The Bonfire Before and After

Stormy weather on Saturday morning, with torrential rain and wonderful waves on The Channel, which must have been worrying for the Bonfire Committee and the Fairground, as Saturday was the day of the bonfire, fireworks, etc.  They needed a dry evening to make their money.

The clocks went back in the early hours of Sunday morning.  There was quite a good cartoon on facebook showing a load of heavy machinery moving the gigantic stones at Stonehenge backwards an hour.

And on Sunday morning the bonfire was still in its "before" state. So the picture above encompasses both "before" and "after".  

The weather had been so bad they could not light it! There was no procession, no fireworks, and on Sunday morning, still overcast and blowy, the fairground was packing up and leaving.

This must have been a financial blow for the fairground people, which is sad.  They got all their stuff there and were never even able to open.

More strange weather on Sunday, stormy enough to cause Col not to go metal detecting!!   Well, actually I think it was more because of his bad knee, contingent upon the day he spent searching for a Misper (missing person to us laymen) last week.

We are not as young as we were.  And while I see this is so true of me, how can it be true of my young London boy?  What a short time we have to spend with the people we love.

So he very kindly chauffered me to the Kingdom Hall and back, which was so helpful as it was monsooning down both as we left and as we drove back.  The waves on the Channel were wonderful and we expected them to be throwing stuff over the road before the end of the day.  Apparently there was even a mini-tornado locally that took someone's roof off!  

On the doubleplusgood side, yesterday I received such a lovely email from an old Uni friend, Pete.  He has just read Umbrellas (The Umbrellas of Hamelin, my new book) and loved it.  The email ends this way:  I literally could not put it down until I had finished it. 

That has made me so happy, as my aim is always always to make my books page turners. I want people to really enjoy reading them, to want more. One thing on my ToDo List today is to write and thank him - oh and also to say how much I appreciate that he will review it.  Reviews are important.

The News though is dreadful - from the Middle East, as Gaza is flattened, thousands killed, including many children on both sides, the hostages are still missing, bar the one released unharmed, and may well be dead too.  And the trouble spreads by the day. Then there is what keeps coming out about the amount of corruption right here, and the violence towards the most vulnerable in our society, the fatherless.motherless children, as we keep finding what so many of them have suffered in our Orwellian "care" system.

What to do in the face of it?   Exactly what Jesus told us to do - keep on telling everyone who will listen about the Kingdom of God, while there is still time.  Jehovah will act to remove every vestige of the current wicked system of things on the earth - and soon.

We are all in "the valley of the decision".  What will we decide?

I have been living as a subject of the Kingdom of God, the heavenly government, for over thirty years now, and can only say I have never been happier (despite the News, despite all the health horrors of old age).  It is a government - the only government - that knows and cares for every one of its subjects. 

In fact, I cannot imagine what I would be feeling now if I did not know the truth. The Inspired Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation are the truth. The rescue they promise, the restoration of paradise, earthwide, is so close now.

The Launch of THE UMBRELLAS OF HAMELIN

The launch of my latest book - a collection of short stories - THE UMBRELLAS OF HAMELIN - is tomorrow, at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon.  The video. 23 minutes long, will remain on Youtube.  I hope all my blog readers (both of you!) will watch it and give it a like - even buy the book maybe?  

It is available as an E-book.

Or you might win a free copy if you enter the Competition.

The link to the video is here on the schedule, and will become live at 2:00 on Saturday:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule

I am looking forward to watching it myself as I don't know how it is going to go or exactly what it will contain.  I know I did a ten minute video with my brother about writing. He has published some scholarly publications and is now trying his hand at fiction.  We tried to keep it short and interesting.

But I can't remember what we said. I look forward to finding out, and I plan to be there in person, chatting at the side.

And I think I also read and recorded Talky Tin - which is my shortest and most recent story as I wrote it for a Flash Fiction competition.

That will probably take 5 minutes at most, so I will be interested to see what the video consists of.  Or indeed, more grammatically, of what the video consists.

Talky Tin stars our lovely battered old Saudi cat. He was a stray I was feeding, and we adopted him after he bit me and put me in A&E.  Because of rabies, if you were bitten by an un-vaccinated animal, the animal had either to be put down and its brain tested to see if it was rabid. Or it had to do 10 days quarantine in the Kennel Club to see if it had rabies.  To do the quarantine, Whites had to have a registered owner, who would pay for him. So we adopted him. And he was a wonderful cat. Oh, and he wasn't rabid!  After that, as our cat, he was of course vaccinated regularly.

