Families and Other Creatures

Families are important and my family, including my extended family, is very important to me. I want to make that statement at the outset. But family members are not always the ones you turn to in times of crisis. Very many people have completely different lifestyles to their nearest and dearest.

I spent most of my late teens and and nearly all of my twenties co-sharing flats in Dublin and London with three other girls. Different girls at different times, naturally. None of my siblings has done that. When I start telling stories about that Chinese girl we had as a flatmate who thought that garlic kept away evil spirits, who dragged me to church every Sunday morning when my body was screaming for a lie-in, all because we once had a discussion on religion and I said I was a Christian, I know my family think I'm making it up. I could tell them about the party we held at New Year when the darts team we played with arrived unannounced and uninvited dragging two kegs of beer and my Scottish flatmate dashed in late and let the haggis she'd brought fall on the kitchen floor - we salvaged most of it and I must say it was very tasty.  Or - less fun - the night I was locked out because someone's mum who was staying with us thought it safer when in London to snick the lock on the door. We lived in the basement and the bedrooms were all at the back so no one heard my calls and knocks. I spent the night on the basement steps and I was never so glad to see the milkman and his float appearing in the early hours to make me feel human again even if I had to wait another hour before someone in the flat got up.

Anyone who has not co-shared will not understand how any of this could happen.
I think my experiences made me more tolerant of other people. I never put a notice on a piece of cheese in the fridge at work warning people off. As far as I was concerned, they could help themselves as long as they left some for me as well. I never got into a tizz as I've seen a work colleague do, over how people put paper in the printer. Yeah, some people make a pig's ear of it and the paper gets stuck and you think you've printed that report off just before the meeting and when you come to fish it out all you hear is that awful bleep bleep. We've all been there but hey, most colleagues get it right and we are all bad at something.

I think the inspiration for my second Christmas novel (untitled as yet) which I am currently working on came from all the different personalities I have met through flat sharing. Two of my flatmates are still close friends after all these years. If I am at a crisis, I can rely on them to give me some down-to-earth advice. After all flatmates very often know you much much better than your family do.

Christmas in the summer

 I have finally completed my last edit on my novel A MAN CALLED GREGOR - preview of the cover here:

Lauren's search for her uncle makes her question everything she believed in.
Available on Amazon as a Kindle and as a paperback from June 2019.

This means that I need to start on my Christmas novel, the idea or perhaps I should say the ideas for which have been going around in my head for a good few weeks now. It is a bit strange to write about Christmas and frost and snow when outside my window the swifts and swallows are dashing about, proclaiming that summer is here. But once I get started, I become lost in the world I'm writing about.

I usually start out with a character and a problem they are experiencing. I don't plan out the chapters, as some very organised authors do. Instead, I write by the "seat of the pants" method, which means sitting down every morning with no clear idea where the story is going to go. By the time I have done my tenth or twelfth edit, the whole thing will be completely different to what I started off with.  I'll have written and discarded tons of pages, well let's say around a hundred or so. Some of the characters will have been axed while others are added or changed to be completely different to my original idea. Yes, it's hard work but it is also a lot of fun. And viewing the finished product is worth all that sweat and all the hours put in.

What are you reading today?

I returned from a trip to London last month and came down with bronchitis, so I have been keeping warm and reading anything I can get my hands on.
For Christmas, one of my nephews gave me A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles. I  enjoyed this book very much. It is really a set of stories about Moscow with a lot of insider tales. Towles is a gifted writer - reading this book felt like sitting chatting to someone who had been in revolutionary Russia and seen it all. It probably isn't everyone's cup of tea but I can certainly recommend it.
Apart from that, now that I am feeling somewhat better, I have continued with the editing of my novel A MAN CALLED GREGOR, the tagline for which reads: Lauren's search for her uncle turns into a nightmare. I wrote this several years ago and had put it to one side, as writers sometimes do. Now, having re-read it and spotted some of the holes in the plot, I am having another stab at it. I don't know if it is easier or more difficult to edit an existing piece of work.  I still have some way to go with it but I now do have the cover. See what you think:

I am using the name Peggie Biessmann as this story is more international than my crime and romance novels, which are set in Ireland. this one moves from London to Frankfurt to Croatia.
The only other novel I have written under this name is SPATE OF VIOLENCE which is set in Germany.
Anyway, now that I have the cover ready, I am motivated to get cracking on the editing. I hope to have it available on Amazon as Kindle ebook and paperback by Easter.  Still lots to be done, though.

