Stories for Homes - the auction!

Stories for Homes, Volume 2, was launched in December, and there are still events coming this month to support the book.

The latest one is an online auction - click here for details - featuring the original painting which became the cover art for SfH vol 2, along with a variety of signed books, an original Viz comic strip, a meal, music and hair styling... Why not pop over and take a look? All proceeds will be going to Shelter. 

There's a signed copy of Kingstone up for grabs...

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 

to every reader of the Scribbles, wherever you might be in the world. Whatever you left behind in 2017, may you be able to face 2018 with love and hope.

It's off to a good start for me already...

Mr Squidge and I don't really celebrate New Year. We've done parties of course, and enjoy being with friends or family, but I don't make New Year's resolutions or view it as the end of something. I see it as a chance to pause for a moment, to take stock of what has happened and look ahead to what might be.

Which is why, last night, with Squidgeling J back in Bristol and Squidgeling T partying with friends, Mr Squidge and I took the opportunity to go and watch a film. We have two cinemas in town; one is a massive complex boasting goodness knows how many screens and all the latest blockbusters. The other is a smaller affair, which to this day I cannot think of as other then The Curzon.

'The Curzon' (it's actually the Odeon nowadays) is a fabulous art deco building which, when I was a kid, had one or possibly two large cinema halls - complete with balcony. We used to go once a year, when my dad's workplace offered their employees' children a chance to see a Christmas film (the best bit was the selection box we were all given on the way out!) As the years passed, the large halls were converted into smaller rooms, and a next-door club was taken into the complex to add even more. So today, there are six screens suitable for various sized audiences.

That's where we headed.

It was New Year's Eve, so it was quiet - about a dozen people watching Pitch Perfect 3, our film of choice. Have to say, it was great - if you've seen the previous films, suffice it to say that Fat Amy takes centre stage in this one; look out for the sausage nunchucks!!

On our way home, we dropped into a pub for a swift half. We had no intention of stopping, but people watching is far too interesting a pastime...and then the DJ put on some 70's disco.

I danced, dear reader! I boogied to those disco beats, alongside twenty-somethings in their short skirts and bra tops and sequins and down-to-the-waist-open-cleavage-showing shirts, happy in my jeans and jumper and red boots, without a scrap of makeup on, and I didn't care! (I often feel like a fish out of water in pubs nowadays, because although I'm sure I'm really twenty-something inside, I certainly don't look it any more!) Talk about impulsive - even Mr Squidge was doing his 'shoulder-shuffle' dance move to welcome 2018...

So anyway, that was good fun.

This morning, I've been pootling on the laptop and what did I discover? More good(ish) news - StarMark and Kingstone had both gone up the rankings on Amazon. We're talking a few hundred places out of potentially millions, but it's an upwards direction. So I did a bit of digging and discovered that the price for StarMark has plummeted in the UK - you can now buy the paperback and the kindle version for under £2 each. Check it out HERE if you haven't read it yet and fancy giving it a go. (Mind you, having gone into the link again, prices range from one penny (!) to about £5 for the paperback now, so I'm not sure what's going on with it. Kindle's still under £2 though.)

And in the US, the kindle price has been dropped too - to under $3. Maybe it'll mean a few more steps in the upwards direction on the Amazon rankings in the coming days? Who knows...

I've got some other good things lined up for the start of 2018, so I will try to blog more frequently and share them with you, because I know I've been a bit lax at posting over recent months. But for now, I'll finish off my first post of the New Year and get back to work on a short story I'm writing...

Bye for now - and once again,

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2017

This year at church, we had an Advent Flock which travelled around the Parish. At every home the flock visited, a little lamb was left behind, to be reunited with the flock on Christmas Eve at our Crib Services. Our children were invited to make extra sheep too, so the flock had grown somewhat by 5.30pm after two services. 

This Christmas, if,  like the shepherds and kings and our Advent flock, you are coming to the stable - or you find yourself in a situation you did not expect - remember that God is with you, now, two thousand years after the birth of Jesus. 

In the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, may your Christmas journey lead you closer not just to the heart of Christmas, but to the person of Jesus whose birth we celebrate.

Happy Christmas, everyone. xxx

The building of a snowman

There's something about snow in the UK - it seems so rare that we get any of the decent stuff, that when we do, we go a bit mad!

On the one hand, it causes massive disruption. People aren't used to dealing with snow, so they don't cope with travel disruption or school closures and the like. (And yet years ago, when snow was more common, everyone seemed to manage much better - have we become softer in our modern day, I wonder?) Huge shout-out to everyone who keeps vital services going in these circumstances!

On the other hand, it gives folk a chance to play and enjoy the beauty of a changed world. I thoroughly enjoyed my walk down from church in near-silence, looking out over the fields. It also gives you a chance to cosy up inside if you like to look at the snow but not venture out in it.

