Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

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Here is a short extract from While the Bombs Fell about:

“The Germans bombed Bungay in 1940.

Reggie said: “The Jerry bomber plane came from the direction of Earsham. It dropped seven bombs, all in a line.
The bangs were so loud, it hurt your ears, and all the windows in Earsham Street blew out.”

Earsham Street was about a mile away from Father’s farm, so the boys didn’t experience painful ears, but Elsie didn’t know that. Being only two years old at the time, Elsie remembered nothing about the bombing of Bungay. Reggie and Joey told her that the White Lion Inn on Earsham Street and H Wightman & Son Ltd furnishers on Trinity Street
had both been damaged by the bombs. Elsie knew both places.

“Flying shrapnel damaged the Grandstand,” Joey said.

This reference was to the Grandstand on the football pitch at the public recreation area, called the Rec, on Earsham Street. Her brothers’ comments and recently overheard bits of conversations between the adults and her siblings about the devastating impact of the Jerry bombing raids on the nearby city of Norwich, stimulated Elsie’s imagination.

One Tuesday morning in late April, the children woke to the news that the Germans had bombed Norwich during the night. Fires burned in the city. The girls sensed the anxiety and shock of the adults during the days after the bombing raids, and it left them quiet and subdued.

That Wednesday night the Jerry bomber planes returned, wreaking even more damage on the city. Smoke still rose from the rubble when the next attack began. The last bombing raid happened on Friday, 1 May of that week.

When Elsie’s grandmother, Granny King, came to visit Mother during that week, she brought news about the bombing of Norwich from old Polly Vesey who lived down the lane.

Granny King lived in one of the tiny cottages collectively referred to as the Alms House in the town. A local charity ran the Alms House which provided accommodation to older adults who could not afford to pay rent.

Polly Vesey, a rather eccentric character, always perched a little straw hat on her head. She wore a long black dress that came down to just above her ankles.

She made a living laying out the dead and, due to her job, often looked detached from people and circumstances. Granny King told Mother Polly Vesey’s news: “Norwich is badly damaged. The bombs hit houses, shops, churches and other buildings, even the mortuary.

“There is no gas, electricity or running water in the city. How are people supposed to manage? The toilets are not working.

“Polly said women have been coming out of the city at night with their children, and whatever they can carry, to spend the night in the countryside away from the bombing.”

The news reported similar attacks on the English cities of Exeter, Bath, York, and Canterbury during this period of the war that the British came to know as the Baedeker Blitz.”

You can join in Thursday Doors: https://nofacilities.com/2021/02/18/palace-theater-doors-thursday-doors/

What Amazon says

A lifetime of poetry and photography gives a unique view of life, nature, the world, and the universe. 

My review

Feral Tenderness is an extraordinary collection of poems that strike right to the heart of human conditioning, frailty, and behaviours. Through reading these poems you will be removing the rosy coloured spectacles through which you have watched life until now, and will be exposed to the raw reality of human existence, both with its fatal flaws and also in its bountifulness and excesses.

The poet uses words to spear his reader and force contemplation of certain realities. There are unforgettable and powerful lines that will lurk in your subconscious to be drawn out and examined when you are confronted with certain emotions and situations. Some of my favourite of these lines are as follows:

“The glue that holds shut
the eyelids of your sightless soul
can be dissolved”
From Seeing is Believing

“You’re wasting time! You’re wasting your life
considering each step through the field.
Accept it. Any step could be your last.
Any choice could be wrong. How long will you
inspect the ground in front of you,
before you move? …
From The Minefield as a Metaphor for Life

My two favourite poems in this collection are both about love. What is, my love is followed by What isn’t love?

These are two short extracts from these two poems in order of appearance.

“My love is a hurt, and a rage and a yearning, it moves
through my body, sets my hands to learning the shape
beneath the shape, the tone beneath the tone, the
language of the bone, of subtlety and range, a way
of seeing the strange.”

“Staring into space at work,
while over and over you rehearse
something you must say to wound your lover.
Or having to replay
again and again throughout the day
some way that your lover wounded you.”