Valentines for Singles

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. How could we forget with all the hype in the shops? Red heart balloons drifting about all over the place and beautifully romantic cards displayed on every corner. Judging by the advertisements, you can link Valentine's Day to almost anything, except maybe a dose of 'flu.
I read somewhere recently that whereas in the old days, it was all about being single, Valentine's Day celebrations are now more about couples:  dining out in the most romantic restaurant, bouquets of red roses, champagne, jewellery, short weekends away in the sun.
Do singles feel left out nowadays, I wonder? Of course it's not the same if you do your flirting via an app on your mobile. Have we lost our sense of the romantic, of the mild flirtation? I reckon the best thing to do if you don't have a partner right now, is to collect all your single friends, male and female and cart them down to the pub for a few drinks. And I mean the very best champagne.
The (slightly) older generation will remember the times when you met that nice guy and had been on let's say three dates with him and you were starting to get stars in your eyes when you thought about him. And then on Valentine's Day you got this card in the mail, usually humorous, not a mad declaration of love and passion by any means, just nice, it made you smile, you know? But wow! It still gave the old heart strings a bit of a jangle. Maybe you didn't end up together after all but it was fun while it lasted. Even if you cried when it was over.  That was Valentine's Day.

New Year Resolve - A Plea for Slackers

We're a month into the New Year. Remember how we greeted it? Champagne, fireworks, New Year resolutions? Are you smiling smugly and saying, yep, I've kept up my plan. I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since January 1st, been to the gym for a workout every second day, haven't eaten a chocolate...
If you answered "yes" to any of that, I take off my hat to you! Well done you! You are one of those strong-minded disciplined people who are destined to go far. I say this with admiration and a teeny bit of envy.
I do not belong to this wonderful group of people.To quote Oscar Wilde (everybody does, it seems): I can resist anything except temptation. Oh, I'm not proud of it. But I'm not ashamed of it, either. I think I am realistic enough to recognize that there are so many different kinds of people in the world and each of them has a contribution they can make to their immediate society.
It's not that I am swayed by every temptation, you understand. It's just that, having cut down on sweet calorie-laden stuff, I will suddenly decide, what the heck? let's eat a Mars bar. I don't feel guilty when I do this and I don't go back to eating chocolate. It's a one-off thing. I find, too, that the less chocolate I eat, the less craving for chocolate I have.
I'm a firm believer on moderation in everything. I once stayed with a friend who was into healthy eating (the term makes me shudder, I must admit). She even ground her own flour. It took hours to chew what she served up. I'm sure I wore out at least one molar in the process. I'm convinced that she served up grass for lunch one day. Was she any healthier than me? I couldn't tell, I must admit. And that is a comforting thought.
You see, I believe it is the quality of your thoughts, what your interests are, how much you enjoy the company of other people, all of this is what makes you healthy. Of course you shouldn't eat too much fatty foods, you should get enough exercise and keep an eye on your weight, but my reckoning is that you are going to do that if you love life enough.
I'm sure all the experts will be tearing their hair out at my remarks. But look around you, I say. Get involved, get interested in something outside yourself, that will make you happy. And you can "reward" yourself now and again with your favourite food without feeling too guilty about it.
Life is fun!

Post Christmas Blues

Have you ever noticed how many articles are written on "improving your health" after the Christmas and New Year holiday season is over? In the past week, I must have read about half a dozen on the subject of "dry January". Mercifully, there are not as many articles on losing weight. This year everything seems to be concentrated on drinking less alcohol and getting more sleep. Two good ways to start the New Year, I have to say.  But then, I don't drink that much. I like the occasional glass of wine with a meal, I like an Irish Coffee now and again after a meal, and I like to drink a shandy with pasta or pizza. But not every day, you understand. Just whenever I feel like it.  So that's one New Year resolution I can skip.

Regarding sleep/not enough of: I have to admit that I am a bad sleeper. In my heyday (we won't go into how long ago that was!) I needed a good ten hours which I never got owing to having two kids and working a busy full time job. Now, as a retiree, I can sleep all day, except I can't!  I sleep a really deep sleep for maybe two hours then wake up to go to the bathroom and then it's a toss of the coin whether I get back to sleep again fairly quickly or whether I like awake listening to the radio (I have heard some really fascinating stuff on BBC's world service at 4 a.m.) or if I feel too unsettled, I'll pop into the sitting room and turn on the TV to some news channel (France24 is a favourite). I usually read before I put out the light at night, so I don't feel much like reading a book or writing for that matter. I have several books of poetry and I might read through one, or - my favourite occupation at any given time - I'll trawl through my Oxford Book of Quotations. I'll crawl back into bed when I feel sleepy enough and then I will sleep until 9 a.m. I don't let my disturbed sleep pattern disturb me despite reading some of that new book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker where he reckons we all don't get enough of the proper kind.

I haven't seen as many diet suggestions this year but I always look through recipes in magazines. The only thing is, I find that some of the suggested ingredients puzzle me. For example, there was this one for a salmon dish - and I love salmon - but where am I going to find Aleppo pepper and if I do find it, how will I recognize it? Then there's an ingredient for another dish: half a Jalapeno it says blithely with an accent over the n. Where would I get that? Certainly not from my local supermarket which is strong on peas and carrots and potatoes but anything remotely exotic is not to be found there. And let's be honest, in a country town, people are more traditional in their cooking. You've guessed it: I end up substituting what I think belongs in the recipe and it usually turns out fine.

