It's a fine thing

It's a fine thing to have a sister. It's even finer to have one who cares about you and puts sweet peas in your bedroom and cooks you roast lamb and fish pie and who has a summerhouse where you can sit and write, and a kitchen where the afternoon sun shines through the stable door 

and onto the wall

as you talk about everything and nothing, and then slope through to the sitting room to watch Neighbours. I am enjoying this convalescence lark.

Apology

I'm sorry I've been absent. When I've not been busy, I've been ill. I'm currently resting and recovering for the third time this month. I'll be blogging again when I can.

Various

It's good to be well again. Antibiotics are wonderful, even if reading the list of possible side effects sends you witless, and you have to forego your one glass of wine a day at teatime* because alcohol is not allowed. 

I had a great idea for a blog post on Tuesday morning but Dave was out for the day and I put it on one side to write the novel instead. Guess what? I wrote for 5 hours and produced 3000 words. It was amazing. Dave came home and laughed and said maybe I'd open my laptop the next day and find everything I'd written was drug-induced gibberish. Also he said it was like the scene in The Mighty Wind when Mitch gets his Mojo back and starts writing at 200 words per minute.

Fortunately the words weren't gibberish. They were a pretty good shitty first draft (that's a technical term used by writers.) You know I said I am writing this book in a different way from all the others? Usually I plan the whole thing out and this time I am flying by the seat of my pants.

Well, I've got to the stage now where I have to decide how it ends - happy or sad. It's a momentous decision. I have never before made an ending sad. Comments welcome. Hey, maybe I'd stand a better chance of having a best seller if it was sad - you know how darkness rules these days...

* Teatime -
When I was in the States I had an interesting conversation about tea and teatime. A native I was talking to was puzzled by the double use of the word - tea meaning the drink and tea meaning the meal. Then we got onto the fact that there is afternoon tea and high tea, and then I explained that people in the midlands and north don't have dinner in the evening, they have tea, and that a relation in the south calls her evening meal supper. By the end of the conversation, the American was more bamboozled than enlightened, and I hadn't even explained that in our house at midday the terms lunch and dinner are interchangable.

I have other stuff to say about all kinds of things, but it's time to go to my sax lesson.

Afternoon drama

I'm not well at the moment and I'm doing a lot of lying in bed listening to the radio, and this afternoon I heard for the second time a radio play that was so moving it made me cry. It was on BBC Radio 4 and you can listen to it on BBC iPlayer if you're interested - wherever you are in the world (I believe.) It's called Frank and the Bear.

And on another tack, because I am bereft of things to say.... here's a photo of our crocosmia lucifer in the evening sunshine last week.

Birthday girl

I've checked, and it's over six weeks since I put anything on the blog about Lux and Cece, so I feel entitled.

This was Lux the first time I visited and saw her in the flesh. She was eight weeks old and the family lived in San Francisco then.

Last weekend she was 7. She wanted a purple and green skateboard for her birthday:

And here is a recent picture of Cece and Lux out on the town in Boulder. Can't you just imagine them in 10 years time?

I miss them.

That's all, folks, because it's raining and I have an empty house for the day and I'm going to write. 

Bliss.

Who am I writing for?

I was once interviewed by a popular and talented local radio guy who had just had his memoir published. He asked me if Dave read my books, and specifically, had he read BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU ?

I told him that Dave never reads my books. For one thing, he never reads any kind of fiction, and for another, he wants me to be free to write whatever I want without censorship, and if I knew he was going to read it, it might hamper me and spoil the book. 

The interviewer wasn't happy with this answer: he tried to whip up a problem, implying that Dave didn't care for me or my writing. I insisted on the truth - that Dave has always been my biggest cheerleader, both in terms of moral support, and also practically. He encouraged me to give up my job to concentrate on writing (and he typeset the two books I self published - though I didn't mention this because some people look down on self-published books.)

Then I found out what the interviewer's beef was: his brother had refused to both read his memoir and to come to his book launch. He was clearly aggrieved at this and I believe he thought it showed that his brother didn't care about him.

