Telegraphing Dr. Jones....

For reasons best kept to myself, I'm trying to find out how far apart telegraph poles are. Can anyone help?

Two out of five isn't bad.

For the last five New Year's, I've spent two of them now ill. Very ill. You should see the colour of the snot. In the voice of Michael Caine: "The flu-like cold, has landed." Quite.

It started brewing a few days ago, but came down last night with a vengence. This morning was even worse. Getting out of bed took four hours, and even then it was only to telephone the people we were supposed to be going to see for New Year in Coventry and apologise for not being fit to travel. Still, I doubt they wanted us to come and share illness with everyone. So instead we braved the local supermarket for some Morgan's Spiced Rum (for purely medicinal purposes you understand) and, because it turns out they're closed from this afternoon for a while, most of the contents of their sausage section marked down to 49p per pound. Who would have thought?

This illness has led to an interesting revelation revealing itself. That is that every home contains at least one tub of Vicks Vapourub. What is more, no-one remembers buying it, and it is always several years out of date. Not that Vicks ever actually does go out of date. Not properly. That and Worcestershire sauce would be the only consumables that could survive a nuclear holocaust.

Widow to the electronic world

Zoë is really into Guitar Hero and Rock Band. She bought into these when Guitar Hero II just came out, and never looked back (buying Guitar Hero I and a second guitar on the same day). Since then we've bought much of both franchises, with the PS2 turning into the console that just keeps on giving!

Yesterday, she finally found a drum kit on the cheap for it. £23 lighter and our shopping expedition into town was cut short as I was left to shepherdess a very excited Zoë clutching a large box towards the railway station, so that we could get the train home.

My name is Jennifer. I am a Rock Band widow. Note to self: buy Zoë those mufflers to go on the drum pads. They are noisy for what amounts to an electronic drum kit.

Into the dream world

It's been an interesting Christmas. But that's not what I'm a bout to talk about. What has been plaguing me for more than a few days has been the re-emergance of nightmares. I've had periods where I've suffered from them.

Dreaming has always been a little odd for me. I remember a lot of my dreams after I wake. I've even drawn a lot of my writing inspiration from them too. When they happen they tend to reoccur, and follow the same theme over several consecutive nights. I also get lucid dreams, which can sometimes become quite fun when I am aware of it within the dream and can control some of the aspects of the dream.

However, when the nightmares come they cause me a lot of trouble. The last few days have caused nightmares focussing on being back at school. They possess feelings of dread, not least because they usually focus around either not having done some important homework, or that I am about to sit an exam which I have no idea about the subject of. Sometimes the dream morphs, but remains along the same setting; I'm still a achoolgirl, but there's something not quite right. Last night the dream moved to a setting in a futuristic city. All the inhabitants were in a panic. Somewhere in the city buildings beneath us an unseen enemy was invading and killing. We all had to climb higher to try and escape through abandoned homes and shops. I remember hiding in a lingerie boutique at one point and hearing the gunshots echo from the corridor outside the door. Then I found a baby, and had to try and find its Mother. Then the dream morphed, and I was on an island with Sea Cadets, and I was a cadet again preparing old boats to go sailing. But I slipped and fell into a ravine as the tide went out and became trapped in a network of caves and tunnels, trying to escape before the tide came back in and drowned me.

There are strong emotions present in the dreams, that override much of the setting and the activities. I feel a sense of fear, danger and regrets all tinged together which do linger even with the wakened state memories of the dreams. How can these feelings persist? I don't know, but they do. Even now there is a strange empty feeling of emotions mingled within the memories of the nightmares.

Hopefully the nightmares will diminish and I might get a decent night's sleep again. Until now, I seem plagued to toss and turn and wake up more than a dozen times during a night.

Snowed in.

Over the last week we've had more snow than I remember since some time in the early 1980s. What is more, unlike previous flutters of snow over the last two decades. the snow has hung around and not immediately melted. Even as I type the snow is coming down at a fair old lick. Actually, we can now be said to be officially snowed in here at Jenny Towers. Snowed in is the best kind - you never want to be snowed out.

I went out this morning to start my car and discovered that the locks were frozen. All of them. Not to worry, as the car was buried in snow up to the alloys, and the lane wasn't faring any better that we would have to pull out onto. No-one has been down there since Sunday, and that person was me, almost getting my car stuck in the snow getting it into the back yard.

We're stocked up, so we're not too worried. As long as they don't turn the internet off we'll be...... ******RUNTIME ERROR. CONNECTION RESET BY PEER******

Move into '92, still in a room without a view.

I have the Christmas number one going around in my head. It's been doing that for a while. Rage against the machine always were a favourite of mine. However, it makes me feel very old that I bought this album - on vinyl - in 1992. Can I say that I believed in it from the very start? It has some excellent guitar work and gratuitous use of the wah-wah pedal. Me like. Me liked in 1992 when I was a lil' schoolgirl in the 3rd year of secondary school. *le sigh*

Parté!

A big welcome to fan #50 - thanks everyone for believing in my work. This year has been a great one, and I've seen a lot of people get behind me. I have an agent now off the back of 'Bringing home the stars' and I have my fingers crossed for 2010 being another great year building on the successes of this year.

Thanks everyone and don't forget to party like it's 2009!!!

Almost finished the Over-commercialised-festive-period shopping

Well, call me cynical, but I am. Anyway I've just about finished my Christmas shopping. Due to money constraints I've set myself a tight budget this year, and actually have managed to stick to it. I do hope that people like what I've got for them. I like to think that I've tried to anticipate what they like (helped in part by asking lots of questions) rather than making a guess and probably getting it wrong. There is, after all, nothing more awkward than getting some-one a gift that they really don't know what to do with.

I am often accused of people difficult to buy for. I suppose it is partly because if I need something badly enough, I just buy it myself. However, if you were to be able to climb into my thoughts, you would discover I'm actually really easy to buy for. I have hobbies and interests, and sticking to those areas usually could get me something I would really like. I have an extensive model railway, and if you knew which periods I modelled and what I already have, then getting something is actually really easy. Also, I collect vinyl LPs. If you knew the music I was into, and again, what I already have, then there's a good area too. I have extensive collections of books and as an OCD sufferer I tend to buy sets of books that match each other. Knowing what sets I collect and which ones of those sets I am missing is also a good present buying bet.

I also like lingerie. Not just any old lingerie, mind (a rookie mistake). There are certain things and certain colours and then you're home free - well, as long as you know my size. Of course, a lady does not divulge those secrets here so *blows raspberry*

On representation

Good news in the pipeline with regard to an agent. Hopefully everything will be finalised in the New Year. It feels weird at the moment after so long of getting the usual form rejections to get some-one who read my stuff and liked it.

Through the square window.

What's through the square window today children? Well, Jenny discovered that brown houshold wall emulsion paint mixed with sand and granite chippings, spread around on a flat surface with a watery brush then garnished liberally with more coloured sand and finally trimmed with little lashings of gloss varnish looks remarkably like wet mud. Except it is solid as a rock. Who would have known?

Smell the glove.

There is something about the smell of glue, paint and freshly cut wood. It is the smell of creativity, as Zoë put it. That it is.

Before anyone decides to call those awfully nice men with sleeveless white jackets and latex gloves, I'm building an exhibition layout. *phew*

Running up that hill.

At the radio yesterday I played a track called 'All the love' by Kate Bush. It's no big secret that I am a Kate Bush fan, even having a signed photo that says: "To Jenny, with love from Kate" (yes, it is genuine). The track got me thinking, because the LP it is on shares a PVC sleeve with another LP and a 12" for protection (I was planning on playing a track off the 12" which was why they were with me). I haven't actually played the LP in a very long time, because I always thought it was her weakest album.

I've put it on the turntable in my office tonight and has a listen through and it has prompted an awful lot of memories. I remember when I last played it: around 1999. It has sat languishing for ten years. It was bought even earlier on a shopping trip with my first fiancée, Steffi, some time around 1996. Back then we were inseperable and hung out with each other all the time, even being engaged for a year once we disappeared off to University. Long distance relationships are hard; too hard at times. We were at opposite ends of the country, and because of that and a load of other reasons (she got in with a bad crowd and started doing heavy drugs) we split up. We stayed in contact though, and up until a few years ago I still visited her and her new partner, Manda, in Wisbech where they went to live.

The record reminds me of her, and makes me feel quite sad listening to it. Why? Because she commited suicide last year along with her partner. It is hard losing some-one who is a solemate, and I still regarded Steffi as that despite calling off our engagement. I guess it was best for both of us, and she found some-one who cared immensely for her. But she is gone now, and it leaves me thinking a lot about the issues around suicide. I've had many problems in my life, and spent too long in hospitals to forget it. But things are better now; I worked through the worst of those pits of despair. But Steffi didn't. Suffering with agoraphobia and paranoia at the very end, she finally did what for many years she talked about. It was hard losing her even if in the last year our only contact was one phonecall and several others and a letter that went unanswered. I know now why the answers stopped.

There are people I know who have issues that are taking them to dark places. It pains me to see it happening; I don't want to lose more people to suicide, especially when I've seen what happens to those around them who have to pick up the pieces.

Please don't. Things get better, honest

There's life out there on this spartan ball of dust.

I had an interesting letter in the post the other day. It was a five month old response from an agent. I'd actually forgotten about it; after all, that's far too long to expect a genuine reply. But it came.

In light of recent developments I found the agent's comments a little amusing, not least because in the SAE he managed to enclose tewnty pages of some-one else's manuscript. It left me wondering whether he was talking about my manuscript, or the chic lit that had got mixed in? I'm actually suspecting that he may well have got them mixed up. Wouldn't that be a bugger if some chic lit author got an offer for representation for a book they know nothing about, much less wrote?

