Golden flag

The pond plants were put in three years ago and this is the first time these golden irises have flowered.

A poem for the sunshine (a bit spicy!)

HAWAIIAN TROPIC

In this weather,

the coconut ghost of Hawaiian Tropic

wafts back from the Seventies and

I feel the Spanish sands

tickle and grate

and the sting of the hot sun on my brown arms.

Disco beats punch the midnight sky blue-black

and salty kisses

linger like tears on my lips,

the words dissolved

like jellyfish in the sun.

Fernando, Rafael, Miguel –

names that dipped my tongue in honey.

tending their boats in red shorts.

taut and brown and hard as oars,

choc-ices for my eyes.

Granddads now, do they recall

a skinny Scouser redhead

who matched their eagerness

when sex stabbed like a mosquito

in the cicada-scritching night?

No, names and faces were incidental

to the thighs’ molten sun

and coconut-scented flesh

And in the morning, the walk of shame

past laden breakfast tables,

sensing the paused forks, the thoughts:

‘She’s still in her disco gear!

We know what you’ve been doing, dirty cow,’

as envy surged in waves

from folk as old as I am now.

Hawaiian Tropic, it’s all your fault

that today, in the hot sun,

I feel twenty-two again,

cicadas ringing in my ears

and a voice sighs in a coconut shell:

Miguel… Fernando… Rafael…

Lorna Read, 25/5/12

The Kindle disguise

I have just read an article concerning the results of a survey which showed that 55% of adult purchasers bought a Kindle or other e-book reader to disguise what they were reading. The books they were most embarrassed to be seen with were erotica and children's fiction.

This got me wondering what kinds of books I would hate to be caught reading. I was never worried about reading a Harry Potter book on the tube, but I did try to use my elbows as wings to disguise the fact that I was avidly perusing a Mills & Boon (intellectual snobbery!). I also felt slightly awkward about reading a misery memoir, maybe in case people would think I was a miserable person! I certainly wouldn't want to be caught with Flogging Scarlet, or Diana and the Jig Jig Man, two recent titles from Xcite books!

The article ended by posing the question of how is a sensitive young man to attract a similar lady if he is reading a Kindle rather than a Penguin original paperback. That's intellectual snoggery!

Piatkus Romantic Novel Compeition

Win A Publishing Contract With Piatkus Entice

Posted at 7:53AM Tuesday 22 May 2012

Piatkus/Little, Brown Book Group is excited to announce the launch of a new competition for UK writers in conjunction with the Festival of Romance 2012. Three winners will land a publishing contract and see their novels published on digital-first list Piatkus Entice, with the possibility of moving to print on the Piatkus imprint in the future.

Senior editor Donna Condon said: "The Piatkus Entice list presents a fantastic opportunity to break out new international and home-grown talent, as well as supporting existing Piatkus authors. Piatkus is known for quality fiction, and publishes some of the biggest names in the genre across a broad spectrum of genres, from romance to erotica, and we look forward to discovering some fantastic new voices. We're incredibly excited about teaming up with the Festival of Romance to present this exciting competition to writers in the UK."

Kate Allan, chief romantic, Festival of Romance, said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for authors and would-be authors at all stages of their careers who love writing romance and are looking for a home with a UK imprint motored by a leading publisher. With the digital boom, romance of all genres is flourishing and Piatkus Entice are at the cutting edge of this trend to give romance readers what they want to read. We can't wait to meet the new Piatkus Entice UK authors at this year's Festival of Romance."

The three winners' novels will be published in summer 2013, with Entice accepting entries in the following genres:

1) Romance/contemporary women's fiction

2) Historical romance

3) Paranormal romance

One winner from each category will be chosen and the winners will be announced at the Festival of Romance 2012 in Bedford, November 2012. The closing date for entries is 30th September 2012, and for details of how to enter, and terms and conditions, please visit: http://www.piatkusbooks.net/win-a-publishing-contract-with-piatkus-entice/

Another cold

Eyes are watery, throat is raw
Nose is sniffly, head is sore
I'm feeling 99 years old -
I think I've got another cold.

A scary blip

I had a mental blip yesterday. One of those senior moments when, even before the episode is over, you start wondering if you have truly lost the plot. It went like this. After Sunday's car boot, I had a wallet full of fivers. I spent them, went to the ATM and filled up with tenners.

Then I went to the crystal stall in the market, to pay for two readings from a clairvoyant medium, one for me and one for my friend (on June 8th, in case you're wondering). The lady who has the stall also organises everything at the spiritualist church. Now for a short digression...

