My mind......

Okay, my excuse was that I needed to unwind, relax and have a little fun

So I wondered round the interwebs for the weekend

in between reading (mainly smut)

and unsurprisingly my mind rolled away into the gutter.

I've caught up with it now, and well, if it is to get to work in any fit state by tomorrow.....

this sign kind of says it all!

NaNo... take 3....

So, having failed at the last two attempts, what on earth am I thinking about trying to take part in NaNoWriMo again this year.

Well, a couple of reasons really.  Firstly, I am not in the same position I was the last time I tried - because yes, in the end, trying to do NaNo when my finals were in the middle of November was really a non starter last year.  Whilst I can't guarantee what happened the first year I tried - where I was allocated two historic child abuse matters to work on as part of my day job and couldn't fictionalise anything to do with abuse whilst I was dealing with that - won't happen again, I can minimise the chances by not writing anything remotely involving abuse.

The other big reason for trying again is down to the fact that my dad always believed in me and supported me when it came to writing.  He read a lot of my scribblings in their very early stages and would do things like send me landscape photos for inspiration .... taking photos was one of his many hobbies and one we shared. Even when he was on oxygen and unable to walk very far we would drive out into Derbyshire to find inspiring views, unusual trees, deer in the mist - my GR avatar and background to my Twitter profile is a photo he took of one of our favourite places.

As of last night I had a shortlist of five potential stories I've been playing with for a while.... and this afternoon I think I've decided what I am going to write.

I have another couple of weeks to plot and find some more inspiration for my characters .... I already have an opening scene in my  mind which is always a good thing.

Who know, maybe this year I can do it.

They'd be skeletons in the closet in any other family.....

Wednesday nights, after my (currently) weekly talk about myself session with my counsellor I head off to my mum's for dinner.... which is always fun.

Tonight we have been reminiscing ..... mainly bought about by the fact that Dad's partner had mentioned that there were a couple of locked files on his computer that she can't get into and my mum had suggested, quite tactfully, that perhaps it would be better if she just deleted them rather than trying to get into the files.

We pondered and speculated on what they might be and came up with two conclusions - one was probably porn and the other was possibly conversations he was having with other women, or as mum added quite casually other men.....

Now, here's the thing, I knew that in the past my mum had had flings with other women - she happily told my sister and I when we were quite young about how she was curious so went to a gay club in London in the 60's and went home with women to see what it was like.  Tonight she was telling me of a couple of short relationships she'd had with women before she met and married dad.

She's decided that these days she'd have said she was bi, we did talk about what being bi curious was, but she said it was obviously more than curiosity given that it wasn't a one off to satisfy a curiosity.  She did suggest that perhaps she might mention that she'd decided she was bi to the ladies at the gym just to see their reaction....

Apparently she wasn't the only one who was curious.... although dad left mum for another woman, after they split up for a while dad was on his own and it wasn't something he was good at (he was a serial monogamist and normally had the next partner lined up before he left the previous one, or they left him).... so, with mum's support and blessing, he did his own experimenting with men he met at the university he was studying at at the time.

I can't say I am overly surprised by this given my parents easy acceptance not only of me being gay but of their other gay friends and the number of people, particularly in mum's case, who have chosen to come out to them rather than their own parents or the way we were brought up for it to not be an issue.

However, we think his partner (I should say widow - but again with the whole, no sorry, can't do it) would be pretty horrified - she is terribly straight laced about this sort of thing.  I have to say, to satisfy my own curiosity if she doesn't delete the files on the computer I wouldn't mind having a crack at working out the password just to see what he was hiding .... mum was quite interested when I mentioned that it wouldn't be the first porn I'd seen on the computer if that was what it was - I just hope she's not going to try looking at porn on her computer....

Bits and pieces...........

Ah look... updating by numbers again.......

1. Hugo went back to the vets this evening - for the third time in less than a fortnight - and thankfully got the all clear (just before he bankrupted me!).  His eye is now back to normal and the sinusitis is all cleared..... he has a new fan though.  The young vet we saw on Thursday last week was terribly excited to meet his first ugly naked cat that he asked loads of questions, then tonight he spent a greater part of the appointment just cuddling him and Hugo treated him to his parrot impersonation by balancing on his shoulder whilst nibbling the vets ear and hair

2.  Hope, Gretchen and Kammi are all at "that part" of their season....... there are very rude things going on around my ankles ... thank goodness no one can see into the house!  Ivan bless him, has been very good this time and not molested Hope every time she stood still... mind you that might be because Gretchen has been quite dominant with everyone and he's a bit scared!

3. I have a cold.... thanks to my work colleagues who have carefully shared their germs with me.  I've been muzzy headed and sniffling for the past few days.  I am carefully dosed up on cold cures and drinking hot lemon and honey to try and get rid of it.

4. In other work related news - I finally got my days off over Christmas agreed - I have to go in and work New Year's Eve, but I finish on 18th and don't go back till 31st December which is rather fine.  I also have Friday/Monday off every other week during November ..... and I'm still carrying five days to next year!

5. Summer has officially ended here....... it's been getting darker in the mornings and evenings for a while, the leaves are turning and drifting off the trees.......... and we have frost and possibly snow forecast for the end of the week...... yeah, time to break out the woolly jumpers!

6.  I am still spending a lot of time hiding in my kindle, away from real life.  It's kind of safe there so I am staying for a while.

Saturday song.....

