Happy Families

About a year I blogged here about my cousin Angela Marshall who had sadly just died. I may have mentioned that she was a pretty amazing person. She was certainly incredibly generous and one of my favourite relatives growing up. This was quite an achievement, as I have A LOT of relatives...

The measure of just how special Angela was, is that I am not the only one in the family to feel this way. I am not even the only member of my immediate family (there are eight of us), to feel this way... There are 35 of us in my generation (yes, that's right I have 28 cousins on my mother's side, and according to latest records about 57 second cousins)and Angela meant something to us all. She had no children of her all, but she was like our own special fairy godmother as children, and she didn't leave us without showing her extraordinary generosity once again. In her will, as well as leaving something to her first cousins (my mother and her siblings), and her nieces and nephews, she also left something to each and everyone of us cousins. All that she asked was that we had a party in her honour.

So on Saturday we did. And what a party. As I mentioned in my previous blog about her, Angela worked for Elstree Studios for many years providing sound effects for films as varied as Star Wars, The Omen, and Mel Gibson's Hamlet (I can still remember the gasp round the table from a dozen women at a family wedding when she casually announced that she'd met Mel - this in the days before he turned into a religious fanatic). On the same occasion she also regaled us with tales of the "Shout" (an exercise when she got a group of people together to make a particular set of sound effects) she organised which involved lots of deep breathing and panting noises for a scene in the second Hell Raiser film (if you've seen it, it's a scene involving writhing bodies under sheets returning from hell). Some time afterwards she and a friend were in a bookshop in LA when they spotted Clive Barker, and proceeded to stand behind him making similar noises...

So thanks to the Elstree connection, we were able to have the party in the function room at Elstree studios, complete with cardboard cutouts of Angela in her youth standing next to such luminaries as Patrick McGee (her first job was working on The Prisoner) as well as the inevitable Storm Trooper. Angela, was, we were reminded by one of her colleagues extremely dismissive of SF when they worked on the original Star Wars... (It didn't stop her taking us to see the film at Leicester Square though, which has left me with a lifelong love of SF, so I have to be grateful to her for that too).

There were several speeches from both family and friends, but one of my cousins had managed to put together a video of Angela's life with a Star Wars theme which was both memorable and moving. The same cousin had also found some Pathe reel footage of my Great Grandmother Jemima Clark (nee Clary) being kissed by the Mayor of Ramsgate at some shindig on Ramsgate beach. The story goes that my aunt was at the cinema one day, when the Pathe news came on, and one of her friends, said, Sheila, isn't that your grandma? And it was. As I've spent the last few months researching Jemima (among others)for the family tree, and her story has informed quite a lot of what is happening in the latest wip (about which more in a later blog) it was really brilliant to see her in the flesh as it were. Particularly as it brought forth a rash of stories from my mother and aunts about what a raver she was. Who'd have thunk...

The children were only slightly overwhelmed by the vastness of their family (last family party took place when they were all very young and time & geography means they've not met many members of the extended family before), Spouse has got used to it over the years, but elected to stay put with his fellow Outlaws for company,which is probably a wise move. As even one of my cousins said, It's quite overwhelming for US, let alone any other poor sap we bring into the family...

However overwhelming or not, it was fantastic to see so many of the family (only 3 in my generation didn't make it and they're all abroad), there was (inevitably) not enough time to get to meet everyone, but a really fun time was had by all.

Angela wanted us to party, and we did.

Shame she couldn't have been there too...

Have you missed me?

I have just looked at the blog and realised to my shame that it has been over three months since I last wrote here. Damn. That sounds like I am going to confession - Bless me readers for I have sinned and it is far too long since I've made an entry here.

I'd LIKE to say it's because I have been having a wonderfully riveting time, or that I have been deep at work in my new book, but neither would be strictly true.