It was interesting to have a read of some other budding author's work. It somehow made the treadmill of sending out to agents that I have done for the last five months human again. It is easy to forget about the rest of the world and think I'm the only one doing this, but receiving this extract brought home that there are so many others out there struggling too.

Hopefully I'm not struggling any more :)

All warm and cosy.

Captain's log aditional:

Today we had cavity wall and loft insulation done at chateaux Jennïkins. I was wondering tentatively how much of a difference it might make. A part of me thought I might be underwhelmed. Well, I'm not. I'm - quite frankly - amazed at just what a huge differene it has made. Not only is the house substantially warmer, but even traffic noises outside seem further away and quieter. I cannot recomend more highly making use of the government grant system to have your house better insulated.

My little empire in miniature.

Phew! It's been a busy few days. Why? Because I've been distracting myself by building an exhibition standard model railway. The reason I've been distracting myself is because of an agent. He's going through some of my stuff and I wanted something that would stop me impatiantly pacing up and down or hassling him via email.

I started with the woodwork (a fairly unexplored area for me - the last extensive thing I made of wood was a record flight case back in 1997) and then moved on to track and electrics. Now, electrickery is another grey area to me, but I have to say that despite the frustrations, I've got quite good at it. Indeed, I'm now really quite good at soldering now too.

The layout required sixteen switches to be wired to twelve points (some of which were rather complicated three-way points and a double slip), around half of which were a complete nightmare sent forth from hell electrofrog points. There are two isolating sections for locomotives and I've also managed to work out and wire two polarity switching circuits for a rather complex piece of track.

I feel I have acheived much, even if my delightful model railway looks rather spartan and devoid of scenery. That will come later.

Grammatical pet hates.

The standard of written English seems to have taken a radical nosedive in the last few years. So much so that I begin to feel like written English is almost a second language to many on the internet.

So many times I see ANGRY SHOUTY PEOPLE who haven't discovered that you can turn off the caps lock key. Others who write in lowercase and forget that occasionally the beginning of a sentance and people's names might like the odd capital at the front. Then there's tHe onEs WhO wRiTE liKe TheY ArE ransoming a Teddy. Yet more treat punctuation like a game of pin the tail on the Donkey. And a little grammatical note: there should not be a space between the word and the question/exclamation mark. I've also seen those who have heard about punctuation, but haven't worked out that commas and full stops don't like to be out on their own, but prefer to tag on the end of a word.

Then there's the semi colon and the apostrophe - don't get me started on them! The apostrophe denotes the possessive as well as standing in for missing words in contractions. Only a small number of unusual plurals might need them (like date numbers: 1980's because there are ten of those pesky little years in there). The semi colon actually has some quite important uses. Remember kids: it isn't just one half of a smily face ;) Two halves of a sentance that are losely connected but not directly connected are seperated by one instead of a comma: "The man picked up his umbrella; it was a rainy day outside". Then there is seperation of list items: Like this; from this. Actually, a semi colon should appear far more often than a colon does in written English; rarely it does these days.

Other pet gripes include mixing up of there, their, and they're. Remember: 'there' does not cover all three, no matter how often people try to shoe-horn it in. Then of course there is also the rise of the evil of html emails. Really, I don't think that an email message that flashes in red and green on a glitter background adds anything to the message. If you can't say it in ASCII, then really it wasn't worth saying at all.

I learnt all of the above at school. I remember being there, and remember a lot of other people being there. Have many people at large really forgotten how to communicate in writing?

I want to not look stupid dressed like the third member of Tatu.

Getting old is a strange state of affairs. Inside me there is a 16-21 year old who refuses to grow up. I remember actually really being in that age range and, well, the first time around I sort of wanted to be older; I didn't appreciate how truly great it is to be young. They say you don't miss something until it's gone and that is so true!

Around ten years has gone by though, and I look in the mirror and start to see a middle aged women having some kind of early-mid-life crisis because she really does want to do all those things better suited to a late teenager. If there was one thing I would do if presented with athe ability to go back, it would be to live my life again whilst making more of it. Oh, and hopefully they would let me take back the knowledge of winning lottery numbers too, because it just ain't cricket if you come from the future and can't make a few quid on the side.

Agent provocateur

Potentially good news in the pipeline on the writing front. Not wishing to jinx it I'll hang on a little until I spill the beans.

Paint me a shade of suspicious

Here at Jenny Towers we've just had the surreal experience of some-one knocking on our door and asking if our car, parked in the front drive, was for sale.

Why? Why would we want to sell our means of transportation? If it was for sale, I was tempted to say, it would have had a "For Sale" sign in its window. It's also not the newest of cars, being nearly fourteen years old.

Paint me a shade of suspicious*, but I always wonder what the real motives are. Maybe I've seen one too many scams perpetrated to believe complete strangers like this any more.

*Available in the Dulux range in between "Misty winter" and "raspberry mocha swirl".

A bit of hobby-based DIY.

The Jenny model railway project is now finally in full swing. Let me explain: after selling a loud of childhood toys (Hornby Dublo tinplate trains for thyose who are interested) I decided I would plough the money earned back into one of my hobbies. That is, model railways (duh!). I wanted to build a proper exhibition quality layout and to do it professionally at every level. The trouble is though that this would be a tall order given how flaky my last model railway was with dubious woodworking for the baseboards (heavy and weak - the worst of both worlds) and crap electrics.

I bought the wood (an 8'x4' sheet of 6mm ply) on Tuesday and set straight to work under the guidance of my Father. I'm really pleased to say that I did all the work with him just giving me tips and advice intermitantly. It took two days to build, but it is both very strong and very light. Yesterday I painted it all, and I have to say I am really pleased with the results - I'm actually proud of what I've done.

I'll get some photos soon so I can illistrate progress. My idea is to use them as a basis of an article or articles for model railway magazines. Once the paint has dried nice and hard (I'm leaving it be all weekend to make sure) then it is on to the electrical and track side of things. I've done a lot of planning (and really, planning everything extensively has been the key this time) so once I make a trip to Preston to a little shop to buy the bits I need, I should progress quite fast. Then and only then does the fun stuff of actually making the models start. I've done one of the two boring bits in the form of the woodwork, so just the electrics to sort then the two things which sank my last project will be conquered!

There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...

It always surprises me when some-one takes me seriously. Why? Because I don't take myself seriously at all. It makes me feel almost frightened that somebody is somehow expecting pearls of wisdom and maturity from me, and it ain't here baby. At least, I don't think so.

I get a similar feeling when playing with my nephew. I suppose he looks up to me and believes everything I say. How can I break it to him that inside my mind is a collection of thoughts and ideas as hairbrained as his own?

Taking things literally.

If I take my Father, can we park in the "parent and child" slots at the supermarket? It would at least help his dodgy hip.

Latex condom clad idiots.

There seems to be a new breed of ignorant and selfish cyclists afoot around Bolton. Namely, those who, clad in their latex condom suits, ride two or even three abreast on dangerous country roads. Now, I did cycling proficiency as a child. Back then everyone did, and one of the big no-no's was riding two or more abreast. You just don't do it.

It seems the message never sunk in to some dodos. Riding two or even three abreast on a road that is officially one of the top five most dangerous roads in the country, they risk being killed, as well as killing other people. The sooner the Police crack down on these imbeciles, the better everyone's safety will be.

I'd like to thank my family, a bloke called Bob down the pub and......

Today is the first day back on the radio after a two week holiday. Unusually for me, I spent some time on Thursday evening picking records out and having a think about what I would be likely to play. That's unusual for me, as my usual approach is to pick records from the rack at random on the morning of the show.

The annual awards are coming up soon; more importantly, the deadline for submissions is coming up at the very beginning of December. We're planning three submissions in three categories. We have a whole year of programmes to produce five minutes for each of the three, so it should not be too hard to find enough material. After having gone to the ceremony last time, I know how to focus the submission and what areas the judges are looking for, so fingers crossed that this year I'm in with a lot better chance of being able to call myself "award winning".

Chateaux of insulation.

At chateaux Jenny yesterday we had a man come around to survey the place for insulation. It's going to have cavity wall insulation as well as new loft insulation. The loft turned out to be a shocker upon survey. The level of effective insulation up there varies from two inches down to nothing. Yes, right. I therefore expect the insulation when done to make a BIG difference!

I cannot recommend more highly getting an insulation survey done. The surveys are free, and there are grants available, even if you live in a privately rented property, which can offset most or even all of the cost. We'll find out on Monday when they are coming to fit it.

Ebook offer.

A new updated edit of 'Bringing home the stars' is available now as an ebook for just 40p. Read the book that everyone is talking about! You won't be disappointed!

'Bringing home the stars' ebook.

Dezza is a gritty salvager in a harsh world. Forced to confront an urban myth made of the retelling of stories of the Mary Celeste, he finds himself pitched into a nightmare aboard a derelict Starliner in deep uncharted space. He loses his friends, his livelihood and his reputation aboard the vessel.
Returning to civilisation, he struggles to come to terms with society's prejudices of a man who lost his crewmate to a ghost story, and the demons that lurk within his own mind.

Crawling inside a bottle, he is thrown a lifeline by one person who might believe him, on the condition he returns to the Starliner. He is offered the chance of redemption and an opportunity to confront those personal demons. There are questions to be answered, not least because another salvage crew have already been and disappeared without trace.

Immortality

I've often thought that true immortality is writing a successful children's book.

Cover me in eggs and flour and bake me for ten minutes.

I hate writers' block. It is the bane of all writers the world over. It happens from time to time (and indeed I think I've written about it when it does on my blogs over the years). At the moment I'm at that awful stage of having just started another book. It's a science-fiction/horror, because I rather like that genre after the successful 'Bringing home the stars'. However I've got a very basic idea in my head and barely 1,500 words on the page. In truth I just can't seem to get a handle on it. It is as if I cannot visualise where the hell this book is going.