I read both of these poems several times and these particular lines set me to thinking about life and love for a long time.

There are also some beautiful photographs in between the poems, for the reader to enjoy and admire.

Purchase Feral Tenderness

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About Arthur Rosch

Arthur Rosch is a mid-westerner, who became a Californian as a young man. A lover of jazz, poetry, painting and photography, and writing, as well as a passion for astronomy, photography, history, psychology and the weird puzzle of human experience. After receiving Playboy Magazine’s Best Short Story Award for a comic view of a planet where there are six genders, he was immersed in circles that could have taken him to the top, but it was short lived. Arthur found himself reeling, struggling with depression and addiction on the streets for almost a decade, and repairing and rediscovering himself was a defining event in his life, nurturing his literary soul. He is currently a certified Seniors Peer Counselor in Sonoma County, California. Come visit his blogs and photo sites. www.artrosch.com and http://bit.ly/2uyxZbv. 

Acknowledging stress

As an unwanted burden

Pushed onto people

Through bad planning by others

Helps free the mind and spirit

By Roberta Eaton Cheadle

RWISA Revolution Tour Blurb

Have you written that book or short story you want the whole world to know about? Are you looking for a great way to promote your creative endeavors? Perhaps you’re seeking to add some prestige to your body of work! If this sounds like you, we invite you to come on over to RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, otherwise known as RWISA.

At RWISA, we invite to membership only the very best writers the Indie community has to offer.

If your work is exemplary and speaks for itself, stop by the RWISA website today at RaveWriters.wordpress.com and find out how you can submit your sample of writing for consideration.

We’re an exclusive bunch but we’d love to have you join us!

NOTE:  If you’re looking to improve your writing while taking another route to membership into RWISA, while you’re at the site, visit RWISA UNIVERSITY!

Happy Ending by Wendy Jayne Scott

In March 2020, with only a few days warning, alongside the rest of New Zealand, I was plunged into total lockdown. Saying this was a surreal experience is an understatement. As none of us knew how long this altered state would last, what this meant for our jobs, or the financial or health repercussions. We’d become entangled into the twilight zone of Covid-19. UNPRECEDENTED, screamed from the headlines alongside worldwide body counts and estimated infection rates. No compass existed to guide us out of the pandemic fog shrouding our futures. We were confined to our specified people bubbles.

Teddy Bears sprouted up window ledges and letter boxes, a sign of hope and solidarity, signalling to passers-by that even though 2 meter distances and masks now ruled our physical world, we were together in our hearts. I remember gathering, with my son, at the end of our driveway, in the predawn, to pay homage to our fallen ANZAC soldiers. Dawn parades were cancelled for the first time in 104 years. The haunting bugle tone of ‘The Last Post’ filtered from an unseen neighbour’s gateway and shivers resonated along my spine.

During lockdown, I had a choice of how I would respond to my altered reality. Black voids of despair, conspiracy theories, and fake news plied for my sanity. Yet, sunlight glistened on the tall summer grasses in my yard, my son’s laughter trickled on the breeze, and my dogs’ tails wagged like helicopter rotors, ecstatic to have their human pals home 24/7. So, I chose to focus on becoming a healthier and happier version of me, and a positive role-model for my son.

Fast forward to February 2021, New Zealand is no longer in lockdown, but our borders are heavily restricted, and the new media buzz words are QUARANTINE and VACCINE. Uncertainty looms like a bloated storm cloud. Fears of further job losses and financial ruin taint our summer days. Staying positive is harder to maintain under this sustained assault of negative news.

Changes are happening. Although, I fight against the dismantling of my comfortable world, my will alone doesn’t curb the tidal jetsam from Covid-19, so I must adapt to this foreign landscape.

Since lockdown, I’ve embraced personal development, focusing inward, aware that I may not be in a position to influence external circumstances, but I can take responsibility for myself. Being positive is easy when life is rosy, yet it is how I react when life is battering away at my defences that define me as a person.

