Tag: WELLBEING

The farming calendar does not pause to fit the whims of its human caretakers. But the writing goes on …

June 1, 2019

… and so I find myself here without Man of the Woods. He is back in East Anglia, irrigating the potato crops which become ‘Charlottes’.

The science behind the ‘new’ potato’s nurture is surprisingly exacting. It is not a question of the agronomist instructing the farmer to: “give this an inch of water any time in the next three weeks.” whereupon he could hurl it on and then leave for his holiday.

No. It is more along the lines of: “These will be sprayed Monday morning, and will need 20mm of water within a 3-day window of that application.

I used to stamp my feet and look surly that I was married to someone who put his job before his time away with the family. Many friends used to raise their eyebrows – while eating potato-based products – and insinuate he was being awkward and boring. What’s more, I’d often agree 🙈.

Now I’m just proud. Speaking to him for half hour a few minutes ago, sat on the floor nursing my now 3/10 migraine (in what is a stunning holiday apartment that he would love) I can hear in his voice the acceptance that this time he cannot join us.

And although his 72 year old father tried to persuade him to drive down and that he would cope with the irrigation alone, MoW will not leave his father with that worry. Machinery has a habit of breaking down, pipes become blocked, the irrigator can sink into the mud just before you’re due to move it twenty yards along the field for the next ‘pull’. It’s hard physical work and while MoW’s father is relatively strong and fit, I know it would worry my husband to leave him to it.

So there it is. The reality of a farming way of life when you don’t have farm-workers; no-one to do the work when you’re not there.

Enjoy your crisps today and give a thought as you crunch that real people produced those for all of our pleasure 🤣

🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌

Meanwhile, in other news, I brought with me a journal for notes to develop my Book 2 idea.

‘Save the Cat’ was also packed because I wish to plan this novel with more care than Book 1! I’ve studied for over a year now this art called fiction writing and while I shall never know all there is to know, my goodness, I have a greater understanding of what makes an okay book into a really good book. (Whether I’ll be able to transfer that knowledge onto the paper remains to be seen but I am excited for the process of Book 2).

Yesterday, as the sun burned away an early haze, I set to work on a synopsis and a tag line.

I had always believed you could never write a synopsis until you’d written an entire novel, because how would you possibly know what to include? The chapters will jostle for position, as we know they always do as we write, and therefore a synopsis surely should not be contemplated until after the book is written to at least a first draft?

Well …

For those of you who have been reading my posts for a while, you’ll remember I attended a course in Devon at RetreatsForYou to study alongside the talented Julie Cohen who has written over twenty books; here are just a few:

Many of her tips have stayed with me, but one particularly.

She asked us all to pause and think about the theme of our novel; the thread of aim or goal for the protagonist through the pages. Without one, even with quality writing, we simply end up with prose about things happening. Julie went even further and encouraged us to think about narrowing it down to a one-word pitch!

It was a hard exercise as we all grappled for words that narrowed our story down but the lesson has stuck. As I contemplate Book 2 (even while Book 1 is in the ‘system’ and being critiqued right now) I find my approach is completely different this time.

I know roughly my story outline but before I type a word, or even map out the chapters I wish to narrow it down to a synopsis, an elevator pitch, a tag line and even one-word. Without telling you yet about Book 2 in detail, let’s look at what I mean in regard to this exercise. Below is a potential 3 star piece of mini fiction;

She walked to the beach and dipped her toes in the Atlantic water. The icy chill took her breath away.

However with a theme, we have heart and soul. For example, let’s give the previous sentence a one-word theme and re-write it slightly;

‘LONELINESS’

The knowledge she would be alone when she had least expected it cut through her plans like a sword. The laughter she’d known they would share was silent before it had chance to exist and as the icy waters stole the warmth from her feet, so too did the wind her hopes. She pulled the jumper closer to her skin in a desperate attempt to protect the shred of courage her journey there had given her ….

We have a real vision of someone now, and how she might be feeling. We have a question – why is she alone yet wasn’t expecting to be so? That’s the hook.

Do excuse me while I pause for a coffee. My migraine is receding and usually around now I can eat without feeling nauseous.

I’ll be back!

Countryside -v- City. Tina Turner and Sunsets 🌅

February 15, 2019

This isn’t a post about battles between farming folk and city-dwellers.

Sorry if you were expecting one but as I find I have a foot squarely in both camps, I can see both sides of most arguments waged around subjects here.

I’ve been married to a farmer for 24 years and 4 months (do you think he’s planning something big for October) but I’ve never lost my yearn for city-life and exploring new places.

We know that Man of the Woods is happiest when surrounded by his trees and clods of dirt (some of which fall from his boots when he pops his legs up on the corner of the kitchen table after most meals.

He’s very specific about his food. I used to moan he was difficult because I couldn’t just rustle up a sandwich of my choosing and deliver it to the tractor. It had to be whatever his thing was at the time. His thing at the moment is “ten of my special biscuits sandwiched into 5 with peanut butter, no butter, thank you. And a coffee.”

Once I’ve made sure the ingredients are in the cupboard, it’s surprisingly easy to keep him happy so I’ve altered my view of him being awkward to predictable, and that’s quite refreshing to work with. Imagine having a husband who wanted a gourmet dish designed and prepared each day?!

It always amazes me that within minutes of turning a foot’s depth of soil over on a field which has been stubble all autumn and winter – ploughing – that seagulls appear from nowhere and swoop in for worms.

I mean, the coast is fifteen miles away. How can they smell, see, sense that a farmer has hitched up his plough rather than a drill or a sprayer? Do they send a scout out to roam the skies for brown fields?

