PS I wanted the doll in pink but I got the doll in blue.
My muse is the ghost of Robbie past.
I see the ghostly shadow of my younger self peeking over my shoulder, watching my fingers move over the keyboard of my laptop and reading the words as they appear on my screen.
I recognise her as the little girl who used to sit quietly on a beanbag with a glass of milk and a book, and read all afternoon, every afternoon.
She was also the girl who traded sister #1 a pile of writing paper [we used to trade it at school] and an empty vanilla essence bottle [it smelled lovely] for her three library cards. Hers, when combined with my four cards, enabled me to borrow seven books at a time from our local library. This reduced my trips to the library to twice a week from three, or even four. The library was about four kilometres away from our house at this time. It doesn’t sound far, but I was eight years old at the time, so the eight kilometre round-trip, with a basket packed with seven books, took me a while.
Sometimes my younger self reminds me of the games I used to make-up as a young girl. I remember the time I involved my entire class in a mad game of catch the witch and got into a lot of trouble with my teacher when the raucous game became so loud we missed the end of break bell. My teacher, Sister I’ve Forgotten her Name but not her Fierce Expression, was extremely cross with me for master minding that one. She threatened to send me to Mother Superior’s office. Somehow, I think that game may have been a lot like ‘kikery’ from What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. Katy got into a lot of trouble over that game too.
Ghost Robbie shares flashes of memory of sister #2 and I sitting on the roof of the garden shed [no, my mother didn’t know I led her up there] making creations for shells we gathered on the beach [no, my mother didn’t know we crossed the railway line to get to the beach either], or making baskets out of clay gathered from a ditch next to the road, or running through the veld in long dresses with plastic buckets playing Little House on the Prairie.
She reminds me of my two live dolls, sisters #s 3 and 4, who I dressed up and played with. They were my patients when I was the doctor, my children when I was the mother, Jack and Jill when we played nursery rhymes, and many other imaginary people when we played our many different games.
Sometimes, she whispers to me, reminding me of favourite scenes from well loved books from the past. If I get stuck, she’ll suggest I take a peek at one of the hundreds of books we’ve read and find inspiration. It works every time.
Most of all, she reminds me of Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery which we read when we were about ten years old. I remember how much we loved that book and how inspired we were to write poetry and descriptive passes.
We are a team and we are glad to be working together to write our children’s and adult fiction.
Thursday Doors is 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 Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
Edinburgh Castle is a historical fortress situated on Castle Rock in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. These are a few pictures I took of doors during our tour of this famous castle.
Entrance to the castleOriginal prison door in the dungeonsEntrance to see the Scottish crown jewels
The three pictures below are of the view of Edinburgh from the castle. Lots of doors.
The Vintage Egg (Postcards From Tomorrow #1) by A.C. Flory
What Amazon says
Six short stories. Six sneak peeks into the lives of people living in Australia at the end of the 21st century. Six postcards from the future.
Although each one of these science fiction stories stands alone, together they tell a story about a time and a world very different to our own.
Like the present, the future will be a mix of good and bad, but to the people living in it, the late 21st century will just be ‘now’. What they make of it is up to them. However our now is up to us. We are the ones who will decide, in a million little ways, whether their future comes true or not.
My review
This is the first book by A.C. Flory I have read and I will definitely be reading more. Originality and uniqueness rate highly on my rating list for a book, and these six science fiction stories certainly meet that criteria. The stories are all well written and easy to read, which makes this book a great choice for most readers.
All of the stories assume a futurist world after an undisclosed event or series of events which turn Earth into a hot and arid desert. The surviving people of the world are forced to live in underground cities. Food sources have changed and meat is scarce and expensive. The population, forced to live this unnatural life, are kept entertained with digital games which are so realistic they are almost life experiences. There is, however, a limit on gaming time to prevent people from starving to death while playing. These are indications of how the unnatural lifestyle is impacting on people.
