Resolutions

So far this year I’ve stuck to most of my New Year resolutions.

Getting up by 8.00 am – tick.

Dressed by 9.00 am – tick.

Limit time on Facebook to 30 minutes a day – half-tick

Take an item out of a room where it doesn’t belong and put it where it does – tick

If a job can be finished in five minutes, do it – tick

Plant a clover lawn – not quite time yet, but seed bought – tick

Make bee houses – searching for suitable cane – half-tick

Chew my food more thoroughly and eat more slowly – total fail.

Finish two of the four books I’m working on: one book on schedule to be finished by first week of March – tick

Take at least one photograph each month that I am totally satisfied with. This was delayed because I managed to hurl my camera onto a hard floor and bugger up the image stabilisation. That meant the camera was out of action for three weeks. But here are two I’m happy with. So – tick

So – how is everybody else getting on with their resolutions? Do tell.

Variegated Ivy – I am pleased with the three-dimensional effect here

Tree in winter

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as the King of Siam said.

Poor old blog has been neglected for quite a while so I thought better check in just to say Hello, Bonjour, Jambo, Buongiorno, Buenos dias, Grüß dich, Yassou or et cetera, et cetera et cetera as the King of Siam says.

The silence is due to the current book I am writing and hoping to finish by the end of March at the latest.

It’s arrogant to believe that anybody wants to read an account of the first thirty years of my life, but I’m writing it anyway because I have to. It’s been simmering for several years like a boil, and it won’t go away until it’s burst.

You might think that memories from more than 50 years ago would fade, but some don’t. They grow stronger. At the beginning of December I began the rewrite of the original manuscript I wrote several years ago, but it brought me so low that I put it away until after the New Year. 

I prevaricated about restarting, and concentrated instead on two other writing projects. But, as my mother used to say: “This won’t get the baby a new bonnet.” And so I began again in earnest a couple of weeks ago. Since then despite taking sleeping tablets I’ve been waking at silly o’clock and unable to get back to sleep. That’s why if you had passed the house at 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 o’clock some mornings you’d have seen through the crack in the shutters that the light was on, and might have heard the tapping of the keyboard.

It’s the most emotionally exhausting project I can ever remember, because you cannot write dispassionately about the events that shaped your life. But hopefully once it’s finished, the boil will burst. So for now it’s back to life in Kenya in the late 1950s, exactly the half-way point.

Tapestry panel depicting Colonel Grogan at Gertrude’s Garden Children’s Hospital

Image courtesy of EAWL.org  (East African Women’s League)

Government Road, Nairobi , 1950s

Image courtesy of: Sikh-heritage.co.uk

Machakos.

Image courtesy of EAWL.org (East African Women’s League)

Bye. Au revoir. Kwaheri. Arrivederci. Hasta la vista. Auf wiedersehen. Athio. Or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as the King of Siam says.

Nice surprise!

As an antidote to the unpleasant choc, I received a very nice surprise. The Venomous Bead at Asurfeitofpalfreys has been kind enough to send me this most splendid award:

You might like to pop along to TVB’s blog if the winter weather is getting you down and you fancy a leisurely walk, somewhat off the beaten track in the area around Saumur. Allow yourself plenty of time to enjoy the scenery and history, the peaceful villages and the winding river. Go on, spoil yourself.

TVB has passed the award also to a number of outstanding bloggers, and really, if you are looking for good reads you’ll find some eye-openers, so spoil yourself again and pop along to meet them.

In the same relaxed spirit as TVB, with no strings attached, I’d like to nominate and pass on the award to Sarah at St Bloggie de Riviere, a lady who is inclined to speak her mind and not pull her punches, and is the author of the Floppy Monster educational books for small children.

Marilyn Tomlins, who also receives the award, is a journalist living in Paris, and writing about life there as well as her particular interest, crime. She really gets her teeth into juicy murders, and her recent post on the Chevaline massacre attracted several hundred comments leading to on-going discussions of the crime. Marilyn has also written a fascinating book, Die in Paris, a gripping account of Dr. Marcel Petiot, a  prolific serial killer during WWII, and a thoroughly nasty piece of work. 

For everything that is good about life in rural France, Jacqueline at French Village Diaries will keep you in the loop and up to speed. She blogs about French food, books about France, her vegetable garden and her pets, the France that people dream of. A lovely feel-good blog to visit to raise the spirits and give you a warm fuzzy feeling and healthy appetite, and she is my third nomination.