Here are my top tips for positivity:

• Express your gratitude every day for what you do have
• Show and tell your loved ones how much you care for them and hug them (if you can)
• Use your creativity!!!! Keep feeding your creative addictions
• Resonate with nature by strolling on the beach, sniff garden flowers, or listen to birdsong
• Smile more, at everyone, this is the right kind of contagious! If a mask hides your mouth, then smile through your eyes!
• Be kind, laugh, and dance – play music that lifts your spirit

So, smile, and join me in singing and dancing into the light. https://youtu.be/MOWDb2TBYDg

Amazon US

RWISA Revolution Tour Page

RWISA Wendy Jayne Scott Page

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

Today I am sharing photographs from our visit to my Mom’s home town of Bungay, Suffolk. Bungay is the setting from my books, While the Bombs Fell, co-written with my Mom, and Through the Nethergate.

This is a short extract from While the Bombs Fell which describes my Mom’s home and the goat shed:

“Many other cottages along “back lane,” or Nethergate Street, were small and shabby, the same as
Elsie’s home. They all looked similar and featured an outside toilet.

In the yard of the cottage next door stood two dilapidated wooden sheds. A fat, elderly man lived
alone in that cottage. The local people called him Old Fiddledee Dee. He wore a worn calico shirt, an
old waistcoat buttoned over his large belly and a pair of tatty, brown pants.

Old Fiddledee Dee kept goats in his sheds which he milked every morning. People said he lived on
goat’s milk and bread. The thought of drinking milk from smelly goats disgusted Elsie.”

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/02/11/katharine-day-house-thursday-doors/

RWISA Revolution Tour Blurb

Have you written that book or short story you want the whole world to know about? Are you looking for a great way to promote your creative endeavors? Perhaps you’re seeking to add some prestige to your body of work! If this sounds like you, we invite you to come on over to RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, otherwise known as RWISA.

At RWISA, we invite to membership only the very best writers the Indie community has to offer.

If your work is exemplary and speaks for itself, stop by the RWISA website today at RaveWriters.wordpress.com and find out how you can submit your sample of writing for consideration.

We’re an exclusive bunch but we’d love to have you join us!

NOTE: If you’re looking to improve your writing while taking another route to membership into RWISA, while you’re at the site, visit RWISA UNIVERSITY!

A light in the tunnel! by Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko

I don’t know about the rest of you, but my new year started on November 3, 2020, when Biden was pronounced the winner of the presidential election. I went to bed that night early because I needed to be alone in prayer for God to rid America of the worst four years of this country’s political life. I did not want to see the results trickling in, especially as the first results did not favor Biden.

This has always been my practice. Even when the team I’m rooting for is playing, I never watch the game. I would rather wait for the end of the game to know the results. The live game always gives me something near to a heart attack. This was why I didn’t wait up to watch the results of the election as they came in. I wanted to wake up in the morning to the news that Biden had won!

It was with great trepidation that I woke up the next morning, November 4, 2020., to find out who won.  First, I turned my Television to CNN, and saw Van Jones in tears. I didn’t know why he was in tears, but I joined him. In my head, I had concluded that anything that would cause Mr. Jones to cry could not be good. Slowly, it started to dawn on me that his tears, my tears, were tears of victory. Biden had won! Glory to God for He had answered my prayers! I forgot my aches and pains and did a jive! What a glorious day it was!

For me, Biden’s win opened up for people of goodwill, many positive possibilities. The first thing I felt was that the gloom which hovered over everything sane, the sense of despair that dogged the last administration’s tenure, the fear about where all the damaging rhetoric was taking us, and the danger of the divide, had all dissipated. I felt the sun shining again. My hopes for the future of this great country returned. I knew that all would be well again.

When Trump threatened the results of the election by refusing to acknowledge defeat or concede, at first, I thought it was a passing whim. Somehow, deep inside me, I was strong in my belief that God had spoken. The deal was done. Nothing and no one could overturn the results of the election!

The funny thing about all this, is that while we were rejoicing here in America about Biden’s win, in Nigeria, some misguided individuals were carrying about banners of a Trump’s win. I couldn’t understand how the business of the American elections had become the business of Nigeria. Relatives from Nigeria started texting me to sympathize with me. A cousin from London texted to warn me about an impending war in America. I texted him back asking him where he would want me to run to. The cousin humorously replied, from frying pan to fire! That’s a Nigerian idiom meaning from bad to worse.