Well, Mr Squidge enjoys playing. As I write, he's building an igloo in the garden.

He's already built a snowman, and that's what I want to share with you. Thing is, I was chatting on messenger to Squidgeling J - who, you may remember, is away at university. Bristol had seen snow today, but it hadn't settled; Squidgeling J wanted to know about the snowman.

Via a mixture of photos and messages, (live streaming the build was optioned at one point!) we had a conversation that lasted as long as it took to build the snowman.

He started out rather lumpy and looking like a giant white jelly baby.

Then I realised this was his body when Mr Squidge added a head.

Arms came next - one giving me the thumbs up, the other looking like Mr. Snowman had worked out on one side...until Mr Squidge made it look like his hand was on his hip. I was posting messages to Bristol every few minutes...'he's got a nose'...'there's an arm'...

A face. 'Creepy' was how Squidgeling J described it. And I have to say, it was a little disconcerting to have an eyeless snowman staring at me through the patio windows.

Oh, didn't I mention that? This four foot high snowman is built right outside our lounge and stares in at me, while I sit warm and cosy on the sofa...

Anyway. Mr Squidge added buttons and proper eyes (wine bottle tops) and then we found a hat. Mr Squidge had a colleague who celebrated her last birthday by asking everyone to come in wacky head gear, because she had unfortunately lost her own hair due to chemotherapy treatment. (Sadly, this friend died a few weeks ago.) Mr Squidge had joined in with the spirit of wacky head gear and bought himself a fez. A proper felt fez. And that's what we gave Mr Snowman.

Only for a short while - don't want the snow and wet to ruin the fez! However, the final choice of headgear was actually a santa hat, which doesn't matter if it gets wet.

Mr Squidge didn't half look pleased with himself...

Anyway, he's just come in because it's too dark and cold to do much more on the igloo, and I'm finishing this as he's making a cup of tea and warming a mince pie or two.

Whether you are a lover or hater of snow, I hope it doesn't cause you too much inconvenience over the next few days and that you manage to get some time to enjoy it, too. At least build a snowman, even if he's a tiddly one!

A Community of Christmas Trees

Our local Parish Church - the big one, in town - is holding its annual Community Christmas Tree Festival. As usual, my own church set up a tree, decorated by our Starting Rite members. (Starting Rite is a 5 week course for parents and their babies, which explores baptism, and their logo is apparently feet!)

So, not too many words in this blog - but a few pics of some of the trees I admired the most. Have to say, though, they are all brilliant for different reasons - and there were 120 to see!

To start off, here's our St. Mary in Charnwood tree:

All the babies who'd been on the Starting Rite course gave a sock, and had their name added to it.

The teeniest, tiniest toes were Charlotte's - right at the top of the tree.

Keeping with children - this was one nursery's egg box and cereal packet tree...

If I remember right, this was a school's craft club...lots of very clever ideas on the one pallet tree...

There were two 'book' trees, but I liked this one because it was made out of thick tomes which described all you needed to know about every aspect of citizen's rights, supplemented with tags describing people's responses to the help they'd received from the Citizen's Advice Bureau...

Lots of guiding trees in evidence, but this was my favourite - a treeful of Brownies, made out of plastic cups...

And where there are guides, there are usually scouts! A tent tree - complete with papier mache scout, cub and beaver heads peeking out of it...

Huge tissue paper flowers on this Gardening Group one - each large flower's about two feet across!

Now to a treeful of angels. Book folding seems to be a big thing at the moment - I'm torn between loving the finished product and hating to see pages creased. But this tower of angels looked amazing.

You've heard of the Great British Bake Off - well there was a tree decorated as the Great British BISQUE off, by the pottery club of the Grammar School. I have never seen so many gingerbread men. And I loved the bunting made from cake cases...

Now, my favourite tree of the lot. Made by a group called Charnwood Threads, the idea was simple - here's a white triangle of felt/fabric. Now decorate it using needlework.

Biggest triangles are probably 4-5" from base to tip

Oh my - I could've posted so many more photos of the individual decorations, because they were all exquisitely stitched. But here's a flavour...

Frayed fabric strips...

A string of felt tree lights...

Minute patchwork hexagons...

 

Simple threads...

 And the prize for the biggest variety of tree types in one submission? This one  - a winter wonderland of trees made from knitting, paper, felt, card, books...have I got them all?

In a break with Squidge Christmas traditions, I will be putting up a tree Chez Squidge tomorrow - mainly because I'm cooking an early Christmas dinner for eleven (!) on Saturday so we thought we'd better be a bit festive. Pictures will follow...even though it's only about three feet high.

Right, I'm off to defrost a 12lb turkey. See you later!

Nearly there...

Wish I could say the title relates to my writing, but I'm finding it hard going at the moment.

