Freshers, fig trees and fans

Life News:

This week has been Freshers' Week at the university so it's been all systems go all week, with not really much time for anything else. Luckily, I was well enough to go in on each day, though I still can't honestly say I'm functioning on all cylinders yet. Same old, then ... I must say this year's freshers' arrangements have gone really well and I found myself enjoying the process even, so that's been good. I think partly that's to do with the fact that my role took a more backseat position this year, and I spent less actual time on our information point table - though I did manage to set it up, get it started with the volunteers and take it down again each day. Having the extra time meant I kept up with the job back at my desk and that's been great too. How I hate it when I get behind.

Plus the really wonderful thing is seeing (and feeling!) the general states of anxiety from our new student intake lessen substantially as the days go by, hurrah. We've got one more day with the information point on Monday when lectures actually start and they're into their real timetable, but it's never so pressurised a day - so on the whole I feel I've survived Freshers' Week (and even enjoyed it!) rather well. Gosh indeed.

Meanwhile at home, it's all go on the domestic front. We had a dishwasher delivered this morning and - silly me - I happily signed and sent the delivery men off on their way. Only then did I think to see if it fitted in the space. Hmmm, sadly not. Groan. Well, the top fits but the bottom doesn't as the wooden frame of the cupboard unit on the right isn't straight. Deep deep sigh. I'm waiting for Super Husband to come home and see if he can work miracles but I fear we will have to tackle the shop to see if they'll take it back and offer us something smaller. It's really irritating me too, as I was so looking forward to using it tonight. Cue weeping and gnashing of teeth ...

This afternoon, I'm also waiting for delivery of a long ladder so K can get up onto the roof and work out if we need to sort any tiles out. With my current luck, it'll probably be too ruddy big to get through the house, sigh. We'll wait and see.

Turning to the garden (or "the estate", as we like to call it, my dears), I fear that my precious fig tree is not long for this world. I haven't a clue what I'm doing wrong. Over-watering? Under-watering? Too shady? Too sunny?? Lord knows - but its leaves are now all curly and yellow, and I don't know how to make them straight and green again. Not only that but the lovely grasses in front of the dining room window are turning all yellow and droopy too from being all shiny and green last week. Should I be watering more? Is it something that should happen in autumn, though aren't they meant to be evergreen? Sigh, it's a mystery. If anyone out there has any answers, please feel free to share them. We need all the nature help we can get.

Book News:

Not much to say - I'm continuing, very slowly indeed, to write the short story I'm currently working on but it's no use holding your breath. Mind you, I was extremely heartened yesterday to receive not one but two pieces of fan email, so that was really lovely. Thank you, both! I usually only get two in a year, and to have them both on the same day is surely a coincidence no fiction writer would ever dare get away with. Onwards and upwards, eh.

Anne Brooke
The Thoughtful Corner

Roses and recuperation

Life News:

Sadly, I've been sick since Friday - the usual nasty catarrh virus thing that's given me a couple of relatively sleepless nights and put paid to my appetite, groan. Rather a dramatic way of losing weight, but there you go. It was all rather annoying as I had to be in work on Friday for an important meeting at the end of the afternoon - and I so nearly made it there too. I kept my head down most of the morning and early afternoon and managed, near enough, to catch up on the outstanding stuff (thank goodness) but then I made the foolish error of going to the campus shop to stock up on Lucozade and felt really really sick. All that cold fresh air is definitely not good for you ...

So I made the decision to give up and go home - and managed to get home more or less unscathed though there were several distinctly dodgy moments when I got into the house when I wasn't sure whether I would go one way or the other. Since then it's not been great but at least I do feel a bit more human now. Have even succeeded in eating a bit of lunch today though, to be honest, I couldn't really taste it so I suspect that's probably it until tomorrow.

Nice things that have happened over the weekend include K mowing the lawn and doing wonderful things to the garden as I drooped around groaning a lot. He also very sweetly brought me in a rose which was lovely and made me cry (heck, I am ill, so you shouldn't blame me for the gush ...) but I couldn't actually smell it. Today I can though, and it's very nice! What a superhero.

I really need to be in work tomorrow first thing as well as it's Freshers' Week and I ought to be there, helping Student Support to do its stuff - so I'm hoping I can get a decent night's sleep tonight and feel okay tomorrow. We'll see. Stupidly, even doing normal things is totally wiping me out - probably the lack of food, sigh ...

Book News:

I'm pleased to announce that the winner of the competition in my inaugural quarterly newsletter is Deb F - so well done, Deb, and do get in touch to claim your prize! Which is either the ebook of fantasy novel The Gifting or gay erotic short story For One Night Only. The choice is yours ... Commiserations also to those who entered and didn't win - but better luck next time!