I've been thinking about this, because last time I spoke to my big sister and she asked about my writing I said she wouldn't like the new book, and neither would my other sister. My elder brother might. I'm not sure about my younger one. My beloved sibs' views on my published books range from huge enjoyment to the view from one that my fictional alter ego, Sally Howe (she of Plotting for Beginners and Plotting for Grown-ups), is a 'silly bitch.' But all my sibs are as morally and practically supportive as any writer could wish, just like Dave. The one who despised Sally H kindly proofread the ms of But I Told You Last Year That I Loved You for me. I'm a very lucky dodo.

So who am I writing for?

Kurt Vonnegut advised young writers to: 

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

I have one reader in mind, and when the book's done I'll tell her who she is. Though I might not be sharing the news with you. But having written it with her in mind, I hope that all of you will enjoy it - of course!

Dreaming

Yesterday morning Dave went out for the day at 6 a.m. leaving me drinking my first mug of Yorkshire tea. My sister was ringing to tell me something specific at 11 a.m. and I had to go out soon after 12 to a memorial service, but for five delicious hours I had an empty house in which I knew I could write undisturbed. After what seems like weeks of busyness, it was luxury, it was heaven. I was suffused with such a deep feeling of liberty and relief I can't express it in words. 

I submerged myself in my story and in the thoughts and conversation of my characters and I wrote some good stuff. Sometimes you just write, knowing it's what writers call 'a shitty first draft' that will be rewritten later, and sometimes you get to the heart of something the first time you try. Yesterday was one of those days. 

I was still in this ethereal fictional world when I stopped writing and got out the butter, cocoa and icing sugar to ice a cake for the afternoon's wake, when my sister rang. I took on board the key information she wanted to tell me but then she expanded into travel arrangements and speculation and negotiations needed and I was bamboozled. I couldn't focus. My rational brain was AWOL. 

My writer friend Chrissie picked me (and my cake) up in the car to go to the service and I told her about what had happened, and she understood completely. The same thing happens to her. 

Dave is planning to go out again for the day next Thursday and I have written in my diary in large orange capitals 

KEEP FREE

Letter from home

I'm sorry it's been a week since I posted but I've been busy.

I spent all of Friday cooking, picking flowers, and fetching toys down from the attic for Saturday's refugee hospitality day, organised by Bakewell churches. That happened on Saturday and was wonderful. Rain was threatened for the whole day but the sun defied the forecast, so the kids who came wanted to go to the park both morning and afternoon instead of doing all the activities we had prepared for them. Of course this was fine! The idea was for them to have a good time, and they did, feeding the fish in the river, going on the playground and playing footie with volunteers, three of whom were over 70. 

Meanwhile their mums and our other guests had some peace and quiet in the Friends Meeting House, decorating canvas bags and also making jewellery from our collection of beautiful recycled beads. This picture does not do them justice. Close up they looked positively edible. 

One of the volunteers, a trained masseuse, gave hand massages, and in the middle of the day we shared a lovely lunch up at the Anglican church. I'm sorry I can't show you pictures but personal privacy is vital.

I've also been busy picking gooseberries and blackcurrants and making jam. 

And I've been reading this:

which is the most entrancing and gripping novel I've read in ages. 

And then yesterday my friend Heike, recently back from a peace camp in Germany where they tied bread to tornado fighters carrying nuclear weapons - Bread not Bombs - recommended this:

It's a fantastic book full of history, creativity, inspiring ideas and above all, that precious commodity, hope. 

Lastly, I wanted to tell you what happened to Ben Jackson, whom I told you about here. He was the autistic boy whose mother invited 25 children to his birthday party and no-one turned up. Here's a report from the BBC.

Tomorrow a friend is coming to stay, and after that I shall get back to writing the novel. I have a new philosophy since Mary died which includes making the most of sunny days. Summer is such a busy time outside the study, and there will be plenty of cold dark days coming up when sitting at my desk will be the best option. No-one will suffer if another Sue Hepworth novel remains unpublished for six months, and I don't want to regret not spending time with people I love, or missing the chance to be under the sky, appreciating this beautiful place I live in.