Many books start this way. Sometimes the starting is the hardest part - after a while I personally find that most books get into a rhythm and practically write themselves, at least for most of the way. This one, however, is proving problematic.

Still, this year has been an immensely productive year, so I shouldn't be too disappointed. However I was trying to do NaNoWriMo, and increasingly it looks like I'll not manage to get that 50,000 word figure within this month. I know I can do it, because I succeeded last year, and there is still time, but it is hard.

Whoever said working as a writer was easy? It sure as hell isn't most of the time.

That's the way the cookie explodes.

I've had in the post today one of the most patronising letters from a publisher. Actually, it is so unprofessional a response, I am so tempted to name and shame them. Still, it isn't like they are a big player in the market - perhaps with this poor standard of communication that is why?.

It uses the phrase "at the risk of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs" (cliché) for a start - remember this is their form rejection letter here. It also contradicts everything that I sent them indicating that not only have they not read my submission, but at the same time they didn't even bother to read the covering letter or indeed see that there was in fact a one page synopsis with it. It also advises me (or indeed anyone else they send this junk to) . To "send a synopsis, preferably of the 'book blurb' type" and to "not give away the ending". Bullshit. This is a business where any professional publisher wants to know what they are potentially buying and that it has a coherent plot that goes through to a worthwhile and plausible conclusion. It is certainly not like browsing the shelves of Waterstones looking for something to read on the train.

Every once in a while my work throws up a timewaster of the extreme. This publisher certainly takes that title. Thankfully, truly ignoramous-proportioned fools are few and far between, but this publisher is up there on my list (yes, I have a list of timewasters from my last ten years or so working as a writer, so I don't waste my time, paper and stamps a second time).

Why does my TV waste so much?

In this world where saving the planet seems to be the touchy-feely 'in' thing, there is something that bothers me greatly everytime a politician attempts to get themselves on the bandwagon and talks about "cutting carbon emissions". It is that almost every item of electronics available these days cannot be easily switched off properly.

Meet the bane of every power bill: the standby button.

What's wrong with a proper off switch? Remember them? You used to get off your fat arse and wander over to the TV or video and physical click them off. None of this glowing red or blue funhouses of light that were actually powerful enough to illuminate a room without the lights on. It just turned off. I keep reading about how the standby function on most modern TVs wastes nearly as much energy as when the TV is switched on. I even find now that these things are being sold without a hard off function whereby unless you burrow down behind it and physically pull the plug, it can only be turned to either wasteful standby or on.

Where the hell is common sense? If politicians were actually serious about cutting emissions they would have legislated against this useless wasting of energy for no good reason. And there is no good reason to have electronics on standby doing nothing but slurping from the national grid. I would propose a law that quite simply says: "All new electronics devices must have a switch located at the front of the device that can be easily accessed by the user which when switched brings the device's power consumption to zero." There. That wouldn't be too hard would it? But I still haven't seen it proposed after years of seeing the rise of power wasting electronics. How many power stations around the world exist just to provide the wasted power for the standby function?

If politicians really were serious about cutting greenhouse gasses, they would be banning the standby function right now.

Wind of change.

To me, the one piece of music that always reminds me of the end of the Berlin wall is the Scorpions' "Wind of change". I'm not actually sure why though; was it in the charts at the time or just played on all the news reports? I remember the wall coming down. I was in primary school at the time, but even then I sort of realised the significance. It was one of those moments that you just remember.

Lingerie and the train.

Saturday was an interesting day. We went shopping at the Metro centre (we're visiting relatives in the North East). It struck me when we came back that my shopping bag had rather an unusual combination of items in. Let's just say that lace top 15 denier stockings and model railway items make unusual bagfellows.

I'm back home tomorrow. Normal service shall hopefully resume then.

The grindstone beckons once more.

It's been a busy weekend, not least because of the annual Halloween party that Zoë and I have hosted at Chateaux Kirk-Robinson since 2005. However, the new toner cartridge finally arrived (lightning fast despite the postal strike) so all was good for getting back to the grindstone today.

Actually, I've been very busy going through Colin Smythe's recommendations. I've actually sent out to seven agents. Yes, that's right: seven agents. Two were via email, but the rest were through snail mail. The printer has performed flawlessly; it is nice to have a quiet and reliable printer again, despite the fact that I prefer to work in a paperless office ("what heathen blasphemy for a writer is this?" I hear you all cry).

Tomorrow I'm off to Durham for a week, on matters of a recreational nature. That means I won't be able to do much work, so I thought it best to make the extra special effort today. And I did.

In other news, Zoë entered me into NaNoWriMo again. She did this last year, and I did succeed in writing a book within the timeframe. I had then, however, an advantage that I had a really well-defdined idea in my head. Well, this year she's signed me up again, and I must confess that I'm not entirely sure that I have the ideas, motivation or even time. But I suppose I ought to give it a shot. No promises though.

Public service.

Dear prat in shitty XR2 at traffic lights,

Your loud music does not sound at all big or clever for a number of important reasons. Firstly, your car stereo is shit. Secondly it is turned up way too high. This means the sound, and in particular the bass beats, are distorting. Badly. They sound like a damp fart. Leaving aside the rather pathetic attempts to mod your car (because there can never be too much glowey blue under a Ford Fiesta XR2), you just sound like you are driving the mobile broadcast unit for Dickhead FM.

Yours,

Local Resident.

The trials and tribulations of marketing in a publishing world.

Getting an agent is really hard these days, even if you do have a great product in the form of a completed manuscript. Firstly there is the question of how you are pitching it. It doesn't matter how great your book is, if the first page of the first chapter and the synopsis suck. That's where what you physically send the agent is very important. But then you are at the mercy of whether they actually read it.

I'm sure that almost every agent is, at the very least, just looking for an excuse to say "no". Let's face it, they must get sent hundreds of submissions every week. Most of them will, quite frankly, be hopeless dross. They will also most likely have full books too, meaning that they're making a nice little income already, so aren't massively desperate to sign up new authors unless they look like a printing press for making their own money wrapped up in a five pound note. Or something like that (my analogies have a habit of being worse than a Weasel in a cardboard shirt).

If they don't like your typeface, it's a reason to bin it. If your name doesn't enthuse them, they'll bin it. Same for the title. Hell, I'm guessing some agents just reject automatically everything that arrives in the post on a Tuesday, or even every odd number submission, given the number of rejections I've had for material that I know is very salable and very marketable. There must be a reason why the likes of Stephen King and Joanne Rowling got a lot of rejections on books that were subsequently published and made millions. It isn't that there's necessarily a conspiracy (though it isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you) just that the odds are well stacked. How easy would it be to be spotted in the crowd at a Beatles comeback tour, even if you were the world's sexiest person? It's those kind of odds.

Zoë tells me it's just like the odds in marketing. You might have to know on a hundred doors to get one sale, even if your product is the moon on a stick. With glitter and candy. So with agents, it pays to keep trying if you really honestly believe that the work you are trying to get a deal on is up to standard. On that basis, I'm waiting for another printer toner cartridge (yes, it's that sad sorry saga again) and have a list of another six or seven people to send out to, now the steady trickle of generic rejection slips are dribbling in. Sci-fi/horror is a difficult genre area to sell at the best of times, so that makes it even harder. Based on the arbitary way that some agents seem to reject submissions without reading them, I'm almost tempted to change my manuscript's title, tweak the synopsis and send it out all over again to the same list. Actually, I'm a little way off being desperate enough to do that. Yet.

Progress at last, of sorts.

After a mammoth evening/early hours of the morning session of heavy editing, I've reached the goal of page 100, or approximately one third of the way through 'Orb of Arawaan'. I'm happy that I have at least in a small way made up a little for the period that depression made it hard to keep to my work schedule.

Hopefully I'll get this second edition done within a timescale of weeks rather than months now. At least then I'll be a little happier that some of the mistakes and typos are dealt with, that it reads better and that - importantly - I'm familiar with the story again ready to contemplate writing the very overdue part two of the trilogy.

Bed time beckons, or at least the newest episode of 'House'....

Surprise - software that just works.

I've become annoyed over recent months with Firefox. I had installed version 3, and to be honest its stability and speed were becoming worse and worse. I had even installed Safari as a backup because of Firefox's tendency to crash on many sites.

This evening Firefox finally gave up the ghost. It crashed out, and even when trying to reboot it in safe mode, I was stuck with an annoying issue reporting tool that itself didn't work. One thing I desperately needed was the bookmarks file, otherwise I would have just gone straight over to Safari and never looked back. Except that Firefox keeps the damn things well hidden.

Reluctantly I went to Firefox's website and decided to try one last ditch effort: reinstall over itself and hope that the broken bits get fixed enough for it to work without trashing the bookmarks. Well, They're up to version 3.5.3 now, and I gave it a go. Imagine my surprise when a software install to fix something actually worked with no teeth gnashing, no hassle, and just worked. Well, it did. I'm back up and running with a browser which has retained all of my preferences and personal settings from before, but which actually runs quickly and without instability.

Result - for a change.

My week and other animals.

I've had a bad time with depression over the last week or so. It happens, and eventually I do pull through. I've suffered bouts of depression for a very long time. When I get depressed I find my OCD gets a lot worse, so the house is reasonably neat, clean and tidy. I suppose that's a good side effect of my OCD.