He also appears in The Martian Goes to a Party and has a Nice Day.  It is the story that reflects my initial shock at expat life (and my dislike of parties). Whites, as Tiswas, gets the last word in that one.

The next launch on Saturday is of Penny's entertaining Death by Column Inches.  It's a while since I read it, but I remember it as being a good combination of both thrilling and funny.  Then there is a Spotlight on Crime and Psychological Thrillers which should be interesting, and lastly Walt Pilcher, who is always value for money - very entertaining.

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy the launch video.  I hope I will!

BABET and MABLE

Hi Tide
by me

The sea had long wanted
to go into town
so early one morning
it roared in
found the arcades still closed
and battered them down.


I was reminded of this little poem I wrote many years ago - unpublished until now  (well, unless I have blogged it before) - because of pictures my sister has sent of the Porter Brook flooding Endcliffe Vale Park. I have seen the Brook in flood before, but never like this.  Storm Babet has been a bad one. It has claimed lives.  It may claim more as we are now being told that the flood water still lying in the North may be about to freeze over!

Once again I think of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee.  Even the wind and the seas obeyed him.  He is exactly the ruler we need.  We cannot expect that from any human government, no matter how well-intentioned.

I had hoped this would be a week free from medical matters, but I had my filling done this morning. It was scheduled for November, but they had a cancellation and the dentist rang me up yesterday to ask if I could come in.  Much as I did not want to, I said I would and now I am glad that it is done.

The weekend was busy with Metal Detecting for Himself, and the meeting at the Kingdom Hall and MABLE for me.  Being taught from Jehovah's word was, as always, so comforting.

Mark Henderson read some extracts from his elusive folktales; and Mella May and Dale Neal also read extracts from their current books - very funny, All three books are linked here:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/elusive-folktales.html

Amazon.co.uk/Tatty-Cat-Wonderful-Whiff-Mella/dp/1914060547

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/mshgb-all-formats.html

The latter two are the sort of books that children will love and that parents will love reading to their children. And they will all make great presents. Mark's book would make a great pressie for those exiled from the Derbyshire Dale countryside. He has done some amazing research, and come up with legends both funny and scary. 

The photo, taken by Captain B in the beautiful Derbyshire Dales, is in honour of Mark's new book.

The videos are all on Youtube now, and will be joined next Saturday by the launch video of my latest - last? - book,The Umbrellas of Hamelin.  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Umbrellas-Hamelin-Sue-Knight/dp/1914060555

The launch is at 14:00 hours, or two o'clock in the afternoon for us oldies.  It is only a short video - 23 minutes - and I am still not sure what is going to be on it.  I hope to be there commenting at the side though.

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule

I have my first comment ready to go, for if and when they show the video: "What is wrong with the camera here? Why am I not looking exactly like Kate Moss, only better?"

No answers on a postcard please.

Betjeman's Broomhill

An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield 

by John Betjeman

High dormers are rising
So sharp and surprising,
And ponticum edges
The driveways of gravel;
Stone houses from ledges
Look down on ravines.
The vision can travel
From gable to gable,
Italianate mansion
And turretted stable,
A sylvan expansion
So varied and jolly
Where laurel and holly
Commingle their greens.

Serene on a Sunday
The sun glitters hotly
O'er mills that on Monday
With engines will hum.
By tramway excursion
To Dore and to Totley
In search of diversion
The millworkers come;
But in our arboreta
The sounds are discreeter
Of shoes upon stone -
The worshippers wending
To welcoming chapel,
Companioned or lone;
And over a pew there
See loveliness lean,
As Eve shows her apple
Through rich bombazine;
What love is born new there
In blushing eighteen!

Your prospects will please her,
The iron-king's daughter,
Up here on Broomhill;
Strange Hallamshire, County
Of dearth and of bounty,
Of brown tumbling water
And furnace and mill.
Your own Ebenezer
Looks down from his height
On back street and alley
And chemical valley
Laid out in the light;
On ugly and pretty
Where industry thrives
In this hill-shadowed city
Of razors and knives.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_betjeman/poems/837

I grew up in Broomhill, in the hill-shadowed city of razors and knives, a long long time ago. 

Or was it only yesterday?  I love John Betjeman's re-creation of it. How good he was at capturing place.  

I have blogged about this before, but my hometown has been on my mind because, ever since our medical troubles earlier this year, I have been wondering if we should not move back there.  I have been looking at house prices and wondering if we could afford to return.  However, we love our retirement by the sea.  We love sitting out on the balcony watching the sea come and go and the moon on the water.  

