Who Reads Romantic Novels?

This post is going to be a shameless plug for my new novel Love at a Later Date. I finally published it on Amazon as a Kindle e-book.   Here's the cover:

 You can buy the book on any Amazon site including
  USA   UK
I've written it under a pen name, Peggy O'Mahony, because I write other kinds of books as well which are not strictly in the Romance genre. 
I wrote Love at a Later Date while house and dog sitting for my brother last Spring. The house was in the country and I enjoyed beavering away at the story and listening to the birds twittering around the garden building their nests.  There is something so joyous and beautiful about the Spring months I always think.  It was great fun and the words just poured onto the page.  Of course I have edited it to within an inch of its life since then and revised it several times. 
The story is about two friends and the challenges they have to face.  If you have grown up kids or teenagers you'll be able to relate to Ginny and Deirdre. 

I'm working on my second Romance novel so any feedback on Love at a Later Date will be invaluable!

Faery Forts and Hidden People - Do we all have secret places?

I recently read on the BBC website that more than half of the population of Iceland believe in or consider it possible that the Huldufolk or hidden people actually do exist.  If left in peace they do not cause any trouble but if people start digging roads through their rock houses and churches they reputedly retaliate.  There are tales of bulldozers breaking down with inexplicable faults and of workmen having accidents.  Plans for the construction of a road through what is deemed hidden people territory were recently halted in Iceland.  You can read this interesting article here.

In Ireland it is often hawthorn "faery bushes" which are deemed to be home to the faeries.  Roads have been constructed around the bushes so as not to disturb them.  Legend has it that whoever cuts down a faery bush will never get a good night's sleep again.  In 1999 the upgrading of a national route from Limerick to Galway in the West of Ireland was delayed, re-routed and eventually opened 10 years later because the County Council in County Clare had to protect a faery tree which according to a local folklorist was the meeting place of the faeries of Munster (Ireland is divided into provinces:  Munster, Leinster, Connaught and Ulster).  Faery forts are also considered to be places where faeries dwell, the term "fort" meaning a mound of earth. Faery forts are the remains of round dwellings from ancient times and are all that now remain.  If you view them close up there is something mystical about them I have to admit. Roads have also been built around these sites so ensure they are not disturbed.

I think it is very refreshing that some cultures believe in hidden people or faery bushes even in our fast-moving technological age.  I think we all have a tiny drop of ancestral superstition in our blood which serves as a link to former ages.  We all have a hidden place deep within us where we like to go at times and be away from the bustle of the world.  Call it meditation, mindfulness, prayer or respect for the faeries.  It gives us an added depth.

Getting Ratty on your Diet?

Who would have thought that rats can feel regret?  Now, now, let's not get cynical,  I mean the four-legged variety of rat.  Apparently scientists at the University of Minnesota have discovered that rats can feel regret as they ponder missed opportunities to eat their favourite things.  The experiment was pretty elaborate (for a rat) and indicated that the animals had an individual reaction to lost opportunities.  If you would like to read details here is a link to the report on National Geographic Ratty Tests.

Is there a lesson for us all here? Are we cleverer than a bunch of rodents?  Do we feel regret at things we should have done or would have done if things had been different?  Points to ponder, I agree.  And yet isn't that a perfectly normal reaction for humans?  How many times have we sighed and said "why didn't I....?"  If we were sure of doing the right thing and making the right choices all the time we'd be pretty boring and unbearable people.

What is far more interesting in this study is not that rats feel regret but that scientists set up elaborate experiments with rodents to prove something we all know anyway, something which, in my opinion doesn't need explanation or analysis.  Maybe the scientists should do a bit of navel-gazing - can you imagine the comments?  "If only we'd used cats/dogs/sheep instead of rats...."  or "if only we'd done something worthwhile with all that time and money..."

By the way, I do not regret eating that chocolate bar last night as I watched the World Cup Soccer match between England and Italy.  Sigh.  If only I could have influenced the outcome....  Someone send for a behavioural scientist....

How to surive your kids - has Spain got the answer?

If your kids aren't listening when you tell them something, it could be "inattentional blindness" according to a recent study.  You can read the full BBC article here.  A lot of mums will think that this is another way of saying they are not paying attention because they have got something better to do.  It's exasperating for parents, of course, but aren't grown-ups just as bad?  How many people do you know who never listen to what you have to say beyond the first sentence because they are too busy thinking up what they are going to say when you have kindly finished?  Yeah, right.

