The Harsh Reality

    Today the British government is unveiling their plans to celebrate the centenary of the Great War on August 4th, 2014 and they have announced that children will lead the way in remembering the 10 million men who lost their lives. With children from every school in England, travelling to the First World War battlefields to pay their respects.

    Now, the fact that kids are getting involved I'm sure won't meet with the approval of everyone, because of the bloodshed and the brutality that took place. But war unfortunately is part of all our lives, whether in the past, now, or in the future.

    This week in the book world Suzanne Collins and Walter Dean Myers, National Ambassador for Young Peoples Literature, took part in a discussion with regards to writing for younger readers about war. Both feel that children need to be educated on the hard facts of conflict and I personally agree.

    If children aren't informed, war as we are all aware can be romanticised. Children, especially boys can be led to believe that running off and fighting is somehow a cool thing to do, with horrific consequences. We see this now in Syria, where young boy soldiers are taking part in atrocities, as has happened in Somalia.

    Of course boys being lured by war is nothing new and my own grandfather ran off at the age of fourteen to enlist in 1914. Luckily for him he was found out to be underage before he actually reached the front line and by the time he was able to enlist, which he did, the war was coming to an end. Otherwise, my family history would be a whole different ball game and I wouldn't be writing this today.

    Children should be respected and by giving them every piece of information we have available, they will be able to make informative decisions in later years. If that decision means that they go off to war, when they are age to do so, they go off to war and God bless them. But, sweeping it all under the carpet and not discussing it will not protect our kids, in my opinion it will only harm them.


   

   

   

       

Royal Connections

   

Linlithgow Palace (Left) St Michael's Kirk (Right)

    15 Miles from Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, lies the town of Linlithgow. Linlithgow is no ordinary Scottish town because it has royal connections and holds the right to be called a Royal Burgh.

St Michael's Kirk (Left) Linlithgow Palace(Right)

    In the centre of the town you will find Linlithgow Palace, although it is a mere shadow of its former grandeur it is a reminder of the times gone by in the rich history of Scotland. Built in 1424 by James 1 of Scotland, it is an imposing building, as is its neighbour St Michael's Kirk which was built over 760 years ago.

Loch-side view

    Both buildings share a vantage point overlooking a loch, which teems with waterfowl and serenity. It is no wonder that the palace itself played host to most of the Stewart Kings and Queens as did the Kirk as a place of worship for the Catholic monarchy.

One of the loch's inhabitants, a Swan

    Linlithgow Palace was Royal nursery to James v  in 1512 and most famously, Mary Queen of Scots in 1542, who became Queen of Scotland, age 6 days old, Queen Consort of France and who challenged Elizabeth 1, Queen of England for the throne. The bad blood between the two, eventually led Mary to lose her head, having been found guilty of treason.

Linlithgow Palace

    Unfortunately, the royal residence was ravaged with fire in 1746 but is no less a wondrous place to visit and still to this day hosts spectacular events, within the preserved ruins. One prominent one being in December 2012, when Chanel Metiers d'Art chose to show a collection of fashion, designed by Karl Lagerfield there.

Linlithgow Loch

 

Rome Wasn't Built In A Day

    In the last few weeks since the publication of my debut novel Salvation No Kissing Required lots of my friends and acquaintances have been congratulating me on finally realising my dream. But what has surprised me is that so many believe that publishing a book suddenly means that you have either come into a vast sum of money, or are about to. I wish.

    While some skirt around the subject, others ask, "What will you be buying with your advance?" When I explain there is no advance only royalties, I'm met with a look of bewilderment. Then comes the question, "So why do it?" The answer, " Because I love it and my first goal was to get published. Nothing more, nothing less." On one occasion I also found myself trying to justify why I do something that may either pay nothing, or very little.

     Yes, it would be great to earn a fortune doing  the thing that I love. And, I won't deny that it would be a dream come true to see my name on a best seller list, some day. However, I live in the real world not a fictional one. So, all I can do for now is keep writing, master my craft and keep setting myself goals for future publication. The way I look at it is, Rome wasn't built in a day! 

   

   

     

Sound Waves

View from apartment balcony

    I promise this will be the last post about my recent vacation. The thing is, my mind is overflowing with many wonderful memories of the long weekend I had in La Gomera and I want to share them with you.

    I told you about the inhabitants who tend their flocks and till their land, but there are another group I omitted to tell you about and they are the fishermen and women who cast their fishing lines on a daily basis.

 

    Sitting on the sunny balcony of my holiday apartment, sipping my morning coffee I was mesmerised by a dedicated group of people, who made fishing into something that resembled a ritual.

