Tag Archives: Travel

General musings

Overlooked


No, this is not about my writing being overlooked, that’s a given, but a town in the Dordogne known as Albi. As far as traditional towns in the South of France, it is quite the unsung story. In the English speaking world it is more overlooked than looked over. At least in the circles I move in.

We were lucky to have a rare, warm February day for our visit. Despite negotiating a funfair taking over the streets which played merry hell with our satellite navigation. Didn’t pay attention to the dates posted at the time, but apparently it runs from 15th – 23rd February. Every year. So much for being out of season. Despite that, we navigated our way into the Cathedral car park, which formed the beginning of our visit. straight into St Cecile cathedral.

The cathedral of Albi, to not put too fine a point on it, is stunning. An epic story in brick and stone, displaying the apogee of any gothic stonemasons skill. Delicate stone fretwork at the very limit that limestone can be dressed to. Painted walls surpassing even the famous St Chapelle in Paris. In short, the high church magnificat. Saved from the iconoclasm of French revolutionary zeal by one man, an engineer, who had the foresight to squirrel the finest carvings away from the revolutionaries before it was all destroyed in a fit of anti-catholic pique.

While the institution of religion, whatever form it takes, can prove toxic to the greater mass of humanity, some of the values it teaches will always remain worthy. Respect and tolerance for those not quite like us. Respect for those giants upon whose shoulders we all stand while knowing that we will benefit all the more by adding, rather than subtracting from their legacies of knowledge. Using that understanding to weather any storms that might afflict us in our lifetimes. Because storms there will be. That is a fact of life.

The weather has been warm and sunny

Of late I have found myself leaning on cemetery walls, reading the names on French war monuments, and coming to the conclusion that these memorials are not an act of mindless worship, a love of monuments and corrupted institutions, but more of a deep love and respect for those who have gone before. Love for those whose lives, small grains of sand, laid the foundation of our futures, so that those future people, like us, have no need to re-invent society from the ground up at every generation. Understanding this simple truism, we can find stability, a sense of belonging from our forefathers and reasons to keep the march of the generations going. Not to be frightened all the time. To discover love and happiness on our own account, subsequently passing on the baton before our own brief candles are snuffed.

As we visit the hilltop villages of southern France, with their eclectic histories, wonderful scenery and patchwork architecture, grown organically down the centuries, I cannot help but reinforce my view that we have to embrace our pasts to produce a worthwhile and wonderful future, and perhaps that is what being human is all about.

General musings

The road to Les Halles


One of the things to like in off season France is the big covered markets. Most reasonable size towns have one, with a range of wines, meat and cheeses on offer is almost dizzying in scope. Even the Bull Ring indoor market in Birmingham UK, where any good quality foodstuff known to the English can be found, struggles to keep up with the French.

Nestled into the historic medieval centre of Tours, the famous Les Halles indoor market, even off season, is worth a visit for any food interested person. And despite a tortuous one way system (Something shared with central Birmingham), is well worth a visit. From several butchers and three significant Fromageries, each with a range of at least fifty types of cheese, to wine merchants and suppliers of all manner of cooked and uncooked produce, I found it of wallet-depleting interest.

One of the benefits of visiting off season is the lack of crowds. The ability to pause, take stock and just drink it all in, without being bumped and bored by people trying simply to get past we gawking tourists.

Getting here by car was another matter. We got off the ferry from Rosslare at Cherbourg at around half past one in the afternoon on Monday and arrived in the middle of rush hour. A timing that was to cause us, or rather me, significant anxiety as Angie was still groggy from the Dramamine she needs to survive the nausea ferries always give her and therefore not fit to drive.

My good lady does not travel well, which is rather ironic because she and I love travelling and have covered several tens of thousands of miles by car and ferries alone. From driving the Trans Canada (Twice. There and back), across twenty four states of the USA (Victoria BC to Jacksonville, Florida), along the Princes Highway (Melbourne to Sydney) in Australia and all manner of shorter road trips in the past twenty plus years. That is without extensive air travel, which she also does not tolerate well, from the UK to Canada, the USA and Australia.