Being a woman of a certain age, hormones seem to be stealing away my concentration. If I'm not completely fuzzle-brained, I seem to be not sleeping, or experiencing wicked migraines (which knock me out for a good 24 hours) or feeling like I just want to crawl into a hole until this whole hormone lark bogs off - for good!

I am trying to work through it...and there are a few things that have given me a boost this week.

The first - I have a kitchen floor! After five months...

You might remember we started our kitchen back in July, (you can see some of the progress here) and we are still only just getting the finishing touches in place, because of reasons beyond our control. Whilst I love a lot of the new kitchen, there's a fair bit of the process and end result that I am less than pleased with - so much so, that if I could turn the clock back, I would never have gone with the company we used. The annoying thing is, you only tend to have a major refit like this perhaps once in your lifetime, so you put the work into looking for a company you think will do the best job and who comes up with what you want, and then it feels as though they let you down. Big time. I'm going to live out the rest of my days knowing that my kitchen is less than perfect...but I am grateful that it is done. Almost. Just touching up of paintwork, realigning the radiator, putting on a new drawer front because the fitter scratched it when he did some glueing... *sigh*

Be positive, Katherine. Be positive.

The second thing to make me smile this week was this: a mini book charm necklace by Sleeping_Beauty5.

You know I already have a StarMark necklace of my own, which I bought when I knew StarMark was going to be published. In fact, MY StarMark ended up being THE StarMark on the cover of the book (with a few clever manipulations by Bink's cover designer!)

small charm on the left, StarMark necklace charm on the right...

I wear it to author talks, especially at schools, and thought it might be nice to ring the changes and get something to represent Kingstone, too. Now, on the cover, you might remember that there is a sun, moon, mountain image?

You can get half sun, half moon charms, but nothing with the mountain bit, so I'd given up. Until I saw Sleeping Beauty's ad on ebay for a miniature Twilight book charm. I contacted her, asked if she would consider making a custom one for me, (her very first custom job, I'm pleased to say!) and within a week I received it.

I'd agreed with Mr Squidge that it should be a Christmas pressie, but I couldn't resist a peek, or sharing Sleeping Beauty5's handiwork with you all...

The book and the charm

And here, to give you an idea of the size and detail possible...

The colour is a little bluer than the real thing, but not by much

Even down to the spine...

And the blurb on the back!

It's been squirrelled away to Mr Squidge's secret pressie stash place (ie under the bed) and I shall probably forget all about it until Christmas Day!

But also, looking ahead to Christmas, we had our last flower night at church. I decided to make an Advent arrangement - inspired by those we saw last year in Germany when we visited friends. Those same friends will be coming over here this year - next week in fact - for an early Christmas dinner. Here's what I created:

So things are looking up - my head doesn't hurt today, I have a new floor in the kitchen, it's starting to feel a bit Christmassy...

Things can only get better, eh?

#sfh2 - Paperback release

Did you know that:

* According to Shelter, 65,000 families will be homeless this Christmas.

* At least one more family becomes homeless in Britain EVERY TEN MINUTES.
* There are 250,000 homeless people in England. That's a quarter of a million!
* 300,000+ in Britain.
* In the worst hit areas, 1 in 25 people are homeless.
* Last year, the lowest number of socially rented homes were built in 71 years. 71 YEARS!
* Tory austerity is linked to 120,000 deaths, according to a study in BMJ Open (medical journal).

These figures are shocking and unacceptable. The numbers seem too big for us 'little people' to do anything about. We are left feeling helpless and hopeless in the face of such desperate need...

Except... Today, you CAN do something to make a difference. YOU can help Shelter, the charity which helps and supports people suffering from bad housing and homelessness. And all because a collective of wonderful people have given their time and skills for free to put together and publish a second anthology of short stories on the theme of home, with every penny of the profits going direct to Shelter. 

Today is Paperback Launch Day:

Stories for Homes, Volume 2 (#sfh2) contains over 50 stories in paperback for £12.99. Already out on kindle, (£5.99) the book has received nothing less than 5 stars in every review it has received so far. We - the folk who've been involved in both the book and the online anthology, as well as everyone who helped with the cover artwork, blog tour, publicity, and line up of events to launch the book - are hoping it will be every bit the bestseller that the original Stories for Homes anthology was.

The paperback - looking good

And we'll achieve it, with your help. Please - buy the book. For yourself, or as a present. Tweet. Share. Retweet the tweets you see. Buy the ebook. Blog about it. Read it. Make a noise about it! Do all of it, knowing that you - yes, YOU - are making a difference and helping Shelter to ensure there's help for those caught up in bad housing or homelessness both now, and in the future. We already know they appreciate it: 

To finish, there's one other statistic I'd like to share with you. 

71 - the official number of deaths at Grenfell Tower; the anthology is dedicated to the victims of that tragedy.