A Feeling of Home

At this time of year, we are inclined to look back on what we achieved over the outgoing year and make some new resolutions for the coming one.
I have been travelling a lot in 2019 and the one thing which stands out for me is that I had the feeling of coming home each time I returned to my little apartment. I have been out of Ireland for most of my life, first in London and then in Germany in a small town close to Frankfurt. I never called anywhere home, or if I did, I did not mean it in the sense of belonging somewhere. Neil Diamond's song I am, I said, has always resonated with me. So it is nice, not to say heartwarming, to find a place I can feel at home in.
Not that I regret travelling. I met so many fascinating people and worked in so many interesting jobs over the years and I wouldn't miss that for the world.
This afternoon I am going to see  Little Women in the local cinema with supper afterwards. I am looking forward to that.
I wish all my readers a very Happy New Year!

The Art of Conversation

'My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation', so says Anne Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion. I am inclined to agree with her but also to agree with Mr. Elliot when he replies: 'that is not good company, that is the best'. When reading these words (re-reading actually since I have read all of Ms Austen's novels except Northanger Abbey at least twenty times or more), I could not help thinking that these sentiments were also Jane Austen's own. I would love to have been able to sit down and talk to her, because although her life was fairly confined, she had a deep interest and understanding of her fellow human beings. She found much to laugh at and much to admire and was well aware of her own critical attitude. I think that is why her novels still have such general appeal.
Conversation is an art in itself and good conversation is as rare today as it was in Ms Austen's time - if not rarer. In bygone days there was no television, no podcasts, no mobile phones. Entertainment and news were mainly distributed by word of mouth. Dinner parties were the thing as far as entertainment went, dinners and balls in the winter and the resultant gossip they produced were the equivalent of Instagram, Twitter and FaceBook today. The major difference lies in the fact that conversation with other people who have news/gossip/information to give, has to be ten times more entertaining than reading the display on a mobile. The younger generation would never believe this, I think. I have often seen groups of them sitting in cafes and all of them are immersed in their phones. Not a word is spoken among them. My only hope is that, one day in the future, people will wake up to the fact that other people are fascinating, that hearing someone talk about what they have experienced, where they have been, what they have worked at, beats thumbing through Tweets or Posts on your mobile.

What I remember about Christmas

You can't get away from it. Once Halloween is over, the Christmas decorations come out and there are bright lights, red Santas, and pretty little reindeer all over the place.
Looking back over the years, I can see that Christmas and the way I experienced it, have changed. It is part of growing up and getting older, part of the kids leaving the nest and having Christmas celebrations of their own. Nothing stays still in life.
I have very fond memories of walking to Midnight Mass underneath a sky full of stars; of our cats following us half way down the road;  of hearing the choir and especially one local tenor singing "Silent Night". That song is synonymous with Christmas for me ever since. When I was in Austria several years ago, staying near Salzburg, I visited the Silent Night chapel in Oberndorf where the hymn was originally performed.
I can still taste the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (especially the Yorkshire pudding) which was our Christmas dinner - my mother did not eat any kind of fowl, so turkey was out. We never minded. In fact to this day, I will opt for Yorkshire pudding if it is on the menu. And we had good old-fashioned trifle for dessert, eating our Christmas pudding on the day after.
Later, living in Germany, traditions were slightly different. For one thing, the Germans start celebrations on the first Sunday in Advent. The first of four candles on the Adventskranz or Advent wreath are lighted and the first plate of homemade cookies is put on the table. The children's excitement grows with each Sunday as the second and third candles are lit and then it is only a few days until the fourth and final candle completes the symbol for the four weeks of Advent and Christmas has arrived.
Nowadays, I watch my grandchildren getting all excited. Every town and village has a Christmas market. I love the aroma of mulled wine and spicy hot orange juice mixed with cinnamon and ginger from the stalls selling cookies and the smell of grilled hot dogs and schnitzel.
In Germany, the Christmas tree is not put up until Christmas Eve and then the presents are piled underneath and handed out after supper that evening. Midnight services are very popular and all the churches are usually packed. 
I'll be in Germany next week and will visit at least one Christmas market and eat Bratwurst, that tasty hot German sausage, oh and I will definitely have a Gluehwein or two! Happy Advent everyone!

Solo Travelling

Yikes, I haven't posted on here for ages. I do have some excuses. At the end of September I spent a week in The Netherlands with my daughter and her children.

