Twitter followers – 210 (even though I have long since stopped trying to impress people and make wierdo mates as I sell my soul for a few more sales). Oh the tricks of gaining a following on Twitter! The one tactic I have seen most of late – the sit on the edge of your seat type of questionnaire: Do you write when you are sick? A) Yes, I’m a machine. B) No, Netflix binge time. C) No, I sleep it off. D) Other. They really should have an E option – I really don’t give a stuff.
It’s been a strange time of late, a lot of loss. And I mean that in the most selfish of terms because others have suffered that lost in such a greater degree than mine…I have nothing left but admiration for their dignity and grace, just like hers. Not the best end/start to 2019/2020…but I endeavour, taking with me the message the one I miss left behind and try to be philosophical about it all. Be happy, try to enjoy every day…and just live. Que Sera Sera, the best woman I ever met said. And no, it wasn’t Doris Day. She was so much better…
So, next book not coming along as quick as I imagined but first draft is complete and being edited. The opportunity to trip myself up repeatedly in this one is immense and my forehead is crisscrossed with many nasty weld marks from all the palm smacks it has received. But I’m getting there, slowly but surely.
I saw this the other day and it made me chuckle, and not in a self-deprecating kind a way – I’m way too much of a realist for that. It was saying how the Neanderthal was much more human than originally thought. Evidently so! I honestly saw a strong resemblance in it. I remember when I was a little girl, maybe 4 or 5, my mum cut up a fake fur coat and made me a cavewoman dress with matching furry boots, accentuated with a plastic skittle wrapped in brown paper (as my club) for the famous Corkerhill Gala Day (legendary for those who lived there in the 70’s/80’s). A mini Captain Cave Man. Seems she must have seen it in me too…
Oh, the Corkerhill Gala day! Don’t worry mum, I won’t tell anyone how competitive you were and how you superglued the top of a monkey nut to my face as a very authentic witch’s wart a few years later. Or how you went to the forest in Pollok Estate to pick individual long grass blades to make Sharon an actual grass skirt and fulfil her dream of being a Hula girl. For weeks, I remember you sowing each blade painstakingly by hand to an elasticated band of material whilst muttering, “I’m not gonnae let they XXXX’s win it this year!” We won’t mention either, that by the time Sharon did her tour of the scheme with all those fancy floats and children in fancy dress parading behind like the Pied Piper was leading them himself, each blade fell off, one by one. She came home crying with nothing more than a band around her middle and bikini bottoms!
Magic days. I absolutely loved growing up in Corkerhill, and anyone who grew up there at that time knows exactly what I mean…but that’s a whole other blog! Here’s a taster:
So, I’m still trying to make my way back to that kind of happy, just as my wonderful friend said. Be happy. Enjoy every day because it is not a given. Just live. And if things don’t work out just as you planned, well, Que Sera Sera. Looking at those photos and remembering her…I’m trying.
XXX
JD Horner author 