I remember that day very clearly. In fact, we were having a fun time on the RRBC chat forum when I turned on my Television and saw, in horror, Trump and his cohorts moving to the USA Capitol. Well, he promised to march with them, then he snuck away. I alerted the RRBC chat members who were still talking about everything mundane on WhatsApp. It was horrible! How could one man hold this country to ransom? Why was Trump trying to ruin my new year’s resolutions?

There is a saying that goes, our happiness is in our own hands. Then and there I decided that Trump or no Trump, this election was done. Biden won! God had spoken, and thanks be to God! The whole world, and I mean, the whole world was in jubilation!

Before Biden’s win, I prayed to God for him to win. After his win, I upgraded my prayer. This time, I prayed that the two outstanding seats in the Senate should go to the Democrats so that Biden would be able to do a good job for the country without being blocked by the Republicans. I still remember what they did to the Obama administration, so I prayed night and day for those two seats to go to the Democrats, and now that they have those seats, my prayers have changed again. I have started channeling my prayer for Biden’s safety and good health. I am sure he needs both. I’m sure you will all agree with me that he looks so frail every time we see him, and his voice sounds so tired when he speaks. May God sustain him!

This year is looking good already. I am able to write again. Last year was one of my worst writing years. I couldn’t write at all, and this had nothing to do with writer’s block. I could see my stories. Sometimes, I would jot somethings down, and then, that feeling of hopelessness … like the end was near, would overwhelm me. I would ask myself, why bother? Rather than write, I would sit and stare into space, and dream. Although I was not putting anything down on paper, I would rehash everything in my head.

With the country calmer now, my worries have started to melt away. I can now focus more and stay on course. I can’t believe that in just two days, I have written two blog posts. In short, I am back!

I am happy that Biden is on course, too. He is not allowing anything, to distract him. When the country is on course, we are all on course. I pray that God will help him to heal America and pull America back from the hole which the last administration had plunged it. America deserves better. We deserve better.

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Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko RWISA page

“Do you get story ideas that you know you’ll never write?’

I have lots and lots of story ideas. Everywhere I go, every time I do research, and every time I read a snippet of history, I get stories ideas. There are so many fascinating places, people, and innovations out there, but there is only limited time to write stories. I work full time and have a family so time is my most precious commodity and I have to decide which story ideas to pursue and which to leave for the time being.

I have a number of half written manuscripts on my computers including another middle school book called Silly Willy goes to London, a cli-fi book about genetic engineering and the fourth industrial revolution (I wrote the first 40 000 words and plotted out all three books in a planned series), a memoir about my experiences with raising children with chronic illnesses and dealing with OCD and PTSD in family situations (direct and indirect), and three or four Sir Chocolate Books stories.

I also have three stories currently on the go: one short paranormal story for an anthology, The Soldier and the Radium Girl about the First World War and the radium girls who painted the glow-in-the-dark watches for use by the American troops in the trenches, and the sequel to my mother’s story about her life growing up in an English town during WWII. I have a great new idea for a book about the Anglo-Zulu war in South Africa and am planning a trip with my family to Ghost Mountain in Kwa-Zulu Natal to visit more historical sites [I’m very excited].

I know I will never finish Silly Willy goes to London or Silly Willy goes to Knysna (also started but only 17 000 words in). I doubt I will return to the cli-fi book having lost interest in researching genetic engineering and the expected impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution when Covid-19 hit. I decided it was better to write historical novels and not forward looking novels until the new normal is clear to me. It is difficult to try and predict the future while we are in the middle of a pandemic and don’t know when it will end or how it will impact the world economically. Financial crisis have a habit of leading to conflict and war, just saying.

I have decided not to publish any more Sir Chocolate Books because Michael is 15 years old now and has lost interest in a chocolate man who lives in a world where you can eat everything and my memoir is to painful to write so that has also been abandoned for the time being.