Do we even have the energy to do it again, if we decide we want to?  Nute has very kindly said we can move into the bungalow with her if we do, thus avoiding the hassle of trying to buy and sell at the same time. We could sell our flat here, move up North, and start to look for something. It would also mean we could buy at auction, if the right thing came up.

But...  Col absolutely does not want to leave our lovely flat - and we are both very happy here. What to do?  I need to pray about this, to ask Jehovah what would be the best  thing. Because He knows, and I don't.

MABLE is on again this weekend, schedule here:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule

The videos will remain up on Youtube, and also there is a competition you can enter.  I am hoping to pop in to all of the weekend sessions and have a chat.  You are so welcome to join us.  I don't know if I might even get a mention in this one: 16:00 BST: SPOTLIGHT on Science Fiction (59 minutes)

Though I am not a SciFi Writer.  One of the stories in Umbrellas is ostensibly about a Martian (it's really about my own feelings of being on an alien planet for much of the time, especially at parties).  And one of my characters in Disraeli Hall is kidnapped by aliens and taken off to the Planet Betelgeuse. However, his experience only occupies a few lines of text and is of no importance at all re the plot and its central mystery.

I would have liked to call the book   A Present From Betelgeuse (as my kidnapped character brought a present back with him, a genuine space artefact) but I couldn't as then it would have been classified and sold as SciFi, and it isn't. Not at all.  If I had to describe it, I would say it was a post-modern take on Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, as that sounds rather clever.  Just don't ask me what it means.

MASSIVE AUTUMN BOOK LAUNCH! (MABLE)

Fantastic Books massive Autumn Book Launch started this weekend on Youtube, and will continue on the following two weekends, ending on the 4th November.

The schedule is here: 

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-e/mable-2023-schedule-2/mable-2023-schedule

The official launch of my new book The Umbrellas of Hamelin will be on Saturday the 28th October at 2.00 p.m.   It may contain a short video of me (not looking in the least like Kate Moss for some incomprehensible reason) and my brother talking to each other about our writing. We tried to keep it short and interesting. We did it unscripted and in one take - as we showbiz types say.  (Editor: Do I have the jargon right?)

Or that video may turn up in another venue.  I don't know yet.

I can't remember what else will happen in the 23 minute launch. But I think there may be a recording of me reading Talky Tin, the shortest story in the book. It is really short as I wrote it for a Flash Fiction competition.  It stars our fierce and lovely old Saudi cat Whites, so I hope you will drop in and meet him.

The videos will remain online. And the videos from this first weekend of MABLE are well worth a watch.  I especially liked Mark Henderson's introduction of his book Peak District Folktales.  My northern English hometown ends suddenly and you are in the lovely Peak District, so Mark's presentation brought back many childhood memories of Sunday picnics on the moorland there.  We would have cheese sandwiches and a slice of my mother's Victoria sponge.  Back then we longed for what we called "oogie googie cakes", i.e. shop bought with cream and vivid red jam in them. Nowadays of course I would swap a crate of them for a slice of my mother's cake. She was a very good cook, even with the minimal ingredients available in the post-war England of our childhood. 

And if you are interested in writers, writing and the writing process (as I am) you will enjoy the conversation between novelists Penny Frances and Mary Brown.  Penny's novel Riding the High Road is being launched at this year's MABLE.  

The video is up on Youtube, links above.  And my Waiting for Gordo gets a mention along with Linda Nicklin's Storm Girl and Stuart Aken of The Generation Mars series, in the Spotlight on Eco-Thrillers.  All of us are concerned in our various ways with what is happening in and to the world, though my book takes no political stance.  

The conversation between Linda and Stuart is well worth a listen. I was not part of it, though I was longing to leap in and point out that it is only the Kingdom of God, the heavenly government, for whose coming Jesus taught us to pray, that can put things right on the earth. 

But that is what, as a Jehovah's Witness, I am always trying to tell people. 

We are supposed to be in for a big storm today. And looking out the window, early in the morning, I can say it is overcast, a little bit blowy, and there are some waves on The Channel.  The balcony geraniums are starting to wave about like little flags.

Just Like Kate Moss

I had a part in the Ministry School on Thursday night. I was the Bible student and it was the 5 minute part.  It went OK, as we practised it, though I had to be on Zoom in the small school as my partner was at home (Covid).  But what is wrong with these Zoom cameras?  They don't make me look in the least like Kate Moss.

