Christmas Cheer?

 Saturday. 8.25 a.m. It's cold and frosty. I was out with my little mate, Alfie, just after  7.30. A frost on the grass and a large moon hovering in the chill sky. It was really large the other morning. I'm not sure of the name it gets at this time of year. I'll have to do a Google search. 

Done the Google search. It's called a Cold Moon. Boring really. It's because the weather gets colder. Not very original, then. 

So, we get more football coverage, due to England meeting France in the quarter-finals at the World Cup in Qatar at 7.00 this evening. No, I'm not interested, so won't be watching. There's far too much coverage, and it looks as if the whole country is totally obsessed with football. I know why, it's about money. Too much riding on it all, with adverting and sponsorship tied up with the sport. Going into Sainsbury's the other morning, it was shocking to see how many products are tied into it. They want you to make sure you have plenty of food to eat during the various games, particularly pizza, crisps, lager, and soft drinks such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. It's not just in supermarkets, either. Turn on any of the commercial television stations, and the advertising connected to the World Cup is more or less at saturation point. If you want to avoid any form of advertising by watching catch-up, you can't avoid it as these forms of television viewing aren't free from commercial overkill. I suppose you can't blame the companies, because they're paid for by advertising, not just during programmes, but they have sponsorship wrapping around each programme, beginning and end and during the commercial breaks. 

10.40 a.m. I've been attempting to move my writing project forward. I think it's more of a serial instead of a novel, and it should be released in episodes, which is more or less how he began life. I wanted to create something, rather in the mould of a television soap, with multiple characters and storylines which interact with one another, but more likely weave in and out of a central storyline, which is how it's developing. 

I have taken Alfie out and have just got back indoors. It's cold enough for gloves and my Oddballs woolly hat (Oddballs being a company that sells clothing items, underwear, pyjamas, gloves and so on, and the profits go towards initially,  research for a cure for prostate cancer, but have also helped fund other cancer research for both men and women.) I wanted to walk around Oldbrook Green, although Alfie had other ideas and was determined to get home in the warm, but I had other ideas and insisted on our circular walk continuing. I had the idea to be thinking about how my writing project could move forward and come up with some sort of storyline which would introduce a new character who would be able to create some tension. So, I am using the method which Charles Dickens used, as he would walk for miles around London and this would be when he came up with storylines and characters. I can see that would be a good method and might suggest why so many of his novels are set in London. 

Sunday. 7.15 a.m. Did I say Christmas cheer in the title of this post? I can't say I'm particularly in any sort of mood for Christmas, particularly as today is the fourth anniversary of the passing of my lovely wife, Carol. She is sorely missed, and she was too young to die at 54. We had such a good life together and were always doing things together, laughing and visiting various places, going to National Trust properties, museums, theatres and many more places. Cancer is so cruel. More research needs to be done to find a cure for the various forms it takes. Far too many people have either died of cancer or not been diagnosed by the NHS due to the pandemic when the various cancer facilities were shut down. Totally crazy and not acceptable.

Mild November

Saturday. 6.20 a.m. I'm awake (well, almost!) and BBC Breakfast is on television. On the weather forecast, I've been told it's 19ºc (what's that in Fahrenheit? I can only really recognize Fahrenheit. I can't spell it, so my spell-checker has done it for me. I have Grammarly installed on this MacBook.

My MacBook has now upgraded the operating system. It now has Ventura 3.01 installed. It was done on Thursday when I went to help set up the playgroup at the Oaktree Centre. It took two hours, so I left the laptop downloading and installed the new OS when I returned to the flat at around midday.

9.30 a.m. I've been to Sainsbury's. Going early saves all the bother of queuing at the checkout, although you have alternative methods, self-service as well as scan-and-go (or whatever they call it.) I don't always trust the self-service machinery to not break down or something going wrong, so I have always preferred to use manned checkouts (are we allowed to say 'manned'? They are usually operated by women, although 'manned' should refer to men or women. Well, I know what I mean.

Sunday. 6.40 a.m. Wide awake (well, almost.) I have tidied the kitchen. Washing-up done. I can't stand coming home from something and finding a load of dirty dishes in the sink, so it's done and dusted. Meds took and waiting around 15 minutes before I take Alfie out as it is far too dark at the moment. 

