I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (I love the idea of a merry Christmas - it resounds with wassailing and carols and yule logs; the very word sounds rich and feast-laden). I played the guitar in church on Christmas Eve and, thanks to some serious practice, lasted the course without my fingers dropping off. My daughter Lucy (this is a proud mother moment!) played the flute beautifully without a single bum note. One of my husband, Peter's, relatives from Waaaay Back When, George Whitfield, co-wrote Hark The Herald Angels Sing, so, what with one thing and another, is was a real family celebration.
And, of course,I hope you have a Happy New Year, too. We're off to a party at the local tennis club, armed with friends, relatives and Abba Singastar for the Karioke machine.
I had a nice and unexpected Christmas present when I looked on the Crime Thru Time website. Kim Malo, the Webmaster, had posted a terrific review of and interview I did with Robin Agnew of the Huge Aunt Agatha's Bookstore. It's at
http://auntagathas.com/interview.html If you click on the link to
Historical to the left you can also read Robin's review of As If By Magic. I've posted it all on the Read The Reviews section of this website too. Click on the "Magic" button and it's at the end.
Auld Lang Syne, everyone!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Forget the cut potaotes
So it’s nearly Christmas! Once upon a time (er der years ago) I used to make my own mincemeat. Then I slacked off and merely made my own mince-pies. A couple of years ago I thought words to the effect of “blow this for a game of soldiers,” and put some business Tesco’s way. The Other Half reckoned the great day dawned when I realised you could buy ready-made Yorkshire Puds. I’d been got at, you see, by all those books and TV programmes detailing 101 things to do with Brussels sprouts, to say nothing of the wilder shores of Buggering About such as making your own Christmas wrapping paper out of ordinary brown paper (like, do you know how expensive brown paper is??? And Christmas paper in the Pound Shop is 99p for 10 meters?) and then, taking a potato, carve reindeer and Santa prints onto the cut side of the aforesaid potato and print pictures onto the brown paper.
Someone, somewhere, is having a laugh. Ignore it all, I say. Forget cut potatoes and get on with the things real people do such as writing the cards, doing the shopping, seeing the relatives, planning the meals, decorating the house, making costumes for the nativity play, steering your mother away from the brandy and, in my case, practicing the music for church. There’s some serious guitar work happening on Christmas Eve, and if I don’t practice, my fingers are liable to fall off! I really feel I’ve earned Santa’s sherry after that. (Santa gets a mince-pie (Tesco’s) a glass of dry sherry and a carrot for Rudolph when he comes down our chimney.) Peter reckons that he’d really like a glass of malt whisky, but something tells me Santa is a dry sherry man. Oh, and the carrot is bitten into as well; for a long time that was taken as proof positive by the junior Gordon-Smiths that Rudolph had called. And, if you look up on Christmas night, you can see Rudolph’s nose shining brightly. (Don’t mention the distant sound of a jet engine; that’s Rudolph’s nose, right?) I’ve impressed a whole generation of Young with that one.
So Merry Christmas everyone! Ho, ho, ho.
Someone, somewhere, is having a laugh. Ignore it all, I say. Forget cut potatoes and get on with the things real people do such as writing the cards, doing the shopping, seeing the relatives, planning the meals, decorating the house, making costumes for the nativity play, steering your mother away from the brandy and, in my case, practicing the music for church. There’s some serious guitar work happening on Christmas Eve, and if I don’t practice, my fingers are liable to fall off! I really feel I’ve earned Santa’s sherry after that. (Santa gets a mince-pie (Tesco’s) a glass of dry sherry and a carrot for Rudolph when he comes down our chimney.) Peter reckons that he’d really like a glass of malt whisky, but something tells me Santa is a dry sherry man. Oh, and the carrot is bitten into as well; for a long time that was taken as proof positive by the junior Gordon-Smiths that Rudolph had called. And, if you look up on Christmas night, you can see Rudolph’s nose shining brightly. (Don’t mention the distant sound of a jet engine; that’s Rudolph’s nose, right?) I’ve impressed a whole generation of Young with that one.
So Merry Christmas everyone! Ho, ho, ho.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Cat Crept In
There was a rum sort of smell in the bedroom. Now, my dearly beloved has, from time to time, a foot problem. Not to put too fine a point on it, they don’t half niff on occasion. Now, pongy socks are part and parcel of married life, so I’m not complaining (much) but this was getting really rank. So much so, that lying in bed last Saturday morning, I ventured to broach the subject.