I flew out of Cork to Amsterdam and took the train from the airport to Leiden where I changed trains for Hillegom, the nearest train station to where we were staying. My daughter had booked a holiday village near Noordwijk, which is about 30 kms from Amsterdam. It was the perfect place for long walks on the nearby beaches. We dodged the rain, getting soaked now and again. The accommodation was really comfortable. It would have been nice to be able to eat outside on the patio but the weather put paid to that idea. This area is very popular from around March to May when the tulips are in full bloom and my daughter and I made plans to come back in the spring.

On my way home, I stopped off in Leiden, Rembrandt's birthplace and visited the museum there, Museum de Lakenhal, which has exhibitions of work by the Dutch masters and one or two from Rembrandt himself on the ground floor, which is all I had time to see. The other floors were devoted to Leiden's history. I had intended exploring the town but it rained (surprise, surprise) so after a leisurely coffee at the railways station, I took the train to the airport. Schiphol is huge but like most airports, once you know which section your flight is departing from and where the check in desk is, it is not difficult to negotiate.
If you are confident enough, travelling alone is very pleasant. You can please yourself what you want to do with your time. Of course, it is very advisable to check everything out in advance and know where you are going if you are in a foreign country. You don't want to end up in the wrong part of the city. The street where the Lakenhal Museum is located looked pretty shabby, I have to say, with a lot of rubbish - empty beer cans and takeaway wrappings - lying around. It didn't feel too safe to me, I have to admit, and I would not have wanted to walk that area at night.
The only downside to travelling alone, in my opinion, is that you have to eat out on your own and you don't have anyone to share those wonderful views or those paintings with. If you don't mind that, then solo travelling is for you.
I like both travelling in a group and also travelling on my own. I love the feeling of adventure which kicks in as soon as I reach the airport. I have only travelled on my own in Europe, up until now and I think that if I were to venture further abroad, I would go in a group.
At the end of the month I will be in Frankfurt to visit family and friends. The Christmas markets will open on 1st of Advent which is the Sunday and I look forward to my first gluehwein.
Meanwhile, I have published my latest Christmas novella A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER, available now from Amazon as an ebook or in print. If you read it, let me know what you think.
Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Easy Travel - A not-so-serious look at fellow travellers

I beg to differ from William Shakespeare, it is not misery that acquaints us with strange bedfellows; it is travel, air travel to be exact.

Waiting at the gate in Dublin for my flight to Frankfurt, I take stock of my fellow voyagers. There are the hikers, struggling under the weight of bulging backpacks and bumping into everyone, there are the seasoned ones, who have done it all before and who remain calm and collected. And there are the get-the-best tourists, as I call them. The ones who keep a hawk eye out for any movement that suggests we might be boarding soon. As soon as the airline clerk appears, they are off at a gallop to stand in the queue, waving boarding cards and straining to get on board before everyone else.

Once on board, you get the “stow your hand luggage brigade”. You stand patiently waiting in the aircraft aisle to get past and claim your seat in the hope that the overhead locker isn’t going to crumble under the weight of what has already been forced in there. But just when you are about to ease past, they suddenly remember that they need something out of that backpack and so haul it back down, narrowly avoiding your head. Then, it’s rummage time, because whatever they are looking for, it’s going to be down at the bottom of that capacious bag. Behind you a few passengers murmur politely in protest and blame the delay on you. 

Finally, you are seated and you have found a niche for your carry on bag – not without difficulty and quite a bit away from your seat, but hey, who wants to be difficult? Now you can relax and watch the safety drill and fasten your seat belt. Once airborne, you’ll notice “the bouncer”: the passenger in the seat in front of you who tries very hard to convert his seat into a day bed (sorry, but it is usually a male in my experience). Any minute now you feel that his head is going to land in your lap.

If you are unlucky enough to have handed in your luggage to be stowed, you will experience the adventure of the luggage carousel and the “is this my suitcase?” brigade. A friend of mine recounts seeing a man walking off with her suitcase, even though it had a huge pink ribbon attached to the handles so that she could identify it more easily. When accosted, he looked very annoyed. “Where’s my suitcase, then?” he bellowed at her. She almost surrendered her piece of luggage to him in sheer fright.

Should you decide to have a snack and a coffee/tea, you will discover that, if you are sitting in the aisle seat (as I usually am), the passenger in the window seat will choose the exact moment you get your steaming cup of beverage to decide he/she needs to visit the toilet.  Then comes the excitement of folding up the little table while balancing your hot cup of tea/coffee and trying not to spill anything as they push past.

Just when I think I should stop smiling politely and show a touch of exasperation, I remind myself that it is our fellow passengers who make travelling such a unique experience, one I wouldn’t miss for the world.

Bon Voyage!

Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

I have been reading that optimistis live longer than pessimists and I have also been reading that people who try to be upbeat about everything are endangering their mental health.
Who to believe?
I think that many people are a fine mixture. I am an optimist by nature but I am also a realist. If I miss the last bus home, I know that there will be no magic chariot descending from the clouds and I will have to get a taxi or walk. I know that if I wander about late at night in a district of the city known for its high crime rate, I am asking for trouble and there will be no knight in shining armour to help me.
I think that is known as common sense, except it is not so common these days.
However, I find people who run everything down, always expect the worst but never seem prepared for it, get on my nerves. Yes, we all know what it is to be depressed, to have things get you down, usually things you can't control. It is impossible to put a smile on your face all the time. But in general terms, things work themselves out. I think it was Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island) who wrote that "looking on the best side of things is worth forty pounds a year" or something like that. And it is true.
In the fourteen or fifteen years leading up to my retirement, the company I worked for was taken over at least five times. Each time the new owners told us that nothing would change and then within a few months proceeded to change everything. Colleagues lost their jobs all around me. Not being the desirable age for the working world - i.e. past 50 - I half expected to be made redundant. And there's a point in hand, some wonderful person said "of course you are not redundant, your job is."  Yuk! That is a form of turning the truth into a nice little skulking cliche which I cannot agree with (any more than objections to ending a sentence with a preposition, lol).
The thing is, although I badly needed to continue working, because I have this optimistic gene or lack of brain or whatever it is, I somehow believed that I would be OK. Something would turn up. And that is what did happen. Yes, my faith and prayers helped me a lot but I don't think I would have prayed if I didn't believe I would get help of some sort.
During one takeover I did not have a designated position for around four months, I was merely kept on because of my long years at the company and because I always got good reviews from my superiors. If they couldn't find a position for me within 6 months, I would be let go, they told me. It wasn't easy coming into the office every day without a particular reason - yes, of course I helped out where I could, but I had no boss and didn't belong to any department. In Jane Austen's Emma, Mr. Weston a lovable characters, says "I have observed in the course of my life that if things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next."
I think that is true of the majority of us. And yes, I am aware that if you are stuck in a refugee camp or in a war zone, for example, the chances of things improving are very slim indeed.
What I am trying to say here is that being optimistic is a gift that we are possibly born with. I am profoundly grateful that I possess it.

Woman Power

I was at the beach today and a woman wearing a t-shirt which said "power women" or something like that jogged past me. It made me think - yes, I know, beginner's luck, but seriously though, I asked myself what did that mean exactly?
Now, I grew up in an era (some time shortly after Noah had beached The Ark) when women were not paid the same rates as men, although to be honest, I think they didn't do the same work as their counterparts - mostly that is, I'm excluding teachers, doctors etc here. The main reason for this discrepancy was that men were the bread winners and women were expected to stay home, raise the kids, do the housework and wait on their husbands. Women simply didn't need to earn as much as men, that was the reasoning behind this, in my opinion. So far so logical - well, sort of. I have to say, though, that even back then, women had important jobs and it wasn't long until we had women running countries: Gold Meier, Indira Ghandi and Margaret Thatcher for example.
When I worked in the civil service there were several women who were staff officers or had other senior positions, although no one was actually at the top. No one remarked on this, either, because it was "normal". They were qualified and they could do the job and that was all that was asked. It was not a question of gender equality.
I remember one of the first jobs I had where the men got two weeks holidays and the women one. I worked there for about a week or so before going to see the Managing Director (I was his secretary) and asking him why the female employees didn't get the same length of holidays as the men. He looked at me in total surprise, I remember, before saying "do you want two weeks holidays?" To which I replied, not unsurprisingly, "yes, we do." "OK" he said and that was that. From then on we all had the same number of days off. He simply had not thought about it.
If women would only realise that a lot of "man power" ideas were the result of not thinking, were based on norms and customs from past centuries, I think we'd all loosen up more. We wouldn't feel the need to wear the t-shirt, to be forever harping on about "women novelists, women playing football, the first woman to kill a bear with her bare hands" - yes I am most definitely exaggerating now. What are we trying to prove, here? Men and women have always been equal. It has just taken men (and women) a long time to see that. We had to convince men that we could be trusted to vote, that we could open bank accounts ourselves - I could go on - and we have made a success of that without any fuss or roll of drums. Incidentally, many women were quite happy to go along with the "little woman" image in those days because it saved them a lot of hassle. Their husbands paid for everything, made all the decisions in many cases, although I suspect that clever women could always get what they wanted.
So let's just relax, ladies, we don't need to prove a thing. Toss that t-shirt into the laundry basket! 