8.40 a.m. I have now had breakfast and my regulatory cup of tea (well, mug, actually. Who on earth has cups and saucers in this day and age?) We went out, Alfie and I, and we walked around Oldbrook Green. I am attempting to get my number of steps in. Currently, my FitBit tells me I've done 1847 steps.

Monday. 7.30 a.m. A surprise this morning to discover it's foggy outside. 

I managed to exceed my 10,000 steps yesterday. Great! I must keep this going. I have lost quite a bit of weight, although I'm not so sure if it's all down to walking. 100.03 kg, although I can never really know what that is in stone. I'll have to do a conversion and find out. (That converts to 15 stone. Not so sure, I wanted to know that.)

10.45 a.m. I had intended to take Alfie out at around 10.15. We went out through the side door into Strudwick Drive and immediately outside was a 'men at work' sign in the middle of the path (you could hardly miss it. I think you would probably trip over it.) Looking towards Oldbrook Green, I could see a large tractor parked on the grass and two workmen in day-glow yellow suits, discussing cutting the hedge (which I had thought was due for a trim at some stage.) I had heard a strange sound, a sort of mechanical hum, earlier, so it may have been the cutter making the noise. As I write this, I can hear nothing, so perhaps the machinery needed repairs or adjusting to cut the hedge. Maybe it will be done later. Anyway, we didn't walk any further and returned to the flat.

4.25 p.m. I have done a bit more writing. I have been working on this particular sequence for quite a while and it has gone through several drafts. I get some of the dialogue in my head, and it seems to go round and round until I manage to actually get it down on paper. I find I get most ideas when laying on my bed and sometimes when I'm out walking with Alfie. It's said that Charles Dickens would go on long walks and it was at these times he got the inspiration for his writing, so I can see why and how this would work. This bit of writing is now on word processing and saved onto a memory stick. The only problem I have with memory sticks is that they are so small and easily mislaid. The one I have is so tiny it is easily lost. I have three in a plastic box SOMEWHERE in the flat and I can't find them.

Tuesday. 7.35 a.m. I wasn't expecting rain when we went out early. Alfie not over-keen on remaining outside and more than happy to rush back to the warmth and comfort of the flat. I think he's currently tucked up within the confines of the duvet on my bed! Who can blame him?

What On Earth's Happening?

 (Saturday) I've managed to write some more. I always seem to get ideas when I take Alfie out and we're walking around Oldbrook Green. Charles Dickens was supposed to have gone on long walks and at these times he came up with ideas for his writing, so I must be in good company in that respect. I suppose it's because your mind is free from other daily pressures and it's usually quiet. I also seem to come up with ideas when I go to bed and then I have to get up and write the idea down before it gets lost or merely forgotten. Perhaps I should start a new notebook and write things down in that.

I really think some of the lockdown restrictions are really out of order. When two perfectly innocent women, who went for a socially distanced walk somewhere in the Derbyshire Peak District get stopped by police and given a caution and possibly fined is going too far. Not going to spread the virus in any way and they were supposed to have drunk take-away coffees in their cars in a carpark or something is not going to infringe anybody's space. Also, a journalist stopped by police somewhere in London and going for a walk on his own and stopped by police and told to go home is sheer madness. It would appear that the police were more than over-stepping their mark and should have been doing more serious work, such as catching criminals. This whole thing has been exaggerated and to be honest is an infringement of human rights. And what gets me is that British people are just putting up with this sort of thing. Without question. A bit scary if you ask me. I never thought I would see the day when people would allow their basic liberties would be infringed. Without question. When you realise how easily the German nation was easily taken over by Hitler's Nazi government in the 1930's, and it was all perfectly legal, then you begin got wonder how easily it could happen here. Apparently the police later decided that the two women weren't going to be fined £200 and apologised. But it's still really over-the-top.