I've been trying to force myself to do things to take my mind off the depression. When depression strikes, motivation can be extremely hard. I don't become suicidal these days, instead tending to curl up in bed and switch off for days on end. That is bad, and I realise that so I've been trying to find things for me to do. But that isn't always easy. The writing and editing that is supposed to be my work has slid a little bit. Over the last day I've managed a little bit of editing of a book (which is long over deadline now). I've written absolutely nothing new in around a month, which sucks for a writer. I find myself staring at a text document with my hands hovering over the keyboard, and that's where I'll stay until I give up and turn the computer off.

I've had just enough energy to occasionally read my emails, and even more occasionally read the odd blog post. Apart from that, my computers have been mostly turned off. I tried rekindling other activities, and have managed over a couple of days to spend time laying out an oval of model railway track and test running a lot of locomotives, some of which haven't run in five or six years. It passed some time, but it always felt like something was missing because of the depression.

I've also bought some marine plywood for finishing the renevation of the ASC that I was working on over the summer. Hopefully I can throw myself into doing that over this next week, and that might just cheer me up a little.

Still, I can feel I'm getting better. I've had tons of rejections back from agents for my book. There's still a few replies outstanding off submissions, but it seems that every agent is just turning around submissions unread in the main for whatever reasons (usually full lists is the explanation given). I find this deeply frustrating given the rave reviews the book gets from everyone who does read it. Unfortunately none of the people reading it are agents or publishers *shakes fist* I have a list of editors to send out to next, though I'm not being helped by printer issues. I think I will have to bite the bullet and get another toner cartridge to replace the one which managed barely 500 pages before it died. I shan't be buying from the same supplier again (and yes, I would have sent it back except that I tried to fix the problem - which technically I did - but the toner leaked out in the process)
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What I meant to add...

I almost forgot to mention that the portfolio section of the website has been updated. I've finally got around to uploading the last part of 'Long summer of war' which is rather large, but I felt I had left readers waiting too long so you deserved something special. It was my first attempt at a novella, and I think it turned out all right. I also uploaded the revised opening for 'Orb of Arawaan' to give an idea at how the editing is going. It's the first editing pass so far, and I've done around a quarter of the whole book. Hopefully it will be a huge improvement with the grammatical errors and typoes finally removed!

I also want to mention that 'The life of Nob T. Mouse' and 'All over the house' have been updated with new stories and can be found on their respective websites (if the links don't work on the RSS feed, go to http://www.jennifer-kirk.com/links.html and follow the links there). They're really special and are leading into this year's big story arc.

What a nice guy.

I've just had an email from Colin Smythe - aka Terry Pratchett's agent. What a nice helpful man. He doesn't take on new clients because Terry keeps him so busy, but he did send me a list of agents he recomended as well as a list of editors at sci-fi/fantasy publishers who might be worth trying submitting to. Now, if only my damn printer would work.... I have another replacement toner cartridge on order, but the last one turned out to be a real lemon.

A bestseller in waiting

'Bringing home the stars' has finally got a revised version up on Lulu. That's the version with the six months' worth of editing in it. It is, by far, the best thing I have ever written - in my opinion. Now, if only agents would take the time to look at it I'm sure that they would agree too and be snapping over themselves to option it. Everyone who has read it has loved it. The feedback I have received has been astounding. Hell, even my parents like it and that's saying a lot from the people who nit-picked their way through my previous six books (I got the impression they only read those because they felt obligated - this one they read because it drew them in and they wanted to keep reading to know more).

It has everything that a good accessible horror story should have. Whilst set in a sci-fi environment, that doesn't actually dominate the story, so people reading it have commented that whilst they wouldn't have normally read sci-fi, this attracted them and held their interest all the way through.

So, if any agents read as far as my blog, take a look at the book and read the first few chapters and you will not be disappointed. It is a new generation of sci-fi/horror that will be certain to be a bestseller with an almost certain movie deal off the back of it, just so long as some-one gives it its chance and offers to represent it.

That damn printer again. Oh, and busy on the writing development front.

Another two submissions sent off today. I've also started looking through one of my earlier sci-fi books because it has an LGBT theme, and I've got some information about a magazine that might be interested in such merging of themes and genres. I still have to finish the edit for the second edition of 'Orb of Arawaan'. I'm finding motivation hard (I dislike revisiting older works for any reason) but it's getting there. I'm fitting it in though around my work on promoting my current writing. The idea is that it would be nice to have several novels really nicely polished, just in case a big publishing deal comes sniffing!

Those who have been following the printer saga may be interested that I have a new image drum and toner cartridge on order courtesy of Ebay. They are alledgedly brand new OEM products, but for the price I feel suspicious that the seller will be likely to somehow renage on the contract. It's been several days since I paid for them with no contact from the seller, so I'll give it until after the weekend and send them a message. That's the problem with Ebay - you never quite know about the legitamacy of the items. I've had a few things turn out to be not quite the way they were advertised.

Progress is a dirty word unless buffed with polish.

I'm quite pleased that both The life of Nob T. Mouse and All over the house have started up again after an enforced break of a month because of Zoë's work. They're up online now, and hopefully they'll be regular again just as they were.

In other news, my printer toner cartridge has spluttered out again. I'm really disappointed as the cartridge is supposed to be good for 6,000 pages, yet instead has managed only 500 before a combination of mechanical issues and a toner leak have meant its all out at the equivelent of the princeley printing cost of 12p per page. Ouch. I've got a replacement on order, and I now at least know to look out for old cartridges which have been refilled one too many times so as to avoid them like the plague.

Two rejections arrived in the post today. That's not too bad, but it takes the total number of rejections up to five. Of those, one was patronising, one doodled their reply on MY cover letter (please, at least use your form reject letter), one said it wasn't the sort of thing they represented but that it was good and I should keep sending to other agents, and one politely said they weren't looking to take on new clients. Fair enough.

'Progress' is a dirty word unless buffed with polish.

I'm quite pleased that both The life of Nob T. Mouse and All over the house have started up again after an enforced break of a month because of Zoë's work. They're up online now, and hopefully they'll be regular again just as they were.

In other news, my printer toner cartridge has spluttered out again. I'm really disappointed as the cartridge is supposed to be good for 6,000 pages, yet instead has managed only 500 before a combination of mechanical issues and a toner leak have meant its all out at the equivelent of the princeley printing cost of 12p per page. Ouch. I've got a replacement on order, and I now at least know to look out for old cartridges which have been refilled one too many times so as to avoid them like the plague.

Two rejections arrived in the post today. That's not too bad, but it takes the total number of rejections up to five. Of those, one was patronising, one doodled their reply on MY cover letter (please, at least use your form reject letter), one said it wasn't the sort of thing they represented but that it was good and I should keep sending to other agents, and one politely said they weren't looking to take on new clients. Fair enough.

Thanks to an SAE, I have one hard copy that I can send out again, and I have some agents to approach who will accept email submissions (the modern technological age is upon us! Run for your lives!). Also, I'm looking at submitting to a magazine for serialisation. It's American based, but it looks quite good. They seem to like LGBT themes for sci-fi, and I'm actually tempted to see whether they might be interested in one of my other sci-fi works that has an LGBT theme - there can't be that many writers combining LGBT issues with sci-fi, can there?

Techno wizard - she sure plays mean netball!

Well, not quite (the last time I played netball I ended up with a scar on one of my knees that I still have). I've been fiddling with the printer, and in a surprise move it seems that it is the new toner cartridge causing the issues. Let me explain: it appears to be a refilled and remanufactured cartridge. (Here comes the science part) Unfortunately the bearings on its mechanical gubbins are, well, on the verge of being shot. That means the extra resistance is juddering the toner roller and causing issues with the print quality. There isn't much I can do, though I've oiled every moving part I can find. It has helped but not solved the problem.

So there we are. It seems the only solution is to be more careful when buying replacement cartridges. Also, if I can get some Epson original cartridges off Ebay, that too would help. For the time being though, I am still stuck with questionable print quality at the very best.

Technology is so helpful... if it works.

The printer woes are still plagueing me. I've cleaned the photoconductor unit to no avail. I've even taken a look at the image conveyer belt, and that seems fine. Actually, I've seen far more of tyhe inside of laser printers than I really ever wanted to.

I'm left wondering about the quality of the new toner cartridge. It was a cheap non OEM one, and whilst it managed 400 or so trouble free pages, it has to be seen as a little suspicious that so soon after replacing the original cartridge did printing anomolies arise. I'm trolling Ebay for replacements for both the toner and the photoconductor. Until I succeed in getting some spare parts for a small outlay, I have to regard my printer as annoyingly out of service. It picks its moments, so it does.

Help me! Printer troubles.

I have an Epson EPL-5800L mono laser printer. A couple of weeks ago I replaced the toner because it had run out. All went fine for around 400 pages of printing, but now I'm getting lines of printed text looking washed out, as if for one line the toner didn't quite stick to the paper right. All the other lines on the page look fine, and it seems to happen quite a few lines of text appart - it never affects two adjacent lines. I've tried cleaning out the printer and the photo conductor unit to no avail. Sometimes the problem gets so bad that two out of every three printed pages are badly affected. Occasionaly a page comes out just fine as if there is no problem.

I'm at a loss, and don't know whether there is a problem with the new toner drum, or the photoconductor drum or even something else in the printer and I'm not prepared to do diagnosis by expensive trial and error opf replacing parts (laser printer parts like the photo conductor drum and toner cartridges are NOT cheap!). According to the printer's memory, the photo conductor drum is the original, and the toner cartridge I replaced was also the original. As the drum is good for 20,000 pages of printing, and each toner cartridge does around 6,000 pages then I should be well within the lifespan of the photo conductor.

Does anyone have any helpful suggestions of what the issue could be and how to easily fix it?

Toner, toner and n'er a drop to drink.