My plan for this year is to write three or four short paranormal stories for anthologies, produce a poetry anthology with Kaye Lynne Booth of Writing to be Read blog, finish After the Bombs Fell with my mother, finish The Soldier and the Radium Girl which is intended to be a novella and plot the outline for my new South African war novel, the title of which has not yet revealed itself to me. The title always comes to me when I have the end of the book in sight [which is relatively early in my plotting process, as I’ve mentioned before].

It sounds like a plan for 2021!

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Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

The original castle was built by William de Hever in 1270 and consisted of the gatehouse and walled bailey. In 1462, Anne Boleyn’s great-grandfather, Geoffrey Boleyn, purchased the castle. He extended it and converted it into a private home. When the Boleyn family moved into Hever in c. 1505 they converted it into a comfortable Tudor home.

Anne Boleyn, together with her siblings Mary and George, is likely to have spent a good deal of her childhood here prior to being sent to join the court of the Archduchess Margaret in 1513.

After the demise of Anne and Thomas Boleyn, the castle became the property of Henry VIII. In 1540 he gave it to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, as part of a very generous annulment settlement.

After this, the castle had several owners including the Waldegraves, the Humfreys, and the Meade Waldos. In 1903 the American millionaire, William Waldorf Astor, purchased Hever. He went about restoring the castle, building the Tudor village, and creating the beautiful gardens and lake.

You can join in this challenge here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/02/04/author-author-thursday-doors/

Day 2 of the Spirits of the West book tour hosted by WordCrafter Press sets out some background to my short story, The Thirstyland Journey. You can find out more about the tours WordCrafter is offering here: https://writingtoberead.com/wc-book-blog-tours-2/

Background

My story, the Thirstyland Journey, is based on the Dorsland Trek (Thirstyland Trek) which is the collective name for a series of treks by groups of Boer (farmer) settlers from modern day South Africa in search of independence from Britain and better living conditions.

The first group of trekkers under the leadership of Gert Alberts set out on the 27^th of May 1874. This initial trek was followed by other groups, all taking different routes. The primary destination of the Dorsland trekkers was the Humpata highlands of south-western Angola. In order to get to Angola, the trekkers had to cross large parts of the Kalahari desert in Bechuanaland (now called Botswana) and South West Africa (modern Namibia). The trekkers suffered greatly due to lack of water and it is believed that 3,000 trekkers died during the journey.

Map from Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorsland_Trek

Extract from The Thirstyland Journey

“Exhaustion yaps at Elsbet’s heels as she holds Johannes’ hand tightly, helping to pull him along through the deep sand. Her thirst and rash from the prickly heat torture her and not a word passes by her swollen and dry throat. The drifting sand fills her shoes and makes lifting her feet hard work.

After a few hours of walking, one of the Hottentot shepherds lifts his nose and says: “I smell water.”  The others all spread out and presently a cry of “Water, here is water,” causes everyone to rush over and see what the Hottentot, Tom, has found. It is water, but only a small amount which had filled a natural rocky depression during the last rainy season and been covered by the drifting sand. Everyone gets to enjoy a few sips of this filtered and cool water. I need more. Two sips is just not enough.

There is not enough to share with the animals and they continue to go without. As they continue walking through the arid environment broken only by the odd patche of scrub, the Hottentots discover similar small pools of water. Elsbet, looks all around carefully, doing her best to spot these water filled depressions but she doesn’t have the sharp eyes of the Hottentots.

When the convoy finally stops, soon after the devil sun starts its march across the bleached sky, the family suck down their allotment of water and pass out into a heavy and unfulfilling sleep. “We need to be extra careful about water,” says Papa.

On the third evening in the desert, Elsbet wakes and rubs her dirty face with dry and flaking hands. Her lips and eyelids are stuck together and she pries them open with her fingers. Aletta and Johannes are in a similar state and she helps them in the same way. Aletta’s small face is pinched and her chubby cheeks seem to have melted away, leaving a skin covered skull with the sharp contours of a much older person. Sheer exhaustion has allowed the children to sleep longer and the sun is already dropping behind the horizon.”

Purchase Spirits of the West anthology

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