I was met with Stout Denial. There’s nothing wrong with my feet, said the partner of my joys and sorrows indignantly, going so far as proposing to wave a foot under my nose to prove it. I declined this gracious offer – even a non-pongy foot is something that I don’t want to dwell on overmuch, especially before breakfast – but it led on to some keen detective work.
Problem: If it’s not feet that are causing the smell, what is it?
Answer: I dunno.
I mean, it’s not an academic problem, is it? It’s not like the Causes of the First World War, the Apostolic Succession or the Theory of Relativity which you can work out by lying in bed. It needs action.
At this point there was a little tinkling noise and Minou, (cute, furry, small and the latest kitten to grace the Gordon-Smith household) came out from under the bed. The tinkling noise was made by the bell she wears on her very smart red collar.
She leapt on the bed and started to play running up and down Mount Knee. (That’s the game where a knee under the duvet turns into Mount St Helens by moving unexpectedly.) It might be a small triumph, but I can fool a kitten!
And the smell grew worse.
A suspicion started to filter through our minds. Could the little Tinkler of a kitten be doing er… Little Tinkles under the bed?
“I’ll see you downstairs,” said the other half, hastily deserting wife and livestock on the spot. “The lawn needs cutting.”
The lawn? It’s December, for pete’s sake.
Alone, I washed and dressed in a thoughtful sort of way and then – there was nothing else for it – took the mattress off the bed.
Lumps. Great lumps of – well, you can imagine. It hadn’t hit the fan, but it had hit Ground Zero under our bed.
Now, these cats are loved. They are cherished and cared for. They’re provided with constant attention, fluffy toys, a couple of dogs to be snooty to, regular meals and treats of tuna and chicken. More to the point, they’re provided with a litter tray, for heaven’s sake, which I clean it regularly. (I did ask a junior Gordon-Smith to do this; she described it as “minging” and affected to believe I was joking.)
One bulging plastic bag was put in the bin and an hour later I was in the pet shop, describing our little problem. What I needed, apparently, was something called Repel All. The smell it says on the back on the bottle, is naturally very unpleasant to animals and they quickly learn to avoid it.
Dear God, you can count me in the animal kingdom! It was like a gas attack. I’d just finished spraying the carpet and counting the seconds until I could get out of the room, when Snooker, Most Senior Animal, walked in. She made for under the bed and then, like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, reeled back. Snooker? Had she… Yes, she damn well had. And so had Arthur, the third of the wretched creatures.
Still, something attempted, something done. The bedroom might niff like a swimming-baths but at least it was clean and, although fairly repellent to me, I had the evidence of my own eyes that it was repellent to cats too.
Then the eldest came in. “Mum,” she said, “there’s an awful smell in my bedroom. It’s like old socks….”
I was met with Stout Denial. There’s nothing wrong with my feet, said the partner of my joys and sorrows indignantly, going so far as proposing to wave a foot under my nose to prove it. I declined this gracious offer – even a non-pongy foot is something that I don’t want to dwell on overmuch, especially before breakfast – but it led on to some keen detective work.
Problem: If it’s not feet that are causing the smell, what is it?
Answer: I dunno.
I mean, it’s not an academic problem, is it? It’s not like the Causes of the First World War, the Apostolic Succession or the Theory of Relativity which you can work out by lying in bed. It needs action.
At this point there was a little tinkling noise and Minou, (cute, furry, small and the latest kitten to grace the Gordon-Smith household) came out from under the bed. The tinkling noise was made by the bell she wears on her very smart red collar.
She leapt on the bed and started to play running up and down Mount Knee. (That’s the game where a knee under the duvet turns into Mount St Helens by moving unexpectedly.) It might be a small triumph, but I can fool a kitten!
And the smell grew worse.
A suspicion started to filter through our minds. Could the little Tinkler of a kitten be doing er… Little Tinkles under the bed?
“I’ll see you downstairs,” said the other half, hastily deserting wife and livestock on the spot. “The lawn needs cutting.”
The lawn? It’s December, for pete’s sake.
Alone, I washed and dressed in a thoughtful sort of way and then – there was nothing else for it – took the mattress off the bed.
Lumps. Great lumps of – well, you can imagine. It hadn’t hit the fan, but it had hit Ground Zero under our bed.
Now, these cats are loved. They are cherished and cared for. They’re provided with constant attention, fluffy toys, a couple of dogs to be snooty to, regular meals and treats of tuna and chicken. More to the point, they’re provided with a litter tray, for heaven’s sake, which I clean it regularly. (I did ask a junior Gordon-Smith to do this; she described it as “minging” and affected to believe I was joking.)