For my part I find air travel tiresome because I like my personal space and as Jean-Paul Satre once pithily observed; “L’Enfer, c’est les autres.” Hell is other people, especially if flying Economy. The ennui inducing hours flying across either the Pacific or Atlantic is best spent asleep. Drugs have sometimes proven very useful. Even two paracetamol have been enough to help survive the enforced inactivity from rotate to touchdown. But that is something I rarely do, especially if driving any distance within an hour of negotiating baggage claim, immigration and customs.

We found the hotel we’d booked into well enough. Dropping Angie and the most of our luggage off at our hotel I set off to find the off-site parking. However, a fog had risen, making trying to negotiate Tours unfamiliar one way system and narrow streets a minor nightmare Near collisions with buses and other vehicles in the cloying darkness were only averted by sheer luck on my part. Indeed it took me the best part of an hour to find the parking, find a place, lock up securely and wend my overstressed and jangling nerves back to our accommodation on foot.

Or as Angie said to me when we were safely sitting in our room, glasses of a half decent Cabernet Sauvignon in hand; “We must stop having these adventures.”

To which I replied; “You’d only get bored if we did.”

General musings, Stars Trilogy

Looking forward


Generally speaking I try to keep away from mainstream politics, it distracts from my narrative habits. However, I may not be interested in politics, but that alas, does not mean that politics is not interested in me.

Take for example a forthcoming and hard earned holiday in London. The planning and booking for which trip were finalised in February, with only a minor panic over accommodation in June interfering with our schedule. On my to do list from the 15th October to the 6th of November are many visits to museums and all the other cultural wonders that the UK’s capital has to offer. Afternoon teas, theatre, lectures, sightseeing, a couple of grooming interludes and a few strolls down memory lane. Three whole weeks of just chilling out and having my own form of restrained fun. By restrained incidentally, I do not mean any kinky sojourns around the more salacious streets of the capital. I leave all that to younger flesh.

While there I will also be editing down an old copy of ‘The Sky full of Stars’ to make the story crisper and more engaging, refreshing my memory prior to a wholesale rewrite of the whole trilogy. A task I have long neglected. Then I have a few quirky stories which I will be throwing at some of the more mainstream sci-fi magazines from this list. I hope some of my narrative mud will stick, or at least get some worthwhile feedback.

Also whilst in London I hope to run into a couple of very decent people I have come to know through online contact. Just for a general chat and the simple pleasure of shaking their hand. A little face to face socialising, nothing much.

Regrettably a shadow has arisen which threatens our enjoyment. The whole dreadful soap opera of the UK’s departure from the European Union. Overall, I think leaving that bureaucratic farrago is a good thing. The UK should have been freed March 31st 2019. At least according to the date set by the triggering of article fifty of the EU constitution. I have seen no good reasons for not leaving on that date. Nor should another extension to the leaving date be sought, no matter the court judgements. Courts should not interfere with the political process, nor create political law retrospectively. That is a dangerous path to walk.

This does not matter to those who do not want the UK to leave. They do not believe in democracy. At least not in any form I have ever witnessed.

In the UK we were always told that we lived in a country where the average voter had a say via the ballot box. The general rule being that the majority gives an elected government an opportunity to fulfil promises made, contingent on their party being given a parliamentary majority. Whilst those elected are not compelled to keep their word to the absolute letter, a promise to their voter base is a promise and such commitments should not be broken lightly. Failing that, what is the point? If politicians continually break faith with those that elect them, does a walk to the polling station become nothing but an exercise in outright futility?

Let me expand. When I was eighteen, I had the opportunity of voting in the plebiscite for the UK to remain in the Common Market, as the European Union was called then. To my undying shame I voted for the UK to stay in, voting that way because my older brother told me it was a good thing and that I should vote yes. That decision has haunted me for several decades. It was a bad decision, made in ignorance that I have regretted for over forty years. During that time I have had the displeasure of watching the great promise of the then EEC morph into little more than an exclusive club for the well connected and arrogant. Of laws concocted by crass bureaucrats for what seemed no more than their own self-aggrandisement. Regulation for regulations sake from an unelected commission and rubber stamped by a parliament in name only. Watching the importance of my vote diminish as European democracy began to languish and die, the sovereign bodies of all the nation states gradually becoming little more than yes men for a patronising elite, hoping against hope for their turn to ride the bureaucrats great gravy train.