Light and Dark

Remember the good karma and the bad karma? It seems there are also light and dark triads. I guess some scientists and philosophers and those who reckon they are scientists and philosophers have nothing better to do than analyze us and keep on coming up with new ideas on The Human Condition.
What next? I ask myself. We all know lovable rogues, friends who get on our nerves because they always arrive late at the meet-up point, people who will help you at the drop of a hat, people who are genuinely caring, people who don't listen once they've asked you how you are. You don't have to be a scientist to understand human nature.
I think we should all be self-aware and I think most of us are. How many times have we thought "oh no, there I go again, putting my foot in it".
On the other hand, if you can't be separated from your mobile/social media, I reckon you don't get time to think about anything. On my walks to the beach I meet walkers, joggers, runners, who all have their ear plugs in and a blank look on their faces as they listen to a pod cast or whatever. Why bother getting out to the beach if you can't hear the sound of the waves slapping against the rocks or the sea gulls mewling or children shouting and laughing? Recently, I sat behind a young girl on the bus and during the 45 minute journey she kept taking selfies and viewing the result on her phone. How sad is that?
Yes, I know, there are tons of people out there, young and old who not only wake up and smell the coffee but also look around them and appreciate what they see. But there is a worrying trend and - let's face it - I am not the only one to have noticed it.

For a more professional report on the light and dark side of human nature, try this link:Discovery Magazine article on light and dark triads

Are you a loner or just lonely?

I watched an interesting video on the BBC website recently about the benefits of being alone. I don't suppose it told me anything I didn't know already. Some people are loners by nature, others like and need the company of others all the time. According to the BBC, surveys done on people around the world found that the main things people found relaxing were reading and being alone. Number 12 on the list was visiting friends and family.
When I shared a flat with four other girls, we were all happy to have the place to ourselves once in a while. We did enjoy each other's company but now and again, when everyone else was out for the evening, it was an absolute luxury to curl up and read or watch TV on one's own. I had one flatmate, though, who hated being on her own. On Sunday mornings when I was trying to sleep off a late night, she would come into my room and shuffle about until she had woken me up. She wasn't being cruel or insensitive, it was just that she needed company and wanted me to give her an account of how my date or the party the night before had gone.
Having watched the BBC video and talked to a few friends, I think I can say that I am a loner by nature. I have absolutely no problem travelling or going to a concert on my own. On the other hand, I do enjoy meeting up with friends, going out for a meal or a drink, and going to concerts with them, too.
Being a writer means that I spend time at my laptop away from everybody. One of the things the BBC discovered is that being on your own improves your creativity. That makes sense. We sometimes say "let me think", which is an indirect plea for the others to be quiet. Or we say: "I couldn't hear myself think" meaning there was too much going on around us.
Being lonely, on the other hand, is not being happy with solitude. We know that loneliness, the plague of our modern day and age, causes all sorts of diseases and illnesses. Not everyone has tons of friends and acquaintances. Studies of introverts show that although they have far fewer friends than their counterparts, these are close ties. Extroverts on the other hand, can have loads of acquaintances and friends without forming a very close alliance to any of them. They are usually the centre of attention and they like it that way.
It's an interesting subject. I suppose the bottom line is that we are who we are and if we are not unhappy about it, anything goes.

Goodbye to the Country Life

Only a few more days and I'll be back to being a townie again. I will miss hearing the pheasants call to each other. I occasionally get a glimpse of them. What beautiful birds they are! In the hedge outside the living room window, a song thrush has a nest as does a blackbird. On the other side of the garden, robins have found a safe haven. The starlings have all fledged. There is one solitary swallow who visits in the late afternoon, sweeping down into the garden before dashing off again. I could watch them all for hours. This morning, after several rainy days, the white clouds look near enough to touch. The mountains are a hazy blue. Now and again a patch of blue appears and the sun shines.
Ah, I'm going to miss it all.

Do Authors Base Characters on People They Know?