Surely one of the young brothers can fix this?   Or did I hear a voice from a field Somewhere in the Wiltshire Wilderness, a voice that sounded like - yes - Captain Butterfly's : "No chance, the age of miracles has passed."  

In any case, it has not.  We are surrounded by miracles, as we always have been.  The gift of life is a miracle, the tiniest, "simplest" of organisms, is a miracle of design and artistry.

Among other things, we were discussing Jesus' teaching in The Sermon on the Mount, especially the Golden Rule - treating others with the kindness and respect that we would want for ourselves.

How different would the world be if all the world's religions had taught their people that simple truth and we were all at least trying to live up to it?

The photo that heads the blog is one of a mossy tree on Ebernoe Common, taken (of course) by Captain Butterfly.  Its the nearest I can get to Kate Moss. It is the nearest he has got to Kate Moss!  (Or so he assures me.)

Ye Olde Dewick's Plusia

Here is a strange and wonderful moth that turned up on our balcony recently - a Dewick's Plusia.   It is of course photographed by my resident photographer, Captain Moth-Butterfly.

Were the photography left to me, my blog would consist of a lot of photos of my thumb, my lens cap (if smartphones have them), and of me looking especially gormless saying "Is this the selfie button?"

I had another anxiety dream on Monday night.  There is enough going on in the world to make anyone anxious. The Israel/Palestine situation, in which I have brothers and sisters on both sides, both Arab and Jew - not mind you that they will be taking sides in the political or military sense, but they are caught up in the horror of it.  There is the ongoing tragedy which Private Eye has just explained (in A Postcard from Tripoli) as families of desperate refugees are being pushed back into the desert.

Yet my dream was presumably caused by my own selfish anxiety about our upcoming get together with a young rellie couple who have just had their first baby.  Because I dreamt I was at the Kingdom Hall aware that the new baby would be present and I found myself cooing over a round faced middle-aged sister who was drinking a cup of tea. I had mistaken her for the new baby!

Once again, I have to ask my subconscious, which surely is lurking here if it's lurking anywhere - why I have to be so Aspergery in my dreams.  Couldn't I function brilliantly in them at least?  And last night I had a nightmare about being stalked.  Can't remember any details, except shouting fiercely at my stalker and then waking up. Thankfully.

So the News is getting to me, but in odd and unexpected ways.  The Watchtower Society warns us to limit our newswatching - take in just enough, but no more. And I find that to be wise advice in these "difficult times, hard to deal with".  It is awful seeing hatreds being ramped up in the wake of the current troubles in the Middle East, knowing that those hatreds will lead to more and more suffering.

Well, it will until God's Kingdom acts to remove every vestige of the current wicked system of things from the earth.  Which it will do, as God has promised us it will

.  

Have any of Jehovah's promises ever failed?  They never have and they never will.  And there lies our hope.

Our meeting with Rob and Cat and their baby yesterday went well - great pub, lovely lunch, charming child - she is going to be as lovely a little girl as I remember her mother was.  We had so much to talk about that the staff had to come over and very gently remind us that they were closing in 10 minutes.

We met at Ye Olde George Inn, East Meon - a charming pub, in a charming village. Never been to either before, thoroughly recommend it. Small menu, great food.  I weakened and had a plate of Gnocchi, which is not something I should be eating now... but it was excellent.

And Cat said she really liked  Waiting for Gordo, which she read, appropriately, on a dive holiday!  So she has now got a copy of The Umbrellas of Hamelin, which I hope she will enjoy just as much.

We caught up on a lot of family news. And I wondered if Col and I ever decided to have a pub of our own what would we call it?  I think a Butterfly or Moth name would be great and would mean a lovely signboard. But not perhaps Ye Olde Dewick's Plusia.

Speaking as an Elderly Grape...

  

     

OCTOBER  by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53084/october-56d23212a5b72

Yes. A message from all us elderly grapes: "October, don't rush us along too quickly. Please."   Although, on the other hand, every day that goes past is one day nearer to our rescue, to the moment that the Kingdom of God removes every vestige of the current wicked system of things from the earth.  

The photo above is one Col took of the curly bench.  It is our calendar photo for October.

What can I say about the News - beyond that it does confirm what a tragedy we, the damaged children of Adam, are presently living in.  The News on Friday was full of the fact that there has been an election and that one party has done very well indeed at the expense of the other.  Well, that has been happening all my life...  not sure what all the excitement is about, especially in the face of all that is happening in the world.