Now the UK is (probably) leaving the EU, I think a great wrong is at last, I hope, being righted. ‘Deal’ or no. All precautionary mechanisms are, from the best information I have available to me, in place for Britain’s World Trade Organisation terms exit aka ‘no deal’, or more pejoratively ‘crashing out’ if one is to maintain the hyperbole. Emergency provisions have been made and supplies stockpiled. The much prophesied worst is like the weak protestation of a street corner penitents mantra that ‘the end is nigh’, it will not come to pass. Like so many of the scare stories presented as news drip fed from so many once reputable media outlets.

On the day, the greater British public may not even notice the difference. Only those involved in warehousing and distribution will notice significant changes to their paperwork. The price of some goods may even fall as suppliers will no longer be forced to use EU based distribution hubs and instead bring their products directly into the UK as they did before the EEC and later EU.

My final word on the matter is this; if the UK does leave the EU on the 31st October I will be in a London bar somewhere celebrating with a modest glass of single malt, then stepping out to see the fireworks. This promises to be a Halloween and bonfire night to remember.

There may even be a story in it.

General musings, Publishing

Last chance to see..


Well, me for a while. I’ve recorded a video reading for the story “Just another day at the office” from the forthcoming “The Cat Tree and other stories”. The recording is now live here on Bitchute. This will be the last video reading from this particular collection. Commentaries will be available on Subscribestar when my profile is ready.

Apologies in advance for all the fluffs and mispronunciations. I know I messed up ‘Dafydd’ several times, but every time I tried to say it I hardened the last two letters. Fortunately, no Welsh people were harmed in the creation of the story that I know of and the few instances of mild profanity are necessary for dramatic impact and tone of the narrative.

So if you don’t like mild swearing, don’t bloody watch. Okay? There is a PG 13+ warning on the title page.

Scheduled publication of the collection is for late November / early December 2019 when I return from London to approve the final design and editing.

Cerberus, Distribution, General musings

Almost Canadian


Another day, another hoop jumped. We’ve been accepted for Canadian citizenship. Swearing in ceremony is for December 1st 2014, Vancouver. Angie and I have decided to make a weekend of it as we haven’t had a break that wasn’t work or family business related in almost a year. Christmas shopping, Citizenship, a little wine and personal abuse. I’m still shaking a little.

We had our interview on the 6th, which apart from the usual interminable waiting, went well. I think both of us were humming like tuning forks on the quiet. I was suffering from a bad case of “What have we forgotten?” on the drive up to Nanaimo, trying desperately not to go rifling through our documentation package every five minutes. We’d got our whole lives in there. Passports, old passports, Permanent Residency cards, copies of IMM1000 forms from November 2010. Copies of just about everything we could think of; certificates, travel receipts, a neatly printed out schedule of all absences from Canada over the past seven years, receipts for all travel, car hire, hotel bills the lot. Memberships, qualifications, the kitchen sink. We were ready for just about everything.

When Angie and I arrived at Nanaimo, we found our way to the right room in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre, even though it wasn’t exactly as specified on our letter of notification. Joining a crowd of about eighty people, we sat down in a large room, about a hundred feet by sixty unless I’ve lost my eye for distance, with the oddity of power outletsalmost twenty feet above us in the alcoved ceiling. Four officers sat at brown folder loaded desks interviewing everyone in turn. Only one had a computer of any kind. Which I found a little odd in this day and age.

The time rolled past. Names were called, interviews done, documents inspected and boxes ticked in a surprisingly church-like atmosphere. Everyone talked very softly, so no one would miss their turn at being called. No voice was raised in frustration, exuberance or disappointment. Even the one young man we heard turned down over his refugee status barely spoke over a whisper. I found it curiously eerie.

After over an hours nervous wait our turn came and our young (Nice lad, mid-late 20’s, bespectacled Asiatic with a brown dyed buzz cut you could almost have balanced a plate on) interviewing officer checked our UK passports PR cards and Drivers Licenses. He asked me whether or not we’d been in trouble with the Police or Immigration, to which I answered “No, no, no.” in a mildly distracted manner, slightly surprised by the question. He worked for the Immigration department didn’t he? Surely he knew we were squeaky clean. He said that I didn’t sound convinced, but Angie confirmed we hadn’t had any problems, and that was the one tense moment over and done with. He asked us about our absences from Canada, then almost in a teasing manner asked about proof of the journeys. “Which ones?” Asked Angie.
“The first two?” He asked. At which my darling wife proceeded to extract the relevant stapled receipts, passes and booking forms out of a huge buff envelope. A wedge of papers two inches and more thick. I caught a flash of alarm in his eyes as if we’d called his bluff, but in the end it came out all smiles and handshakes. The right boxes were ticked, and we were offered the choice of Vancouver or Nanaimo for our citizenship ceremony. “What about Victoria?” I asked. Our interviewing officer did a little double take as he realised our new Victoria address was on the form, but we happily agreed to Vancouver on the 1st of December. Considering the course we’ve sailed, a ferry journey and long weekend are no real inconvenience.