Where do we get new ideas for our stories? Some writers know exactly how the idea for a plot came to mind. There are crime novel writers who read cases in the newspapers or attend court cases which inspire them. I heard a story about a famous author of women's fiction falling out of her chair in a restaurant while trying to catch what the diners at the next table were saying.
Where do I get my ideas? I don't have any set method for doing it. Sometimes it is a phrase I've heard while sitting on the bus, sometimes the idea just comes out of the blue.
I've been house-sitting in the country these past few weeks. I have much more time to read and browse social media than when I am at home, although I can't really explain why that is so. Perhaps it is the quietness that does it. 
Be that as it may, I have done a lot of reading and I came across the term "imposter syndrome" several times. Oddly enough, this helped me with one of my characters in my Christmas novel which I am currently working on. I hasten to add that I do not know anyone suffering from it - the syndrome not the novel - but I do know a lot of people who have to work very hard at their jobs.
I think, on reflection, that all writers put bits of character from people they know into their stories. There are bossy people, stroppy people, really nice people who make you feel inadequate, go-getters, losers. In other words, there is a whole world of people out there, people you know and like and people who make you pick up your coat and make a run for it. They all make up that fascinating patchwork quilt known as humankind. And that is grist to a writer's mill.

A Short Stay in the Country

So here I am, house-sitting. Outside, the rain is coming down like Noah forgot to turn off the taps. Across the valley, the mountains are shrouded in clouds.The birds have gone to ground or to bush would be a  more exact phrase. All I can hear is the sound of the washing machine in the utility room. I wore my white pants yesterday and managed to get them dirty when I checked the flowers to see what needed dead-heading. So it's a white wash today.
Being in the country has many attractions.  For one thing, there are far fewer distractions. Peace and quiet broken only by the chirping of the starlings as they feed their chicks in nests on the roof or simply watching the song thrush toddle about with its mother are all uplifting. Who can get into a tizz over something trivial when you've got Nature on your doorstep?
And I've read three books since I arrived here a fortnight ago. Most enjoyable book? Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty definitely. I had seen it in the bookshops but somehow thought it was one of those weepy novels which are not my cup of tea. Instead, I stayed up late reading it and was sorry when it finished. And yes, I know it is a series on HBO and they are doing a second series, although the novel is so complete in itself that I think trying to do a follow on is not a good idea. I don't intend to watch the first series, either. I much prefer to stick to reading novels and forming my own ideas of how people look and anyway, you can't get that atmosphere on to the screen. One of my favourite novels is To Kill a Mocking Bird. I recently watched the film with Gregory Peck and, quite frankly, it missed so much of the style of Harper Lee's story and of the atmosphere of the times which she so expertly depicted. But there, I'm getting on my hobby horse!
I should be writing. I did quite a bit yesterday but made the classic mistake of finishing one chapter and leaving a blank for this morning. The golden rule is, as many authors know, to stop in full flow so that you have something to continue next day. Hey-ho! I'd better stop here and try to get my mojo back on track.

Job Done or is it?

Finishing a novel when you've been working on it for so long, is always a bit of an anti-climax. Nearly every day, I do a bit of editing on what I have written the previous day. This is useful, as it keeps me from straying a bit - I have been known to start a novel in November and to have jumped by some strange miracle to the flowering month of May within a few pages. This is a warning sign to me that I still have to do a bit, well let's say a lot more work on the the setting - including the time of year!
There are writers who are so disciplined that they write out a synopsis of each chapter before they start the actual work of writing the story. I can only salute them. I start off with an idea and a character in my head. After a few weeks, the character will have been joined by other characters and the original idea will have been changed, fleshed out a bit, or completely readjusted. I can never get into the business of writing a plan for the whole novel. I know where and how it is going to end before I start. The journey, however, can twist and turn as characters take on a life of their own and pull me in different ways. That's the fun of writing!
Now that I have finished my final edit of A MAN CALLED GREGOR which I plan to self publish next month, I have just started thinking about a Christmas novel and looked over the beginning of the first chapter which I wrote last month. I'll probably change the plot a bit and possibly one of the characters might have to go as well. I know one thing for sure, it's not going to be the original story I had in my head! I'll have a short break from writing and then it's back to see what my characters are up to. Next week I'll be doing my annual house-sitting in the country, so I'll have loads of peace and quiet and country air to help me concentrate. Wish me luck!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

I am ashamed to admit that I have not got around to writing a blog for such a long time. Not that I think you are all hanging on my every word! What can I say?
I came down with a bug following my visit to London and then when I had just got back on my feet wham! I picked up another one.
Today, the sun is shining and it is warm. The birds are getting quite giddy, singing at the top of their voices and working on their nests and on hatching eggs. It is amazing how Nature comes to life so quickly after the long cold winter.
The Easter Festival is almost here. I still remember that happy feeling on Easter Sunday when I went to early Mass. It felt like starting over again. Children actually enjoy going to church, seeing the candles being lit and hearing the hymns. We should give them the opportunity of attending a church service over the next few days.
Which brings me to the big debate in Ireland about how many chocolate Easter eggs children should eat, bearing in mind the amount of calories and the increase in obesity.
I don't have a magic answer. All I can say is that I think it is far better to do something together as a family and have this as a family Easter tradition than to start counting just how many Easter eggs a child should be given. Children really love doing things with their parents. I remember that when I worked full time, my children were delighted when we took time out to go on a trip and explore new places on a Sunday. It is the time you give your children, and indeed your parents and friends, which is the most precious gift you can bestow.
In our advertising-glutted world, we would all do well to remember that.