I did have a pretty good summer - after last year's debacle I had got myself a little (ahem) hyped up before flying out to Turkey, but thankfully not only did I withstand the flight without turning into a gibbering mess, I also had the most relaxing holiday I've had in years. And I mean literally YEARS. So I think we can safely say that my anxiety levels are way lower then they were this time last year, and I am feeling normal again. Yippee doda.

I had meant to blog all this on my return, but somehow got into such a laidback state of mind, never quite managed it. Suffice to say we hadn't been to Turkey for years, and really enjoyed going back. We stayed in the middle of nowhere (after some slightly misleading info from the travel company about how close we were to the local town), which was great for peace & quiet but slightly inconvenient when trying to cater for a family of 6 (the only "shop" was a little hut by the beach where a woman sold beer, milk and bread - all the necessities then - and there was one cafe, which was nice, but the menu got a bit limited). We therefore had to rely on the dodgy bus provided by the site to take us supermarket shopping, which ran mainly on Turkish time, which is very different from the UK variety.

That aside, we did manage a couple of trips to Bodrum by boat (a trip that also ran on Turkish time - the boat journey being 2hrs longer then advertised), which was impressive but way more touristy then last time we were there and Ephesus which was was fantastic. If you ever get to Turkey, go to Ephesus - it's the best place I've been to for really imagining the past - even if the info from the guides was dodgy to say the least. And miraculously, the kids even enjoyed it, especially wandering round the enormous ampitheatre at the end.

So, Turkey, was a major success, and when we got back we were swiftly up to Derbyshire to visit my family, and belatedly celebrate Aged Ma's 80th birthday. This too was enormous fun - we all booked cottages in the village my sis lives in, and for a week it was pretty much like the Moffatts had invaded. We did some great walks, had a wonderful picnic at Chatsworth, Spouse & I managed to nip over to Sheffield Cathedral to find the George Chapel where fil has a seat in his honour, and it didn't RAIN ONCE. I have never ever known it sunny in Derbyshire, and it was lovely. This being us though, we couldn't escape a teensy bit of adventure, so when we got back from Sheffield, Spouse and I then had to go straight to Derby Hospital as the eldest had an hand injury sustained from nephew's rather sharp football shooting skills. Luckily, it turned out not to be broken, which is what usually happens to us. The next day we took the kids to the cinema, and when I came out I discovered the car was making funny noises (Spouse had gone home by this time). I thought I'd managed to blow the engine up (there's nothing like being confident about one's driving skills), but after a call to the AA I ascertained that some bastard had stolen our catalytic converter. Yes. That's right. Apparently the scrap metal value from catalytic converter's is high. Sodding thing cost £547 to put right and OF COURSE our insurance didn't cover it. Grr.

Got home and discovered Spouse was reorganising bedrooms, so the rest of the holidays was spent throwing stuff out and trying to make the little ones' bedrooms habitable. To which end I have actually succeeded, so for the first time in years, you can (most of the time) actually see their bedroom floors.

So that's the summer done and dusted. And now we're well into the new term, and I have managed to do some writing. In fact it was all going great guns till last week, when I developed the cold from hell, from which I am just recovering. As I have a deadline of the end of the month, I had better get moving sharpish.

So hear endeth the lesson for the moment. I had hoped to blog about sooooo many things... The brilliance of Sherlock for example and my new crush on Benedict Cumberbatch to match my old crush on Martin Freeman; the books I'd read on holiday - highlights including Somewhere Before the End by Diana Athill, and Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger, weirdly compulsively haunting, great atmosphere, crap lots, but lingers in the mind nonetheless, and Tamsyn Murray's My So Called Afterlife, a lovely moving teen ghost story; Bouquet of Barbed Wire and my weird crush on Trevor Eve considering he always plays jerks; the return of Spooks and my not so weird crush on Richard Armitage, but my deep fear that his time on Spooks is probably numbered, to name but a few.

But alas Time's winged chariot and all that, and I Do have a book to write. But at least I've blogged again. Thank you for your patience if anyone is still out there, reading. I'll try not to leave it so long next time....