Spain seems to have been giving the matter of children's upbringing some thought.  Under draft child protection laws it plans to make housework and homework for the under 18's mandatory in a section entitled "The Rights and Duties of Children".  Child will also be required to respect their siblings and to "preserve and make good use of urban furniture and any similar assets".  Wow!  If that law becomes successful in Spain and its popularity spreads, it could mean that little Johnnie will get a spell in juvenile detention for taking his little brother's toys or tweaking his sister's hair.  And just imagine the war on home territory that insistence on kids doing housework?  When my two were growing up it was a major effort to get them to put something in the dishwasher.  I would have needed an army to get them to do anything in the way of cleaning, dusting or tidying up.  "Preserving and making good use of urban furniture" sounds intriguing, doesn't it?  I guess it means not smashing park benches and putting rubbish into bins provided. 

If Spain really does introduce all this legislation for its youngsters I think it will open up a whole new industry there.  Imagine parents reclining in the garden under a shady umbrella and sipping delicately at an exquisite white wine, and saying to guests and neighbours:  "The kids?  Oh we packed them off to Spain for a year so they can learn how to behave.  Johnnie's just been released from a week's detention for failure to clean his shoes when he comes in the kitchen and not listening to adults when they tell him something." 
Viva Espana! 

Working Late

I hear that in France there are plans to ban the reception or sending of emails after 6 pm for some professions/businesses.  At this moment in time I do not know if this has been made official or not. At any rate it got me thinking how nice it would be to ban some things in the evening.  Just imagine switching off to your kids as soon as the magic hour arrived?  "You're late for supper, it's after 6 pm, get your own meal" instead of "OK I'll whip you up something" when your twelve-year-old arrives in the kitchen an hour late and with no other excuse than he/she "didn't realize the time".  And what about that friend who always telephones for a chat just as you are settling down to watch your favourite soap - sometimes the only soap you keep up with?  A quick look at your watch and you can refuse.

It's not going to happen is it?  We - women that is - have never really learned to say "no" when asked for help.  That's nice actually.  It means we are not selfish or cold-hearted, we are warm, loving, helpful people - most of the time anyway.  So maybe we do need a rule which tells us when to start thinking of ourselves.  That doesn't mean we don't care, it just means that our kids, our family need to be aware that we require that all important "me time" once in a while.  Dream on everyone.

Superwoman?

Are you a star, a superstar or a celebrity or even a scandal celebrity (a description I read somewhere in the online edition of a newspaper this morning.)?   Do you feel "super" when you copy the dress your favourite star, superstar, celebrity wore to some fashionable event?  It seems that a lot of women do feel the need to buy an outfit which looks like one that, for example, the Duchess of Cambridge has worn. Once some clever fashion reporter reveals where Kate got that coat or little dress or whatever, the shop is sold out of the item within a day.  And why not if it makes you feel good? 

Do you really want to be a celeb, though?  Look at poor Pippa Middleton. Stephane Bern, a French author  maintains Ms Middleton wore a "fake bottom" at the wedding. It was all just well placed padding, she says.  Just imagine scrutinizing Pippa's bottom over the past few years and coming up with this idea. It sounds a bit as if the green eyed god has poked someone in the eye, doesn't it?  Mon Dieu!  Get a life, pleeeasee.

 If you are a celebrity people consider you fair game for all sorts of comments in what often seems to be an never-ending put down game.  Life's too short isn't it?  I'd advise Stephane to get out there in the fresh air, buy some French bread at the market and drink a big cup of freshly ground French coffee.  It'll make her feel better and the rest of us can continue enjoying ourselves with or without that ooohhh-to-die-for dress that - er - whatshername wore to that -er - event last night.

All About Women

 Science Daily reports on research that suggests the width of a woman's hips is connected to her sexual behaviour.   The researchers, Colin A. Hendrie and co-authors Victoria J. Simpson and Gayle Brewer, surmise that women with wider hips are more likely to engage in sex because the birth process is generally easier and less traumatic for them than for smaller-hipped women (below 31cm).  Click here Science Daily report to read the full article.

As usual this got me thinking about all the research that is carried out and all the conclusions that are reached based on the results.  Did I really need to know that my hip width might influence my sex life?  Of course this knowledge has its advantages. As an interesting topic for conversation at the next dull party, it might be a show stopper.  Can you imagine hungry males eyeing up the girls and wondering what the chances were?  Or women anxiously checking their hip widths to see if they are sending out the right message?  It would kind of put a stop to all the hype about being thin enough to fit into a toilet roll tube.  Broader hips would signal attractiveness.  Women could always knock 'em dead with the remark "I have the most fabulous child-bearing hips, darling."

I have the utmost respect for scientists and researchers and the work they do. But I think that in this case humans are more than statistics.  They are not objects to be assessed and classified except in the broadest of terms (and no, this is not a pun on broad hips).  Every single one of us whether small, tall, thin or broad-hipped is an individual with our own very personal likes and dislikes.  And we don't need everything we do to be explained to us in scientific terms.