With a final handshake we were on our way to pick up our house guest for the weekend. My knees almost giving way beneath me as Angie disappeared for her third rest room break in two hours. My sense of relief was that intense. We’d done it. From a wedding day promise in 2002 to here. I’m still not sure I really believe it myself.

Now it seems as though a leaden weight has lifted. I see a new happy light in my wife’s eyes. Citizenship has been a long road that’s almost broken both of us. But champagne has been drunk, a new confidence has arisen, and now we feel more secure in ourselves. Or we will do when we get our citizenship cards. We’re still a little on edge, but not so much. Smiling is much easier. 2014 has been a hard year emotionally.

‘A Falling of Angels’ should be ready for distribution by next Friday, and all the links will be on this web site, Authors Den and GoodReads by then. For now the only book I have to deal with is booking a Vancouver hotel.

General musings, What if

New short story sample and minor anxieties


New short science fiction sample posted here. It’s bit rough round the edges and in need of further editing. Just something to keep my mind off the possible disruption to air travel over Iceland. Eldest Stepdaughter Laura is flying back from Tanzania to the UK this Sunday and I’m mildly concerned in case the authorities completely shut down European airspace like they did with the Eyfjallajokull eruption.

Trying to look on the bright side, at least Badarbunga is easier to pronounce. Webcam of eruption progress here. A very useful Icelandic geology web site run by a local geology student. Icelandic Met office site here. The whole saga is surprisingly gripping.

Update: The good news is that Laura is safe back home in the UK, and this eruption doesn’t look like it’s going to cause major European air traffic disruption like in 2010.

Events

Recovery mode


The past two weeks have been somewhat traumatic, and I’ve hardly written a word, what with dashing back and forth across the Atlantic. Too many errands and too much jet lag. Today, for the first time in just over two weeks I feel back in control of my life. I actually only awoke at 5:30 this morning. For the previous three nights I was waking up, despite sleeping tablets, at around two and three thirty in the morning feeling tired but unable to slip into the arms of Morpheus until four or five AM.

Everything over the past two weeks, despite best efforts, has gone sideways. It’s been a harsh emotional lesson about planning for the worst family case scenario. Some unpleasant thoughts have to be faced, but these are best examined when the immediate pressures are off. Conversations must be had with family and arrangements made. Just in case.

On the bright side, I’ve been preparing for the two courses I start in mid and late April by raiding second hand bookstores and downloading public domain material online. Now I am the proud possessor of Diana Hackers ‘A Canadian Writer’s Reference, Strunk and White’s ‘The Elements of Style‘, Prentice Hall’s ‘Handbook for Writers‘, and Harold H Kolb’s ‘A Writer’s Guide‘. Not to mention applying for Student Membership of the Society of Technical Communication. I’ve done Technical Writing for real before, for a couple of multinationals no less, but without a Degree found it nigh on impossible to convince anyone to hire me in that role, especially on this side of the Atlantic. Hopefully I will have redressed this shortfall by October or November this year with a Canadian recognised qualification from Simon Fraser University.

The down side is that I won’t be getting as much writing time in on ‘Darkness’ or ‘A falling of Angels’ as I’d like but at least I’ll have a piece of paper saying that I’m a Canadian qualified Technical Writer.

General musings

Google and Facebook


Is there a better alternative to Google and Facebook? I ask because I travel periodically, and every time I do, I have to reverify my Facebook and Google accounts, which not only shifts my immediate focus away from the task in hand, but is one of those nagging ‘man from Porlock’ irritations. I’m using the same machine through various secure and insecure Wi-Fi network points, the same fairly strong passwords and access protocols, yet still having my email and access to Facebook arbitrarily cut off is less than funny. I know they’re ‘free at point of use’ services, but they do make their advertising revenue from clickthrough traffic and various other means. Yet my Facebook account and two of my Gmail accounts are now ‘locked’. They may remain that way as I can’t be bothered with the fuss of reopening them. Those who need to know will be notified of changes.

