As I dot and carried down the hall and stopped to pick up this year’s obligatory longways Christmas card which inevitably slides off any surface upon which it is put if so much as a gnat flies past it – let alone a fat woman on crutches – it occurred to me that I haven’t written a blog post for a sod of a long time.
This is my attempt to put that right. It’s the product of ten minute intervals throughout the week.
Where’s the cock up in that? I hear you ask. Well … more on that story, later.
So the post operative stuff is coming on but mostly … gah! I am having a great deal of difficulty getting the knee to straighten to the extent it’s supposed to (hurts a lot so it’s hard to push, only gets there by the end of the day and the results never stick – next morning we are back a few paces and have to start again). That said, miracle of joyous miracles I can now sleep better. The worry, on the extension front, is the threat of more intervention.
Yep. If I can’t persuade it to not only extend but also for that extension to stick, I will have to go into isolation for another two boring weeks and then be anaesthetised and have it manipulated until it bloody does go straight. This is not an enticing thought. I’ve had enough pain to keep me going for some years this last seven weeks, and now that the levels are finally dropping to manageable I have no desire to go looking for more. On the up side it fared reasonably well after a trip to Mum’s and back this Wednesday and then, to my joy, the physiotherapist reckoned it was extending fully if pushed but just not going on its own because it was swollen. Woot. So I will continue with the ice packs and the weights of doom – sitting with the knee across the gap between two chairs and hanging an oven cloth with a 1kg weight in each hand hole over the top of it.
Onwards and upwards.
A grim discovery.
Oh dear …
Over my knee recuperation period I’ve discovered I need to drink more at night. For some reason the water out of our taps tastes gross unless you run it for a bit, unfortunately the tap has one of those water saver things on it which means it takes a long time to get much out of it. Case in point it takes close to five minutes for the water in the basin to run hot. It’s only one basinful of water but the water saver attachment is very efficient. Even more so now it is clogged up with scale.
Anyway, the long and the short of this was, I brought a glass up to the bathroom so I could fill it before I went to bed at night with fresh water that doesn’t taste of metal. Some nights I forgot and just drank the remnants of the previous day’s.
Meanwhile in another part of the house, I was a little worried that McCat didn’t seem to be drinking his water anymore. Then again it was throwing it down with rain most days and he was probably hoovering up the contents of the puddles in the garden; not to mention the pond. That’s what I assumed anyway … until one morning I found him in the bathroom with his head in the glass drinking my water.
Yeh. So now I have a lid for the glass and every morning, before McCat is released from his ‘bedroom’ I empty any remnants of water down the sink and turn the glass upside down. The levels in McCat’s water bowl are now dropping as normal which can only mean one thing. I think I may have to sanitise my entire digestive tract. Then again maybe that’s why I’ve lost some weight. Perhaps sharing my water with McCat has given me worms.
Probably.
Garden detecting … sort of …
This afternoon, I doubled the last two physio sessions into one long one and rewarded myself with an hour metal detecting in the garden. The aim is to gradually build up my stamina (phnark) so I can detect for a morning without knee-related repercussions. But it also serves as a good way of taking an hour’s gentle exercise when I haven’t done anything all day. Er hem. Like today.
Type V tongue/chape to hold the buckles on dandy shoes.
Today’s session got off to a wobbly start. As usual I found a lot of foil and interestingly, a large metal tray about a foot across.
Then things began to look up a little. I found a musket ball, at least I’m pretty sure it’s a musket ball, I’ll need to examine it in better light as it has a blob on it which might be the remnants of a rusty hook, which would make it a weight. Then, with the last signal of the ‘day’ because it was pretty much dark by that time, I found a type V chape, which is the thing you would put behind a shoe buckle if you were a gentleman living between the years of 1670 and 1720. Mine is late and may even be after 1720 because the double pronged ones are usually later. Shoe buckles came in two parts; the chape/tongue and the buckle. Put them together and you are able to buckle up your shoe, clearly, but the joy and practicality of them lies more in the fact you can take them apart.
People in the seventeenth and eighteenth century were a lot more sensible than us in many ways, they used a system for buckling their shoes that allowed the metal buckles to be moved/reused. This was because metal was expensive but also … fashion. This way they could swap the buckles over to different shoes which meant you didn’t have to buy a new set of buckles if you got some new or different shoes. If you were loaded it also meant your manservant could easily swap sets of buckles from your collection between different pairs of shoes or conversely, if you had more than one set of buckles but only one pair of shoes you could swap different sets of buckles around without any particular trouble.
So there we are, now we know a little more about the workings of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s foot attire.
This has not been my first foray into the garden. It started, rather boringly, with a ‘hoard’ from the lawn. Unfortunately said hoard was modern coinage to the tune of nine and a half pee. I think the lawn comes from elsewhere as about a foot down you come to an old carpet. I should imagine any interesting Georgian relics are underneath it.