Dr Who Series 5

I have been really crap at blogging this year, I am not entirely sure why, but it's the reason I haven't blogged AT ALL about Dr Who apart from my very excited response to Episode 1 here (and I never got onto the Ashes to Ashes finale which I loved, sigh.)

So to make up for it I thought I'd round up my thoughts in general about the new series of Dr Who and how I've coped without David Tennant (sob).

THERE

WILL

BE


SPOILERS


AHEAD

The answer to that is, pretty well, actually. Considering how much in love with DT's Doctor I was, Matt Smith has done a brilliant job of coming up with something new & different from Tennant's Doctor. It doesn't always work - he wasn't very convincing in the Daleks episode for instance, and sometimes I long for the more emotional version of the Doc we had from David Tennant, but for his enthusiasm, bonkersness, and sheer chutzpah, I am really loving this version of the Doctor. It's also great to have him paired with a companion as mad as Amy Pond is, who apart from that brief flirtation when she tried to snog him (oh and yes, as pointed out by Medium Rob her rather callous attempts to do so again on her wedding day, tut, tut, Amy), isn't really interested him, and he isn't at all interested in her, except as the girl who doesn't make sense. This doctor is a bit more detached, and well alien then the previous version, and I rather like him for that.

After the dazzlingly brilliant start to the series, there was I suppose an inevitablity that not even the Moff could keep up that pace (I have to add here, that as not only do I share my maiden name with the writer, barring an extra T, I also share my married name with one of the characters. I am therefore, obliged to love this version of Who(-:), and at times it was rather uneven. As others have pointed out, Moff could really do with editing the scripts he hasn't written better - Amy was poorly served by one or two other writers - Chris Chibnail I am looking at you - and turned at times into a cipher who just did a lot of girly screaming and not much else. She (and we) deserve a lot better then that.

I didn't mind the Daleks episode, which seems on the whole to have been universally loathed, but it wasn't as good as the rest. The Daleks revealed their hand way too soon, and it would have been more fun to have the Doctor trying to persuade everyone they were evil for longer (I did LOVE the Dalek offering tea), plus the guy who played Churchill was a bit crap, so not one of the series' better efforts. I was also not wildly keen on the Silurian double parter, but that was because it was penned by Chris Chibnail who wrote the inexecrably awful first series of Torchwood - and considering that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

However, I pretty much loved the rest of the series, from Sophie Okenedo's fabulous Liz 10, to Toby Whithouse's vampires in Venice (Vampires? Venice? Written by Toby "Being Human" Whithouse? I couldn't fail to like that one), it's been inventive, fun, and as the Moff has said had a fairytale quality to it.

One thing that didn't quite work initially, as Rory's relationship with Amy - the main questions being why would feisty Amy settle for such a wimp, and why would he stay with someone who is being so horrible to him - which lacked chemistry at the beginning, and until he apparently died in Amy's Choice (another cracking episode - hugely helped by Toby Jones' masterful depiction of the Dream Lord) I didn't think Amy cared a jot about him. However after that point, it was clear that the relationship was deeper then it appeared & his second "death" though it felt a bit repetitive at the time gained extra significance as the series drew to a close. Particularly poignant was the moment in Vincent (crap monster, but otherwise another brilliant & incredibly moving episode), when Van Gogh asks her why she's crying and she doesn't know, and she knows she's forgotten something important but can't remember what, which paralleled with the Doctor's reactions to her forgetting gave a pathos that was much needed. I love Steven Moffat's writing, but I agree again with Medium Rob he doesn't always get the emotional depth that RTD did, and while it has been a nice change to have more restrained emotions, there are moments when RTD would have given it more and Steven Moffat failed to do so, which has meant that at times things have felt flatter then they should.