It's been a busy few days, despite being laid low by some mysterious illness that leaves me tired and full of fatigue. I've been getting more submissions off; I'm up to eighteen altogether now, and still have more to go. My trusty laser printer has been acting up a little. I suppose after some eighteen months of relative inactivity, suddenly being called upon to print hundreds of pages must be annoying. If it had a personality and could think, that is.

I've been getting odd lines of text looking faded. I've cleaned the optical unit with a can of compressed air (seriously - people do sell cans of nothing but compressed air. In some ways isn't that like selling sand to Egyptions?) and a lot of dust came out. Latterly this seems to have worked and the print quality has improved. However it is apparent that cheap-n-cheerful refil toner cartridges aren't as good quality as the super-duper overpriced Epson originals. Still, I never print graphics so I guess it will be okay.

Right, the printer has stopped chundering paper out so it's just envelopes to address and I'll post them all on the way to vote. Yes, I do vote - anything to get one useless bunch of career charlatons out to be replaced by another set of career charlatons. Gosh: aren't I a cynic?

Some-one has poured treacle into my ethernet.

Is it me, or is t'internet having a competition today with Royal Mail to see which can provide the slowest service? My parcel still hasn't arrived, but the broadband speed isn't far behind, being reminiscent of the bad old days of 33.6 baud modems.

I never was a popular child

Apparently, Authonomy is nothing more than a popularity contest. How strange? And there's me thinking that selling books was also often little more than a popularity contest to get noticed and get on shelves?

Oh gosh, I'm a cynic. But it is true. Several hundred revues from complete strangers, all deeply favourable, must contain some truth? It's certainly better than saying: "I gave twenty copies to my Mum and close family and they all loved them.

Who would ever have guessed?

It's late and my fridge is empty.

I'm up to 15 for 'Bringing home the stars' - that's stuff I've sent out. That's more than I ever sent out for any of the previous six books. This book though is the best yet by a long, long way. Everyone who has read it has loved it, including my parents, and they usually never read either sci-fi or horror. And they're not just being nice either - they've pointed out everything they didn't like with all six previous books, but with this one there was nothing but praise. It's not limited to just family though - complete strangers have loved it and felt motivated enough to contact me to tell me so. I have a good feeling about it. *fingers crossed*

The moon on a stick.

Today seems to have been a busy day, largely doing all those little administrative things that leave you with a feeling of having done a lot and achieved nothing of note. I was in Bury in the morning, getting some beauty treatment (don't ask) and then had to head off down to Whitefield to drop off a piece of model railway equipment at a shop. The guy who owns the shop bought it and a few other things, then forgot to pick it up when he left. He wasn't there, but my ears got held hostage by the lacky behind the counter whose pulling technique seemed to revolve around showing me lots of the part built kits he had been working on.

I eventually managed to acheive escape velocity and made my way off to Kearsley to a well-known car parts factors, and bought a whole load of new bulbs for my trusty Swedish tank. I warn you now - I have all my rear lights working next time it is dark! I even got some spares (because the little buggers always blow when you least expect it) and a new oil filter because I think I need to give the inside of its engine a clean not before too long.

I called in at the garage on the way back to pump up my tyres. I don't know what it is about cars that I own, but at least two of the tyres will always have a slow puncture. Do I drive on particularly abrasive bits of roads? Most people I know never check their tyre pressures, but I seem condemned to have to pump up two of mine regardless of what car I have or when the tyres were replaced for all eternity. I met a friend at the petrol station and we had a good old chin wag about nothing in particular, and that took up even more time. But it was worth it (he has a very pert arse.... ahem!).

I've been producing yet more paperwork to send off to agents. My aim for this week has been to send off to two per day. As it happens, both yesterday and today I've managed three, with an email submission in addition to the hard copy submissions on each day. It makes me feel a little more productive than I probably have been. I just have to post the two hard copies that are beside me now, but it isn't too far to the post box (I can see it from my office window).

In a stroke of luck it seems Fate has been kind to me. I discovered that the ten stamps I bought actually turned out to be twelve in number. I guess the lady at the Post Office didn't realise they were six to a row instead of five in her book. They weren't cheap stamps either - 90p each - so there's a nice little £1.80 unexpectedly. Things aren't all bad. Actually, last night I got mooned by the most hairy arsed drunkard at the traffic lights. Now there's an odd experience. I wound the window down and yelled something rude at him. Something about a hairy banana that had been slapped once too many times. He seemed a little crestfallen. But what else was I supposed to say? It isn't often that some complete stranger presents their hairy arse cheeks to your car window for inspection.

What you can do with paper and toner - who knew?

Two lots of 'Bringing home the stars' went out to agents yesterday, and another three have gone out today. All hail my newfound productivity! (with a little help from arrival yesterday of printer paper and toner).

It's amazing how much motivation being able to get things done has given me. I've cleaned the bathroom too (a job that had been lurking for a week) and done all manner of other little niggly jobs like change the gas and electricity supplier, handled Zoë's brimming and unloved message inbox (she is working too many hours these days to find time for much on the internet) and even had a change of the train porn display case in the office.

I must add, for those who weren't already aware, that Zoë terms my interest in all things railways as "train porn" not least because I have an antique oak chest in my office that if opened contains full to the brim lots of model railway locomotives, coaches and wagons. It was odd at first to hear her call it the "train porn chest" but I'm used to it now, to the point that I like to embaress her in the street when we're down in Manchester together by asking "Can we go to the train porn shop?". I suspect it is a rather odd interest for a girly girl to have, but then all authors have to have their quirks.

A printer is only as good as the supply of paper in it.

The more important of the two parcels arrived today. I don't know where my Lily Allen LP is, but at least the toner for my laser printer arrived at long last (around a week overdue). It slotted into my printer after a couple of false starts and my worrying that it might be the wrong one because it had the wrong model number printed on it. But it was right, and I got printing pretty quickly clearing my backlog of stuff to process and send off to agents.

Or at least I would have had I remembered to check the amount of paper we had left. D'oh! Fifteen sheets wasn't nearly enough, so I then had to walk out to the supermarket to get more paper. Still, I suspect I needed the exercise, and it didn't take more than an hour (and I have chocolate in the fridge now to boot).

I got the first two submissions printed off and addressed, then it was time for a long walk the other way to the Post Office to get them into the post. As everything is going to be the same size and weight, I took the chance to get enough stamps for ten submissions. That should remove the need to have to walk down to the Post Office again until next week. "Hooray!" my weary feet are saying.

It's amazing what having the right tools does for getting a job done. I've even gone and got a loud of promotion work done too and I've still got most of the afternoon free. I probably ought to get back to doing a full edit of 'Orb of Arawaan' but I must confess that between David Bowie singing about the babe in my ear (that Labrynthitis thing I mentioned before) and thefatigue it has brought with it, I've been somewhat lacking in motivation for that work for a while. Still, I'm sure I'll perk up again soon - maybe that chocolate in the fridge will help?

Waiting in for Royal Fail.

So, how many weeks is average for first class post? I've been waiting over a week now for a replacement toner cartridge for my laser printer. It was posted the week before last, yet it is still not here. To boot, an LP ordered off Amazon at the same time is also not here. Just how bad is Royal Fail these days?

I think next time I ought to be ordering the cartridge at the first signs of running low on toner, rather than continually shaking the cartridge to get a few more pages out until shaking gets me no further. I've been pretty much twiddling my thumbs for the last week because I just can't print off anything. Normally I work in a paperless office, but alas it seems most agents do not share my environmental views and demand hard copy double spaced and single sided of everything (hence why my paperless office does still have a printer).

Bah!

Four wheels good, three wheels bad.

Yesterday whilst I had my car on the jack to change a tyre, the jack broke. Badly. Very badly. It is held up by a metal screw that goes through a plastic threaded block, and it was this block which sheared off. Ever seen a car drop suddenly to the tarmac? You find out what the air freshener hanging on the rear view mirror is all about when you think "my hand was around that hub seconds ago".

When a spare jack was eventually found, I found that the backing plate behind the brake disk was bent. I've levered it back with the tyre iron, and the wheel went back on okay. I drove around a couple of miles to check nothing was damaged, and there are no strange noises and the brakes work okay. Still, that was not an experience I feel like repeating. Now I need to get a replacement jack. There are quite a few on Ebay that I have my eye on. Still, it goes to show why you never go underneath a vehicle supported only by a jack.

Jenny on Lily

Lily Allen is an artist that I wanted to not like from the start. I disliked her image, and disliked the shallow nature of her songs. I also really disliked the way she seemed to refuse to correctly pronounce the letter 't' in words.

It has to be said that her early stuff really did bolster my thoughts to this effect. Shallow, materialistic and - dare I say it - chavvy. It embodied everything I thought had gone wrong with young people in Britain (gosh, I sound like an old fart saying that).

However, there came a single called "the fear" that I discovered on the radio and actually really liked. As is the way with these things, I checked first to make sure that this single wasn't just a cover of a better artist's song. But is wasn't. So I bought a 7" picture disk copy of it, and have to say that I still liked it. What was more, I heard first another then yet another good Lily Allen song off the same album it seems. So today, I have finally bitten the bullet and ordered on vinyl LP a copy of the "It's not me, it's you" album.

It only goes to show that whilst first impressions might be powerful, they aren't always the ones that persist. I'm also quite open to giving groups and artists a second chance. Marilyn Manson is just such an artist, who I detested until "Mechanical Animals" appeared. It goes to show that music is an ever-changing medium that certainly does throw up a few surprises.

I await the LP with interest, and only hope that some day Lily Allen discovers that mispronouncing the letter 't' does not make you sound cool, but rather, a prat.

Captain's log, additional.

Incidentally, if anyone might have going dirt cheap a Bosun sailing dinghy, complete or just a hull (I have access to all the spare parts including the woodwork) I'm interested. :)

What does a cynic do on her weekend?