Liz and I have not yet managed this year to have a summer evening walk down the Trail to sit on the terrace at Hassop Station and share a meal, and talk. These things matter. 

Missing Mary

It's the most beautiful sunny morning here in Derbyshire. I'm sitting in bed looking at the sun on the lime trees and missing Mary, my best friend, my Anam Cara, who died two and a half years ago. The feeling swept in last night and is still here this morning.

'The sun rises in spite of everything.'

Derek Mahon

The evidence

I am trying to clear up a bit, as an important visitor is coming to stay in 10 days, and I came across the notebook I used to keep in the kitchen table drawer to grab and make notes in when I was talking to Dave and he said things that made me laugh. I thought you might like to see where some of my characters' dialogue comes from.

 Enjoy!

And here is the inspiration for Richard in Plotting for Beginners - making jam in his wellies and his leather apron. I just said to him 'Can I tweet this?" and he said 'I don't give a stuff. It makes people aware of health and safety.'

No one turned up for his birthday party

Long time readers of the blog will know that several members of my family have high functioning autism (also called Asperger syndrome.)

It's hard being autistic. As I said in a much earlier post, if you are a child with high functioning autism, you may be very bright and have no problem with schoolwork, but be ultra-sensitive to noise, touch and smells, and be incapable of instinctively understanding the social world and how to behave in it. 

This sounds like a trivial problem, but it’s not. Amongst other things it can lead to bullying, friendlessness, loneliness, isolation, anxiety and depression. It makes living an ordinary life without stress and distress – which most kids do without thinking – a skill that has to be mastered, just like swimming. Sometimes such young people have got the hang of it by the time they are 30.

Yesterday I came across a story on Twitter about a boy with high-functioning autism whose mother invited 25 children to his birthday party and he was expecting them to come and no-one turned up. Imagine how you would feel if this happened to you. I imagined my own young autistic relation going through it. For various reasons which are hard to explain simply in a brief blog post, birthdays are difficult and fraught times for aspies, even without a party.

This year the boy's mother, Lisa, wants to make his birthday special and asked people if they could find it in their hearts to send him a card.

If you want to do this, his birthday is Friday July 14th when he will be 11.
His name is Ben Jackson, and his address is 
35 Dunn Close, Southsea, Portsmouth PO4 9TX
and the full story is here.

Ancient authors at night

10 p.m.   turn out light and go to sleep.

1 a.m.   wake up for a pee, get back into bed and brain remembers tasks for the following day that should have been done yesterday. Switch on light and send self an email with subject line only - 'pay house insurance, get flea stuff for cat, ring Tracy and pay the bill, collect beads, buy bubble machine for children on next refugee hospitality day.'

1.30.     unable to sleep.

2 a.m.   still unable to sleep and remember another item so forward email already sent with 'order repeat prescription' added.

3.30 a.m.  wake up for another pee. Brain refuses to settle and suddenly a scene that I've been wondering how to write pops into my head. Not only are the two characters there and I know exactly what they are doing, their precise conversation is issuing forth as well. Wake up and write as much as possible in dim light with no glasses, just enough detail so I'll be able to pick it up in the morning.

4 a.m.     still unable to sleep and not sure I'll wake up before Dave sets off for Sainsbury's so send him an email with items to buy I forgot to tell him last night.

4.30 a.m.   still unable to sleep but it's light now. To wake up or not to wake up? Decide not and shut eyes and doze till 6.45 a.m.

Celebration!

Wendy had a double mastectomy last December, began four months of chemotherapy in January, and yesterday completed six and a half weeks of daily radiation therapy. It has been a long, hard row to hoe and she has done it with stoicism and cheerfulness. She is awe-inspiring. Yesterday lunchtime after her last treatment she celebrated with Isaac. 

photo by Isaac

Pleasure

What to say?

