RED ALERT!

  RED ALERT – that’s the level of heat we’re threatened with today, although at present we only have an Orange Alert. A calima has come in from two directions at once and the temperature has shot up to 35C. RESIDENTS and tourists alike are advised to stay indoors and drink lots of water.

Of course there will always be holiday-makers who don’t listen and end up burnt to a crisp. Just because the sun is hidden by a thick dust-haze doesn’t mean you’re safe!

When we drove back from San Isidro market at 8.30 this morning there was already a blast of hot air through the car windows. This is a photo of what we bought for about €25 – and that doesn’t include the bag of potatoes that I couldn't fit on my worktop.

 At the market there were huge RABANOS (RADISHES) and RUCOLA (ROCKET) and one solitary ROSA among the lilies.

AT LEAST WITH ALL THOSE VEGETABLES IT WAS COOL IN THERE!

RETURNING to my Helter-Skelter theme, when Albie wanted to get married in church he discovered he had no birth certificate. Norah was able to REPAY the Smiths’ kindness to her by RUSHING through his belated REGISTRATION, totally unfazed by the lies she had to tell in the process. An unforeseen and not completely welcome RESULT arose a few years later when his call-up papers arrived - until then Albie had lived beneath the RADAR. 

But if Albie hadn't been in France, Bert would have died, and there would have been no-one to RESCUE the baby.

QUEST, QUESO, QUIERO

I was QUITE certain that I’d fall at this fence, but various QUAINT & QUEER bits of inspiration have struck during the day, so here goes on a sampler.

QUEST – A quest is a common theme in novels of all kinds – the quest for love or power or wealth makes a great basis for a story. One of my main themes in Helter-Skelter is Albie’s quest for his biological father. 

George has known Albie for a few months when he asks Albie the QUESTION “Why were you sleeping under the pier?” and this is the moment Albie tells George about it:

 Albie stared at the tattoo on the back of George’s wrist and spoke so softly that George could only just hear.

“Mum told me to eff off. She was going to stay with this bloke, she said – the one what hit her – and they didn’t want a gyppo bastard tagging along.” He stirred his tea savagely. “She’s always calling me that – says a gypsy got her in the club. Anyhow, I’d fed meself for months, she said, so I could carry on doing it. Then they both laughed, so I effed off.”

Is it any wonder that he searches for his father? Anyone would be an improvement on a mother who treats her twelve-year-old son that way. 

Years later, Albie and Bert are QUAFFING their ale in their local tavern when his own mother fails to recognise him and propositions him. Imagine the horror of that.

QUESO = cheese, which we love. Most local cheese is made from goats’ milk – any cows have to live under cover away from the fierce sun – and many Canarians breakfast on QUESO FRESCO Y MEMBRILLO , which is a sweet jelly made from QUINCES. They are very sweet toothed, but I prefer my breakfast sharper-tasting. Lemon curd works well!

 

QUIERO – is the first person singular of the verb QUERER. It can mean simply “I want” as in “I want that shirt”, but it can also mean “I love”. "TE QUIERO" = "I love you." I suppose it could also mean “I want you” but I’ve never been in that kind of situation with a Spanish speaker!

POPPIES, PICTURES & PLAYSCHOOL

 POPPIES There aren’t many left of the servicemen who fought in World War Two, but there are still servicemen and women being injured today. This is why the Royal British Legion in Tenerife supports the POPPY APPEAL. 

There are only a handful of us – my OH is the Chairman – but 2012 was the fifth year we won the Noel Rogers Trophy for the overseas branch that raised the most money per member.

It helped that we were invited to sell poppies on the cruise liner Mariner of the Seas when it called into Santa Cruz. We were given lunch and a guided tour, including the bridge, before we stood in the sun for a couple of hours while the passengers re-embarked after a day ashore. 

"Gee! Is it Veterans' Day already?" one American asked, and donated all his left-over euros.

PICTURES

Only a few years ago I would have had to PORE over library books to find the PHOTOS I wanted to help my research. Now all I have to do is to ask the internet the correct questions.

Photographs of common people in the early 1900s were difficult to track down – only wealthy people could afford cameras then – but find them I did.

 Such faces! Black and white or sepia are so much more evocative, aren't they?

On the other hand there were lots of photos of WW2, and those of Dunkirk beaches,with lines of men snaking into the sea are gut-wrenching even now.

My local photo for today is of the nearest PLAYSCHOOL. Those handprints create a lovely image of a caring environment. Unfortunately, my friend recently found a toddler wandering in the street, and she discovered, after carting him round the local shops and bars, he had escaped from this Guarderia un-noticed. We can only hope they have taken this lesson to heart.

OMNISCIENT ORANGES?

OMNISCIENT PERSPECTIVE.

When an agent said I “handled the omniscient perspective well”, my early grounding in Latin popped its head up: Omni = all, and Scient = thinking was my guess, which didn’t get me very far, so I looked it up.

According to my dictionary, omniscient means “having infinite knowledge or understanding” and perspective means “a way of regarding situations”.
Um – still no wiser – so back to her email where, by putting OP into the context of her subsequent remarks, I worked out that I think she means “telling the story from more than one character’s viewpoint."

