One Amazing Weekend

Posted on 30 August 2010 by John

It is easy to let the Bank Holiday weekend slip by. That did not happen this weekend.

For a start, we had a visitor flying in all the way from Plymouth, Tracy. She does not often get up this way, so we wanted a really special weekend. Her wish was to go on the London Eye. Alan, my partner, had duly arranged this. He had also arranged a little surprise.

We clattered into town on the Docklands Light Railway. A driverless train system that tootles around Southeast London. This was a novelty – Tracy had not had the opportunity to travel on this before. Eventually we arrived at St James’s Park and started to wander around. We reached the end of the Mall with the big house. and were wandering around the side of it, when Tracy exclaimed that she would love to visit ‘Buck House’ some day. Alan wandered up to one of the attendants, who allowed us in… that was the special surprise.

For those who have not had the opportunity to see the interior of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace, go! It takes opulence and splendour to the most magnificent degree.

For instance, there is a gallery room. In it are many old masters. They have commentaries on about four of them. These, one imagines, are the only four worth looking at. Then one starts looking at the ‘unremarkable’ paintings. One notices that they are by unknown artists such as Rubens and Titian. Incidentally, the place is so respectable that one does not initially notice, on the painting ‘Summer’, that some of the cattle are getting a little amorous.

Of course, we also went on the London Eye and had a few adventures in a plane… more on that later.

Hope you all had a good weekend, too!

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Finishing the Course

Posted on 23 August 2010 by John

As you will have noticed, my posts have been infrequent over the past few months. The reason is simple – I have been completing my writing course (with Holly Lisle). That and earning a living wage has occupied most of my time.

For those who have not taken it, Holly’s How To Think Sideways course is excellent. It covers inspiration, revision, applying to publishers/agents and how to avoid being a one book wonder. Heartily recommended.

I have also being doing some reading. As Holly points out, it is an ideal way to get a masterclass with an expert. Using her tools and reading a book is a good way to see the mechanics of the book: where it has strengths and weaknesses.

I am currently reading Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. I expect that many of you will be familiar with it – it is a historical whodunnit. I am greatly enjoying the trip into another century (the 14th). The protagonists, a Benedictine novice and his Franciscan tutor, are currently stuck inside a labyrinth. The suspense is building and I am looking to find out what the hidden secret is and who is doing the murders.

Anyway, the course is over, so I expect to be visiting these pages more frequently. I also expect to be posting more photographs – the mechanism I had for preparing them for publishing died and I am in the process of recreating it.

Until next time… good writing.

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Holiday Joys

Posted on 11 August 2010 by John

Last week my partner and I went off to Lancashire for  a holiday. It is not a holiday destination that I would have thought of before. Near the Lake District, but not the Lake District.

We stayed in a small village near Lancaster. The views of verdant, rolling hills were spectacular. Just looking at the landscapes released something in the soul. The canal with one or two boats drifted by. The cows mooed contentedly in their fields. There was so much evidence of water that it was difficult to believe that the area is supposedly in drought and that there is a hosepipe ban!

I took the opportunity to learn archery on a longbow, to chat with friends and generally relax.

Lancaster is an interesting city. It combines both a sense of the past with all the modern amenities. It has a lot of specialist shops that seem to have been lost in the Southeast to the chains. Finding not one but two thriving haberdashers was a special treat. Seeing posters for Abba revivals and the Vagina Monologues did feel like a step into a different decade.

Afterwards, it had all the signs of a great holiday: contented feeling, slight disconnect when returned home and a feeling that one had been away for far longer than the amount of time booked.

My best recommendation: I hope I have an opportunity to go back there for another holiday!

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Banking Woes and Joys

Posted on 23 July 2010 by John

My partner and I are saving up for a big purchase. The bank we are with has a pathetic rate of interest, so we decided to open an additional savings account with another provider. It was easy, we set it up without problems. Wonderful!

I then tried a transfer from my existing provider (who are now owned by Santander). I often do this – a £5 deposit – just in case it is set up wrong. I had it set up fine – a few days later the money arrived. I sent over a much larger deposit.

This was where the problems started.

I logged into my regular bank and found that I was blocked. I had to ring a line to get it released. After 7 minutes I received an answer (the line is charged at 8p a minutes from Virgin). They immediately reinstated my account but informed me that I would have to recreate the transaction. Please hold. I held for a further 13 minutes. Recreated the transaction and was being asked for all the account details of the account being paid (which I could not access as my account had been blocked). Great!

At this point I should make it clear that I am one of those people who is glad that banks have anti-fraud procedures. At the same time, I think that they should make it easy to unlock them for proper transactions.

The following morning I logged into my account and noticed that there were now two large payments going out of my account. The one I had sent and another that looked very badly spelled. I rang them again. After 23 minutes it transpired that this was their mistake, but they could do nothing about it. I asked what would happen if, as a consequence, I went overdrawn. They said that they would not charge me. I asked for that in writing. They declined, but they would put a note on my account. (The woman I was speaking with was very apologetic and said that the person who had perpetrated this would be informed.) I am left expecting to trust to ‘notes on the account’, when it was the same company that upset my finances in the first place through a mistake on my account. Not satisfied.