That I can't get over how much I am enjoying this summer at home, whether it's watering my geraniums in my pyjamas, bike riding up the Monsal Trail, plotting my new book in the steamer chair while drinking in my front garden and the fields beyond, or playing al fresco table tennis with Dave in the late afternoon. 

Or should I tell you how heartwarming it was when someone I have never met and don't know tweeted this about BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU:

And then there was the lovely unknown reader defending PLOTTING FOR GROWN-UPS on Amazon against a sorry person who, because she didn't like all the local references in the book said that my next book should be a tourist information book. Between you and me, that review has long bugged me, but obviously it's infra dig for an author to join the fray and say - 'Look, if a novelist can mention the London Eye, Highgate cemetery, or Camden tube station in a novel why can't I mention Hassop Station, the Heights of Abraham or the Maazi restaurant in Matlock? A novel has to be set somewhere!'

Fortunately other readers agree with me. Here is another recent cheering tweet from someone I don't know:

So there you have it. It's a warm Monday morning and it's raining and I'm pleased, because it cuts down my options. I have a lot of jobs to do inside and this morning's task is to get on with the work-in-progress. Have a good week!

Current status

I have just one plum on my plum tree because of sharp frosts when the blossom was out; my raspberry bushes refuse to flourish; my sweet peas are pathetic - I don't know what they were doing while I was away in Colorado for three weeks, but they weren't growing; and my strawberry patch is infested with grass again. 

Yesterday my legs ached on the briefest of bread and butter bike rides, and at 2 p.m. I shlumped, like Mr Bix's borfin. There was no alternative but to lie on my bed and watch an epsiode of Neighbours on the iPad. My sax calls to me, begging me to find the energy to play it and the slackline is thinking of leaving home on the grounds of neglect.

And yet, and yet, I am loving the summer. Ploughing up the Trail with my weary legs I was euphoric. It's fabulous here! At this point in the year I see the benefits of all the rain we have to put up with month in month out. Everywhere is so wonderfully lush, and the verges of the lanes and the Monsal Trail are spilling over with an ever changing variety of wild flowers. Last week I counted 17 varieties on just one ride. This week among the buttercups and clover there are orchids. 

The other reason to be cheerful is that thanks to Dave's inspired dismembering of the dead washing machine, we now have our very own firepit.

My men

My younger sister Jen and I have different views about the men in Friends. I love Ross because he is the most wonderful comic character, and I adore his slapstick scenes - e.g. in The One With The Leather Trousers. Jen can't stand him because she says he is silly. She prefers Joey. I like Joey too but he's not interesting enough for me: he's too basic a character - the comic fool. 

I've just been thinking about all the male character in my novels - Richard and Gus in Plotting for Beginners and Plotting for Grown-ups, Rob in Zuzu's Petals, Kit in Plotting for Grown-ups, and Sol in But I Told You Last Year That I Loved You. And I realised that the man in my current work in progress is different from them all.

Of all of my men in print I think Richard is my favourite. Why? Because he's so funny.
Gus is annoying and barely there.
Rob is too damaged.
Kit is OK for sex but not much else.
Sol is great. He is funny and sweet, but in the end he's too hard to manage.
Richard is pure comic character.

Here he is in Plotting for Grown-ups....

“I’ll bring my Screwfix catalogue to amuse myself in the interludes. I’ve conceived an unhealthy passion for a pair of trestles. I keep trying to stamp it down, but I’m constantly drawn back to them.”

He got up from his chair (we were sitting in the kitchen) and tugged at the seat of his trousers. Then he sat down again and said, “Some of my underpants are terrible. It’s as if they’re alive – I can feel them creeping down my thighs. I need to cull them.”

“What you need to do when you get home is get them all out of your drawer, and lay them all out on the bed and go through them, one by–”

“I am going through them! That’s the trouble! But where can I get some decent ones? I have had it up to here with M&S Y-fronts. They’re hopeless!”

What is it about men and their underpants?

“You need to get something that isn’t a standard Y-front, something a bit more 2011-ish. Especially now you’re on the pull. I mean – what would Ms Fuchsia Pink think of them?”