It’s nice to know I’m doing it right, whatever it is, but I could use a Dictionary of OBSCURE LITERARY TERMS.
<sigh>

ORANGES AND LEMONS

No, I am not going to embroil you in a childish game, so don't run away!

I eat an orange every morning, and the local ones are just the right size to cut into six wedges and eat from the skin – leaning over the sink because there is a bit of inelegant slurping in the process.
Distilled sunshine - dleicious!

And the lemons? We were given a bag of lemons straight off the tree this week, so I made lemon curd. The best and easiest recipe I have ever seen is from a handwritten recipe book we found when the OH’s mother died.

See my recipe page on the right if you want to try it for yourself, but if you use shop-bought lemons, wash them well first to get rid of the wax the importers coat them with.

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!

MAPS. MARIA & MONKEYS

MAP ONE.

Having decided to set my novel in North Kent I had to pick a town, but when I couldn’t find one that exactly matched my criteria I invented one …Oh the giddy power of being a writer!

Thambay is situated near Whitstable, and I have taken liberties with the local geology to build it in a bay capable of sheltering a long beach, a fishing harbour and the all-important pier on which stands the Helter-Skelter of my novel.

Then I had to draw a map – I couldn’t have Albie running across the Market Square on the way to the timber yard if that was the wrong way, could I? So here it is – the town Albie grew up in – and it feels so real to me that I’d move there myself if I could!

MARIA

.....Albie wheeled his bike into some woods to shelter under one of the big old trees. He had just pulled the wax packet of sandwiches out of his pocket when he smelled smoke, and his heart pounded inexplicably. Leaving his bike, he pushed his way through the wet tangle of undergrowth to emerge, with startling suddenness, in a clearing full of gypsy wagons………..One face in particular caught his eye…….. she was only a young girl – maybe fifteen or sixteen – but more beautiful than any of the girls in town, and those black eyes were casting a spell on him.

This is Albie’s first sight of Maria, and when she returns his love he is overjoyed. But to marry Maria and travel with her tribe would mean leaving Thambay where George, his ageing adopted father, wants him to take over the Helter-Skelter. Albie faces a difficult decision – until Fate takes a hand.

For your daily dose of Tenerife here is MAP TWO, of a MONKEY ZOO  near us.It’s not nearly as grand as the Loro Parque in the north - to be honest it's a bit scruffy - but the animals and birds do have room to move and you are allowed inside some of the cages. This entranced my grandsons – the tiny MARMOSETS and Lemurs took fruit from their hands and they stroked a giant turtle. My son had a long conversation with a chimp, and when the chimp eventually had enough he sprayed John with a mouthful of water. I wish I’d caught that moment on camera!

These two monkeys where photographed by my daughter-in-law in Costa Rica – sitting in your drinking-water is a wonderful way to keep cool!

LUKE, LABELS & LANGUAGE

LUKE FINCH is only seven when we first meet him in my novel Helter-Skelter. He is the brother of Bessie, the girl I mentioned yesterday who was scathing about Dot Smith’s kitchen.

Luke is a typical little boy, who lives half in the real world of Pinetree Farm and half in fantasy land, where he can be Charles LINDBERG flying solo across the Channel, or a racing driver breaking the world speed record. He is an Indian Scout when he tracks his sister and witnesses something that enables him to save his hero Albie from her machinations.

I was seven when my brother Luke was born. He was a doctor when he died 34 years later in a plane crash in Africa. I remember that Luke, of course, but I also remember him as a little blond boy, just like Luke Finch.

LABELS ARE LIMITING. What exactly does LITERARY mean in the writing world? We’re advised to check out an agent before submitting, and the word literary has always puzzled me.

Last year I completed a book about a young LABOURER who rescues an abused boy, and how that Strange Adoption changes both their LIVES. A professional critic called it “part psychological thriller, part a story of human growth.” If I can’t fit it into a category, how can I pitch it to an agent?

LANGUAGES. When we arrived here to live we had to learn Spanish quickly, because we were buying our apartment privately from a couple who spoke no English. If we were meeting Juan and Carmen to discuss our purchase I would write it all down in advance so I could read them my notes if we got stuck.

It was a tense time, renting in Las Galletas and knowing we’d shot our bolt financially if it all went wrong. I bought a set of flash-cards that reminded me of teaching my son to read, and we tested each other in the evenings. 

Ayuntamiento was our first long word – it means Town Hall, where we had to go for some of our paperwork - ( it also means sexual intercourse, according to my dictionary!) Many words have two or more meanings, and often only an accent differentiates between them. The OH learned the hard way to say “Feliz Año” – Happy New Year – with the ñ as in España. Without the accent, ano means arse! 

Aren't languages fascinating?

..... and for your LAST photo of the week, this is a LANTANA. They come in various colours, of which this is the most common here. When my daughter came to live in Tenerife 20 years ago, the first cutting I took home was a lantana, which flourished in my English garden, even through snow.