Today was spent up at the lake working on boats. There weren't enough cadets to warrent sailing boats, so it was a lazier day running the Viking motorboat and letting cadets use the canoe that normally gets used for getting out to the buoy the Viking is moored to. We also brought in the ASC to check in its cover. It's done its job remarkably well, keeping Seagull poo out of the insides, as well as shielding any water that has leaked in from the sun so that slime and algae doesn't appear in it. Consequently the boat's interior looks like it was renovated yesterday rather than at the beginning of the season. So that means that that is one less boat needing work doing to it for a change. Next year will see all our efforts able to be channelled into getting boats on the water earlier in the season and getting more boats renovated for use.

Zoë recorded the Italian grand prix for me whilst I was out, so I had the luxurious task of watching that on my return. It was quite pleasent downing a few beers whilst it was on. I rarely drink beers these days, except when a grand prix is on. I could not believe that Hamilton threw it all away on the final lap. What was he thinking of? I bet he is gutted tonight.

Zoë's birthday present arrived on Saturday. I've got her Guitar hero 5 - don't worry; she knows all about it already. She is hooked on the Rock Band/Guitar hero franchises, and we have studiously been buying them on the venerable PS2 since Guitar hero one was out. So far all keep coming out for the PS2, with the exception of the Beatles one, so we have no desire to change the console (at any rate, we have a Wii but aren't in the mood to buy duplicate instruments for it). The PS2 is the console that just keeps on giving - I really like it. That's a lot more than I could say for the PS3 which is an overpriced lump of crap. If we did buy another console eventually, I suspect it would be the Xbox 360. That won't be for a while yet though.

Tomorrow is a busy day. I have a lot of agents to approach, but as they are mostly all still stuck in the past, they won't accept emails. So that means I need to get a new toner cartridge for the laser printer. I'm going to be printing a lot of pages, so it makes sense compared to taxing Zoë's inkjet. I also have cheques and cash to pay in from the sale of some childhood toys. My Father and I have been disposing some of the duplicates from our old Horby Dublo collection. Last week I finally finished the negotiations on the sale of three locomotives. Who would have thought that these three small items could liberate a full £440! I was going to put my half towards a sailing boat, but a bidding war broke out at the last minute on ebay and it went for silly money. That seems to happen far too often; I suspect shill bidding. Call me a cynic, because I am.

Final draft of the synopsis

WARNING: MORE SPOILERS!!!

Right. Final version of the synopsis for tonight. I'm going to bite the bullet tomorrow morning and send it I think after one last glance through.

Bringing home the stars – short synopsis

Dezza is a salvager aboard a deep space tug along with Tubs and Zoë. They find an ancient and derelict Starliner – the Cerberus – after the ship’s drive malfunctions. Onboard the Starliner, something kills Tubs. At the same time some of the Starliner’s secrets are revealed, indicating that an unknown creature has colonised the ship. Dezza and Zoë escape, and the Starliner disappears as its engines reactivate. Back on Earth, mistakes Dezza made aboard the Cerberus and the loss of Tubs haunt him. His reputation is ruined. Whilst he becomes a drunk, Zoë signs up with another crew and heads back out into space trying to put the experience behind her.

Five years later a man called West from the military offers Dezza the option to return to the Cerberus, which has reappeared in deep space, as an advisor for a military crew as a chance of regaining his standing. Ignoring his fears and the fact that another salvage crew has disappeared searching the Starliner, Dezza signs on after learning that Zoë was on that crew.

Aboard the Starliner, events occur just as they did when Dezza was here five years ago, revealing an entity that can change between matter and energy and roams through the electrical systems of the derelict Cerberus. It picks off the military crew, infiltrating their own ship resulting in its destruction so that Dezza and the survivors must try to reactivate the previous salvage crew’s dead ship in order that they might escape.

The creature grows stronger, manifesting as those it has killed before. They realise as the creature reveals itself that the only way to defeat it is to destroy the Cerberus. If they don’t, the creature will continue to consume the crews of salvage ships that would risk everything for the ultimate prize of recovering the ancient vessel and towing it back for the salvage value.

Long range scans from the salvage craft’s systems indicate that the Cerberus risks grazing a meteor swarm. There is only a chance that it will be destroyed, but they will almost certainly die if they remain because the creature is relentless. One of the surviving military crew – Tracker - provides a distraction, luring the creature after himself, allowing Dezza to recover essential components that the abandoned salvage ship needs to be reactivated. The diversion is a success and Dezza flees with the last of the military crew – Toze.

Tracker stays to ensure the creature’s destruction and prevent it from regaining control of the Cerberus. The creature attempts to fight Tracker, manifesting first as his dead comrades, then as elements of the original Starliner’s crew. Only by facing up to the creature’s attack is Tracker able to keep the Cerberus on course long enough that the creature cannot undo the collision course with the meteor swarm. Dezza and Toze make it back to Earth having witnessed the end of the Cerberus and the creature.

‘Bringing Home The Stars’ is sci-fi and horror where the sci-fi takes a back seat to keep the story accessible to all readers, including those who do not normally consider sci-fi their thing. It has elements of ‘Aliens’ and ‘Ghost ship’, taking care to build the suspense by focussing on the psychological interaction of the main character Dezza and how his experiences on the Cerberus have become a turning point for his life. As the story progresses he is forced to face up to his past and fight and in the process reinvents himself as the man he used to be, facing up to the errors of his past.

That dreaded synopsis thing.

I've spent the last few days working on a short synopsis for 'Bringing home the stars' in preparation for sending out material to more agents. There aren't that many agents who specialise or accept sci-fi, so I wanted it to be excellent and a good sell right from the start. The trouble is that synopses are one of the most difficult things to write, especially if they are for a book that you have written yourself.

I've reposted what I've got so far below. WARNING: SPOILERS!

Bringing home the stars – short synopsis

Dezza is a gritty salvager aboard a deep space tug along with Tubs and Zoë. They find a derelict Starliner – the Cerberus - in uncharted space after their tug’s drive core fails leaving them marooned. Onboard the Starliner, something kills Tubs. At the same time some of the Starliner’s secrets are revealed, indicating that an unknown creature has colonised the ship. Dezza and Zoë escape, and the Starliner disappears as its engines reactivate. Back on Earth, mistakes Dezza made aboard the Cerberus and the loss of Tubs haunt him. His reputation is ruined, he spirals downward labelled as a man who lost his crewmate to a space myth. Whilst he becomes a drunk, Zoë signs up with another crew and disappears back out into space trying to put the experience behind her.

Five years later a man called West from the military offers Dezza a chance for redemption. Return to the Cerberus, which has reappeared in deep space, as an advisor for a military crew and stand a chance of regaining his reputation is West’s offer. Despite his fears and the fact that another salvage crew has disappeared searching for the Starliner, Dezza signs on after West explains that Zoë was one of the last salvage crew who have disappeared aboard the ’Cerberus’.

Slowly what Dezza faced all those years ago begins to manifest again aboard the Starliner, revealing an entity that can change between matter and energy and roams through the electrical systems of the derelict Cerberus. It picks off the military crew, infiltrating their own ship resulting in its destruction so that Dezza and the survivors must try to reactivate the previous salvage crew’s dead ship in order that they might escape.

The creature grows stronger; feeding off their fears and manifesting as those it has killed before. It becomes clear as the creature reveals itself and its past that the only way to defeat it is to destroy the Cerberus. If they don’t, the creature will continue to devour the crews of salvage ships that would risk everything for the ultimate prize of recovering the ancient vessel and towing it back for the salvage money and risk contaminating an entire planet with it. Greed and the physical value of the Starliner, regardless of consequences would almost certainly lure other salvage crews. Long range scans from the salvage craft’s systems indicate that the Cerberus risks grazing a meteor swarm. There is only a chance that it will be destroyed, but they will almost certainly die if they remain because the creature is relentless in its attacks.

In a co-ordinated plan, one of the surviving military crew – Tracker - provides a distraction, luring the creature after himself, allowing Dezza to recover essential components that the abandoned salvage ship needs to be reactivated fully to be able to escape. The diversion is a success and Dezza is able to flee with the last of the military crew – Toze - at the expense of Tracker. He instead stays to ensure the creature’s destruction and prevent it from regaining control of the Cerberus and making another escape by activating the main engines. The creature attempts to regain control and destroy Tracker, manifesting first as his dead comrades, then as elements of the original Starliner’s crew. Only by facing up to the creature’s attack is Tracker able to keep the Cerberus on course long enough that the creature cannot undo the collision course with the meteor swarm.

Dezza and Toze make it back to Earth, knowing that whatever fate awaits them, they have both faced the dangers and have done what they felt was right.

’Bringing home the stars’ is the updating of the classic 'haunted house' formula set in deep space. It uses the setting to provide the opportunity for the maximum amount of suspense and tension through the unusual isolation that being marooned in deep space can offer. It is sci-fi and horror where the sci-fi takes a back seat to keep the story accessible to all readers, including those who do not normally consider sci-fi their normal reading genre. It has elements of ‘Aliens’ and ‘Ghost ship’, but takes care to build the suspense in the most subtle of ways by focussing on the psychological interaction of the main character Dezza and how his experiences on the Cerberus have become a turning point for his life. As the story progresses he is forced to face up to his past and fight instead of turning and hiding and in the process reinvents himself as the man he used to be, and faces up to the errors of his past.

The best thing about other people's children is giving them back at the end of the sailing course.

I've discovered several interesting things over the last eight days. Firstly, that I can still hang with and relate to kids aged between the ages of 11 and 16. Secondly, that having a pulling* crew catch an oar between a jetty pontoon and a rowlock then lose grip just as you are stood behind them is very painful as the momentum of the boat causes the oar to side swipe you into the bottom of the boat. Thirdly, that I am a pool Goddess when playing against 15 year olds. And finally, that kidney stones are excrutiatingly painful.

