Creative Blog Award

Lovely DJ Kirkby gave me an award a week or so ago. I didn’t get around to displaying it; so here it is. In return I must list seven things that I love and pass the award onto seven creative bloggers that I admire.

So, seven things, huh? I am going to exclude people from my list otherwise it would be a list of seven people or groups of people which mightn’t be very interesting. Should I exclude tea? And books? You all know I love them… Maybe, maybe… here’s an idea: my criteria shall be things I haven’t already told you I love…

So, drumroll please, in no particular order…

1. Cats
2. Custard Creams
3. The Sea
4. Gin
5. Sunday lunch esp Roast Lamb and mint sauce
6. Photoshop
7. Lavender

Now I am supposed to pass the award on to seven creative bloggers that I admire but because I can’t do anything I’m told to do… There are five blogs that I go to… usually as a lurker… for the quality of their photos. I go and sigh a lot and wish I could take pics half as good. *Sigh* I don't know if any of them really 'do' blog awards, but at least they'll know I appreciate them even if I don't make comments on their sites.

The first site is Kingsdowner. I found this blog when I was looking for visuals of the Kent countryside for research for my novel. I might have grown up in the countryside but I’m a bit of a thicky when it comes to plants and creatures. Kingsdowner is an expert. I’ve never commented there because I’m so in awe.

The second site is Nomadic Tendencies. I think Ange found me first and I spotted her on my stat details… She’s an Aussie living in Thailand; she posts a picture a day on a Thai theme. Ange has a lovely eye for composition and a first rate eye for colour.

The third choice, some of you may already know, Uphilldowndale. I can’t remember how I found this blog. She lives in a truly gorgeous part of England and her photos are spectacular. Do go and have a look.

Fourthly, Yesbut’s pictures I found when googling ‘nude in a scarf’ for this post. The picture was so much better than mine: *sigh* I have made an assumption that Yesbut is female but I could be wrong. Update: Oh deary, deary me. I am wrong; Yesbut is a man, a most manly male man. Big apologies Yesbut. Tee hee: you were most gracious about your sex change, and I DO live in Thailand...

Finally, and fifth, is our Spiral Jen at Inspiral Daze. Living not far from where my book is set, her pictures are mostly of the natural environment: pulled right out at a landscape or right up close to the zoomed in landscape of a flower or leaf.

My week

Despite the migraine and its aftershocks, (thanks for all the good wishes) I’ve been very busy this week - mostly while filled up with medicine.

The day after the migraine meltdown I had to go to school to watch Daughter in a Dance Extravaganza: very tough feeling so fragile but I filled myself up with pain relief and lovely neighbours gave Daughter and me a lift home.

I had a meeting at the library on Thursday and then that evening I’d promised to drag Husband along to a quiz at a pub along our road. It was organised by the St George’s Society and we were rounded up by Andrew ‘Computer’, my website teacher. We joined up with friends, C&R to make a team, R called our team ‘No Fork in Chance.’ It took me several rounds of the quiz before working out why everyone sniggered at this… but I was still a bit poorly, honest.

Regular readers might know that we did attend a quiz quite regularly a year or so ago… we were spectacularly bad and managed most weeks to come in second to last, which earned us a free round of drinks. This quiz didn’t have any of the ‘professional quiz teams’ in evidence and R was quite brilliant at the sports rounds. Husband excelled in the Thai general knowledge… C and I managed to answer a few too. There was only one literary question (Lady Chatterley’s Christian name which I knew because one of my characters is named after her: Constance.)

We had a nice evening though and to our utter amazement came in second! Woo hoo and each of us won a box of chocolate covered nuts. Obviously I gave my box to Husband and then proceeded to steal them one by one, once the packet was opened: there are no calories in stolen food, did you know that? Pictures can be seen here. I have no idea who the grinning man is next to me.

Friday saw me at a lunch for the 40th anniversary of the first ever meeting of the BWG (don’t go to the website, the irritating music is still there!) I rather liked the idea of those gentile ladies, meeting to organise a group in exactly the same venue, forty years earlier. I think my next novel will feature a group of expat women in Bangkok. Watch this space. Despite requiring Migraleve in the morning, I managed 3 Pimms without any negative effects. Hoo rah.

Friday Photo

Apologies for my absence. I've been fighting and submitting to migraines all week.

Here's today's photo: taken in Emporium Mall. Great big nearly naked people with swimming caps and shoes; no, I've no idea what they were doing there.

Saturday

Friday Photo

Man lands on the Moon

I missed a job off my list of things to do yesterday. I'd eased myself into denial and determined that I could stay there until I got another email nagging asking for the thing I had to find and telling me that Wed was the deadline.

I had to find a picture of me in 1969.

I’d like to tell you that the my tendency towards OCD means that my photographs are organised into boxed categories including Childhood, University, Before Children, After Children and Bangkok. Sadly, while my compulsive behaviour means I have to have all the light switches facing the same way, and I have push my Thyroxine out of the foil in the right pattern, my photographic memories are thrown higgledy piggledy into a large trunk.

Still, having given my self permission to slump on the writing front, I identified today as the day to go through my photographs. So this morning I set up: labelled up some containers with the above categories. I took my IPod through to listen to podcasts, and opened the box.

Oh it was horrible. It’s a lovely job if you have all the time in the world; you can sit leafing through the memories you’ve made. However, if you have to find a certain picture by the close of today, amongst 47,212 other photos… it’s not so nice. Still, about two hours in I found it:


Now… what I’m wondering is that if I’m under half way through the box… have I got to carry on and finish sorting the photos?

Certification

Now that the Slumps have been officially diagnosed and I’ve got the certificate to prove it, I’m feeling a bit better. Even though I realised it, the words of my mentor have reassured me “…they happen, it’s impossible to work at full creative speed all the time. The best thing is – as it seems to me you’re doing – to listen to it.” We’ve agreed that the last lot of words I send in can be either the next 10k of novel or the working synopsis. Thus far I’ve been writing without a plan of any sort… just knowing the story but it looks as though it’s time to prepare some sort of strategy.

In acknowledging the slumps two things have happened: I can get on and do other jobs that haven’t been done because of my anxious slumpy paralysis and secondly my subconscious has started to think about the story again and the bits of plot I might need to introduce to combat the flat feeling.

I’ve done the updated BWG website this morning … my bits of it: Book Club and the Noticeboard as well as the committee page. I’ve sent overdue emails out. Now I’m in the midst of book buying… for May. Then I have to try to sort out a beach holiday for when SiL and her family come to Thailand in the summer; that sounds fun but it’s hard trawling through the many, many options and making choices for other people. I keep opening up the internet, then faced with so many alternatives I shut it back down again.