Last Friday, I and my young friend, Mr G's kind of step-daughter (he lived with her mum and brought her up from the age of three) attended an evening of mediumship with Jeff Phillips, aka The Laughing Postman. I have seen him twice. The first time was when he brought my dad through, describing him minutely, even down to the tune he was playing on the piano, to tell me I was going to take up studying again, do a further degree or diploma and write a book about healing (highly unlikely...) The second time, there was no message for me at all.

So last Friday, I left home at 6.30 pm to pick up Step, who lives twenty minutes away. She wasn't ready,. so we barely made the hall by 7.30, when Mr G dropped us off. In fact, the session was just starting. I could have done with the loo, but was confident there would be an interval. There wasn't. It got to 9.30 and I was wriggling in my seat. I turned to the organiser, who was sitting behind me, and asked if there was going to be a break and she said no. "Then I'm going to have to leave," I said, knowing the nearest loo would be in a pub ten minutes' hobble away. I couldn't use the hall's loo was it was through a door behind the medium and I would have disturbed everyone and the organiser said it wouldn't do at all.

Just as Step and I were leaving, Jeff said to her, "It's a shame you're going. I've got a message for you." "Sorry," said Step and followed me out, even though I told her to stay. So she had wasted a fiver and not had her message. Which brings us back to yesterday...

I had decided to treat Step to a private reading with another medium as an apology for last Friday. The readings cost £10 each. "That will be £20," said the crystal stall lady. I looked in my purse, stared at the three £10 notes in it and this is where my mind had its blip. "Oh dear, I've only got £15," said, handing her the three tenners. "I'll see what change I've got in my purse."

"But you've given me £30! Shall I keep £10 as a tip?" she quipped. And it was then, and only then, that my eyes and my mind recognised the notes as tenners, not fivers, and at once a cold wash of fear spread over me. I am losing my mind, I told myself as I crept away towards the bus stop.

I just missed the bus. As it doubles around the back of town before heading for the next bus stop, I put my head down and jogged through the middle of Uxbridge, but didn't jog quite fast enough (well, you don't when you suffer from stress incontinence!) and rounded the corner just as the bus was pulling away. There wouldn't be another for half an hour, so I went to the Cafe Nero and found I had ten stamps on my loyalty card and was due for a free coffee.

Twenty minutes, freebie and slice of carrot cake later (well, it's healthy if it's got carrots in, isn't it?), I returned to the bus stop and that's when I realised that, after all, I couldn't take that particular bus which drops me nearest the house, as I'd promised Mr G that I'd buy a jar of pasta sauce. Oops, nearly forgot.

That, plus the fiasco of mistaking tenners for fivers (they are different colours so why would I? Why was my mind still seeing images of blue fivers in my wallet?) makes me think I am on the downward slope to Dementia City. My mum developed it in her eighties. I am twenty years younger. But then there's Terry Pratchett, isn't there?

There is one straw to which I am clinging with all my strength. About seven years ago, I answered an ad in the local paper to take part in a survey at the Institute of Neurology in Queen's Square, the very place where Mr G went for his scans after his brain haemorrhage in 2000. It was part of a neurologist's PhD thesis. She had devised a series of tests and quizzes to measure mental agility in older people. It wasn't easy, but after it was all over, she told me that not only had I done well, in some of the tests I had scored higher than anyone else. "I don't think you're showing any signs of Alzheimer's!" she said confidently, adding, "In fact, I don't think you ever need to worry about getting dementia."

But I'm not eighty yet. There's still plenty of time... Was this a particularly bad senior moment? Can anyone top it? I hope I'm not alone!

E-book readership is growing

I found this article very interesting. It makes me keener to try self-publishing, especially as the older age-group is a growth area.

*

15.05.12 | Benedicte Page - The Bookseller

Nearly a third of British adults (31%) say they are likely to buy an e-book in the next six months, according to a new study from Bowker.


According to report Understanding the Digital Consumer, the percentage of adults who have purchased an e-book has seen an almost threefold increase since February 2011.


The Kindle has become the e-reader of choice for UK adults, with 40% of those reading e-books using the Kindle most often to do so. Tablet devices have more than doubled market share between February 2011 and March 2012, with 12% reporting that they use them most often.
Growth in e-book consumption is being driven by older readers, particularly those aged 45-54. Just over a quarter of this age group bought an e-book in the six months to March 2012, up from 17% in November 2011. Men are more likely than women to buy e-books, but women buy more and also download more free titles.


Children aged 10 and under are reading e-books on laptops rather than dedicated e-readers, according to the study. However from the age of 11, the Kindle becomes their most widely used device.


The 2011/12 Understanding the Digital Consumer study is based on online surveys involving 3,000 British adults aged 16-84, with an extended set of questions around children and their use of digital content.