“This is where Dickies could pounce,” he said. “They ought to be calling in their top designers, even as we speak.”

“So what do you think the perfect underpant needs?”

“Security, material that shrugs off stains, adequate ventilation – possibly assisted – and a reliable fastening. It’s about time persons of quality gave their attention to the comfort and protection of the nation’s manhood. Paxman tried a few years ago – do you remember all that kerfuffle on the Today programme? Nothing happened. Next thing you know, Prince Charles will be muscling in with the Poundbury Pant and the Prince’s Truss.”

I use my life in my novels if you hadn't already guessed. This week our washing machine died and we ordered a new one. In the meantime Dave decided to dismantle it to see if there were any useful components he wanted to keep.

He has promised to take it to the tip today, but he's kept a bucketful of stuff, including the motor, some 'wonderful springs' and the domed glass from the door, which he has cleaned up and says makes an excellent fruit bowl.

I just asked him if he minded my putting this bit of news on the blog and he said 'No. Why should I mind?' then two seconds later he said 'Perhaps you could ask your readers to send us their unwanted washing machine doors.'

Dear readers, please don't.

Sweet piece, and shameless PR

For all those who have not read my novel BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU, I commend this short piece - which I did not write - in today's Guardian. Actually, I commend it to all of you. It's sweet and true and made me smile in recognition.

And if you haven't read BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU, why haven't you?  It's one of the National Autistic Society's favourite novels about autism. And if you're not interested in autism, you can enjoy it anyway. here's the blurb:

Frances has been married to Sol since the beginning of time. He is eccentric and difficult to live with, but she finds him endearing and very funny, even while wanting to strangle him with his own jogging bottoms. Now, something threatens to split them apart. Frances wants one thing and Sol wants another, and there is no way to compromise. But I told you last year that I loved you is a portrait of a mature marriage at a crossroads - intimate, funny, tender and honest.

It's good to be home

Boulder is beautiful with its wide tree-lined streets and its ubiquitous bike paths and its views of the Rockies, but here it is home. The spring grass was green in Boulder and the trees were fresh and thick, but here it is lush, the verges overflow with wildflowers, 

the trees are varied, and the deer don't eat my fruit or flowers. 

The runners and cyclists on the Boulder trails are serious and intense, keeping fit, stretching themselves. Few of them respond to a good morning or hello, even though generally Boulderites are warm, chatty and hospitable. The people on the Monsal Trail - though retiring Brits - seem to find it easier to greet a friendly passer-by.

This is the view over my front garden wall:

This is the elderflower that grew from a cutting from my parents' garden:

Here is one of my borders: 

I'm finally over my jetlag and am tackling the pile of admin that's built up on my desk over the last three weeks. I've also just picked my gooseberries, and am picking strawberries every day. Soon it will be the blackcurrants. My sweet peas are yellow and sickly and I've just dosed them up with sequestered iron. My blackbird still sings at 4 in the morning. It's good to be home.

Home

It always feels a bit disloyal to the Colorado Hepworths when I say how pleased I am to be home after I've been to stay with them. It sounds as though I didn't love every single minute of my time with them, and that's obviously not the case. Who else am I expected to drink too many margaritas with and then beat at skee-ball?

No, seriously, folks. It was wonderful to be with them all. The skee-balling was a fraction of the fun.

But this is the longest time in 48 years I've been away from Dave and the longest time I've ever been away from our current home, with the fields all around, the views of hills and my garden. 

I kept asking Dave to send me photos of the garden, but he just doesn't 'see' flowers. This is what greeted me at the front gate. Isn't it lovely?

The garden has gone crazy and there's a week's weeding to do.

The other thing that has grown is the collection of yoghurt cartons, but the least said about that the better.

Mixed emotions

It's a day of mixed emotions.

It's a happy day because it's Isaac's birthday and it's the first time I've spent it with him in over 20 years. Neither of us can recall when exactly the last time was. He moved to the States in 2003. I remember his very first 17th June, though. He was two weeks late but took only two hours to arrive. I remember the bright Sunday morning sunshine lighting up my hospital room, and someone else's midwife coming in and asking me to stop making so much noise: there were first time mothers along the corridor and I was scaring them witless. It was all pretty wonderful.