I had spaghetti bolognaise for my evening meal. Alfie sits on the sofa looking at me and expecting to get something from my plate, as usual. He had already had his dinner, but that didn't seem to deter him from getting something from me. I gave in and took a bit of spaghetti off my plate and gave it to him. It disappeared rapidly and made me think of a bird eating a worm! I gave him several scraps to eat, which he gobbled down greedily. I had some spaghetti and the sauce left on my plate when I'd finished eating and gave the plate to Alfie to eat. I wasn't expecting him to like the sauce, as it was fairly spicy, but he ate it ravenously and I had to take the plate off him as I wasn't sure if he should eat any more as it was likely to be far too rich for him and possibly make him sick, so I took it off to the kitchen. For a little dog, he certainly has a good appetite! Watching him eating the spaghetti put me in mind of the Walt Disney animated film 'Lady and The Tramp.' I'm thinking of the famous scene where the two dogs are at an Italian restaurant and eat a plate of meat balls and spaghetti and at one point they eat the same strand of spaghetti and with each dog on the end, as they eat the spaghetti they get drawn together. It must be one of the most memorable scenes in any Disney animation. Corny and probably a bit of a cliché, but it's extremely well done.

Warm and Sunny Weather

(Wednesday)The weather is continuing to be warm and sunny. But lets enjoy it and not find any negatives. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, when you have the window open, you have to endure all manner of annoying sounds, people running the engines of their cars immediately below my window, children screaming, chatting people (actually quite good for someone who writes as there's dialogue and story ideas from this, so in some respects i'm not complaining. Alan Bennett has said that he used a few of his parents choice saying in his plays, so who knows what's going to come out of an over-heard conversation. I must learn to take my notebook and pencil out when I'm walking Alfie. I was following a couple down Strudwick Avenue and they were having quite a heated conversation, which, unfortunately, I didn't quite catch and then a couple, he dragging along one of those wheeled suitcases that people take with them on holiday and which you see on television when they show footage of airports, people about to board their planes or railway station concourses. It looked to me as if she' just thrown him out of the house, she walking ahead and him walking along behind. Another bit of over-heard conversation, again, quite heated. So, what was the reason? What storyline could I get out of it? What had he done wrong? Were they splitting up? Had she thrown him out of the house? Where was he/they going? To another house? To the station to catch a train? All these ideas stirring up my imagination. Could lead to a story somewhere along the line. You can't make these things up.)

Later. I had wondered what had happened to the appointment I was supposed to have had at Milton Keynes Hospital. I have mentioned this in a previous post. I had a blood test done when I moved from the hopeless Ashfield Medical Centre to Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre in Bradville Common. The doctor suggested I have a blood test, just to check my normal functions, which included cholesterol. It turned out that I needed to have a hospital appointment to have a test to check my liver, as the blood test had shown something not quite right (don't ask me what) which would have been caused by one of the medications I take for my heart condition. Typical that you get side effects caused by the medication. I have to take one tablet which protects my stomach because one of them can hard the lining or something. Anyway, I hadn't heard anything and it was some time ago, I this morning I decided to ring the surgery. I couldn't remember the telephone number, so I went to their website to discover you can leave messages on the website, giving your basic details such as date of birth. I gave a brief description of what I wanted to know, making sure it was clear that it wasn't urgent. I didn't expect to get a response for a couple of day, but this afternoon I had an email and it connected to a reply, saying that the original appointment had been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, which is what I had imagined had happened, but I was never informed of this. Regardless of the pandemic, I still need to have this test and they will attempt to arrange a new appointment.

Later still. I have picked up the writing, having got somewhat stuck with where things were going. I had a vague idea where it was going, but not how. I find that, when I go out with Alfie for our walks around Oldbrook Green that I suddenly get ideas for plots and story arcs. The actual writing itself isn't always too difficult, but unless you have what I suppose you could call tent poles, which, if you like, hold up the 'canvas' of the story. Apparently Charles Dickens is supposed to have gone on long walks, sometime going for 20 miles around London, and he got ideas for his novels during these walks, so I can say I am just following his technique for writing. I think it's probably because your mind is allowed to run free when I'm in the open air. I don't know wether the current lockdown situation is actually increasing my creativity but it would seem that might be the case. I suppose another way to describe story creation is to describe the basics as a bit like scaffolding. When builders start work on a house or other construction, they put up scaffolding and work on that as the bricks go up which is perhaps the best description. Without the basic scaffolding in place you can't 'build' your story. Or perhaps it's similar to a journey. You have to know where you going when you start, following a map of a satnav does help.