end of the video. 

Another example comes from a friend. They're about my age, they don't have access to musical instruments and they haven't had opportunities to work with music the way that they would have liked. They've taken their ideas, though, and used AI to produce music to fit their words and, I'll be honest, have enjoyed it. It takes me back to the eighties and an easier time in my life. They have a clear vision of how it should be but don't have access to other means to share their ideas. 

Everything feels so complicated. I'm still not using AI in writing. 

I've done all the editing I'm going to do on the collection of Kane short stories and and written some extra content, and they should be available on Amazon in theory in the next month or so. 

Hugs and good health to all.

Gothic Knitting Guide is About Crochet

 I had a shopping fail. 

I was on Temu, which is not a good friend to me, and I saw Gothic Knitting Guide which, to be fair to me, includes a pic of knitting needles on the cover, and invested in it. I was thrilled when it arrived - until I opened it and found that it was all about crochet.

I've had a grumble about it on Facebook, and it was pointed out that in some languages knitting and crochet are the same word. Not to mention that I've been told that there are books of patterns out there written by AI that have amazing pics but with instructions that don't work. I'm putting it up here because I had a quick rummage around when I was thinking of buying it and I couldn't find any information on it. I took a risk for a few pennies, and I was wrong. That's why I'm posting here, so that if anyone is considering buying it, then there is at least information here. Not to mention that the print is tiny. I would have to scan it and enlarge each page to have a chance of reading the thing!

I should also add that I got that great book of knitting stitches from Temu as well, which was written in British English, and which I've already dipped into for scarves. I'm not ruling out books from Temu, especially those that are flagged as coming from local warehouses, but this is a fail.

To add to the annoyance, I'd been wanting some sticky notes for the writing stuff (going horrendous) and I put some on the order. I wasn't feeling in a serious mood, so I ordered this.

There were a couple of different designs in the pack and they are all as much use as candyfloss in a thunderstorm. You can't even use them as just note squares because the dratted things curl up! 

The heat is affecting me. Last night I didn't bother with a cover, and it must have left me cool in the middle of the night. At least, I think that I was cool as I dreamt that I was in a snow covered chalet, high in the Swiss Alps, as half frozen waves of sea water lashed against the windows and disturbed the polar bear in the next room. I took it as a hint. I'm certain that I won't dream anything like that tonight!

Hugs and good health to all.