This was played a couple of times on the radio recently and I rather liked it.... and I like her voice.......

Cat wrangling .............

Alas, poor Hugo is poorly.... toward the end of last week I noticed he had a bit of a watery eye and was hearing the occasional sneeze... so he was kept warm and happy (roughly translated as he buried himself in my duvet and refused to come out unless food was involved) but alas by Saturday his left eye was gunked shut and he was mouth breathing and sneezing all over the place...... so off we went to the vets.....

by the time we'd got there I was almost completely deaf - for a cat that couldn't breath properly he couldn't half yowl at the top of his voice!

The vet and I pondered on the mysteries of how an indoor cat might get cat flu...... and then decided that on balance it probably wasn't .... so he had eye drops put in that turned his eyes a lovely florescent yellow.... to determine if there was an eye injury... there wasn't.... and then he had a small capillary tube put up his nose....... which he objected to most strongly.... but we couldn't flush out any foreign objects...... that said - have you seen how small a cat's nostrils are... I mean, it's not like a child... and they don't have the prehensile digits to say, shove lego up their noses.....

After some deliberation.... and hilarity as we tried to weigh him.... we decided that he probably had sinusitis and a course of antibiotics and eye drops were called for....

So twice a day I am cat wrangling....... the first phase of which is to actually find the damn cat........ do you know how many places I have upstairs in my house where Hugo can be just out of my reach??  I've resorted to climbing on things I probably shouldn't, hanging over the edge of beds trying to reach him as he hides in the middle underneath and even rugby tackling him as he runs past towards the door......

So far there have been variable successes...... though apparently he feels once I am in bed at night it's safe and he can crawl under the duvet with me and I won't get him......... I am not sure why he forgets that this works for me every time!

Then we come to the part where you have the cat by the scruff with one hand and are desperately trying to open the tamper proof box of antibiotic tablets with the other - that other being the one you don't normally use..... I've an interesting collection of scratches up one arm and on one side of my body from this phase.

Once I've got the tablet in my hand it's fairly easy to get him to take it.... well, I open his mouth, he looks totally outraged and freezes and I throw the tablet down as far as I can ......... he then swallows on reflex.

The eye drops are more fun.... particularly as there is no way of guessing how much of the damn stuff is going to come out the teeny tiny little tube as I try to keep him still, his eye open and drop the drops at the same time.......

All over I let him go...... and he moves precisely three paces away from me and waits for a treat......... and all is well till we get to do it all over again..... frankly by the time I've done this I am exhausted!  Thankfully only a couple more days of medication to go - we are off back to the vets on Thursday night to get the all clear - fingers and paws crossed!

It was September... I hid in a book or 30....

So, not really very surprisingly, I spent much of this month letting real life sneak past me whilst I buried myself as deep as I could in my Kindle.  Yes, it helped, though I am obviously still grieving - and becoming very familiar with 3.20 am when my mind is normally full of thoughts about dad and things I wish I'd told him - so blogging on general terms is going to be a bit thin on the ground for a some time to come.  Logically, I know that this stage will pass, but right now my brain and logic are not really on speaking terms.

So onto some books.

My favourites this month include the final installment of Kaje Harper's Life Lesson's series - Learning Curve - which rounded things off nicely without making it too sickly sweet and implausible as some other series finales have done recently.  Josephine Myles new release Junk was a really good read as was  Disasterology 101 by Taylor Donovan.  I am not normally big on vampire novels, but I really liked Spirit Sanguine and the short follow up.  Gumption & Gumshoes by Alex Kidwell was one of the eccentric reads that made me smile - quite a difficult feat at present so definitely worth a mention!

No real horrors - though Remastering Jerna was a bit of a let down and I didn't particularly enjoy Fate Lends a Leg though this was more to do with the editing which should have been tightened and perhaps removed a couple of the unnecessary plot lines.

So, the list in total (which includes a lot of comfort re-reads):

1. Life Lessons – Kaje Harper (r)
2. Junk – Josephine Myles

3. From Don to Dom – Naaju Rorrete (LHNB, Novella)

4. Last of the Summer Tomatoes – Sherrie Henry (YA)
5. Disasterology 101 – Taylor Donovon
6. Gamble Everything – Carrie Waites
7. Spirit Sanguine – Lou Harper
8. Late Night Snack – Lou Harper
9. Gumption & Gumshoes – Alex Kidwell
10. Running Deer and Hidden Badger – K.D. Sarge (LHNB Novella)
11. The Executive Lounge – Angela Benedetti (LHNB Novel)
12. Iron Butterfly – Mousegirl65 (PIFM)
13. Stranded – Andrew Grey
14. Driftwood – Harper Fox
15. Brownies (Hammer Short) – Sean Michael
16. Why I love Geeks – T.A. Chase
17. Measure of Devotion – Caethes Faron
18. Measure of Strength – Caethes Faron
19. Gilliflowers – Gillibran Brown (r)
20. Learning Curve – Kaje Harper
21. Remastering Jerna – Anne Somerville
22. Wild Magic – Poppy Dennison
23. Accidental Alpha – Poppy Dennison
24. Fate Lends a Leg – Jax Cordoba (YA)
25. My Fair Captain – J.L. Langley (r)
26. The Englor Affair – J.L. Langley (r)
27. My Relegance Rake – J.L. Langley (r)
28. Sticks & Stones – Urban & Roux (r)
29. Fish & Chips – Urban & Roux (r)
30. Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty – Mousegirl05