Having said that, the emotion ratchetted up beautifully for the series finale. Oh God how I loved the series finale. It was such a roller coaster of a ride, and for the first time in a two parter, with Amy shot by Rory, Rory really an Auton, River stuck in the Tardis, and the Doctor locked in the Pandorica I really did believe there was a possibility that this time the Doc might not be able to sort it out. I felt sure Rory wasn't going to live to tell the tale for a third time, at least... I also loved the Rory/Amy storyline - Rory realising Amy had forgotten her, Amy remembering at the point that Rory realises he isn't human, Rory shooting Amy, Rory waiting 2000 years for Amy - Why are you so - human? asks the Doctor, Because right now I'm not, fantastic! - them being reunited in time to forget the Doctor. Wonderful, heart rending, touching stuff.

I know it was a huge cheat for the Doc to get out of the Pandorica with such ease, but oh, the sheer fun of all the time hopping, and the madness of the Fez, and the Pandorica opening in front of Amelia (Caitlin Blackwood was awesome as Amelia, hope she can come back somehow!) and Amy being inside, meant that I didn't care really. Because despite the cheats, and the Doctor being dead, but not really because he was lying, Steven Moffat tied up the loose ends and the odd bits (like the Doctor coming back to Amy in Flesh and Stone - a scene I found really touching first time around seeing it from Amy's pov, but had such added resonance when we realised what the Doctor was actually saying to her & why it was so important for her to remember what he'd told her when she was seven. Just realised I haven't mentioned The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone - two of my favourite episodes this series, for a) having River Song in them,let's here it for River! and b) bringing the angels back and making them scarier), and also left some things unresolved. So we still don't know why silence will fall or who is saying it (I don't know why, but I keep thinking of poor mad Dalek Caan, sounds like the sort of thing he'd say, if he hasn't been rewritten in this new improved universe), nor do we know why the Tardis exploded. And from what River said to the Doctor at the end, it sounds like we're going to find out who she really is, tantalisingly soon.

River Song has been one of the best bits of this new series for me - she's a match for the Doctor, the witty repartee between them is top notch (I loved the Honey, I'm Home/You're late exchange, fabulous!), and as the series drew to an end I think their relationship has deepened and become more interesting. I can't wait to find out what's going on there.

So, while I still miss David Tennant, and I am at times finding the tone of the new series so different from the old as to be a bit jarring, overall I think this has been my favourite series so far. There were some misses, but not many, it could do with more emotion, and I hope they get the script editing sorted next time, but it was fun, it was exciting, it felt different and new again.

Do I really have to wait till Christmas to see Matt Smith in action again?

Dammit, I do.

PS The proof of the pudding is that the kids who were so attached to David Tennant they were threatening not to watch the new series have been totally blown away too. Top marks Mr Moffat, top marks...

A tale of two signings...

This is only the second time I have gone into a book shop with copies of my book and signed them. There is something both incredibly egotistical and also exposing about standing up in front of people and politely asking them if they'd like a signed copy of your book. (A metaphor for writing perhaps. You have to be egotistical to do it, but it also exposes you in a way that can be quite scary.)

My first signing session took place in my local Waterstone's a couple of weeks ago. It's a bright friendly shop, well stocked, in the middle of a busy shopping centre. As I know plenty of people locally, I was hopeful that I could bring a few punters in. But going upstairs and seeing a table set up piled high with my books was a tad unnerving. As was the cheery, I'll leave you to get on with it then, shall I? from the manager.

Luckily, I had a hidden army with me in the form of not only my offspring but several of their friends. I sent them out with bowls of chocolate, and instructions to tell people to come up and get a signed copy of my books, and it worked a treat! Though the majority of books I sold were to people I knew, I also managed to palm off a few on some complete strangers. In some instances the sale was dead easy. Apprentice wannabes, eat your heart out!

I was hugely grateful to a couple of my online friends, @craftyfuschia and Caroline Praed for making the effort to come out and join the fun, and was pleased to have sold in the region of 30ish books by the time I left - it may have been more, my pilates teacher arrived after I'd gone home and came knocking at my door with more copies for me to sign.