The Vintage Egg and The Egg Run are interlinked stories, with the former presenting the beginning and the later the ending, of one story idea. Both stories are complete and can be enjoyed as standalone reads. This is the tale of an elderly man’s dream of finding a way of exploring the ruined Earth above ground through the restoration of a vintage machine he acquires. He involves and interests his young grandson in his project and it becomes something they do together. The Egg Run depicts stage 2 of the project through the eyes of the grandson.
The Gamer and Brehak are another pair of stories, each told from a different characters point of view. This story is fascinating as it explores the lack of reality and truth presented in digital worlds and how both of the participants in this ‘life like’ game are totally deceived by the other’s digital avatar and how this lack of truth impacts on their lives.
The To-Do-List is an interesting peak into the differences between older and younger people when it comes to adapting to fast changing technologies. It is an entertaining, but frighteningly realistic, look, at the older generations determination to hold on to the past and they world they knew when they were younger, versus the younger generations easy ability to adapt to change.
The Christmas Roast was truly horrifying for me. The concepts explored in this short story about a world where food is short and improvisations have become the normal, was quite overwhelming for someone like me who has always bought milk in a bottle [does it really come from a cow?] and meat neatly packaged with few reminder that it was one a living, breathing creature.
A great book of short stories and one I have unhesitatingly given a 5-star rating.
Purchase The Vintage Egg (Postcards From Tomorrow #1) by A.C. Flory
Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition: 101 Ways to Celebrate the Holiday Season on a Budget by Charlie Lee Austin
What Amazon says
The holiday season can be such a busy and expensive time of year. This book provides you with ideas for celebrating the season on a budget.
My review
This little book is packed with fun and economical ways of celebrating Christmas with children, friends and family. It has a strong Christian orientation and some of the activities relating to the Bible, but there are many other ideas that can be enjoyed by people of any religious orientation.
Reading the ideas presented in this book reminded me of two of my favourite childhood books. Little Women when the girls decide to play a variation of pilgrims progress and also when they celebrate Christmas without their father, who is fighting in the war, and all decide what gifts to buy their Marmee. I was also taken back to the glorious days when I read What Katy Did for the first time. My favourite scenes in this book are when Katy decides to make all sorts of Christmas gifts for her siblings and best friend. She creates a Christmas tree decorated with home-made decorations like popcorn strings and they children have a poetry reading evening where they all read a poem they have written.
The suggestions in this book are simple and yet so much fun to make. The ideas include making a pinata from clay pots and paper mache, making Christmas crackers from toilet roll innards, and making Christmas candles.
A great book of activity ideas to entertain young young children over the holiday period.
Purchase Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition: 101 Ways to Celebrate the Holiday Season on a Budget
This is a second edition with updates on the state of this historic church. In the original publication files were lost then resurfaced with content altered along with missing photos during transition from one publisher to another. Such is the fate of an Independent Author.
This book evolved out of years of frustration at the total disregard and lack of respect for the contributions of Black Catholics in the city of Detroit. The author says, “We are not mentioned in the pages of history along with the other Catholic churches that sprung up during the World War II era, and that needed to be corrected.” The author did fulfill one dream since publication … that this church can now be found on the web even though it has merged with another church. It is now called Presentation-Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church.
After last week’s bird adventure I wasn’t expecting to have anything more to do with the birds for a while. The loeries have taken fright and not returned to my garden.
We have been experiencing heavy rain and it rained all night on Friday and most of yesterday, last night and this morning. This afternoon, the sun came out and the garden was bathed in bright sunshine. I decided to go for my daily five laps around the garden [5 000 steps] and see what changes the lovely rain had brought.
As I walked past our scruffy little retaining wall near the garage, I caught sight of a tiny bird out of the corner of my eye. It was completely still with only its bright little eyes moving. I moved a bit closer for a better look and the parent birds went crazy in the tree above, telling me sternly to stay away from their baby.
Of course, I was worried. Could the baby fly? Where was my cat? Push-Push is a lovely cat but she is fond of a bit of bird for her supper. I left Terence around the corner keeping an eye on the baby, and went in search of my little tiger. Fortunately, she was taking a cat bath in the rotting peaches under the tree – yippee! She’s now lovely and stinky of spoiled fruit.
