Getting on our Bikes

I’m definitely getting into this biking lark.  My first trip to High Lodge in Thetford Forest with a friend was a disaster, as I fell off my bike and cracked a rib.  The cycle trail also seemed extremely long, and I was rather sweaty at the end of it.

However, last Sunday morning Sam and I took our bikes to High Lodge with a rather different result.  It was early, lovely and sunny,  and there were not many about, as you can see.

Cycling is getting a bit easier.  Okay, this trail is nice and flat, but last time it was still hard work and I also had to cycle the last half in pain with a cracked rib.  This time it was rather pleasant, cycling along the forest track with no cars whizzing past.  The trail is 5km, which seemed to fly past in no time at all.

After completing the trail we noticed the café there served quite delightful breakfasts, which we just had to sample.  As we finished eating, hordes of runners took off along the same track for a race.

I asked at the information centre about the other cycle trails there.  Apparently the next one up needs mountain bike skills, and so Sam and I decided that we’d stick to the track we like and maybe go around two or three times. After all, we’re 61 not 16!

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The ‘Influencer’ Programme

I’ve set up a ‘Storefront’ on Amazon Influencer, which is part of Amazon Associates.  You can recommend whatever you like, and if somebody clicks on anything you recommend and actually buys it, then you earn a small amount.  I haven’t earned anything yet as I’ve only just set it up, but hey… I’m hopeful!

There’s a ‘follow’ button there too for anybody who feels inclined, and the link to my storefront is below. I’ve called it ‘Books, Books and More Books’, and I’ve used the name ‘MegaReader’ which  I write reviews under.  I’ve added one of my own books and also ‘Understanding’ (as it would be rude not to!), but all the others are books that I’ve read and enjoyed and hope that others would like too.  

Some of the books I’ve read and added have been written by my blogging companions on WordPress, and some are traditionally published.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/stevieturner6

And here are the instructions if you’d like to set one up yourself:

• Login to Amazon with the e-mail address you used to sign up for the Influencer Programme (you’d have to be part of Amazon Associates to be able to do this).
• Type your custom URL into your browser.
• You’ll be taken to an owner view.  Click on the “Create an Idea List” button.
• Give your list a name, for example, “Summer Favorites” or “Christmas Party Essentials”.
• Browse and search for products right from the owner view, or simply search for any product on Amazon.co.uk.
• Go to the product detail page, under “Add to Basket” click “Add to List” and choose the name of the list you’d like to add the product to.
• Repeat! You can create as many Idea Lists as you’d like.

 

Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear…

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#abortion

Alabama’s State Senate approved a bill by 25 votes to 6 to outlaw abortions in almost all cases except where a mother’s life is at risk.

The senators who approved the bill were all men.  Surprise, surprise ….none of the 4 female senators backed the bill.

I felt quite angry when I read this on my BBC News app.  Why are these men interfering with women’s rights?  In my opinion a woman should be in control of her own body and have the right to terminate a pregnancy if she so wishes.  Men have no idea of the thoughts and feelings a woman might have towards an unwanted foetus growing in her body.  If men could give birth, how would they feel knowing there is an unwanted baby growing inside them, maybe due to rape, that they will have to curtail their career to bring up, and possibly also suffer financial hardship into the bargain?

Pregnancy takes a toll on a woman’s body, which will never be the same after she has carried a baby.  If that baby is wanted, then she will eagerly welcome the new arrival and carry the scars of pregnancy as a trophy.  If the baby is unwanted and she is not allowed a termination, then she will either feel desperate enough to go somewhere else and have an abortion anyway, or feel depressed and resentful towards the baby and possibly its father as well.  The baby might well be given up for adoption or taken into care, and therefore not have the best start in life.

Babies and toddlers can push parents to the limit.  I know because I had to listen to my eldest son’s continual screaming for the best part of 3 years.  I put up with it because he was wanted and loved.  What might happen to that baby if its mother felt only resentment towards it?  It doesn’t bear thinking about.  Have these men spent day after day looking after a screaming baby?  I think not.