We’re currently in a bereavement crisis on the UK front, scooting between relatives and care homes, and these pernickety and unnecessary interventions to both work and essential on the fly problem solving are less than welcome. My LinkedIn account is globally accessible, as is WordPress and several others, no problem, so why not Google or Facebook? We have an alternative paid for domain with available mail aliases and server, and I’m inclined to build a web site there and activate the email accounts. It means the small expense of changing business stationery, but we can handle that.

Over dinner last night, my eldest stepdaughter was talking about building a service similar to LinkedIn for younger professionals. I’m inclined to buy a new domain name and some extra web space for her to play with. Give her the wheel and see what she can do. It’s just a question of time and effort. Facebook and Gmail are all very well, but I’m thinking that they’ve had their day.

Technology

Biting the bullet


What with everything going a little sideways in the last seventy two hours, I’ve compounded my various felonies by signing up for Simon Fraser University’s Certificate in Technical Communication course. Three modules, the first of which is now bought and paid for. Most of the ground I’ve covered as paid work before, but as the saying goes in BC “If you haven’t got the right piece of paper”. My XML and HTML are a bit rusty, I need to get totally au courant with the Canadian style guide, and I’m fine with editing PDF’s, but now with WordPerfect I have the best tool for any writing job. Might even be worth my while buying Corel’s PDF editor, although I’ve already got an old Adobe 5.0 licence and software buried somewhere in my collection.

Now Angie’s on the home stretch of her biology teaching course, which the Education Ministry have insisted upon, the educational burden will shift onto my shoulders and she can relax and enjoy the Summer. However, my April and May will be spent head firmly wedged in English textbooks and burnishing my CV until it gleams. I have DreamWeaver if need be as a web site builder, and a spare domain name to experiment with, so away I’ll go. I also need to put in some serious work on my professional online presence, which is a bit sketchy at present.

Of course this will mean delays on the creative writing front, but as that doesn’t pay many bills, it will be done during ‘leisure’ time only. ‘Darkness’ has just undergone a major narrative restructure, and between now and Tuesday when we head off to the UK for a week, ‘A Falling of Angels’ will be getting similar treatment. If I’m really lucky, I may even get some writing time in while we’re on the move or hanging around in England. If not c’est la vie.

General musings

Improved proof reading


Finally installed my copy of WordPerfect yesterday, and was promptly reminded what an utterly superb word processing and formatting toolbox it provides. Proof reading is an absolute breeze using Reveal Codes. Editing likewise. Going through a current work in progress, it highlighted several errors I’d repeatedly missed using Word and OpenOffice, including a massive tranche of unwanted tab settings and assorted code. I’d long ago forgotten what a superb piece of word processing software it is. In the words of the advert ‘It does exactly what it says on the can’. Admittedly WordPerfect is for the advanced user, but once you’ve learned the basics, it’s not that hard.

On the home front, I’ve just celebrated my fifty seventh birthday, am signing up for a Techcomm course, and Angie and I are flying to the UK on Tuesday to undertake one of life’s sad duties. This interferes with main project writing and the prospect of being crammed into an alloy tube for ten hours like so much toothpaste is hardly enticing. Then the infernal hanging around in airports waiting for boarding and security. It’s not so much the travel I hate, I love watching the world skim by. Sitting in a passenger seat, or better still the drivers. That’s not the issue. It’s more the sheer fuss surrounding getting from A to Z and all stations in between. Still, we’ll do what we always do; grit our teeth at the indignities, then try to smile and forget the annoying impedimenta as best we can.

The one consolation is that we’ll be seeing more or less our entire diverse little clan over the next few days, so that can’t be all bad.

General musings

Moving on


Angie gets back from England tonight on the eleven thirty flight from Vancouver. Much to my relief. Cooking for one is difficult. While she’s been over the other side of the pond on family business, I’ve been busying myself with various paperwork, job hunting and looking for new accommodation. Somewhere more convenient for Metro Vancouver.

