That sinking feeling...

...has gone! After a survey of the saggy floor, instituted by our insurers, then the finding of a plumber and carpenter to do the job after we were told that the problem was not covered by insurance, then the waiting for one or other of them - or both - to actually turn up when they said they would, the whole job was finally done in a matter of a few hours. Sigh of relief. Now perhaps we can go back to the boat!

Nope. Blood donation, car service and MoT got in the way. Then the plumber said quite unexpectedly that he'd be able to replace our radiator valves the next week - we hadn't expected that to happen until the weather got warmer, but you never say "no" to a plumber. Or carpenter, builder, electrician, gas fitter... Back to the loft. It's one of those jobs that never actually comes to an end, I think.

We had the privilege of listening to the new Said the Maiden line-up recording together last weekend. It sounds really good, and we're looking forward very much to following the Maidens' progress over the year. They already have gigs lined up for autumn this year and on into 2020, but they won't be doing any before then, devoting their time instead to building a new repertoire - though they'll be keeping a lot of the current one - and rehearsal. This first song will be posted on the web for free download when they announce their new member very soon.

I've just spent quite a strenuous weekend, working with Naomi and a couple of dozen or so of her FoodSmiles friends and other volunteers, clearing a patch of land close to the centre of St Albans and building raised beds for growing fruit and vegetables for the local community.

It's the second Incredible Edible community project Nome has launched in the city, and it's very much larger than the first, which was opened four and a half years ago and is doing very nicely.

The city-centre plot in its first year

The new plot has already attracted a lot of interest and excitement, and Naomi has great plans for its development.

Probably the most unusual Christmas present I received this year is this little book.

Michelle knows me well! It contains 642 writing exercises, and it's a lot of fun. My only problem with it was that it only gives the writer a very small space in which to write...

...and it does seem that many users take that to be a sign that they should only write a tiny bit.

That's not for me. I am not a concise writer! So, I bought myself a large notebook, and I write large. For example, exercise 7, Write about a time when you broke a bone, produced this.

I was seven. I had a dog. Don, a mongrel but lovely. Well, I say “I” had a dog, but officially he was Jill’s, Jill, my four-and-a-half-years-older sister. Why Don was hers I never knew. It was me who played with him, after all. It was me who crawled through the long grass with him as we (both Cheyenne Indians, though he without the headband and feather), stealthily approached the white man who spoke with forked tongue. I don’t think Jill could have brought herself to crawl, even if I’d told her that the headband and feather weren’t compulsory. It was me whom he knocked off the sledge every time I careered down the snow-blanketed grassy hill, jumping on me gleefully as I lay face-down in the drifts. Don was mine.

Because Don was mine, it was only right and fitting that he got used to being on the lead and being walked by me. So I stood on tip-toe to reach the leash down from the hook high up on the kitchen door, and I took it to him, took him outside and explained to him very carefully what was about to happen and why, and he looked very happy about the idea. I patted him on the shoulder in manly fashion and clipped the lead onto his collar. I think he nodded his approval. All was well. My ownership of Don had been sealed, had been signified by that simple act.

It was then that he heard the voice.

In one greased-lightning swish of movement he stood, and ran full-tilt towards the side gate. It took a fraction of a second for him to reach the fullest extent of the lead, at which moment my feet left the ground and I followed him at speed towards the voice. What Don hadn’t considered, however, was the actually blindingly obvious matter of the garage, the concrete home of my dad’s Ford Popular. It halted my progress with a loud thump as my skull met with it. Crumpling in a much distressed heap, I let go of the lead, something I should have done 1.7 seconds earlier. At that instant of freedom, Don became something of a self-seeking, callous brute, his whole personality upturned by the adrenaline rush of raw instinct. The traitor left me there. Unimpressed by all of this except the sharp corner of the garage, I lay sprawled out on the ground, my bloody head resting on the red-stained concrete, and my broken wrist bent under me.

I don’t remember much of what followed, except feeling eight stitches being pulled through the split in my scalp, the plaster being put on my left forearm, and the revelation from the back of my shaken brain that the voice that triggered this trauma was that of my dear sister.

Never had betrayal been so acute.

================== 

Who knows? It may become a book!

https://amzn.to/2R55IPA

Not looking back!

Well, I put away the Christmas music this morning. I played for the last time my compilation of seasonal music. You know them from your shopping escapades - Slade, Wizzard, Paul McCartney, Chris Rea, The Darkness et al. But then there are some family favourites we never hear in the muzakal hubbub of Yuletide shopping - Trans Siberian Orchestra, Jon Anderson, Enya, The Wombles, The King's Singers.

It's odd, isn't it, how shops and radio alike stop playing Christmas music as soon as Boxing Day arrives? Thus I had my last singalong/playalong for an hour or so before stacking the CDs on the shelf (within easy reach, lest I feel the need for a repeat performance) in favour of Joe Satriani and The Wanted, newly-acquired last week.

Christmas was a great time, as always. Michelle, Christine and Mike (as featured in my "feet" books!) joined us for a few days, along with Sarah-Beth, C and M's daughter who had enlisted her cousin Jess's assistance in preparing Christmas dinner and tea - and Boxing Day breakfast - for us all. They were both novices - nay, complete newcomers - to catering of that magnitude, but the result was excellent, and not even tardy! Nome and Ed were with Ed's family for dinner, but joined us around the Christmas tree for pressies and games later on.

Christmas morning church attended and dinner consumed, presents were opened, games were played, nibbles were nibbled and drinks were drunk - and not one of us was! And we all fell into bed happily knackered at some late hour. Oops, we forgot the washing-up! That became my task the next morning before anyone else was awake. (In fact, it did feel like one endless task for four whole days!)

"Before anyone else was awake" was actually closer to noon than to a "normal" waking-up time, but all of us - apart from SB, who had to go elsewhere, and Eddie who had to work - went for a good long walk in the lovely, nearby Heartwood Forest, and this did a lot to clear the cobwebs. I would have taken more and better photos if so much of my focus had not been of necessity on avoiding the mud and puddles!

And suddenly it's all over. Friends and family gone home; back to work, some of them. Lights still sparkle in front-garden trees, in windows - some of them all over the house!

But they'll all be gone soon, won't they? January 6th, twelfth night? Sad, innit?

I'm back to clearing the loft and coordinating "the fixing of the sagging floor" (which sounds to me like the title of a mystery story!) I've still got several hours of writing to do to complete my latest book, "Out of the Dawn". I had originally hoped to publish it this week, but "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" (which is Robert Burns's Scottish translation of "shit happens")

And it's 2019. The Thames fireworks were amazing - all the better for being seen on the telly, warm, comfortable and accompanied by wine. The riverside crowd looked as though they were having a great time, but I would only have swapped with one of them if I had been paid a large sum of money! (No, it's NOT my age! I've always felt like that!) 2018 wasn't what we'd had in mind for it, but we're not looking back now. Only forward.

So what does 2019 have in store for us? Well, we got 2017 and 2018 wrong, so we're not going to be doing anything other than knowing what we'd like to do (a damned sight more boating than the past two years put together!) and pointing ourselves in that direction. We'd rather not have anything ganging oft agley, as best laid schemes are wont to do. (What schemes do mice lay, I wonder.)

A happy new year to you all!