This week, gay erotic short story The Art of The Delaneys has gained a 4-star review at Goodreads, so I'm thrilled with that.

And here's the Sunday haiku for you (you should be able to guess the story!):

You bring me a rose.
I'm too sick to smell it but
the colour shimmers.


Anne Brooke
The Thoughtful Corner

The Importance of Fruit and the welcoming touch

Book News:

It is a matter for general astonishment on all sides that during February when it was offered as a free story, How to Eat Fruit was actually downloaded 4,800 times. Ye gods and little fishes, that's more than a 1,000 times a week! I know at least a couple of those who took the punt didn't enjoy it, but I hope some of the others did. Now, just imagine how big a smile I'd have if it hadn't been free! But in any case it's lovely to think of 4,800 readers, or potentially so - therefore a BIG thank you to all who clicked on that button! Well gosh.

A Woman Like The Sea now has its earlier review up at Queer Magazine Online, so thank you to Victor and Anders for that. In addition, if during March you buy A Woman Like The Sea, than you can get any other of my Untreed Reads books with a 40% discount - so there's another good offer to whet your reading appetite. Keeping with Untreed Reads, I was pleased to see that The Girl in the Painting was No 3 on their international bestseller list for February, gosh again.

Reviews this week so far have been as follows:

The Delaneys and Me gained a 4.5 star review at MichelenJeff Reviews.
At the same review site, Entertaining the Delaneys gained a 5 star review.
And Brady's Choice received a 5+ star review, so that was thrilling, I can tell you. Gosh indeed! And thank you to Jeff for reviewing all those so kindly.

Not to be outdone, Sunday Haiku was briefly at No 68 in the Amazon UK Kindle chart, and I even managed to reach the 110,000 word marker in The Executioner's Cane, huzzahs galore and put out the bunting. Heck, I might even finish the trilogy one day - who knows.

This week I've reviewed Ron Butlin's Vivaldi and the Number 3 for Vulpes Libris, which is a musically surreal short story collection that it's wisest not to consume all at once. And recent meditations are:




Meditation 494
The shadow from the sun
retraces the silent step

for a paste of figs
and bitter tears

so one man’s grief
exceeds the worth

of the truth carved out
through all the years.






Meditation 495
Do not trust
the messengers of Babylonia,
do not let them in:

they’ll admire
everything you own then take it
when they leave again.

So do not trust
the messengers of Babylonia,
my friend:

they come
with gifts and smiles but they’ll only hurt you
in the end.






Meditation 496
To be remembered for water
is how to begin

so still the tongue
and let the brightness in.


Life News:

A difficult week, health-wise, but also positive really. Without the HRT, I've been all over the place so I finally bit the proverbial damn bullet and went to the doctor this week about my mood (low, if you're asking). I did the mercifully short (as I didn't have my reading glasses) test she gave me and we discovered I'm 9/21 for anxiety and 8/21 for depression. Which apparently makes me moderately, but not severely, depressed. So it's not all bad news and gloom really! Lord knows it could be worse ... Anyway, the upshot is I'm now on my first medically-prescribed anti-depressant (ah, welcome to mid-forties womanhood indeed ..) which is called Cipramil. Yes, of course I looked up the list of side effects on the NHS site but it was so long I thought I'd stop reading before I jumped out of the nearest window. Ha! Anyway, I'm now on Day 2 of the new Happy Pills and am feeling surprisingly perky. Which must be psychosomatic as they're not supposed to kick in for at least 2 weeks. I can't take the St John's Wort with these, alas, so they're on their own, the pesky little devils. We will see, eh ...

On a happier note, I have decided, along with the lovely Kirsty at Vulpes Libris, to give up worrying for Lent. I was toying with giving up chocolate, but hell I could do without the pressure right now, so an attempted lack of worrying seems like a better idea. I've also enjoyed finishing off the story of Joseph and his brothers at bible study this week. Now there's a disfunctional family if ever I saw one. Too much favouritism is never anything but a dangerous game, my dears ...

I also spent a lovely lunchtime at Wisley yesterday, though I'm afraid there were no cupcakes and the cappuccino just isn't as good as at The Savill Garden, but nonetheless the camellias were out, alongside some gloriously scented daphne sprigs and irises, amongst others. It was all very relaxing which was just what I needed really. And I've popped in to see my former neighbour in Woking today, so that was good to catch up.

I'm hoping all this positive input will help me through the no doubt agonising final episode of the increasingly grim South Riding on TV - I am still traumatised by last Sunday so who knows what I'll be like after the weekend. Someone get me some happy TV to watch, soon!