Lone fisherman

    I focused my attention on one man who had been perched on some rocks for an hour, or so and was successfully hooking fish after fish. My attention was then drawn to a woman who arrived on a bicycle. She propped her transport against the sea wall and climbed down onto the rocky beach below. Removing her rucksack from her back, she placed it on a small rock and she began to change her clothing. She neatly folded her trousers and shirt, placing them safely inside one of the compartments of her bag.

    She changed into sensible footwear, clipped her fishing rod together and then she took out a large cloth bag and hat which was hidden away in her rucksack. Having adjusted the long strap of the bag across her body, she finally covered her head with the straw hat of which would not look out of place in a Huckleberry Finn movie. She secured the rucksack and placed it on higher ground and she started to paddle through the huge pools of sea water that had been left behind from the outgoing tide.

The woman joins the man

    She joined the man standing on the rocks and she kissed him on the cheek. He sidled along the slippy rocks, making room for the woman to stand beside him. They chatted and laughed as they cast their long fishing lines into the Atlantic. Both plopped their slippery catch into what seemed to be matching bags, his he had tied around his waist.

The fishing couple

 

    Within another hour the speed of the returning tide hastened and the couple were being lapped by the shallow water that surrounded them. As the sea started to swallow up the rocky outcrop the couple were standing on, they decided it was time to leave and they jumped down into the water. They  lifted their rods and bags up to chest level and the pair waded ashore.

    As they examined their catch out of reach of the incoming tide, I noticed that the spot they were fishing from only minutes earlier could no longer be seen and all there was for me to do now was to be soothed by the sound of the waves as they rolled over the pebbly remains of the beach.

The waves rolling over the pebbly beach

Christopher Columbus's Last Pit Stop

 

 

Original inhabitants known as Gaunches

    In case you don't already know, my favourite place for a vacation is the Canary Islands, Spain. Having just returned after a two week break on the island of Tenerife, I thought I would tell you about one of the other islands I have rediscovered after last visiting there twenty years ago.

La Gomera Rises out of The Atlantic

    Rising out of the Atlantic Ocean, off the west coast of Africa, La Gomera is an island that to a certain degree time has forgot. There is no shortage of mod cons, but the inhabitants live much of their lives as they always have throughout the ages, tilling the rich fertile land and tending to their flocks.

 

    Whether the crop be potatoes, tomatoes, or bananas the micro climate allows the small population of around 16,000 people to be self sufficient. The island is the second smallest of the seven islands, that make up the Canary islands. But what it lacks in ground mass only measuring 15 miles across, it certainly doesn't lack in beauty, including an Unesco World Heritage Site.

 

         Harbour at Valle Gran Rey

    Travelling by car from the port and capital, San Sebastian, after disembarking from the ferry, which we boarded in Los Cristianos, Tenerife,  to the resort of Valle Gran Rey, the scenery was breathtaking. The island itself is mountainous, but feats of engineering, in the way of mountain tunnels and good roads make the journey quicker and less treacherous than it was on my last visit.

A villages nestling in a deep ravine.

    Small villages defy gravity by hanging precariously onto the edge of the mountains, while others nestle in the deep ravines. But the people of each village, working as cooperatives use the sides of these mountains to grow vines and crops. Whilst their sheep and goats dot the rocky outcrops.

Castillo del Mar, Vallehermoso, on the Atlantic. 

Goods, mostly bananas, were dispatched here onto steamboats.

    It's no wonder that Christopher Columbus visited this island three times to replenish his ships with food and water. The first being in 1492 when he stopped here with three ships before crossing the Atlantic. The second in 1493, this time with approximately 17 ships and finally again in 1498 before his onward journey to the Americas.

Typical village street.

 



    I would recommend to everyone who visits the Canaries (Las Islas Canarias) to make a pit stop here, without a doubt.

   

#Tweeting

   

    I introduced my friend Robin (above) in a post back in November 2012; but I wanted today to introduce you to the new kid in town (below). This new little guy is the first of Robin's new offspring. How cute is he/she?



New Kid in Town

Perfection!

    It has been sometime since I've worked in an office and on occasions I've thought it would be great to have some coworkers again.

    But after reading the survey conducted by 'The Institute of Leadership and Management,' the things I don't miss about working with other people came flooding back.

•     The unwashed cups piled in the staff room sink.
•     The half  eaten, mouldy food cluttering up the shelves of the fridge.
•     The anonymous colleague who always uses the last of the coffee.
•     The back stabbers.
•     The ear picker.  

     Of course I can list all these little niggles because I'm perfect and my ex-colleagues I'm positive never found anything I ever did caused them any irritation.