World Book Day

It's World Book Day as all book lovers will know. Today is the day I feel a teeny bit sorry for people who don't read. Even the best film adaptation in the world can't compare with a really good book. And the nice thing is that you can read them over and over again.
Whenever I feel in the need for something entertaining but gentle, I pick out a Jane Austen novel. Following a nasty bout of bronchitis, I needed a pick-me-up and I am currently reading Emma, even though I practically know it by heart. Highbury and its inhabitants still makes me smile. As a writer, I appreciate Jane Austen's grasp of human nature. Her stories are peopled with characters who are so true to life. The polite, kind-hearted Mr.Woodhouse with his "habits of gentle selfishness" is as believable as Miss Bates, who sees only the best in everybody. The character of Emma is often said to be the most rounded of the Jane Austen heroines: you can't help but like her despite all her blunders.
Be all that as it may, I enjoy the story for what it is and the fact that it is going to end happily for everybody.
I am currently editing a novel I wrote several years ago. The cover is now ready which is a spur for me to get a move on and finish it.

I am using my own name for this book. I write crime as P.B. Barry and romance as Peggy O'Mahony. My crime novels and my romance novels are all set in Ireland. A MAN CALLED GREGOR shifts between Dublin, London, Germany and Croatia. When her parents are killed in a traffic accident, Lauren's Uncle Gregor rescues her from a round of foster homes. He provides stability in her life.When he goes missing, she sets out to find him and in the process her life turns upside down.

I'm hoping to publish around Easter this year but I still have a lot of edits to do. I am revising the ending to the story - this is the tricky bit, I find, how to sort and tie up the strands of the story in a satisfactory way.

Incidentally, I have written one novel set in Germany under the name Peggie Biessmann:
SPATE OF VIOLENCE, which is the story of a family who move home and are caught up in the social problems of a town.

Time to get down to doing some of that editing. Happy World Book Day to readers everywhere.

London Trip

I spent two days in London last month on my way home from a family visit. I lived in London for a number of years until finally moving to Germany. I still call it my home town, though. I'm not sure of what the fascination is. It is a big city and yet there is something so endearingly parochial about it.
Paris or Berlin, on the other hand, are beautiful cities but they have a completely different atmosphere.
I love the little places in London where the tourists are not so thick on the ground. Where you can feel just how old this city is and how much history and human stories have taken place here.

One of my favourite places is the area around Temple. This little gem, almost unknown to the tourists, is well worth a visit. When you step into the complex, you are entering another world. It is the home of English law. There are signs at the entrance to most of the buildings giving a list of practicing barristers and solicitors. I almost expect to meet Charles Dickens strolling the streets.

The Temple Church built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters is a step way back into history. It is worth reading about it in the excellent BBC article:

bbc.com/travel/story/20160510-the-hidden-world-of-the-knights-templar

I also visited St. Clement Danes church, completed by Sir Christopher Wren, Brompton Oratory and Westminster Cathedral (not as old as the other churches but still impressive). By then I had seen  enough churches. For me, they represent the spirit of old London, of places where Samuel Pepys and Samuel Johnson, two of my favourite writers, went to worship. 

For old time's sake, I visited Harrods in Knightsbridge but here I found that luxury and wealth didn't do it for me, so I did not stay very long.  Next I went to South Bank in the hopes of finding the open air book market (much more like it, from my point of view). It was school half-term and there was a lot of hurdy-gurdy and no sign of the book market. Instead I paid a visit to Foyles and bought a book -  Volume I of Somerset-Maugham's short stories, if you want to know. Of course I could have got this for a third of the price somewhere else but, well, I fell in love with the new cover and anyway, you have to buy a book at Foyles, don't you?

The great thing about London is that you are never far from a park. I went to pay my respects to Hyde Park, near Harrods, and watch people feeding the birds.

When crossing the road on my way back, I was delighted to see the Horse Guards riding down the street. Beautiful horses with glossy black coats and riders with those scarlet uniforms! I remember when I worked somewhere near Chelsea that they used to ride out in the morning in the middle of the rush hour. I still remember the gleam on sunlight on brass buttons and bridle buckles.