Leaving her to enjoy her rolling, I went back to the driveway and saw the mother standing on the tap and encouraging the baby to fly. The little thing was flapping around furiously and making short flights.
After a lengthily period of trying, the baby managed to get back into the tree and the mother was much happier. Meanwhile, daddy bird had sat in the tree watching.
I was relieved it worked out and the baby got back into the tree. Baby birds are a lot of work to raise and there was the risk of it ending up in Pushy’s tummy if I undertook the task.
My garden is looking rather amazing. Here are a few new flower pictures:
I love my day lilies. You can see the raindrops sparkling on the bottom petal.
I had a rather strange experience yesterday morning. I went outside early, at about 7.15 a.m. to hang out the washing. The line is behind my dad’s office and near our two plum trees. There is a large olive tree next to the second plum tree. When I arrived at the line, there was a collection of birds in the olive tree and they were going crazy, screeching and making a huge noise.
I went over to the trees and, as I drew closer, I saw that not one, but two Loeries (a large grey fruit eating bird), were trapped under the net over one of the plum trees. The trapped birds were in a state, flapping around all over the place and unable to find their way out from under the net. I am way to short to pull the net off the tree, so I rushed inside and grabbed the kitchen scissors. Slash! Slash! I cut a huge hole above one of the birds and it flew away. A few of the birds in the olive tree rose up into the air and followed the escaped bird.
Several remained in the olive tree and they had become very quite as they watched. The remaining trapped bird was still in a panic, fluttering everywhere, and I was battling to cut in the right place to free it. One of the birds in the olive tree started to coo, a soft crooning coo. The trapped bird stopped flapping about and I was able to cut another hole in the net and set it free. The remaining birds in the olive tree then all took off and they disappeared back to the nearby bird sanctuary.
I believe that the birds definitely all communicated, initially expressing great anxiety at their trapped companions and then, the cooing bird, tried to calm down the last trapped bird so I could free it. It was a strange and surreal experience. I know for sure that birds have feelings and express emotions.
I wonder how long it will take my dad to notice the giant holes in the net? I think the holes are a great improvement. Little doors for the birds.
When we were in the Drakensburg during September this year, I also saw a bird romance. The hotel had a few peacocks roaming around and the peacock was romancing the peahen. I took these pictures:
Here is the peahen on the verandah watching the peacock on the grass belowHere is the peacock showing off for the peahenI love this picture with the rays of the sun shining down and the peacock feathers fanned out in the opposite directionThe tables have turned and the peahen is chasing after the peacock who is disappearing around the corner
Thursday Doors is 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 Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
In September 2018, Terence went to Finland and Birmingham for work. I decided to tag along as I hadn’t been to either place and we decided to spend a few days in London before travelling to Finland.
We chose a hotel close to Paddington Station so that we could get around easily. I love UK trains, they are so orderly and nearly always on time. I took some pictures in the station and in a small park a few blocks form the station, across the road from our hotel.
In the park near Paddington StationPictures of the doors to a hotel across the road from the park. This is not where we stayed.Entrance to Paddington StationDonut store in Paddington Station with sliding glass doors.
How do you choose when both options have dire consequences?
Sofia is a 17 year old who is quite content with her life. She has a caring boyfriend who also just happens to be her best friend since birth. She has a loving mother. She is successfully completing her last year of high school and enjoys her part-time job. She can’t imagine wanting more from her life…until Ar’ch (pronounced Ar-rick) enters her dreams, sparking a burning flame inside of her that she can’t seem to extinguish nor does she want to.
Ar’ch is a Diasodz (Die-ah-sodz), a species created by the Goddess back when God created humans. Diasodz were made to heal and protect humans, but when the Diasodz turned their backs on helping humans and left Earth to live in their own world, the Goddess abandoned them. Since then, their powers and their very lives have been fading. A prophecy foretold that a young girl born on Earth would be the Diasodz’s savior. Ar’ch and his brother, Angel, travel to Earth to retrieve her and bring her back to their world before her death day in order to save their kind. Ar’ch knows the drill: find the target, capture her, and safely bring her home. But what happens when the target captures his dormant heart?