The town was very busy with punters going to see Jordan (unlike her, I didn't demand you spend £20 on my books before I talked to you(-:), but as most of her punters weren't really interested in my books, I don't think I lost out...


Last week was a whole different experience. I popped up to Church Stretton to sign copies at Burway Books. (Have I mentioned that Burway Books is my favourite bookshop in the world?? No, really?? You can find them here.)

Although the shop itself is tiny, the knowledge of its owner, Ros Ephraim is encylopaedic, and there isn't a book she can't get you if you want it. There is a store not only of huge knowledge here, but Ros and her colleagues Emma and Hils make bookselling a really fun thing to do. I spent the best part of a day with them, and haven't laughed such a lot in a long time.

Church Stretton were having their summer festival that day, so to promote both the bookshop and me, Emma dressed up as the Walker bear (I was very glad I wasn't wearing it I can tell you...) and we went out with flyers to bring the punters in. Church Stretton is a lovely town at the best of times, but the atmosphere was wonderful as people ambled about the different stalls, some in costume, some singing, some dancing. It's the sort of thing you can't do where I live as the community is too big, but it made me want to up sticks and move up there immediately.



After an hilarious hour giving away flyers and confusing children as to who the bear actually was (I felt like I was in an episode of The Apprentice), we hightailed it back to the shop, where I provided bucks fizz and chocolates to anyone who'd take them, in return I hoped for a signed copy of my book. To begin with Emma and I sat outside the shop, but people seemed to think we were chatting to one another (well we were!) so in the end I did it solo, and despite being hugely hard work, and feeling even more like I was in an episode of the Apprentice, it really paid off. The sales were slow but steady, and at the end of the day I think I'd sold the majority of the stock (Final totals: BP, 20, LC 5, SL 2 -not bad at all). I'd also learnt a lot about how to make the best out of a signing situation, and it really is about being bold and putting yourself out there, excruciating as that can sometimes be, while retaining a smile on your face and encouraging people who might not otherwise be interested to look at your book.

I thoroughly enjoyed both days out and am grateful to the staff at Epsom Waterstone's and the fabulous Ros and Emma at Burway Books for making it so easy!

And a very quick plug....

On Saturday 12 June I will be signing copies of this at Epsom Waterstone's in the Ashley Centre from 12-2pm


Alternatively, you could go and buy some very expensive riding gear from her at Lester Bowden in Epsom. If you have ever been in Lester Bowden (think the Grace Brothers from Are You Being Served), you would know just how incongruous this is...

Alternatively, if you can't make either event, please come and find me at Burway Books in Church Stretton on Saturday 19 June from 12-2pm, where my competition comes in the form of the Church Stretton Literary Festival.

If you could make it, would love to see you at either event!

We have a winner ... or two!

Many apologies for the delay in announcing this. My feeble excuse is, half term (including a sleepover which went on FOREVER) and an inset day yesterday, which involved a trip to Chessington (I have therefore seen Hell's holding station twice in the last week...) I'm sure that Caroline is A LOT more organised then I am, but I am delighted to announce, not one, but two winners. Mainly because lots of you didn't realise you needed to come up with an idea for a holding station for dead people. So all those of you, I put in a draw to get a copy of Black Boxes, and drew it at random. I'm delighted to say that MissieLizzie won.

I loved all your ideas for holding stations - good work, people - and was very tempted by both the idea of a bookshop (reading for eternity, heaven!) and Wimbledon. However, I couldn't resist Aliya Whitely's inspired idea of a cross channel ferry. It was the seafood buffet wot won it(-:

A holding place for dead people... that would need lots of comfy seating, some light shopping opportunities and maybe somebody playing the piano badly, just so everybody has something to moan about other than how they karked it... I'd go for a cross-channel ferry. Hull-Rotterdam, maybe. I seem to remember that has a seafood buffet - that should cover up the stench of death. I think I'm taking this too seriously. But I really would like a copy of the book.