What I had forgotten is that you do so much walking in London. By the end of each day I was exhausted and very ready to retire to my tourist hotel in Earls Court. I lived here for a few months many years ago. Earls Court itself has not lost its cosmopolitan atmosphere and yes, there is a little shop where you can buy all the essentials on your way home. Nice to see things have not changed that much.

Before I knew it, I was on the airplane home and I felt like I'd been away a month!  See you soon again, London.

Really, Karl? - Getting Some Perspective

This blog is going to be a rant of sorts, so if you're not feeling up to it, click away now.

The sad news of Karl Lagerfield's death was announced last week. He was certainly a talented designer, no question of that. One of the things about him mentioned in a potted obituary was that, aged about 4 years old, he requested a valet. Really, Karl?? His cat, Choupette is worth millions as is his estate.  Well done, Karl Lagerfeld.

I have to contrast this world of luxury, fashion and undoubted talent with, for example, Leyla Hussein, a leading campaigner against female genital mutilation (FMG) and all the work she does for this cause. She cares.

Take Emma Sky, a British Council employee, who volunteered to help rebuild Iraq and ended up governing a province. She became adviser to General Ray Odierno from 2007-2010. Her novel In a Time of Monsters: Travels through a Middle East in Revolt is out now (Atlantic). She also cares.

David Nott has just published his memoir War Doctor (Picador). He has spent over 25 years operating on victims in some of the worst war zones in the world with very few resources to help them or him, as a volunteer for the Red Cross and MSF (Medecins sans Frontieres). He is also an NHS consultant in London. He cares.

Having read articles on all of the above over the weekend, I had to sit down and ask myself how I would like to be remembered? I think you will have guessed the answer.

Best Sellers

I ordered two novels from the library because they got such good write-ups in the Press and endorsements from other novelists. I tried hard but I couldn't finish any of them even though the plot in both cases was intriguing.
For me, I have to be interested in the story's main character. It is not enough that they have a problem to solve, are in danger or part of an intricate spy plot. If a character doesn't gel with me, I can't muster up enough interest to finish the novel. In addition, I like well-written stories. Having said that, I have to admit that both of the above novels were well written. Both were translated but still managed to catch the authors' style. I take off my hat to the translators. Having worked as a free-lance myself many years ago, I know how difficult it is. But the stories themselves dragged on and on. In both books, I skipped several chapters, skimmed over the rest, and discovered that I had not missed much in the story. A disappointment all round.
As I am about to go on a short trip to the UK, including a visit to London, I did not want to start another long novel, so I went through my Eric Ambler collection and pulled out The Schirmer Inheritance. This is not one of his best known books but I have always enjoyed it. It is short (195 pages) and to the point and I am drawn to the main character, a somewhat naive young lawyer sent to Europe to find the heir to a huge fortune. It was written in 1953 and for that reason alone is a gem! It is hard for us to imagine that in those days, most communication was via letter and not telephone, and train was the favoured mode of transport.
Although often called a master spy story writer, in fact Ambler very often placed his main characters in a strange and difficult situation and had us all glued to our seats while they extricated themselves. He is still well worth a read today.
And I will have finished the book tonight before I leave for my UK trip.  I plan on visiting the book market on London's South Bank. Maybe I'll find some more gems there.

Watching the Birds - where ideas for stories come from

I've been out walking on the beach this morning. The sun was shining but there was a bitterly cold wind from the North. The chill factor was definitely living up to its name.
Watching the sea birds, though, made me think of how very like humans they are in their behaviour.
As I walked along this morning, the elegant Oystercatchers were in their own little group, busy digging in the wet sand for whatever creatures Oystercatchers eat (apart, presumably, from oysters). Nearby were a group of sea gulls, jostling each other and squawking at the top of their voices. Now and then one of them would advance on an Oystercatcher and chase it away. The Oystercatchers had enough of this treatment after a while and took off in an orderly group for a quieter part of the seashore. Some minutes later a bunch of crows decided to join the sea gulls and their raucous voices made themselves heard above the screaming of the gulls. They were still warring with each other when I left them behind and continued on my way. It didn't look as if either party was going to give up ground or indeed score a win over the other party.

 

I'm afraid the picture doesn't do justice to the scene as I couldn't get too close without frightening them all away and anyway my camera isn't very powerful, but you get the idea. Here is another picture of my route which turned out a little better:

 

 

To return to the theme of this blog, I should say that I found plenty in the behaviour of the birds to develop a story on fights over territory or disputes among neighbours. Plenty of ideas there for the importance of setting boundaries, of being tolerant, and of the challenges if the main character in a story had to leave his/her environment because of unfavourable circumstances.
All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable walk with plenty of food for future plots.