Abortion should be seen as a fundamental human right.  A foetus is not capable of independent life.  If an unwanted pregnancy is allowed to progress to its natural end, then the resulting baby might not be loved by either parent at all, especially if it is the result of rape or incest.  These male senators are not thinking straight!  The female senators know what it’s all about and that’s why they’re not backing the ban.  Somebody ought to educate these men…

 

Life’s a Bitch?

I love the rambling poem Morituri Salutamus by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which he wrote in 10 days in October 1874 for the 50th anniversary of the graduation of his college class.  The last 4 lines of the poem have a special meaning for all of us that are of a ‘certain age’:

Age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress.

And as the evening twilight fades away,

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

And here’s another 2 lines from the poem that resonate with me:

How beautiful is youth!  How bright it gleams

With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

---

Yes, we were all young once, and we wanted to change the world.  We thought our elders were stupid, slow, and out of date.  We walked impatiently behind them as they pootled along with their walking sticks and Zimmer frames.

But hey, we didn’t realise at the time that those tired old bodies still held minds that hadn’t aged a bit. Those of us not afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease but have to our dismay found ourselves of a ‘certain age’, still feel the same inside as we did when our legs and backs were not stiff every morning on rising from bed.

The young have illusions, aspirations and dreams, and have the health and strength to carry them out, but usually not the money.  We of a certain age also have aspirations and dreams.  We have somewhat more disposable income than the young, but sometimes not the health and strength.  However, if we’re fairly mobile and can walk around the block to the cash machine and back home again, we can get out of the house and spend that bloody money on what we like doing.

Yes, life’s a bitch and then you die, but there are definitely some advantages in growing older.  I’m 61 – the eyes are not what they used to be, but I don’t yet need a walking stick.  I’m living for the moment and loving it!

 

Gobbledegook

While we were on the Island last week, my mobile phone began to lose its charge rather rapidly.  As it was an old iPhone5, we decided to drive into Newport and get the phone updated.

Sam decided to leave it to me in the shop and go off and look at phone covers.  This was not a good idea, as I’m not that technically minded.  Usually all I want to do is make a phone call or send a text.  I don’t care what make the phone is, or what else it can do.

The shop assistant looked about 18, and was chomping at the bit to sell me a phone.  The conversation went a bit like this:

Her:  “Are you an apple-watcher?”

Me:   “Eh”?

Her:  “You know … do you like apple watches?”

Me:  “Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Her (thinking ‘Oh, I’ve got a right one here‘) :  “What about an android?”

I like to eat apples, not watch them, and aren’t androids robots?  Sighing, I caught Sam’s eye and he came over.  I was absolutely stumped, as no doubt somebody from Victorian times would have been if they’d heard conversations about Googling and Twittering.

I wanted to giggle, because it was all gobbledegook to me.  The urge to burst out laughing couldn’t be kept in, and I just had to explode. The girl looked at me as if I was mad.  Sam is a ‘techie’ and thankfully knew exactly what the shop assistant was talking about.  Thanks to Sam I ended up with a lovely iPhone7 that I’m slowly finding out can do more things than I ever thought possible. I can even make a phone call on it!

I spoke to my second cousin when we returned from the Island, who is about 15 years older than I am.  Part of the conversation went like this:

Her:  “I’ve got a new phone.”

Me:  “Me too.  Is yours an iPhone?”

Her:  “What’s an iPhone?  Is it one that’s got lots of squares on the front, like the one I’ve got?  I don’t know what do to with them!”

It seems I’m not alone…

 

 

True to Life?

I’ve seen a couple of new TV series recently that had one thing in common; they both had strong female leads, but both women’s characteristics seemed to be rather more male orientated than female.

The Bay featured an intrepid female detective, who was also a single mother of two teenagers.  Her underling was a man who seemed to be given all the jobs which would usually have been assigned to female police officers (i.e family liaison officer or sitting with distressed relatives etc.).  This lady detective had risky sex at the back of a pub with somebody she had met only minutes before – and appeared driven to solve the case at the expense of her own family problems.