Choices create action. Actions have consequences. When faced with the truth, what choice will Sofia make? Will she be able to accept the consequences that follow?
My review
I listened to the audio book of The One Discovered, narrated by Cammy Maughan. I enjoyed Cammy’s style of reading and particularly loved the way she inserted laughs by the characters into her narration. That made this story feel very real and alive for me.
This is an interesting sci-fi YA novel with the unusual premise of a superior race of human-looking people called Diasodz, who have a variety of different powers such as an ability to heal, and who live in a different dimension to humans. I liked the idea of a different dimension rather than a different planet and I also enjoyed the parallels between life in their dimension and life in the human dimension such as their serving of a goddess.
Sophia is an ordinary, if pretty, teenage girl who is growing up in a single parent family. Her mother works very hard to support them both and give Sophia a good life. Sophia is an excellent student and is working hard towards gaining acceptance into a college of her choice. Sophia has a boyfriend, Rafe, who has been her best friend since birth and who is the son of her mother’s good friend, Damiana.
The story starts with Sophia have a very life-like dream which features a gorgeous man. Before she can find out who he is she wakes up. A short while later, Sophia meets this same man at the café where she works as a waitress. At the same time, Angel, a new-comer to her high school, comes into her life and befriends both Rafe and herself.
It soon turns out that Angel is the younger brother of the gorgeous man named Ar’ch. As Sophia gets to know them both better, all sorts of unusual and strange events start to happen in Sophia’s previously peaceful life. In addition, Sophia develops a strong attraction for Ar’ch which puts her in a complicated situation with Rafe, who is theoretically her boyfriend but with whom she has a platonic relationship.
Sophia was a lovely character and very typical of an overly sheltered teenage girl. Her reactions to Ar’ch and the attraction she feels for him were perfect for a YA novel. I enjoyed Sophia’s loyalty to both her mother and Rafe and also her hard working tendencies which send a good message about the path to achievement to young readers.
Ar’ch was an interesting character. A play boy who has always had lots of female attention, he falls hard for Sophia. He tries to resist his attraction to her as she is part of his “mission” to earth and he is trying to be professional. Some of his behaviour seemed a bit unlikely for a man of his experience and age, but he was still enjoyable and I enjoyed hearing about him.
The ending as it related to Rafe was unexpected to me as I expected more to come in respect of this particular character. His reactions and behaviours were a bit unusual for a young man of his age and I thought this might lead to a bigger role for his in the future books. I have yet to see if that will be the case or not.
The story moved quite slowly for the first half of the book and there was a strong focus on the potential romance between Sophia and Ar’ch but the pace picked up hugely during the second half of the book and there was a lot of excitement and the introduction of new evil characters which made it highly entertaining.
This book will appeal to readers who enjoy sci-fi with a strong romantic element.
In the past, nobody would have taken notice of Iroko, the biggest and tallest tree in the forest. But then, cities started to grow and to eat into the forests. Trees were cut to make way for the growing cities. But the Iroko tree resisted being cut down. Any time an axe cut the tree, the axe either broke or the cut bled, real blood., and cries, ear piercing cries, like human cries were heard coming from the tree.
In the forest, next to Iroko, lived an old woman in a tiny mud hut. Bent by age, she diligently cared for the tree. She was known as the eyes and the mouth of the tree. She listened to the tree, when the leaves rustled and interpreted the language of the tree to outsiders. She was called Nne Oji. Oji is the Igbo name for Iroko, and Nne Oji means Iroko’s mother. Iroko was as tall as a skyscraper, about one hundred and seventy feet high, and the width was as wide as fifty men surrounding the tree with outstretched hands, fingertips touching. Iroko was huge, towering and intimidating!
