Due to the extended winter that we have been suffering this blog has been taking a long rest. Well, that’s my excuse. I realise that I broke my New Year’s resolution extremely fast. And I can only apologise for that fact.
This year started off with an enforced house move. To be more accurate, flat move. I had to move out of my old flat in a bit of a hurry into a new, smaller one where I cannot fit all my furniture and possessions. I was almost a week with no internet connection following the move. There’s been a bit of stress; writing has had to a take back seat. I also had a large translating job. That took up most of my time and it was difficult to find time for writing.
Excuses over. I don’t know where you are, but in this part of Germany as in much of Europe winter is dragging on. Easter is upon us, there is still snow on the ground, everything is frozen, I am burning logs at an incredible rate to keep warm and there is no sign of spring appearing. I really wish I could hibernate. However, since that isn’t an option, we all have to make the best of it.
Despite planning to write another book along the lines of the last three I have now started the one that I was meaning to write later. This book is not just pure romance, but a more mature story centred round a slightly older woman, divorced with children and a complicated life. I am just getting into the writing now, which is the hard part for me. It’s all in my head already, but until the action starts in earnest I have to lay the ground for the story. I know from experience that once I am really into it the writing will flow fast. In the meantime my life involves trying to collect wood, exercising the horse and the dog, and teaching. But teaching has taken a two-week break due to the Easter holidays.
Today I decided I was going to do something I very rarely do, and I am going to bake a cake especially for Easter. Also, since I’m running out of logs, I decided I better go and find something to burn as well. So I drove to the local supermarket. It’s Easter Saturday and, of course, the place was heaving. The old supermarket was recently knocked down because they had built a new one behind the old. They have been digging out the place where the old one was and making a new car park. Parking was a bit limited today since half the village seemed to be out shopping. I had to put my car on a rather rough bit of ground. I duly collected a trolley, went to the place where they keep the coal and wood briquettes and loaded my trolley up before I went into the supermarket itself. I needed to get the ingredients for my cake. After picking out a few fruit and veg, including some nice firm bananas, just as I like them, no brown bits no bruises, I went to find the eggs. I don’t eat eggs, so I rarely buy them. My recipe called for four eggs. Unfortunately, I could only buy a box of 10, unless I bought some overpriced, but pretty, dyed eggs. So I picked up a box. I found the icing sugar and the other things I needed and made my way to the checkout. The trolley was heavy. Despite the large number of people in the supermarket I didn’t have to queue for long. So I wheeled the heavy trolley back out to the car park. I arrived at my car. I pushed the trolley off the tarmac on to the place where my car was parked, which was a little uneven. The trolley tilted, a few items fell off the top, and slowly the whole trolley fell sideways. Well, that solved the problem of some of the surplus eggs. My nice firm bananas were squashed. One bread roll had fallen on the car park out of its bag, the other had landed underneath a pack of wood briquettes and looked rather flat. The butter and the sugar had survived. A man driving his car passed me stopped and grinned, but nobody offered to help. So I opened the boot of my car, picked up the first few items and put them in the boot.
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It is now two days since I wrote the above. Having just finished the last sentence I had a major software problem and my computer locked out, so as you can imagine the train of thought was not the only thing that was lost. Anyway, as I was trying to close things down my phone rang. “Are you coming riding?” I was asked. So, after a few Alt+Control+Delete efforts I finally shut the computer down, gave up with it and went riding. Then I stayed for a barbecue – in the snow. Yesterday, Easter Sunday, was also busy, so the computer had to wait yet another day to be sorted out. And the cake only got made yesterday evening, in time to be taken for the Easter ride today (food and drink were carried on the carriage, and were merrily consumed by the passengers, while the other riders and I largely missed out). Since seven of the eggs had miraculously survived I had at least had plenty for the cake, which proved very popular.
We were lucky enough to ride in the sun today. No snow falling, after yesterday’s white Easter. My horse has decided spring is finally on its way; she, along with all the other horses, is losing her winter coat so grooming is a never-ending task and our clothes are permanently covered in horse hair. She has also come into season; another sign of spring since, in case you didn’t know, mares do not naturally have seasons in the winter. There are two stallions on the yard and I try to keep well clear of them with her, but she is a terrible flirt and puts the brakes on when I am trying to ride her past them whether on the field or inside. She then has to be persuaded to move further on. The lovely weather obviously cheered her up today as she was very full of herself – no bucking, though, having spent weeks earlier this year bucking every time she was ridden.
Now Easter is over (although not the school holidays) I need to get stuck into the writing more seriously. And the blogging. Hopefully I shall have something of a more interesting nature to write next time, and hopefully there will not be such a long gap before the next time. A belated Happy Easter.