Would a single mother put her job above her children?  I don’t know of any that would.  Would this same seemingly intelligent single mother put herself at risk by having unprotected sex with someone she had met only minutes before?  Hmm…

The second series, The Widow, featured a woman trying to find out why her husband had apparently died.  There she is like some modern-day Emma Peel, fighting and shooting men twice her size, while a cliffhanger ending of one episode shows her husband being held prisoner in a small wooden crate.  I actually gave up on this series, but watched The Bay through to the end.

In my opinion there appears to have been a total shift around regarding programmes where the hunky he-man type rescues the defenceless female in distress.  Nowadays the female leads can take on the world, including men twice their size and strength.  Nobody will ever confine them to a small wooden box.  These women are frightening in their muscle-power, resolve, and stamina.

My book ‘A House Without Windows’ focuses on how a woman escapes from her ten year hell of being held captive in a basement, and of the aftermath.  It was considered for filming in 2017 by a New York media production company, who at the last minute decided that violence against women was now not very PC…

But hey, is this true for real life?  Usually it is women who are victims of assault, rape, and domestic violence etc.  There are not many hunky females taking on the world and shooting-’em-up in Annie Oakley style that I know of.  Who are mostly Managing Directors of large companies?  Who make the majority of boardroom decisions?  Yes, it’s men.  Who struggle to break through those same company glass ceilings?  Who takes time off work to look after sick children?  Yes, it’s usually women because their male partners get paid more.

In the make-believe world of film, women are taking over the reins from men, but in real life I think they might have to wait a bit longer.

Writing Blogs About Writing

I was interested to read Cristian Myhai’s ‘Six Types of Blog Posts that Always Get Read‘.  It seems that writing blogs giving writing/blogging advice is the way forward for writers who want to gain more readers.

However, I’ve also found that blog stats increase if there’s something in it for the reader.  In my case I run a ‘Share Your Short Story’ writing contest every few months which gives the winner and runner-up a shout-out, and I promote the winning stories on my social media sites.  These ‘Share Your Short Story’ announcements and winners seem to be the most read of my blogs, along with my blog asking whether we’re writers or authors, and my interview of Chris the Story Reading Ape (Chris, you’re famous!).

The blogs in my opinion that do not gain as much attention as the ones above are author interviews, and posts where I promote either my own books or books written by other authors, ha ha, probably because they contain buying links.  Also strangely enough, readers don’t usually bother too much about any post containing a book review, probably again because it has a buying link.  However, blogs promoting free books gain many readers funnily enough (the last Free Book blog I wrote ‘sold’ 950 books) …

So… it seems that one blog post about the same old writing tips and advice will be re-blogged ad nauseam.  It makes me wonder whether the person re-blogging it ever takes up the advice or subscribes to the original site, or re-blogs without even reading because their stats are sure to increase if they publish a blog about writing tips!

Who knows? By the way… yes, I did read ‘Six Types of Blog Posts that Always Get Read’…

 

Bombhead

A few comments I made on a Smorgasbord afternoon video that D.G Kaye shared suddenly reminded me of Bombhead, the dear little green budgie that was part of our family when I was a child.  He really was the most entertaining pet, largely due to a couple of traits that I’ve mentioned below (by the way he was identical to the featured image, and Bombhead was usually pronounced in our East London accent – Bom’ed).

Bombhead was very talkative.  Dad would sit the bird on the end of his finger, look into his beady eyes, and patiently spend much time teaching him to swear.  Bombhead ended up cursing like the proverbial trooper, but of course Dad only did this when my mother wasn’t listening.  The fruits of Dad’s labours would surface when we had visitors and the noise level rose.  Bombhead was very adept at stopping any conversation with his colourful language.  People tended to listen to what the bird would come out with next.  He could say ‘s**t‘ with true feeling in his high budgie voice, amongst several other words which to Mum’s embarrassment Bombhead would utter most emphatically in polite company.  Dad would usually get a rollicking when the visitors had gone.