*Pulling is the Navy's version of rowing.

Hal Clement: 'Mission of gravity'

I'm continuing on my quest to read through all of the sci-fi Masterworks I have from Gollancz on my bookshelves. Hal Clement's 'Mission of gravity' is the most recent one I've been reading.

There are great ideas here well executed. Given the book's age this could so easily have fallen into the usual 1950s/1960s sci-fi trap of being a cheesy cross between the Jetsons and Lost in Space. But it isn't. Thankfully the author has managed to do something truly timeless by ensuring that enough is left to the reader's imagination with the world and its technology that nothing seems dated, even reading it now.

The execution of the science is particularly well done and still very believable, and I found myself drawn easily in and not distracted in any way by bad science that often plagues other books of this vintage. Overal I would say that this is a great read and has stood the test of time exceptionally well. I'd give it a good 7 out of 10. A book well worth reading.

Into the Labrynth.

After about a week of feeling really under the weather with mystery headaches, nausia and fatigue, I have today been diagnosed with Viral Labrynthitis.

Does this mean I have to endure three to four weeks of David Bowie dancing and singing in my head with Goblins?

Malware programmers deserve to die in freak yachting accidents.

I've had a not-happy day chasing some piece-of-shit trojan that somehow managed to turn up on my computer. AVG kept finding and claiming to nuke it, only for it to turn up all over again. Running a full system scan found nothing, though the intermittant detections continued. Spybot S&D found nothing,and adaware2008 mysteriously began to hang on loading. I tried an online Virus checker, but strangely the site returned unknown faults preventing the scan from completing.

Doing a search for the file (Trojan Horse generic14) revealed that I wasn't alone with this irritance. It seems to be a rootkit thingy, hiding itself from most antivirus programmes. In the end I downloaded several Rottkit scanners using a second computer, burning them to a CD-RW to port them across (by this point I had unplugged the ethernet cable as a precaution on the infected machine).

The first three found nothing, although AVG continued to report threats detected. In the end it was the fifth rootkit scanner that spotted a suspicious registry key activated on boot that seemed to be doing something weird. The scanning programme's report of what files were involved tallied with some of the information I could get out of AVG.

At last it *seems* to have cured the problem. I've been able to run this computer from boot without any warnings arising - that's far better than before. I've even been able to connect to the internet without a flood of extra warnings from AVG. Fingers crossed, because this was the most irritating piece of malware I've ever come across - even downloading the most up to date detection binaries from AVG and porting them across on a CD-RW (the Trojan was preventing any update of anti-malware programmes via the internet) didn't help, so there is a big hole in protection that people may think they have from using AVG.

I'm certainly no novice user, but this malware has taxed my knowledge of computing to the limit to get rid of it. I was so close to formatting this box and going through the thankless task of a complete reinstall.

Alfred Bester - 'The stars my destination'

I thought I'd end todays splurge of postings with a quick review of one of the SF Masterworks that really did stand out to me. I read it a couple of years ago now, but Alfred Bester's 'The stars my destination' is one of the most awe-inspiring sci-fi books of the series. There is geekery terms, but they do not overpower the book and are just right for the context. The charectors are strong, and the work paints one of the most vivid mental landscapes of the world it is set in. Smooth prose was easy to read, and it is a book that I would not hesitate to recomend. Off the back of reading this, I got the other Alfred Bester book in the series.

Overal I would rate it at a resounding 9½ out of 10. An excellent book and well worth the read.Just a reminder: the reviews I post are deliberately vague so as not to blow the plot.

She rides! (almost)

Yesterday I spent a mammoth 10 hour stint on my pet project - the old sailing boat. I'm really proud of her (as you can probably tell) because unlike the other three boats I've been working on, she is the result of all my labours and no-one else's. When I started, she was abandoned under a derelict tent structure that leaked badly, with bilges full of muck, water and even plants. For a number of years there had even been the slow dumping of rubbish into her as other people saw it little more than an abandoned boat hull useful only as a convenient skip.

Progress has been slow up until now, mostly because the more I do the more I find that needs doing. But last week I reached the bare hull inside and finally there was nothing else left that could possibly need work doing except to shovel out a heck of a lot of silt, dead leaves, flakes of rotten wood and flaking paint and start the grand task of reconstruction proper. After ten hours yesterday, the hull now is painted insi9de and out and the internal ribs have been refurbished and refitted. I manufactured new bottomboards to replace the rotted ones, and rebuilt the rest with boards that could be salvaged. I'm sick of painting, but at least now most of the painting is now done. I even repainted the boat's number on the bows and the transom (necesary because she is painted to match a sister boat which was one of the more modest rebuilds carried out earlier this year) - number 3 is looking like she could almost rejoin the fleet for the first time in years up at the lake!

There's still the achilles heel of the rotten bouyancy tank covers, but they have become a minor task compared to everything I've already done. Of course there is then also the massive task of finding all the sails, the boom and the mast and renovating them where necessary. As far as I can tell, the boat was last rigged to sail some time between 1990 and 1994, so there's a little work to do here. I did get the sailing horse found, fitted and varnished though, so that's the first sign that this hull really is a sailing boat and not just a glorified ship's boat.

I'm throughly enjoying taking the time out to rebuild these boats on a shoestring budget, even if id did leave me aching all over and lamenting the hot and humid weather we've been having.

John Brunner: Stand on Zanzibar

I've continued trying to get through some of the classic sci-fi I've bought but not quite got around to reading yet. You know the books? Looks good on the shelf, but there's always something else you find yourself reading first.

Yesterday I waded into 'Stand on Zanzibar' as it's languished on my bookshelves for about a year, untouched. A friend raved about it, so it became next up on the reading list.

First impression was not good. An immediate wall of nerdy self-indulgant geekery terms, made up for the book. Not to be intimidated I soldiered on; maybe this was just getting the technodump out of the way early? Wrong, apparently. And you can't blame me for trying - I did eventually reach page 68 before the wave of boredom left me flicking back trying to work out what was actually going on. Far too much waffle, and made up technical gobbledygook. There were some nice ahead of their time ideas, but I'm sorry to say that if I labour on to page 68 waiting for the hook to arrive, then don't expect me to read further if it hasn't.

Overall a thumbs down. I'd give it a generous 3 out of 10, purely for the nice idea with the computer.

Robert Silverberg's "Downward to the Earth"

I've just finished reading this book. It's one I've had for a little while as a part of Gollancz's SF Masterworks set. Now, some of the SFM set are truly awful leaving me wondering how stodgy excuses for longwinded 70s sci-fi Jetsons style could ever be considered a masterwork. But others are truly outstanding.

I wouldn't place "Downward to the Earth" into either category, but it is certainly an excellent well-written book which I found easy to read and it held my interest all the way through. It explores some interesting ideas (I'm deliberately being vague here so as not to blow any of the plot details) which are unusual and I haven't seen explored before, and for that point it is innovative. The ending is a little bit of a let down, but for the rest of the book I forgave that. Overal I would rank it as certaily a 7½-8 out of 10.

I'm going to try and post intermittantly my brief thoughts on some of these books as I read them. A lot of them I've already read, so I shall post my thoughts on them too. There are some truly great books, but there are also some right lemons.

The rug doctor is in.

I couldn't help but snigger leaving the local outlet of Morrisons today. They had a huge stand advertising a product for cleaning carpets and rugs. In the manufacturer's infinite wisdom they had decided that the product would be best called the "Rug Doctor".

Yeah. Okay. Let's call it a euphamism for lesbian sex shall we? Do the marketting people not check what other meanings words or phrases mean before they use them on a product? *thinks of the rebranding of the Sci-fi channel to the Polish word for syphilis*

*snigger*

The more you do, the more there is to do.

What is it about taking on the challenge of rebuilding something old? The more that I repair, the more that I find that needs repairing.

Yesterday was boat building day. I went down to the yard at 1:00pm so as to spend a full afternoon and evening. I started with the newly finished Bosun dinghy. It needed the algae scrubbing off, so a bit of elbow grease later and it looked positively new. I also had to search out its mast and associated fittings. That was interesting as ivy had grown over some of the storage area on top of the shipping containers and I ended up perched on the roof of an iso container with a pair of cutters and a saw trimming bushes that could almost be described as trees. There are something like seven masts up there, so I hope I brought down the right one. I also dug out of the bushes two canoes and a launching trolley which I never knew were up there.

The second Bosun was brought into the yard last week for repairs to begin. It's been lying upside down in bushes for a number of years, and it shows. It's right way up now on a trailer, but with all the rain we have been having there was rather a lot of water in it. No problem - tip it up and let it out of the bung at the back. Except that the bouyancy tanks leak, so what was a sizeable pool of water turned out to be a tsunami when the water reached the back. It's swilled out the bouyancy tanks though, bringing with it some nasties in the form of suspicious clusters of brown oval insect eggs. So I had to clean out the inside thoroughly, which took longer still.

I tried to tackle the second Bosun's rotten gunwhales, but the screw holding the wood were steel not brass. Bad move! That means that the heads were disintegrating as they had turned to rust. I therefore decided discretion was the better part of valour, and went off to tackle the ASC.

The large ASC is my pet project. I alone have done the work so far on this, and I am determined to do something that this boat has never had done to it in some twenty or more years, and rig it for sailing rather than pulling (rowing to you landlubbers!). However the more I do on it, the more I find that needs doing. I discovered some rot in the bottom boards. The tops were fine, but suspiciously the sides were a bit spongy in a couple of places on close inspection, and with a sinking feeling I decided there may be hidden rot underneath. So the boards had to come up - not an easy task by a very long way. Screws were tight because the wood had swelled, and the heads were recessed and the holes had slowly backfilled with layers of paint. Oh, and there were around forty screws for EACH board (with four being present plus a few small pieces to fit the gaps). It took hours and blistered hands to painstakingly clean out each screwhead with a small screwdriver, then carefully ease them out. When I was done, I discovered the problem as being that some of the boards had only been painted after fitting. That meant the undersides were bare wood, and rot had set in. Duh!

