NINETEEN, NORAH & NAMES

NORAH  - Forty years ago we took my godmother Norah for a day out. My children were small, so NATURALLY we had to stop at a playground. Auntie Norah watched them shooting down a tall, bumpy slide and asked wistfully, “Do adults ever go on those?”
So that was when a very elegant lady rode a slide for the first (and only) time in her 80+ years. My husband took her up and all three children and I caught her at the bottom. She loved it, she said, but didn't go again.

In my NOVEL there is an old lady whom Albie helps to ride the Helter-Skelter - there are NO prizes for guessing her name!

And speaking of NAMES - I have a tendency to give every character a name because I think everyone deserves one, but in a novel it’s confusing, so in this draft I have left several people anonymous – they will have to be content that at least I know who they are.

I had also given two important women names that started with the same letter – always a bad move. I have changed one, but it’s extraordinary how hard it is to re-name someone and regard them in the same light. Of course another way to avoid this repetition is just to delete one character, which always feels like killing them.

NINETEEN - No, this is not the NUMBER of people I have killed off in my rewrite, but the number of years my present OH and I have been married. We remembered this morning when my daughter sent a Happy Anniversary text!
As it is usually me behind the camera there aren't many photos of us together. This was taken last Christmas Day on our NEIGHBOUR'S terrace - we were eating hallaca, a traditional Venezuelan dish which is a bit like a meat and vegetable pancake. Very filling!