One bulging plastic bag was put in the bin and an hour later I was in the pet shop, describing our little problem. What I needed, apparently, was something called Repel All. The smell it says on the back on the bottle, is naturally very unpleasant to animals and they quickly learn to avoid it.
Dear God, you can count me in the animal kingdom! It was like a gas attack. I’d just finished spraying the carpet and counting the seconds until I could get out of the room, when Snooker, Most Senior Animal, walked in. She made for under the bed and then, like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, reeled back. Snooker? Had she… Yes, she damn well had. And so had Arthur, the third of the wretched creatures.
Still, something attempted, something done. The bedroom might niff like a swimming-baths but at least it was clean and, although fairly repellent to me, I had the evidence of my own eyes that it was repellent to cats too.
Then the eldest came in. “Mum,” she said, “there’s an awful smell in my bedroom. It’s like old socks….”
Sunday, December 6, 2009
New publishers and the Christmas Fair
I've got a new publisher! Serven House, bless their hearts, are publishing the next Jack book, A HUNDRED THOUSAND DRAGONS, (and beat that for a title!) in May. Poor old Jack gets put through it a bit in this one, but it all ends happily with the good guys on the right side of the ledger. So stand by your cheque books, everyone, because it's on it's way. May the (insert date here) be with you!
Talking of cheque-books, it was the Christmas Fair yesterday. The Fair (not a Fayre, thank God!) takes place in the primary school, is in aid of the church and is run by the parish. The fair has been going for years and only recently dropped its previous name of a Sale Of Work. One phrase and we’re in Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse land. At one function you’re a consumer – a happy, charitably inclined consumer and the other you’re a creator. Sales Of Work, I remember from my youth, are where people sold tea-cosies, scarves, gloves and anything else that could be knitted or sown. There’s still a fair amount of handicraft, what with cakes and ingeniously made turned wood, but there’s bought in handbags and jewellery, even if (being a church function) the emphasis is on charity. I admired an ethnic-looking jersey and was told it was made by “Abandoned women in Peru.”
The image this conjured up is not, perhaps, what Shelia behind the counter intended!
I love these local functions, though. There’s an awful lot of public whittling now about community building and an awful lot of agonising about money. The Christmas Fair is a perfect example of doing both.
It takes a lot of work to organise and there’s nothing like working alongside someone to get to know them. And money comes in, through buying Christmas the Guides have made, having a go on the tombola, the whisky raffle, the cake raffle , to say nothing of actually buying the books, CD’s, DVD’s and tea-cosies, and a visit to Santa in his grotto which is the ice-palace created with paper and tinsel out of the computer room. I've always had a very soft spot for this particular incarnation of Santa, as I visited him in my Youth and, in rather later Youth, was a Christmas elf and handed out presents to the round-eyed children after Santa asked them what they wanted for Christmas. The spirit of Christmas? It’s alive and well and living at a Christmas Fair near you. Yo ho ho.
Talking of cheque-books, it was the Christmas Fair yesterday. The Fair (not a Fayre, thank God!) takes place in the primary school, is in aid of the church and is run by the parish. The fair has been going for years and only recently dropped its previous name of a Sale Of Work. One phrase and we’re in Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse land. At one function you’re a consumer – a happy, charitably inclined consumer and the other you’re a creator. Sales Of Work, I remember from my youth, are where people sold tea-cosies, scarves, gloves and anything else that could be knitted or sown. There’s still a fair amount of handicraft, what with cakes and ingeniously made turned wood, but there’s bought in handbags and jewellery, even if (being a church function) the emphasis is on charity. I admired an ethnic-looking jersey and was told it was made by “Abandoned women in Peru.”
The image this conjured up is not, perhaps, what Shelia behind the counter intended!
I love these local functions, though. There’s an awful lot of public whittling now about community building and an awful lot of agonising about money. The Christmas Fair is a perfect example of doing both.
It takes a lot of work to organise and there’s nothing like working alongside someone to get to know them. And money comes in, through buying Christmas the Guides have made, having a go on the tombola, the whisky raffle, the cake raffle , to say nothing of actually buying the books, CD’s, DVD’s and tea-cosies, and a visit to Santa in his grotto which is the ice-palace created with paper and tinsel out of the computer room. I've always had a very soft spot for this particular incarnation of Santa, as I visited him in my Youth and, in rather later Youth, was a Christmas elf and handed out presents to the round-eyed children after Santa asked them what they wanted for Christmas. The spirit of Christmas? It’s alive and well and living at a Christmas Fair near you. Yo ho ho.
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