Covent Garden last night. Walking towards Leicester Square; just that whole West End lights and buzz vibe. You can’t beat it in my book 💙

Luckily these days, MoW accepts (rather than let’s me go) that I adore being there and knows an occasionally ‘fix’ makes me happy, so no longer do we have the conversations where he would query the need to leave the village boundary and I would get defensive from the feeling of judgement or being restricted.

Does that make sense?

This was a roiboos tea in a cafe in the centre of Covent Garden, before we ‘women of the family’ garnered for a show to mark the 70th birthday of my mother in law.

I’d assumed for years that I knew Tina Turner. I was aware of someone called Ike being a ‘big name’ in music a long time ago and I’ve been vaguely aware of their union.

I was wrong.

All I knew was the facade which Anna Mae Bullock chose to portray to the world during the 80s onwards once she had finally split from Ike.

She’s been through the bloody lot. The crap that is racism and which was still ruling those times; domestic abuse from her husband of 16 head including regular beatings. She was ‘used to’ the way of life having been brought up by her father who commanded his way in the home via violence, which her mother walked out on but leaving Anna Mae with her father.

I did clap. Here and there. But not like most of the audience who saw it at face value.

I felt the expected vibe towards the end when she finally found love with a man sixteen years her junior, a white German to whom she is still married.

But the majority of the show I found incredibly disturbing. Five years ago I’d have watched it at face value also. But spending those weeks doing self esteem courses at the Women’s Aid refuge two years ago meant I no longer see things at face value.

I’ve been alongside, sat next to, women who have suffered physical abuse at the hands of their supposed protectors/husbands and seen the emotional damage those wounds still cause long after the bruises have gone.

I’ve never experienced physical abuse. Although it is only one of seven recognised forms of the domestic abuse umbrella … listed in the 2015 Coercive Control Law which was passed in the UK in December of that year. Makes for incredibly interesting reading if you are unfamiliar with what constitutes being assertive and breaking the law.

2015 COERCIVE CONTROL ACT

At the end of the show, I wasn’t so much elated for Tina Turner as sad for Anna Mae. The years spent hoping things would change, praying she would make it big because she needed to escape her ‘norm’ . The systems which were not in place then to help or recognise there was a problem. As her sunset years approach her, I hope she is still happy with the love of her life.

The romantic writer part of me is relieved she found Erwin.

The dark thriller writer part of me wants to finish Ike off in some grizzly way.

But for now, let’s just make do with a superb view of sunset over West Hampstead.

Turtles All The Way Down by John Green #BookReview (@johngreen) @PenguinUKBooks @PenguinRHUK @penguinrandom @TheFictionCafe #FictionCafeBookClub #FictionCafeReadingChallenge2019

January 21, 2019

I’ve never read a John Green
novel … just like this blogger
admits she hasn’t. Until she read
this one. My daughter read it
a couple of years back, which
figures, when you read the review
attached.
Certainly I am now tempted to
read a title by this undoubtedly
talented author. It’s just
a question of which one!

A Little Book Problem

unknown

‘It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.’

Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred thousand dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

This is the first book I have chosen this year as part of the 2019 Reading Challenge for my online book club, The Fiction Cafe Book Club. (If you love books, you must check it out, it is the friendliest part of the internet for bibliophiles). The challenge is to read…

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Merry Christmas 🎄 to my WP followers 🥂

December 24, 2018

Your comments yesterday helped me feel more positive; thank you!

Daughter has decorated the table beautifully and I’m enjoying lashings of butter on this crumpet with a milky cup of tea just before I make the trifle. I located the tablecloth in the barn amongst the dusty boxes of detris and washed it last night – phew! (I say tablecloth… it is merely a 3m length of cotton fabric from a haberdashery which I never got around to hemming, but we won’t worry about that – even if mother does 🤣).

Man of the Woods is excelling himself in the kitchen today – he’s made one of Jamie Oliver’s stuffing dishes and the house smelt divine as he was doing so. We both enjoy watching all the Christmas cooking programmes but whereas I forget the content the minute the credits have finished, he makes mental notes and re-creates some of the masterpieces.

Rather than worry he is taking over my space or role in the kitchen, I have found being his sous chef a most agreeable pastime 👏🏼

When he not on a tractor, he has cooked me many a meal this last year, with words like “No, it’s ok, I want to – you keep writing.” … I don’t think it gets any better than that for support does it?

I’ve enjoyed wrapping presents for the parents… and cleared the kitchen of clutter and discovered a whole windowsill underneath!

😂😂🙊

In the absence of sherry, I’ll use toffee vodka to soak into these blueberry muffins. I’ll cheat with tinned fruit and carton custard because my second of four dates with Daniel Craig is not far off and I wish to give him my full attention… one each of his four films on consecutive nights, starting last night with Casino Royale …

I’m an emotional soul and know that many of you have followed my ramblings for a year now and have not left my side and I feel grateful for that and have loved getting to know you. It is my ambition to present to you a fiction novel at some point and I make this pledge that alongside my writing buddy over at ALittleBookProblem I shall continue my efforts to finish the first draft and edit it to the best of my ability before submitting it throughout 2019. If I get no nibble with a traditional route, I will consider self-publishing but won’t be rushing into that as would want to get it right first time.

His stuffing is cooked and will simply be heated up tomorrow – it smells amazing 🎄👌🏼

I wanted to send you festive wishes from a more positive place and hence this extra post! Have a wonderful 25th December everyone and let’s not forget what we are celebrating 💫

(It’s ok, Joseph is round the back, cooking for his wife and son)

xxx

PS Bollocks. Don’t get side-tracked on social media when you’ve got pigs in blankets in the oven 😂😂