This is the same company that, when I complained about overdraft charges when money was cleared in my account, sent me a letter informing me that outgoing money was considered before incoming money on the account. The letter pointed out that this was detailed on the back of my statements. My account type does not receive statements and they gave no indication of where else this information might have been obtained!

My next call was to First Direct, the people I lament leaving. They were their usual efficient, wonderful selves. They answered immediately (as was my experience in more than ten years banking with them). Actually, on one call I did wait two rings, but that’s another story. Within 150 seconds they had processed my request for a new account. All banks are not the same. With current interest rates so low, I vote for service!

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Rules of Cat Ownership

Posted on 4 July 2010 by John

As you know I own cats. Over the years I have developed rules of cat ownership. For anyone contemplating cat ownership this will save you a lot of heartache:

1) Cats are agents of destruction

2) To own cats is to know pain

3) Cats’ reason for existence is to be worshipped

I was going to add other rules, but I realised that they were just observations. If you take to heart the above rules you may have happy cats, or they may stalk off one day and leave you for something they perceive as better (at that moment). At least you will go into cat ‘ownership’ with your eyes open.

Having said that, we love our cats and have not yet put them out to prostitution, unless you count the times we let other people stroke them.

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Self Doubt, Finishing… and Getting Started

Posted on 1 July 2010 by John

Keeping the focus:

Those of you who have been watching my word count (bottom right) will have noticed that it has been stuck for a while now. My story appeared to be going really well and I got to a sort of an ending. Unfortunately, the story kept dribbling on… like a poorly tuned automatic car that is supposed to be stationary but keeps jerking forward against ineffective brakes. It just would not end. Stop… jerk forward… stop… jerk forward. The only way this is going to stop properly is when the fuel runs out or it hits a brick wall. That is not a good way to end a story!

I realised that one of the apparently neutral characters in the story is, in actual fact, the arch-villain of the piece. He stands against all that is good in the story. He is bitter about all the triumphs of the protagonist. He is spitting blood.

I can see all this. I can see the arc of the new story. I can see this all leading to a thrilling conclusion but I cannot get it integrated.

There now. This seems to be proving one of the truisms of writing. That the only way to start writing is by… um… starting to write.

Just as I thought I did not know where to go, I write to you my glorious reader, outlining the problem, and WHAM the ideas flood in.

I was going to be writing a lot more maudlin stuff but I have to get back to the novel.

Thank you!

(I think I have just found another technique for getting past writers’ block.)

How do you solve your writing problems?

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New WordPress

Posted on 1 July 2010 by John

As you can see, the site is now operating on WordPress 3.00.

I had wondered if the working title of this blog, ‘Curious Meanderings’, was appropriate. I had also wondered about the right theme. Fortunately, the new version of WordPress came with the perfect picture for the title – I now feel a lot happier.

I hope you like it.

Comments welcome.

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Unaccountable and Powerful, not quite concluded

Posted on 19 June 2010 by John

Just a quick update.

The credit reclaiming agency was in touch today. They are now threatening me with court, despite the assurances of the telco. At this stage, I am ready to say ‘Bring it on!’

They will just make themselves look like fools.

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Unaccountable and Powerful, concluded

Posted on 15 June 2010 by John

I have heard back from Pipex.

They have admitted that they were totally in the wrong. That they should not have charged me through to January 2010, that the process to refer me to a credit collection agency is a completely computerised process, and they they will sort the entire thing out within 72 hours.

I have all that in writing.

Why do I not feel reassured?

I am going to keep a check on my credit rating, in case they decide to ‘play’ with it.

I’ll keep you all posted if that happens.

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From where comes Inspiration?

Posted on 13 June 2010 by John

John after being paint-balled This is one of those bizarre coincidence stories that scatters my life. Today I went to the gym for a swim. I have been a member for about four years, so I know some of the staff quite well. This morning one of the members of staff came up to me and said ‘I didn’t know that you used to be a vicar!’.

At this point I confessed that I had. I had ‘retired’ about five and a half years ago. [Obviously, it is lot more complicated than that, but I resigned when I realised that I was in the wrong line of work. I subsequently found health and happiness. More of that in another article.]

‘Who told you? Who spilled the beans?’

‘No-one’, she replied, ‘I saw you dressed up as one, standing at a bus stop. About two months ago.’

Now, I have not dressed up in clerical garb in the last four years. I had not told anyone at the gym of my previous line of work.

Having worked out, with her that the person she saw was not me, we had a further discussion. ‘So you were a vicar, then?’

I had to confess again.

‘Yes, I was. Now I am not.’

Has anyone mistakenly ‘recognised you’ and through that guessed a previous line of work?

If so, what a great twist in a story. On the other hand, is it one of those things that is so unbelievable that it could only exist in reality and would look contrived in fiction?

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