As I am trying to be "no part of the world", as Jesus instructed his followers, I don't vote anyway.

The News on Saturday and Sunday is full of both the frightening escalation of troubles in the Middle East - and the elections.  These things are surely connected as politics works to divide people.  Isn't that one reason why our Creator teaches us to be "no part of the world", to stay out of its divisive politics and its cruel wars?  How many more are going to die because we are not paying attention?  And what is happening to the hostages taken during the attacks?

And what can be done that won't make everything worse, and increase hatred and violence on both sides?

Surely we are seeing the truth of the warning in Jeremiah that "it does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step"?  

Autumn Crocus (and Gwen John)

We went to the Pallant Gallery on Tuesday morning to see the Gwen John exhibition, which is in its last week.  It was good of course - the Pallant does these things very well.  And I now know a lot more about the artist than I did.  She was part of that whole Parisian art scene in the first half of the 20th Century.  And she got a lot of recognition in her life - she sold quite well it seems, which is often not the case.

I met up with an old friend, known from my childhood: her painting of a corner of the artist's room in Paris, lent by Sheffield Museums Trust. Many many years ago, our father used to take us round the museums and galleries of Sheffield on wet weekend afternoons to give our mother a break.  

Interesting paintings - she has a subdued and soft colour palette.  

It was a beautiful Autumn day and we were surprised to find Autumn crocus in the carpark! I didn't even know there were crocuses/crocii(?) that came out in Autumn. It was a paradise earth moment.  If the world can look so lovely now, how lovely will it be when paradise is being restored earthwide?

I hope we are all there to find out, including all those we loved who we have lost to death.

My crumbling back means I have to pace myself, so I sort of dart at a painting or two and then go and sit down. But I did manage it. Strange to think though that our trips to London at various exhibitions are now a thing of the past for me.  We used to meet up with Jacks and Bea and have some great days out.  Old age means a lot of "lasts", which you don't always realise are "lasts" at the time.

Three more copies of Umbrellas have arrived, along with next year's diary!   Years barely seem to last a month these days... and yet (as I have probably blogged a thousand times already) they used to last so long.

Anyway, now I can get Lilian's copy off to her as promised.

In Bea's Autumn Garden

Col took these photos of Bea's lovely Autumn Garden - Bea Burchill, the artist who provided the cover for my new book "The Umbrellas of Hamelin".  You can see from the garden, all structured and designed by her, that she is an artist.

Could we ever get tired of creating beautiful gardens - of creating, full stop - as long as we had perfect health?   If we all "inherit the earth", as Jesus promised, then we will be able to find out.  But, famously, it is "the meek" who will inherit the earth. And this is not referring to a character trait by the way, but to those who are meek towards their Creator, Jehovah, those who will listen to him, and do their best to act on what his word is telling us.

So it is up to each one of us whether we are meek, in this sense, or not.

We are just back from a week 'oop North, seeing family and friends. Hectic but lovely. And September is such a beautiful month too.  It has left me so undecided about whether we should move back up North, or not.  Captain B is his usual decisive self though and for the moment wants us to stay where we are, in our lovely flat on the South Coast.

Lilac Tree Farm, Derby and Dronfield came over on Saturday  - so that was quite hectic, with the three youngest granddaughters.  Col, Alex and Dan nobly took them to the park after lunch - specifically to the playground with its swings.   We had our usual veggie feast over at Jen's on Monday, went to visit the York Branch on Tuesday (another lovely meal),  and drove across the Snake Pass to see Bea and Anna on Thursday.  Friday afternoon Kathryn and I got together for a cosy chat about our medications and various aches and pains over a cup of tea. We have known each other since we were schoolgirls so it was somewhat like The Old Wives Tale.  Which is an excellent book by the way (Arnold Bennett).  And the three of us, Col, Nute and me went to The Grouse on Saturday for a fish and chip lunch.  

That is a place of many memories, over many years, for all of us.  I remember going there to play darts when all it served were sandwiches - beef or cheese. Excellent sandwiches too.  I remember Alex, now a middle-aged father of two, in his pram outside. Those were the days when you could safely leave a baby outside by a quiet moorland pub - days long since gone.  I remember Dave and his sheepdog who liked to catch beermats. And so many more.  

The drive back home was good - door to door in five hours, on Sunday. But it was very tiring for Col. So my worries about what is the best  thing to do next - and to do it while we still can - remain.  I have a month of medical things coming up - and it looks like he may too.  Oh dear.

But we are both on borrowed time under the Threescore years and ten rule.  It is a strange feeling.