Thanks to everyone who took part, sorry you couldn't all win (though as the head teacher of my childrens' infant school used to say, you're all winners, really). And I hope you even come back and visit here from time to time. I do post more often this usually... honest!

Like Bees to Honey by Caroline Smailes

A book review and a competition. Two for the price of one, eh?

Nina, her son Christopher in tow, flies to Malta for one last visit with her aging parents.

Her previous attempt to see them ended in tears. Disowned for falling pregnant while at university in England, she was not allowed into the house.

This will be her final chance to make her peace with them.

But Malta holds more secrets and surprises than Nina could possibly imagine. What she finds is not the land of her youth, a place full of memories and happiness. Instead she meets dead people. Lots of them.

Malta, it transpires, is a transit lounge for recently deceased spirits and somehow Christopher enables her to see them, speak with them and help them.

And, in return, they help Nina come to terms with her own loss. One so great that she has yet to admit it to herself.

I've followed Caroline Smailes' blog for several years now, and I am a big fan of her quirky style and imaginative way of marrying her words with briliant typography. Unique is a word that gets bandied around far too much, but Caroline's style, is just that - unique. I can't imagine anyone else writing the way she does, because I don't think anyone else could.

I was lucky enough to attend Caroline's launch party at the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green on Tuesday (fans of indy bookshops, please go if you are ever in the Wood Green area, it is fantastic. You can find out all about it here) I had already decided I was going to enjoy Bees, when I read the blurb, but the minute Caroline read out an extract based in Liverpool (like me, she's an English grad from Liverpool), I knew I was hooked.

Actually, the Liverpool connection is a fairly minor one, but that doesn't matter, because Caroline takes us on a journey to Malta (an island I've never visited, but would love to now) that is so vividly haunting, the memory of this book will linger with me for a long time.

I loved the idea of Malta as a transit lounge for the recently departed - when Nina, the heroine visits her mother, she also gets to meet a variety of ghosts, who are there to help her come to terms with the secrets of her past, and to help her find redemption.

This is in many ways a very spiritual book - there is a lot of religion in here -but it's a kind of spirituality that's really earthbound. I loved the depiction of a hippyish Jesus, who paints his toenails because his feet are ugly, and drinks cans and cans of Cisk (Maltese beer -which Caroline kindly provided at her launch party and I can confirm tastes very lovely indeed) to see if he can get drunk (he can't). I loved the character of Tilly - a resentful house ghost, who is very very angry (touchingly we get to learn the source of that anger & see it healed) - but most of all I loved Nina, a woman who has cut ties with her past, and whose grief at what she subsequently believes is a punishment, is blinding her to the possibility of happiness in the future. As Jesus tells her she is caught in a hell of her own making - a hell on earth, which only she can escape.

This isn't always an easy read - there were moments when I was wide eyed with shock at things Caroline's characters revealed, and I wasn't always sure how she'd tie everything up. But as she deftly draws the strands together at the end of the book, I was completely transported, greedily devouring each page, unable to bear coming to the end. Mostly nowadays, when I read a book, lack of time means I rarely get to reread it, and often I'm not drawn back to it gain. Like Bees to Honey is such a thoroughly absorbing, and alluring read, that I am sure it is a book I will return to time and time again, because it's the kind of book that grows and ripens with each rereading.
I loved it. I'm sure you will too.

To celebrate the fact that Caroline and I shared our publication day yesterday, I am today giving away a signed copy of Like Bees to Honey to the person who comes up with the wittiest idea for a holding station for dead people. Particularly if you can tell me why.

Competition runs till midnight on 31 May. Please leave comments on my blog below.

Caroline is doing the same with The Bridesmaid Pact, so if you want to win a copy of that, hop over here now!