I've found down in the sail stores a nearly complete set of ASC bottom boards which although slatted instead of solid, are in excellent condition. They do not belong to a specific boat; at least not until now. I can use salvaged good timber from the old boards to fill the one missing bit. However, it means taking out some of the ribbing in the bottom of the boat and moving them around slightly for the new bottom boards to fit. That's even more work. *sigh* But I suppose it will be worth it in the end. On the plus side this is looking like being a very thorugh rebuild.

A few changes.

Upon Zoë's recommendation, the website has been altered so that the 'blog' page no longer whizzes you straight here, but instead has a page on it with links to here instead. That means that the blog page can be in a different style to the website, and we've taken this oppurtunity to make it all a bit brighter, happier and - above all - easier to read.

"Hey Grandma! Turn the choons down, okay?"

I spent a couple of hours chilling out to music I bought and loved at the peak of my interest in music. It's sad to realise that some of these records, bought new in the week of their release, are nudging 15 years old.

I feel old.

Bringing home the stars

Today's radio memories.

Today on my radio programme I was without Zoë for a change due to illness. So I felt a little lazy and just grabbed my seven library disks before I went out rather than sorting the spare bedroom record collection for hand-picked music to play.

I made the library disks back when working for Chorley FM (the real one, not the fake one - look it up). The idea was to have all the great tracks from hundreds of albums all in one convenient place. I spent hours sorting and chosing music for them, and they are quite useful for lazy DJing.

I found myself picking an odd assortment of records, and actually feeling a little bit down whilst I was doing it. I soon realised that part of this was because of the significance of the records I was picking. It turns out that most of them were records with a particular significance to memories I have of an old friend who sadly took her own life last year. We were very close, and back when we were at sixth form together we shared a passion for certain music together. So I found myself playing back to back a lot of these tracks from those days we spent together. Clannad's 'I see Red', Tori Amos's 'Cornflake Girl' and Kate Bush's 'This woman's work' amongst others. I even found time to play 'Careful with that axe Eugene' from Pink Floyd's ill-fated Umagumma LP. That's one you don't often hear on the radio! But it was a track with special significance as we used to sit outside of an evening in Hitchin smoking and listening to it together over and over again.

I have happy memories of her, and sad ones too. Sometimes though I do remember old people from my past, sadly departed. Heck - at least I do spare a thought for these people. It's still depressing at times though just how many people I knew who are dead now. The frailty of human life.

Editing, the bane of my life.

I've said before and I'll say again: editing is about the least desirable writing task for me that there is. Well, perhaps apart from the drudgery that is writing synopses. Unfortunately, there are times when a writer must go back over their own work and weed out the surplus words, correct the typos and forge the grammer into something that doesn't make an English teacher whince.

That task is one that has caught up with me. I feel these days that some of my earlier books were not as good as they could have been. This was, in part, down to my hatred of editing. I went back some time ago and re-edited 'Countdown to Extinction' and although I would probably give it another pass with the red pen, it's much better than it was. 'Daytrippers' too underwent a similar edit to its benefit. I still want to give another edit for a new edition to 'The Atlantic Connection' and 'Syndicate Dawn', but in being quite recent works I'm happier that my writing standard is a lot better than it was five or six years ago.

At the moment 'Orb of Arawaan' is the editor's task. And as I am that unlucky editor, I suppose I ought to just get on with it without whinging too much. Actually, aside from the first couple of thousand words, it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Those initial chapters were written originally, after all, way back in 1997 when the book was first conceived. The rest was written in 2004, and I guess I did rework that beginning then too, but obviously not well enough.

I'm about 33 pages in, out of a total of 294. Still, that's some progress - it's a long book I hear myself pleading. I'm afraid though that all the excuses under the sun don't hide the fact that I would rather do anything than edit. Still it has to be done, and I am rigidly attempting to avoid all work avoidance schemes. It isn't entirely successful though - I've already been spending a lot of the day conte4mplating model trains, playing with the cat and attempting to fix once and for all the curious smell of damp in one corner of the lounge.

And finally, why did my internal monalogue as I wrote this chose to take on the voice of Stephen Fry? It makes the mind boggle just at the thought.

Because I can.

Because everyone's looked at the carpet in their office and thought that what it really needed was a circle of toy track and a train squeaking around it.

I thought I would try my ancient state-of-the-ark digital camera and see if it still worked. It's a Fujifilm DX10 from circa 1998 and the dawn of digital photography. It still works, even if the picture quality is as questionable now as it was 11 years ago. Usually I just get Zoë to take pictures with her somewhat better camera.

Reviews and progress in my writing-driven world.

'Bringing home the stars' (see Bibliography page on http://www.jennifer-kirk.com for details) is getting rave reviews from those motivated to comment on it. This seems like the best one yet by a very long way. Fingers crossed!

At the moment my writing work is mainly concentrated on doing a full edit of 'Orb of Arawaan' It's slow going, not least because I hate editing, but it needs doing. Once it is done I should be re-familiarised enough with the charectors and plot to contemplate picking up again on the second book in the trilogy where it was left unfinished in 2004. The working title for this book suggested so far is 'Oracle of Arawaan'.

The long-awaited honeymoon

It's been a long time since the wedding and the honeymoon has been a long time in coming, but Zoë and I finally made it away to North Wales for five days. It was the first holiday together ever that didn't involve being away for a party, social gathering or medical reasons.

The full set can be found here.

My parents were already staying in Harlech with the caravan, so it was an easy drive into North Wales with Zoë pushing up the zeds and missing most of the stunning scenery along the North Wales coast. However we arrived intact in Harlech on Sunday morning. One of the first things we did was to be shown around by my parents who were to leave the same day. The view of the castle from the campsite was quite stunning:

We went on the beach too and generally relaxed until my parents left and then cooked ourselves a fine meal and snuggled in the caravan.

The following day the plan was to go to Portmeirion. We caught the train from Harlech to Minffordd where we then walked the rest of the way to the village. The weather was superb; it was as if the climate of North Wales knew we were on honeymoon! The weather continued to be pretty good all the time we were there.

Zoë was immediately impressed by the architechture and started clicking away like a happy Japanese tourist. It was so wonderful to see her smile!

The village is one of the most incredible places to go and visit. It was used as the set for the famous sixties TV series, The Prisoner, and appears to be a slice of Italian-inspired architechture tucked away on the Welsh coast.






The last picture features a building with a painted on window. This seemed to also be a feature of Portmeirion, along with statues in little follies and ceilings painted to look not out of place in the Sistine chapel.

There was also a concrete boat actually just built at the jetty:



We have a suspicion the architect was a little mad.

After Portmeirion we decided to walk to Porthmadog across the cob, a long man made embankment that carries the road, a cycle path and the FFestiniog railway (more of that later) which, bizaarely, there is a footpath that shares the same route with no fence in between. I guess common sense works quite well in these parts.

We spent a little time looking around Porthmadog and got some chips, because everyone (us included) cannot resist the wafting smell of a chipshop on a hot day. I also took time to check out Cob records and I bought a copy of the last Coldplay LP on, well, LP silly. We miscalculated train times (the Cambrian coast trains seem to run only once every two hours in each direction) so had nearly two hours to kill at Porthmadog town station, which we did indeed do so in a rather fine pub that occupies the old railway building. Whilst we were in there the sky darkened and the heavens opened with rain that blotted out the hills. Still, we were fine with our pints and eventually staggered onto the return train. By the time we reached Harlech the rain had eased.

On Monday we came back by train to do the Ffestinion railway. Zoë was a little sceptical with her "Jenny wants to do her train thing" air, but soon became enthused when she saw the views from the train.





We even found time for a shot of the Honeymooning couple:



At Blaenau Ffestiniog Zoë took the opportunity of a few more photos whilst we waited for the locomotive to run around the train. I too used the opportunity to camera-whore like I usually do.



Our heroine camera-whoring by the locomotive.




On the way back, Zoë filmed the train running around the unique in the UK spiral that allows trains onto the new deviation at DDuallt - it took us a while to work out the correct pronunciation too!





Upon our return to Harlech we went swimming in the sea. Despite the desolate and deserted beach, the water was actually lovely! We had the whole coast to ourselves it seemed. It was Zoë's first time swimming in over a decade, and the look on her face of sheer joy was a pleasure to see! There are no pictures of the swimming, on account of cameras not liking to be around water, so we didn't take it with us. We kept swimming until the threat of rain came, and we got back to snuggle in the caravan just in time.

On the last day we stayed in Harlech and did the castle. It's an imposing place, and it would be nice if they ever restored the place. We took lots of pictures too - we could not believe how much good weather we were getting!




The view from the tops of the towers:



And of course, our camera-whoring heroine again:



We went shopping in the town and Zoë prepared a lovely lunch of sliced vine tomatoes and mozzerella cheese which is a dish we sometimes get from our favourite local Italian restaurant as a starter. We snoozed the afternoon (it was very hot) and then spent the whole evening swimming in the sea again.

Alas, the following day it was time to return home with a caravan in tow, but we had thoroughly enjoyed the belated honeymoon we had been promising ourselves since March! The old Swedish tank performed well with a towing load, and actually did better than my parents' Honda.

It's always good to be back home, but at the same time I wish we might have had longer on our honeymoon. Oh well - there's always next time!