Finally, I am beyond thrilled to announce that it's now official: UK students have voted our University as the most welcoming in Britain, and my boss gets to have a few words in the article too, hurrah! Good for Student Care is what I say - we all put a heck of a lot of work into Welcome Week arrangements and changes (which takes up a good portion of our year and takes me a month to recover from afterwards!) and it's lovely to think that the students do get something out of our efforts. Well done to them and us, and here's to this year's Welcome Week also - the champagne's on me ...

Anne Brooke

Reviews, queues and haikus

Book News:

Tuluscan Six and the Time Circle gained a review at Tam's Reads today (scroll down to view) so thank you, Tam! And yesterday I was lucky enough to be the featured author at Michelenjeff Reviews and, at the same time, they gave a 5-star review to Tommy's Blind Date - so thank you also for that.

Meanwhile, determined not to be forgotten, Martin and The Wolf received a 5-star review from Two Lips Reviews - many thanks, Tina. All this is a nice boost for my current gay short story, Brady's Choice, which is slowly, oh so slowly, being written and I've finally struggled my way up to 5,000 words (hurrah!), with another 2000 to go. I think. I'm hoping to get it finished sometime over the next couple of weeks or so but my rate of writing is distinctly not speedy at the moment, so who knows, eh. There's just a hell of a lot of other stuff going on (see below).

However, I'm pleased to say that my latest poetry collection, Sunday Haiku, is currently being advertised at Goodreads so if you catch it on your travels, please do say hello and maybe even add it to your book list there - poetry's not as weird as you think! Speaking of shopping, the good news is that there's 20% off all my Dreamspinner Press titles this weekend so still time to bag yourself a bargain before Monday is upon us.

Here's a meditation poem for this week:


Meditation 433
There on the mountain
the wind shatters rock,
ground heaves
and strange fire
scorches your skin

but it is only
when your mind eases open
for that still, small voice
that you sense at last
the possible nearness of God.


The Sunday haiku today is:

Nameless shadows drift
across my heart; they stifle
hope and fortitude.


Life News:

Lots of redecorating, DIY and decluttering has continued to take place wherever possible. We've now all but finished the hallway - just one section of carpet to take up in order to gloss the skirting board near the front door. We've also given the bedroom a lick of paint where needed and cleaned the walls where they're dirty. Yesterday, K did one trip to the council tip, and today I've done two trips, plus an extra trip to the local book recycling point with another five bags of books. I reckon I could probably do another 5 bags of books or more on top of that but I'll sort those out when I put them back on the spare room shelves. Because at the moment I'm typing this in the middle of the spare room with, behind me, a bare painted area (where the computer usually goes but not now!), and in front of me an area of total clutter. Once the half behind me is fully done, ie painted with a coat or two more, we'll swap over those areas. To enable this, our three tall book cases which normally stand like sentinels of learning (mainly theology) behind me as I type are now standing in the outside hallway, and the books are on the two smaller bookcases now outside our front door, or on the large bookcases on the remaining shelves (the movable shelves we have stored separately), or in the inner hallway in front of the mirror or in the middle and side of the living room. That includes our domestic and professional business files. Thank goodness there's only one item to iron tonight, eh, as there's no room for anything else.

Things I've discovered/rediscovered during the course of today: electric sanders are great fun and very good, and the spare room walls are in fact not as bad as we'd feared (there was great gloom and depression last night after we'd washed them but a lick of paint is a marvellous thing indeed even in an old Victorian house); roller painting is fun and fast, and very good for ceilings though I do end up with a white nose that amused K way way too much; my lost sock was hiding behind the bedroom chest of drawers and has after 18 months been reunited with its partner; the Henry Hoover double strength suction pad will try to suck in a shirt if aimed inadvertently in its direction; the cat flap on our front door is not a standard size but we will nail a piece of wood over the damn thing and repaint properly.

While all this has been going on, I spent a large part of yesterday at the University's Move In Saturday, arriving at 7.45am and leaving at about 3.30pm. It seemed much smoother than last year, possibly because I knew better what I was supposed to be doing, and most students have settled in nicely so far. A fair amount of queueing at our key times but they were all very jolly. Tomorrow Freshers' Week starts in reality and it will be all systems go at our Information Point from 8.30am to 6pm. Goodness knows how exhausted I'll be when I get back but I'm planning on tackling the skirting board behind me in the spare room, and K has taken that section of carpet up in advance so I don't have to think too much. I just like to Paint 'n Go, you know.

Finally, is it just me, or do all our three main party leaders now look so much like each other that they might as well be triplets? Lordy, I really can't tell them apart ...

Anne Brooke