Mum hated to see Bombhead cooped up, and took his cage door away so that he could come and go as he pleased.  Bombhead flew around the house to his heart’s content, which always alarmed my grandmother when she came to visit. She hated that bird.  Flapping wings would cause her arms to flail about above her head, and Bombhead seemed to sense her antagonism and flapped and dived bombed all the more.  Prim and proper, she ignored his swearing as best she could.

Bombhead would sit on my shoulder and nuzzle his beak into my neck, or wrap his warm little feet around my finger.  He’d sigh sometimes and say ‘I’m fed up‘, or ‘Where’s the beer?’  I’d stroke his feathery chest and try to teach him more appropriate words in case the vicar ever came to tea.

Unfortunately Bombhead came to a sticky end.  We had a tall standard lamp in one corner of the room with a fringed lampshade.  One morning in early 1969 Mum found Bombhead in rigor mortis hanging with his head caught in one of the lamp’s fringes.  Life just wasn’t the same without him.

At school aged 11 I thought long and hard about what to write for an inter-schools’ writing competition.   I wrote from the heart about our lovely little Bom’ed and I won the competition, which delighted me no end and was the encouragement I needed to carry on with a lifetime of writing.  Wherever Bombhead is now I hope he’s still flying free and cursing enough to make a sailor blush.

Another memory surfaces… I inherited the title of Bom’ed from that bird, as Dad would often liken my thick curly hair to a bomb that had just gone off.

A Good Day for a Tonsillectomy

I left work early today, and before I went home I walked along to the Children’s Ward, where my little 4 year old grandson Charlie was awaiting a tonsillectomy.  I thought he’d be miserable at being starved all day as he loves his food, but he was his usual happy self.  He ran up to me and gave me a cuddle, and then continued playing with a mountain of toys that he’d never seen before.

I watched him, remembered my own sons’ various childhood surgeries, and realised that little children have it best when it comes to operations.  They live in the present, and have no knowledge of what’s going to happen to them.  They also have no self-pity, and so they don’t sit around feeling miserable and sorry for themselves.  They also don’t know how to catastrophise.  I thought back to how worried I was before my own operations, and realised that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing!

The porter came to take Charlie to Theatre, who was busy looking at all the toys depicted on his tiny gown, and playing with a toy racing car that I’d bought him.  They wheeled him along on the bed to Theatre, and my daughter-in-law went in to the anaesthetic room with him.  I gave Charlie a kiss, and told him not to lose the car.  He was still smiling as the operating theatre doors closed.

I’m going back in tonight to find out how he got on.  When I got home there was a text from my son to say that Charlie was now back on the ward and still smiling.  I bet the poor little sod doesn’t know what on earth is going on today.

Care of the Elderly: A Question…

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care of the elderly

A friend at work came into my office recently, and was very angry.  Her elderly mother, who lives in a warden-controlled flat, had been assigned a male carer.  Her mother was aghast and quite distressed that he had taken off her clothes and washed her.  I’m not sure whether he had asked her permission first, but surely anybody working for a care agency would have asked their client whether they agreed to them performing personal care before going ahead?

My own mother in her final years had a male carer.  However, she would not let him do any personal care.  He had been assigned 45 minutes early mornings to help her out of bed and help her to wash and dress herself, but all she would let him do was prepare her breakfast and wash up the dishes.  She preferred to struggle and take 2 full hours to wash herself rather than have Chris do it, or wait until I visited a couple of hours later.

I told her that Chris was just doing his job and was paid to wash and dress her, but Mum was having none of it.  It was only in her last few months when personal care became impossible, that she would let him wash her.

My friend’s mother complained bitterly to the care agency that sending a male carer to wash her was akin to assault.

Is she correct?  The carer was only doing his job, and had obviously been rigorously checked before being employed.  I have had male nurses care for me when bed-bound after operations, and they were kindness itself.  It would never have occurred to me to send them away.

However, I suppose if I was an elderly and vulnerable woman living on her own, I might have a different viewpoint.  But it seems a shame that male carers cannot carry out their work properly without their clients complaining, even though they have not done anything wrong.

What do you think?