Hole in one!

Today's supercalifragilisticexpiallidocious (and really who gives a damn about the spelling of this glorious word) and utterly splendid news is that I've actually achieved a real-live hole in one!! Yes, people - on the golf course and with all the rules of the great game in play. Quadruple hurrahs and bunting all round. I couldn't believe it! I thought the shot looked pretty good, and Marian & I watched it as it landed on the green, headed towards the hole and ... um ... just vanished!!! There was a second of silent shock and then we both started shrieking like banshees! (I'm always the consummate professional, as you know...). Not only that but I managed to get my best ever score, and so did Marian - after she achieved not one, but two pars! Ye gods and little fishes, Tiger Woods better watch out now as we have him in our sights for sure. I am still grinning like a banana - one the right way round. Gosh. All I need now to make my day complete is a publishing deal for The Gifting (ho ho!) and my work here is done, Carruthers ...

Back at home.com, and I've got to 30,000 words in Hallsfoot's Battle and even have a little bit more of that first (of four) section's closing scene to do, plus some ideas for following scenes, so am hugely pleased with that too. I'll leave it there for today, as at my age I can't take too much excitement, you know, and at least it will give me something definite to come back to later. Am soooo pleased to have cracked the big 30,000 barrier, as it is something of a milestone for me. I'm definitely on the road to somewhere now. Ah, but where, m'dear, where? There's the question, eh ...

And talking of roads to somewhere, I've just now finished Tony Judge's novel, Sirocco Express, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's my review, which will appear at some point on Amazon UK and Waterstones websites:

"Sirocco Express is a powerful novel of journey, discovery and how to be human in an increasingly inhuman world. Adebayo, a young Nigerian, leaves his home in Lagos and embarks on an extraordinarily difficult journey to try to discover a better life in Europe. The journey is in marked contrast to the comforts and familiarity of home which are touched on very effectively in the first few chapters, although even so the themes of potential displacement and dis-content are never absent. I did find the final scenes between Adebayo and his father in this section, brief though they are, particularly moving. Once established on his flight to the "good life", Abebayo finds himself in a shockingly unfamiliar world, accompanied by people smugglers and desperate companions, most of whom it would be wiser not to trust. In these circumstances, he must find his feet and try to carve out a place for himself. It is here that his instincts to do what is right bring him into dangerous conflict with the smugglers and make him what is essentially a marked man. The descriptions of the journey taken and of the people the migrants meet along the way are measured and clear, and it is especially interesting how the beauty of the landscape becomes bleak, coloured by the reasons for the journey itself. On the way, there are moments of high drama, danger and death, placed alongside well-researched realism of how the people smuggling process actually operates. The final destination of Adebayo's travels, the ups and downs of his secret new life and the clever twist at the end are well worth the journey. Taken as a whole, the character of Adebayo in fact becomes a type of modern "Everyman" figure as his story, although unfamiliar in its detail to most of us in the West, contains elements of desire, search, vision and need common to us all. Indeed, with this in mind, there are also echoes of the novels of Paul Coelho in the way Sirocco Express is written: in short, it's one to read, one to ponder over and one to keep."

Ooh, and did I say I got a hole in one today?

Have also been shopping and stocked up on Quiet Life pills, Relaxation bath oil and Equilibrium drops. All the little essentials today's modern woman needs then (never say I'm not a train wreck in the making indeed). And flowers - a big bunch. Hell, I deserve them! Hole in one, you know ... actually I'm thinking of getting a tee-shirt with those words printed on it in big letters. Very big.

Tonight, I'm going to slump in front of the TV and watch as many comedy shows as I can pack in. Including the one we recorded last night while we were at "Moll Flanders". Which I have to say was one of the most wonderful pieces of theatre I've seen for a long time - it had everything the novel does: wit, heart, social commentary and a double dose of what it means to be human. The small band of actors were top-notch and the whole thing was fabulous. Theatre like that is one of the best things on this planet, I tell you. Well, that and a hole in one, of course ...

Today's nice things (as if you even needed to ask!):

1. My hole in one
2. My hole in one
3. My hole in one
4. Getting to 30,000 words in Hallsfoot
5. Books
6. Ooh, almost forgot - my hole in one.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website