Murder most foul - why we like crime stories

I recently read an article which mentioned our predilection for reading about crime whether true crime or fiction or natty detectives. The writer seemed to suggest that we were a bloodthirsty lot. I'm not so sure that she was wrong.
From the earliest times, ordinary people liked to watched spectacles of some sort. Juvenal, a Roman poet from the late 1st/early 2nd century said people only want "bread and circuses" (panem et circenses is what he actually wrote, which roughly translated means bread and games or circuses). I don't think we have changed that much in the intervening centuries. Public executions were popular. Take for example Samuel Pepys diary entry for 16th October 1660 in which he says that he went to Charing Cross to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered. When his head and heart were shown to the people there were "great shouts of joy".  And have you noticed that whenever there is a major incident, terrorist or otherwise, people get their mobile phones out and start recording?
Nearly all of us have stopped at the scene of an accident or of a major fire to see what was going on.  It's not that we revel in others' misfortune. I think it is the herd instinct, wanting to know what happened to our fellow human beings, and the feeling "that could have been me" which makes us do this. Of course, the nightly news broadcasts keep us up to date with all the major catastrophes around the world. Good news never does sell well except maybe at Christmas.
Be all that as it may, crime fiction and true crime, in both book form and on television, remains very popular with readers and viewers alike.What a pleasure it is to curl up in bed at night or stretch out in the most comfortable chair in front of the fire and read about the solving of a murder.
I enjoyed writing my Sergeant Alan Murray murder series. I am not a fan of blood-curdling descriptions of how victims met their end. I prefer the detective side of it and this is shown in my stories. Murray is head of a small police station at the foot of the Kerry Mountains in the heart of rural Ireland where crime of any sort is rare and therefore all the more shocking when three women are murdered within a short space of time.

The Elusive Sleep

There is nothing I like better than curling up with the Sunday newspapers after lunch. Online editions can never (I hope!) replace the printed word. There is a world of news and gossip and frothy information contained in every Sunday edition. Politics, fashion, domestic and foreign news, and editorials and commentaries from people who know what they are writing about and a few who don't.
I love it!

Last Sunday, I was struck by the bias towards sleep in many of the articles I read. The recently published book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is providing food for thought, it appears. My guess is that a lot of people found it in their Christmas stocking. I must confess that I didn't read all of it, I mainly concentrated on the parts relating to seniors (being a senior myself, and a bad sleeper to boot). I'm afraid that I didn't really agree with his findings that we all need more sleep than we realize. Quite frankly, I find that if I have a really bad night, I usually catch up the next. As well as that, everyone has a sleep pattern of their own. And obsessing because you didn't get what you're told is the right amount of sleep, is more likely to be detrimental to your health than anything else.  When my kids were small, I felt I never got enough sleep, later I slept less, waking up in the middle of the night. I used to get very frustrated but I don't any more. I found the best way of coping was to either relax and wait for sleep to come or if feeling restless, I made myself a hot drink and watched a bit of television until I felt tired enough to go back to bed and sleep.
I daresay that if any sleep scientists read this, they will wag their collective fingers at me, but all I can say is it works for me.

A couple of things to think about

I came home on the bus from shopping in town just as it was getting dusk. When I looked out of the window I could see all the houses lit up still with Christmas lights. Those dots of light on the country landscape are magical to me somehow. They signify home, warmth, being welcomed. No wonder we light everything up on these, the darkest days of the year. Soon we will tidy away the decorations - there is a tradition that this has to be done before January 6th although I know a lot of people who don't follow it to the letter. And before we know it, the evenings will stay bright for longer and we will start thinking about Spring and summer holidays and sunshine. Yes, I know we will most likely get some bad weather in the next two months. I think it was Tsar Nicholas I of Russia who said "I have two generals who never fail me: Generals January and February", referring to the brutal Russian winters which defeated Napoleon among others who tried to invade. Be that as it may, we have not seen winter until we do see what January and February dish out to us. I don't mind a bit of snow, I must confess!
For Christmas my nephew gave me A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles. I had not heard of this author before but am really enjoying reading this book. Towles' first novel RULES OF CIVILITY was a New York Times bestseller and I intend to get hold of it when I have finished this one. So now I have a nice stack of books waiting to be read. Wonderful. That is the nicest thing about getting books as presents. You end up discovering authors you never heard of. (In the old days, ending a sentence with a preposition would be frowned on - I have no idea if this is still the case, but I've done it anyway, so sorry to anyone who is a stickler for grammar and style).

Not too late to wish all my readers A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!