The stories surrounding Iroko were such that settlers decided to let it stand and the town grew all around and away from it. Things went on peacefully for a while, but soon it became clear that Iroko did not like the exposure it was getting from the people surrounding it. After all, this tree was the king of the forest, where both trees and animals revered it. Now, standing in the midst of humans,with no one paying it any heed, all of this would change very rapidly.
People, especially those living close to where Iroko stood, started reporting strange happenings around Iroko in the dead of night. Those who were bold enough to come out and watch these happenings, reported seeing dancing and merrymaking around Iroko by people they believed were spirit people. These spirit people went in and out of Iroko as if they were walking in and out of their homes. They sang and danced in merriment from twelve midnight until two in the morning, after which they packed up and walked back into the tree. Those who observed these goings-on, did so from afar and in hiding.
The story was told of a young boy who had the misfortune of being seen by these spirit people. He was taken and was never seen again. He had heard the stories of the happenings around Iroko, so that night he snuck out of his house and walked toward Iroko to take a closer look. Voices were heard warning him not to come closer, but he continued walking toward Iroko until he entered the sphere of the tree where everything turned grey. At that point, the boy lost control of himself and was pulled along until he disappeared in the mist and was seen no more.
The mother watched everything in hiding in paralyzed shock. The other people who watched in hiding were also mystified. They couldn’t believe their eyes, but they dared not allow themselves to be seen.
The next morning, the mother saw a huge striped cow tied to an orange tree in front of her house. The cow was chewing cud. The woman walked around the cow trying to understand how it came to be there. The town people also took notice and started gathering and questioning the presence of the cow. Out of nowhere, a young boy with only a loin cloth around his waist appeared and spoke to the onlookers.
“Mama, Iroko says you should take the cow in exchange for your son. Iroko says you should not kill the cow. You should sell it and use the money to take care of yourself.” With that, the boy turned and walked through the crowd and disappeared.
Everyone there was seized with shock and they quickly dispersed. The woman cut the cow loose and started shooing it off from the front of her house, but the cow would not budge.
The woman started to weep and pleaded with Iroko to return her son and take back the cow.
“Iroko give me back my son and take your cow!” she implored. “I don’t want your cow!”
The next day, the woman saw the cow at the back of her house, peacefully lying down near her hearth and chewing cud. She ran out toward Iroko.
“If you won’t give me back my son, Iroko, take me too!” she screamed at the top of her voice. Iroko’s leaves started to rustle. Suddenly, the old woman in the hut materialized and stood between the woman and Iroko.
“Go back, Mama!” the old woman said. “What you seek cannot be done. Your son is gone, dead and Iroko has paid you in exchange for him. Go back or you will meet the same fate!”
The woman refused to be stopped. She pushed the old woman down, walked over her and continued to approach Iroko. By this time, people had started to gatherand were watching. The woman threw herself at Iroko and just like magic, the onlookers saw sparks of light, like fireworks, all around the woman. They heard her screaming and shouting like someone roasting on a stake. When everything died down and the sparks were no more, the people saw that the woman had metamorphosed. The woman had changed into an animal, something that looked like a dog, or a goat. No one could really tell. The people dispersed but this time they all had one thought in their minds – that Iroko must go.
Iroko’s fame continued to grow even beyond the immediate town. The townspeople also became bolder. They consulted with diviner after divinerto find out how to get rid of Iroko. They tried everything, without any success … one attempt took the lives of twelve men. They tried to burn Iroko down, but the fire turned against them and burned them to death. One diviner suggested that the spirit of Iroko resided in the old woman who tended it, and that if the old woman was killed, Iroko would quietly and slowly die.
The townspeople burned the old woman’s hut down with the old woman in it. The next day, Iroko started taking souls. People started disappearing from their homes, both in broad daylight and at night while they slept.
Finally, an Iroko priest from a distant land told the people how to destroy Iroko.
“Humans should not fight Iroko,” he said. “They should appease Iroko. Iroko trees do not live amongst humans. Before you people started building your town, you should have appeased and pleaded with Iroko to leave your town. As you can see, Iroko was simply minding its own business, when you people decided to invade its privacy. Now you have to sacrifice to Iroko to appease it.”