The next session went rather better. I tried the jungle; an overgrown piece of ground near the back of the house where there are fruit trees and an extremely thuggish shrubbery which has subsumed most things. Nobody will be saying ‘Ni’ round here, unless it’s a ‘Ni!’ of disappointment on the grounds of impenetrability. Anyway, on Tuesday, I managed to dig up a medieval jetton from the mid 1700s which was rather exciting.
It’s worn smooth and shiny by din’t of being held and used which is rather lovely. It’s rose and orb type – ie a supremely unexciting one of which there are many. I think it’s an earlier one though, because it’s hammered and the metal is better quality and less pitted than they usually are.
Interestingly, well for me but probably less so for you, I also discovered a pile of what looks like three hammered coins rusted together. They are irredeemably knackered so I am in the happy position of being able to test restoration techniques on them. This is another word for ‘break them’. So far having read a report from a university in the Balkans somewhere, I’ve hit on acetic acid – or a dilute solution of white vinegar. Quite a lot of the kack has come off but I’m none the wiser as to what this thing really is. Never mind. I have also found another musket ball and another little bell since.
Each day I go out at about three and do forty minutes before it gets too dark to see. I got all giddy and excited today because I thought I’d found one of those little lead pots they used to put the gunpowder in. Turned out to be a piece of old shite but you can’t win ’em all. I did find a £2 coin today which I thought was a bit of a win. Needless to say the squirrel appears to be stealing those chocolate pennies you get around Christmas time and burying them. I keep digging up the foils along with little caches of nuts. Just more proof positive that the squirrel is a complete and utter bastard, then. Not that I needed it.
My lord, shall I prepare the guest room for Mr Cock up?
Yes, now we come to Mr Cock-up, a gentleman to whom, it seems, I am always at home.
That’s right, it wasn’t breaking the coins or sharing my night time water with my skanky cat. This one’s to do with books.
One of the good things about lock down this year is that I wrote a novel for the first time since 2015. It’s not my best, I kept it simple for one thing, but it’s alright. On the downside, I need to have it edited. One of the difficulties I have with editing is that I do not have the kind of life that allows me to hit deadlines. Let’s face it, I don’t have the kind of personality that allows it either, but with a bored demented Mum who rings to talk at the most inconvenient moment possible every day – unless I head her off at the pass by phoning her in the morning, which I do usually do. And there are the Wednesday visits, and THINGS happen and I have to try and fix them. But yeh, I daren’t book stuff, even months out, because I hate dicking people around and the only thing I can guarantee about any deadline I commit to is that something will go tits up and I will spend the run up when I’m supposed to be preparing putting the wheels back on my – or someone else’s life – and I won’t be remotely ready for it. CF the last deadline I set myself; my father died, which rather put paid to that one.
Clearly, with a 20k novella this isn’t quite such an issue because the editor is great at squeezing it in between other jobs. However, when the novella has mushroomed to an 85.4k novel it puts a different inflection on things. It’s not the kind of thing anyone could squeeze in between other jobs. My bad. Once again, the inhuman organised people win at life and those of us who are not, or do something a bit random like caring for someone, miss out. This time, with the knee and all, I was even less keen to book a date for editing than normal.
Luckily, my usual editor has a slot but not until mid to late February – which isn’t too far away. BUT it’s also the point when Gareth reckons he’ll have a space to do the audio.
Gah! Curses!
OK so with any luck, Gareth’s schedule might slip a bit, and it’ll all work out. Or he might manage to squeeze it in before the next job.
From my, and your, point of view though, it means the book is not going to be ready for March the way I’d hoped and it definitely won’t come out in Audio at the same time as it comes out in all the other formats. If I can get as much of the ‘this doesn’t make sense’ or the ‘have you forgotten a bit here, I don’t think this was mentioned before,’ kind of stuff done before it goes to edit it will a) cost less and b) be quicker.
To that end, I have two plans. One, I’m going to try a kind of self-edit and two, I’m looking for beta readers. Not normal ones who are booked up for the next six months or charge money, but a bunch of folks like me who are happy to read my book on a whim and ask me any pertinent questions. I need people to ask questions and flag up things that make no sense. People who will spot the odd typo but, mostly, spot the other things. Nobody with a rigid To Read ethic, people who will go, ooo yeh, I’ll have a look at that.
Not hugely likely is it? Hmm. I have cocked this up a bit really. Never mind. I do have one volunteer, which is excellent news. And since I’m here, and doing a blog post for once, I may as well ask, anyway. So if you’re not too worried about bumping something into the middle of your to-read list, can get the comments back by the third week in January 2121, and if you fancy bagging a free book in return for doing a favour for a well-meaning idiot … just get in touch or leave a comment.
Looking for something to keep you entertained this Christmas?
Why not try one of my audiobooks? Available from my own web store for a sod of a lot less than they cost elsewhere, narrated by the ridiculously talented Gareth Davies. To browse my web store just click here:
Alternatively you can bag two audiobooks for free if you join my mailing list: Night Swimming – a mailing list exclusive story and a bit later on, you’ll receive another one: Unlucky Dip prequel to both the K’Barthan Series and the K’Barthan Shorts Series to try the short and join the list, just click here.