This is the man himself (he's photo-shy) with Wendy last night on a date:

Today he drove me up to a tiny gold rush town on a dirt road in the foothills of the Rockies and bought me the best slice of pizza I've tasted in years, in the general store.

photo by Isaac

Isaac may be camera shy but not when he's taking the photographs. Look at the beaut he took today in the same town:

photo by Isaac

But it's also a sad day today because of what's happening in London. As many of you know, Dave and I lost all our things in a warehouse fire 20 years ago, at a time when we were between houses. That loss was as nothing to what happened to the poor residents of Grenfell Tower this week. I cannot imagine the horror and terror they must have gone through, and are still living through. It is beyond imagining. I think of them all today from thousands of miles and a world away and hope they are being looked after. I am staying off politics, not because it is not relevant, but because it is not what this post is about.

'Our life is love and peace and tenderness, and bearing one with another, and forgiving one with another and not laying accusations one against another, but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand.'

Isaac Pennington 1667

Boulder biking

I know I've been a bit iffy about the Boulder climate up to now, thinking it rather anarchic - snow in the morning, T shirts in the afternoon -  but I've never visited in May and June before. Now, unlike in the UK, you can depend on sunny weather. So when I went on a bike ride yesterday and forgot to take my camera, it didn't matter. I knew it would be sunny today and I could go again and take some photos.

The bike paths around Boulder (which are technically called multi-use paths and are the equivalent of British bridle paths) are fantastic. I was missing my bike, but now the kids are out during the day and I can cycle, the biking here is a fine substitution for the Monsal Trail. Actually, it's better in that you can have circular routes, and not just there-and-backs.

This is the start of my route today, just up the street from here:

And all the views that follow are taken from the Boulder Creek path. This is the Boulder Creek itself, which is currently full of meltwater from the Rockies:

Further along said trail:

It was hot and sunny all the way and every time I stopped to take a picture, I had to drink some water. You can feel the air is thinner here, and you need to keep hydrated.

There is another difference from the Monsal Trail - instead of rabbits, you see little prairie dogs:

I was very tired when I got home - more tired than I would be from an equivalent ride in Derbyshire. The altitude makes a noticeable difference, which is why so many world class athletes come to train in Boulder. I have no such pretensions. I'm in it for the fun, the exercise, the views and the sunshine.

What's happening here

It's a new week. The girls have both gone to circus camp for the day, Wendy is having the 15th of her 33 radiotherapy sessions, and I'm going to write. And although I'm glued to the news back home, I'm going to attempt to keep my politics off the blog and restricted to Twitter. 

Yesterday, we celebrated Cecilia's fifth birthday. She climbed into my bed in the morning fully dressed, and sang Beatles songs while shaking maracas. (Cecilia is the patron saint of music and musicians, and so far our Cecilia is living up to the name.) 

In the morning we sat at the end of the road for a while and watched the cycle leg of the IronMan Boulder, cheering on these amazing athletes with drums and aforementioned maracas. Here is the local celeb, Cecilia:

photo by Isaac

And here she is when Wendy lit the candle on her humungous cupcake:

photo by Isaac

It was a good day. Happy Birthday, Cece! 

Mornings in Boulder

Every morning the children come and get into bed with me when they wake up. We chat, play games and read. This morning I was reading the news on the iPad when they pattered downstairs to my room - first Lux and then Cece - and got into bed and put their heads on the pillow and closed their eyes. They fell asleep and I was trapped between them. This has never happened before. I wrote some emails, but after half an hour, I needed a pee. Could I extricate myself without waking them up?

Yes! 

I am now in the adjoining room with a cuppa, blogging.

Celebration in Boulder

If you're in Colorado you don't have to stay up all night to follow election results.

Congratulations to Jezza for his stonking success!

And thanks to Wendy for the margarita.