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 What is more, no-one remembers buying it, and it is always several years out of date. Not that Vicks ever actually does go out of date.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.