THE CHANGE OVER

My new Tivo box was delivered from Virgin in January - it's all still in the bloody box! The very idea of interrupting my wireless is anathema to me, but now I suppose it's time to get it done so that's what is planned for tomorrow. It looks simple. Ha. I've skimmed all the booklets...and how exciting does all the choices make life? Ah but, I don't watch telly...not the ordinary kind, but looking at the promised entertainment maybe I'll find something to attract my attention. All I want is access to my Netflix account on my lovely big telly - why else would I need to sit on my sofa when I have a very comfortable bed with a big telly at the bottom of it and an HDMI cable?

I may well be back on here tomorrow night ranting and raving if things don't go my way - and then again, if I can't get online then I won't. They told me that my set-up was ancient and slow, and they wanted me to have the best of the super-highway...and they're right; when the grandkids are here wireless is always going off because of the strain. So, wish me luck and intelligence tomorrow.

A MUST-READ BOOK

On opening Catherine Czerkawska's historical novel, The Physic Garden, I know immediately that I will have to plan ahead and read it chapter by chapter because it is so beautifully written, with each chapter encapsulating a thought, a question, a time. You want to stop and think, relish what you've just read – also, life has to revolve around work and shopping and cooking/consuming meals...there will be no housework done until I have finished this book.

Half-way through and I am still captivated by the interesting detail, the characters and the hook – I want to know; what happened? I'm a city girl and really interested in how the writer has stuffed every crack in the floors with knowledge...things I want to know but have been too lazy to find out for myself, so far. When I'm reading I'm immediately immersed in these characters' lives, and it's so annoying when real life interferes and I have to stop.

Oooh, there's a fabulously disgusting passage 85% of the way through, describing some of the poorest places in Glasgow:

'...I found myself peering into rooms that never saw the light of day, stinking bug-ridden rooms and passages...in a drab and deadly succession, all leprous with damp, I thought that I had found myself in some hellish labyrinth, an underground warren where only troglodytes might live.'

...and, several hours later, I have finished reading a wonderful tale. I don't need to tell you what it's about – you can read that on the book blurb. This is not a genre story; anyone, with particular likes and dislikes would love it. It is set in the historical past but is fiction, and such an imagination has conjured up a place and a time that will leave you spellbound.

A FANTASY LIFE

I'm reading, mostly with my eyes shut – I do love audio books. So far this year I've gone back and listened again to Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Dresden Files, The Walking Dead, and am now on the fourth book in The Game of Thrones. It's hard to explain why I keep returning to all these, but it's probably because there are so many characters and stories to love...I must be a saga-gal! I easily fall upon series, including TV versions, and often re-read True Blood and watch the dramas re-envisioned where killed-off characters live again. I love the differences.

My reading taste changed because I wanted to write fantasy so began reading lots of it...and then I found audio versions of Asimov's Foundation series, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth and oh the feeling when the right voice reads life into those characters is beyond fascination...it's a drug, and I became addicted so now am obsessed with listening to books, so much so that I hardly ever switch on the TV. It goes on for me to watch one thing and off again. I can't watch normal programmes, only drama. I don't live in the real world.

It doesn't matter that I'm not in the real world and I'll be gone from it soon enough I suppose, so why should I spend my last years trying to interpret the reported news and politics? I enjoy every minute I spend alone in my cave; I love the flashes of time with my many grandchildren; and I refuse to become a Moaning Minnie like the old woman I meet on a Monday morning at the bus stop on my way into work – if that's how the world bends us then I'm opting out. I can easily deal with the tension created on pages of text because I can turn the page to find out who did what when and where and to whom...and more than likely the why of it too...and yes, I believe in fairies.

Have I written my fantasy yet? No. Gestation is a bitch, but something is creeping out now and after years of working with Tarot cards I'm splashing some of it all over my pages. So there's a short story almost finished that will appear in an anthology, and some kind of magic has appeared in poems, some of which have been published. I started working on world-building a few years ago so that is always in the back of my mind when creating characters..and there are more than a few novels lazing around waiting for my attention. I'm drowning in fantasy...see the bubbles coming up?

THE RETURN

I am thinking, of a revival, of the road ahead so I must bring this old head to bear on blogging again, turning my mornings into pages and communicating with the world. At present, I know nothing about what goes on outside of my hermitty circle/cycle/phase...is it a phase? Shall I really enter the wide world again? I won't be reading its newspapers or watching its crap TV - who needs that when you can live in fantasy with Netflix and listen to someone reading books to you on Audible?

Apparently I haven't set foot here in four years - eek! I often see Time flying around, and let me tell you, that butterfly can change its spots all right. I am officially old now - hit the number 60 last year, and as I'm Scottish, have a lovely wee free bus pass - but I'm still too young for the pension. Writing-wise, there's a lot of it going on and I have three Kindle projects slowly building: Poetic Forms, Reading Tarot, and Writing Prompts - so I'd better shore up the platform, hadn't I? I will need some fencing-in, a shepherd to pen me into a small timetable, then maybe, just maybe, I'll perform nicely, like a good writer.