The townspeople had to pay this priest to come to their town to perform all that was needed to appease Iroko. There is no need to list here all that Iroko demanded, which included the blood of virgins, before it was appeased. The morning after the ceremony by this priest was concluded, the people came out and watched as the inhabitants of Iroko exited one after the other and disappeared; the birds of various families, the giant ants, red and black, dark dangerous black snakes – all came out of Iroko hissing, grumbling, and then poof, like smoke disappeared. But the king of all the animals, a giant Eke python, refused to be dislodged. The people had to pump inflammatory liquid into Iroko and set the python on fire, to dislodge it. It came out rumbling, twisting,and floundering, until it, too, disappeared.
Finally, Iroko was cut down. Mystery upon mystery, not one single hole existed in the cut tree. It was intact with rings showing how many hundreds of years it had stood there.
***
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Has the pandemic affected your writing? If so, how? Have your writing habits changed in reaction to the ‘different’ world we are faced with?
I first heard about the new coronavirus at the beginning of February this year. At the time, I was doing some work with colleagues in Beijing and it was mentioned on a group call that certain of the Chinese New Year celebrations were being cancelled because of this illness. I had no idea then, that within two months my whole life would change.
On the day after Milan went into lockdown, I had a work meeting at a client’s premises with a large group of advisors. One advisor had arrived in South Africa that morning from Milan. He mentioned how difficult it had been attending meetings in this city the previous day with everyone sheltering at home. He said that the city was empty.
About two weeks later, both my sons and I became very ill with a strange illness. Michael and I felt as if our throats were blocked and we couldn’t breath. We were both very tired. Gregory had bad headaches and a slight fever. We all needed antibiotics and both Greg and Michael had to have two as the first antibiotic didn’t cure them. Did we have C-19? I don’t know. At that time, there were no C-19 tests in South Africa and the doctor diagnosed us as having throat and chest infections.
South Africa went into a strict lockdown on 26 March. All non-essential businesses were closed and my world went mad. I have never been as busy as I was between April and September this year. Many businesses were taking steps to raise additional debt or capital funding and the disclosure requirements were significant due to the extra business risks posed by Coronavirus and the lockdown.
In answer to the question Has the pandemic affected your writing? the answer is yes because my work hours lengthened from an average of 8 hours a day to about 10 hours a day and I was also working during weekends. This did impact my writing as I had very little time to write which caused me some stress. I like writing and I was finishing off my forthcoming book A Ghost and His Gold which I had hoped to publish in October this year. That did not happen due to the demands of my work and I only sent the book to my publisher in October. I am currently working on the final edit of the printers proof and am aiming to be finished next week with a publication date in January 2021. The editing is also taking longer as I am still busy, although I’m no longer working during weekends. My boys have also been writing exams for the past two weeks and I’ve spent a lot of time helping them prepare.
I have had short stories published in two anthologies during October and I was very pleased about that. The two South African pioneering short stories included in Spirits of the West, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth, were written before lockdown. The two short stories included in Spellbound, compiled by Dan Alatorre, were written during lockdown. I did manage to squeeze these in by getting up early in the morning during weekends and writing for a couple of hours before my house started waking up.
Have your writing habits changed in reaction to the ‘different’ world we are faced with? No, my writing habits haven’t changed. I still blog from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. and from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. most days and I still write for three hours every Saturday and Sunday morning and on a Friday afternoon from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. This is assuming I have a normal 35 – 40 hour work week as have a reduced hours employment contract (30 hours a week). The reduced hours rarely works, but under non-pandemic circumstances, I get away with a 40 hour week as opposed to the 50 hour week I’d be working if I was employed on a full time basis. I believe my reduced hours gives me some flexibility with my work hours which I need to manage my boys and some of their school and other requirements.
The pandemic has impacted me from a time perspective as I have been even busier than normal. It has not, however, impacted my story ideas or ability to sit down and write. I am very determined and strong willed so I don’t allow anxiety or intrusive thoughts to impact on my productivity generally.
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