Lockdown day 25 - Books and blogs and bits and bobs

I think I've reached an age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me. Today, this is the result.

BOOKS
I'd far rather that this pandemic had never happened, of course, but I'm wondering if the social distancing and shut-down are the reason for a sudden spike in my book sales. People are turning to books to ward off boredom, perhaps. Several other Kindle publishers are thinking the same thing. So, if you're in need of a good book to get carried away with, please try my latest.

They chose a narrowboat, and canal life changes things.

It changes people, too. And dogs.

"Buy it, especially now in these stressful times. It will transport you to a world where self-isolation is a real pleasure." (Valerie Poore)

Valmarp

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully wistful and rather beautiful novel

Reviewed in the United States on 22 March 2020

Verified Purchase

I was lucky enough to Beta read this book, but I loved it so much I bought the 'improved' version on publication and have read it again. It's a wonderful story of a journey on a canal with a dog, but that is in part allegorical because it's also the story of the journey of a couple's relationship, with each other and with their dog. It is full of lovely dialogue, beautiful canals, charming, colourful characters and a totally gorgeous spaniel. I can recommend it highly for anyone and everyone: boat lovers, dog lovers, character driven novel lovers and simple old fashioned story lovers. It's set on the English canals, where life is as wonderful as it can be. Buy it, especially now in these stressful times. It will transport you to a world where self-isolation is a real pleasure.

And/or take a look at my previous ones in the Kindle Store.

The writer of the review above is Valerie Poore, herself a blogger and prolific writer of books, and you can find hers in The Kindle Store, too.

Her BLOG, largely about her life in a Dutch barge in Rotterdam, can be found here. Enjoy!

My BLOG... oh, you're reading it.

(That was the books and blogs bit. This is the bits and bobs...)

I've signed up to Foodsmiles St Albans' One Plant Promise, a challenge to grow this year at least one plant to eat. Grace planted Nasturtium seeds in a trough at the front of the boat, and the first shoots have burst through. When they're fully grown, every part of the plant can be eaten, especially as part of a salad. I'm a little anxious now that I've discovered that "Nasturtium" is Latin, and means, quite literally "Nose twist"!

The breeze on the Marina pond under the late-afternoon sky yesterday...

and the same water this afternoon with no wind.

And these are just snaps I took while I was doing the longest possible walk around the marina site today.

Before I finish this, I'll go and see if there's a sunset...

There was!

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

A smiley event

Regular readers will know about the FoodSmiles community garden project Naomi started back in April 2014. On the day it was launched, the half-acre plot - donated by the farmer owner - had been untouched for years, and was very daunting,

but the new members of this collective worked long and hard to turn it around, with the help of a number of generous donors, particularly St Albans' Aylett's Nursery.

Last Sunday, four years on, they held a Harvest Festival celebration of the past year's success. a good number of the large team that work the plot attended, along with local mayors and members of the public.

It was a lovely event. They'd had festivals like it in previous years, but we'd always been on Kantara at the time. This was our chance to celebrate with them. Said the Maiden provided music in three sets, there was lot of food - much of it home-grown - and local ale. Nome had put together a treasure-hunt around the site, in the style of the professionally-produced ones she and Ed and Grace and I have done before.

I was amazed by the great progress they'd made since the last time I saw the garden. The poly-tunnels are full of tomatoes and other less hardy crops, and the out-door beds are a delight. The workers receive a regular basket of the produce, the size of the share being related to how many hours work per week they sign up for, and the baskets have been plentiful and varied. FoodSmiles were at the Mayor’s Pride Awards at the end of March, and came away runners-up in the Environmental Champions category - a great achievement.

On the boating front, even if we were able to be back on Kantara now, we'd not be able to go anywhere. Some weeks ago, we got mechanic Colin onto the matter of our leaky fuel injectors. He and others had tried in vain to stop the leaks, so now it was time to have them reconditioned. Colin removed them and took them to a company that are set up to do the job. Their expected charge was £40 per injector - there are four of them. He came back to me a week later with the news that they'd actually cost four times that, and that it might well be that new injectors would be cheaper, or only a little more expensive. I contacted a Barrus dealer and asked them for a quote. £230 each plus VAT! The job's back in Colin's hands now, and we're going for the refurb!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, painting's all done on the hall, stairs and landing, wallpapering will be completed today, the carpet man's coming to see us soon, and the plumber's been briefed. The utility room's only small, so it won't take us long (though we've said that before...!)

The header of this blog says something about "living the dream". We're back to dreaming it now!