‘A Falling of Angels’ has found its final direction and with luck I’ll have the manuscript finished for first proof and edit by April. About 25,000 words to go, with the ending planned and plotted. The story threads are set to tie up neatly, with the bad guys (mostly) caught and brought to trial, my hero redeemed and on a new start in life. Until the next volume of course.

‘Falling through the Stars’ unfortunately, is crawling along very slowly. There’s a whole chunk of storyline that’s simply not working and has to be junked. I’ll just do what I normally do, cut and paste the offending section into a separate file. For future use. Maybe.

While Angie has been away, I’ve been doing a little reading to help keep my Technical writing skills current. One note of enlightenment came from an old copy of Arthur Plotnik’s “The Elements of Editing“. Although it’s a little dated, reading certain sections rather confirmed my suspicions about why so many submissions to publishers go unanswered.

General musings

The best time of the day to write


Since the 1980’s I’ve been an habitual early riser. It may sound odd, but I have difficulty sleeping in after half past six. No Alarm clock necessary. This is probably a hangover from days when I travelled and commuted the length and breadth of the UK. Edinburgh, Manchester, London, Bristol, Cardiff and all points east and west. Going where I was sent, doing the job I was paid to do, then getting home, sometimes as late as nine at night. So I got into the habit. It’s programmed into my body clock.

At six or earlier, I’m generally up and working sometimes in my dressing gown, sometimes already dressed, researching, pounding keyboard or answering emails. No-one, apart from my dog, to butt in. Peace and quiet allowing time to ease into the writing zone before the day job begins. I’ve found I can get almost a full days output done before eight, and then make ready for whatever late day or evening shift I’m on.

This is my routine, rain or shine. At the moment mostly the latter, which is very nice. And when I have what I call a ‘flow’ going, when the ideas line up neatly into pure narrative, I reckon I can lay down a good fifteen hundred words in just over two hours. So for me at least, early morning has become the best part of the day to write. It’s oddly relaxing.

Memories

Travel broadens the mind. Providing you aren’t doing anything else.


Back home again after three weeks on the road, ferry, Transatlantic flight, Float Plane. In fact most forms of transport short of a bicycle. Although I almost got run down by a few in Amsterdam. You hear the tinkle of a bell and get ready to dodge. Makes life very interesting and even gets my jaded adrenaline pumping.
Travel summer 2013 008
Still. I truly liked Amsterdam. Great place to chill and unwind. So was Southern Ireland, in its own way. Not much time to set fingers to keyboard though. In that sense our little transatlantic foray was a rest and complete change from the work-eat-sleep grind we’d got ourselves into. And by the same token have to get back into.

No more messages on the distribution front, so that’s another mercy. No more revisions, and let sales happen as they may. It’s no good waiting and watching for people to buy or like your stuff, they either will or they won’t, and that’s an end of it. If you’re lucky and a popular meme develops; wonderful, great, pass the Champagne. If not, carry on with the next project regardless. I look at it this way; if you don’t produce, how can you expect to sell?

To that end I’m rested, if a little jet lagged. My physical body may be in Nanaimo BC, but it’s also in several other time zones from Europe and all points West. Still haven’t penned so much as a paragraph in the last three weeks. There’s just been too much other stuff to deal with. Plenty of notes and photographs, but no output.

Distribution, Stars Trilogy

Don’t forget the formatting


Just had notice from Lulu.com that ‘Falling’ has been bounced back from the distributors for a single formatting error. Easily corrected, and at least this time they didn’t just tell me the problem was in the ‘Metadata’. One word in the title should have been capitalised, and I missed it. Bummer. No matter, it’s all done and dusted and back to the Distributors again. Same price, same artwork, same everything but the one letter in the title that needed capitalising.

The word? Was ‘through’ which should have been ‘Through’. That was it. Two minutes later I’ve revised and put ‘Falling’ back into the publishing mill, which grinds exceeding small. I’m not fussed in the slightest because it was such a little thing after all the time and effort that’s been expended.

Currently chilling at the kids place in Stratford upon Avon, giving Angie the occasional shoulder massage before popping out for provisions and ensuring everyone gets fed. Have put in a little work on a couple of short stories whilst we’re here, and will be applying the latest lesson in Distribution to everything else that goes into the marketplace.