Now that schools are back and the month of January is advancing at the brisk pace of a born-again jogger, we'll all have forgotten whatever it was we decided we had to do for the New Year. Let's start looking at summer holidays. Not long to go now.

Christmas Cards

This blog is also posted on my Peggiesweb blogspot site.

Since the beginning of December I have been getting a trickle of Christmas cards from friends and family. This is a lovely tradition, I always think, and it is such a pity that with the popularity of social media it is dying out.
As an ex-pat, living in Germany, I was often starved for news of friends who wrote once a year at Christmas and updated me on their lives. Even more valuable were those who gave me a thumbnail sketch of what was going on in the country they were living in. Of course, you had the one-liners who simply wrote on the expensive Christmas card "we are all well" and added a pious hope that my family were equally healthy and happy. But even these few lines meant that they had thought about me and my family for a couple of minutes at the very least: they had to pick a card to send from the pile they had bought  and in order to write something, they had to call me to mind. I am a great believer in the power of thought or prayer if you want a better word. I remember when I was in hospital following surgery for breast cancer that I could almost feel the get-well wishes pouring out to me.
But I digress. So here I am thinking about the niceness of receiving Christmas cards and the fun of reading how those friends and family who only contact me once a year are doing. How was it all those years ago, when receiving a letter at any time was a big event? When the post coach with its four horses plied between the cities and towns and delivered news of loved ones far away?In those days, far away really meant just that. Many Irish people who emigrated to the USA never came home again. All they and their families had were these letters, cards and well wishes, all of which were read over again until the next time.
I sometimes think that we kept in touch to a much better extent before the advent of email, whatsapp, skype, etc. Letter-writing is an art, of course, and there were people who, because of the lack of education or abilities, simply could not write a very coherent account of themselves. Nowadays they'd simply send you an emoji - enough said!
I still write Christmas letters to friends or family members who I don't get to see very often. These are getting fewer, though, I have to admit. This is partly due to the fact that the cost of travelling has really come down over the years, and let's face it, it's much nicer to see people face to face than to write to them.
This year I have written all my Christmas letters and sent off all my cards except the very local ones. I hope I have made a few people as happy as I am to hear from them.

A Cozy Christmas Read

The blurb on the back of my Christmas novel CHRISTMAS AT CASTLEDARRA says:

Molly O'Neil is looking forward to a family Christmas at Castledarra. It will be the first time for a number of years that everyone is at home for the festivities. She has some important things to tell them but little does she know that her three children are all at a crossroads in their lives.

The idea for this story came to me some time in the Spring of this year. We all have such high expectations of Christmas or indeed of any major family gathering. Yet we forget that our relatives and friends come to these events with very different feelings. There is a theory that all that advertising of happy faces and close families causes disappointments to spill over into family rows. The beaming faces of the people sitting around the dining table with the perfect meal in front of them and the adorable children hugging everybody do not mirror reality, at least for some families. Aunt Mary is soon going to start complaining about the noisy children, mother-in-law is going to sigh over the undercooked vegetables, sister or brother is going to roll their eyes at their sibling's behaviour. After a couple of glasses of wine, the Christmas spirit will have disappeared up the chimney.

Now, I don't want to be a spoiler, but people are only human, aren't they?  If we realised this, we might not take it all so seriously. The more tolerant families simply laugh at the eccentricities of the other family members. More importantly, it doesn't have to be perfect. The decorations, the Christmas dinner, the whole thing need not look like an advertisement. The most fun I have had in past seasons was one Christmas Day when the electricity went off. No lighting, no cooking. Fortunately, like so many people, I had a huge stock of food bought in and we all had great fun making sandwiches and making do. It brought everyone closer together. And the kids were more than relieved at not having to eat that Christmas staple in many homes: the Brussels sprout.

So this year, decorate by all means and cook the traditional turkey and ham and serve up Christmas pudding or whatever the usual fare is, but don't forget to relax, take time to laugh and more especially, more time to chat to family members who you haven't seen for a while. The festive season should be a people time not a present-giving, eating spree.

Christmas in the Air

There is something very magical about Christmas. We all love the colourful decorations, the candles and the bustle. For my part, at this time of year I love to settle down in front of a log fire, sip a glass of red wine (as sweet as I can get it) or if it is frosty outside, to indulge in a mulled wine and have a plate of mince pies within easy reach. Could anything be cosier on a dark December afternoon?

Although I am a fan of crime fiction, at this time of year I look for gentler stories. I am currently reading an old Robert Goddard novel Hand in Glove which is intriguing to say the least. Goddard is a very talented writer and tells a tale as convoluted as any author I know. In other words, this is a page turner. When I've finished it, it will nearly be Christmas so I'll either pick up a nice family story or I will go back to Jane Austen. Whenever I am feeling fragile, I start to re-read one of her novels. I haven't read Mansfield Park for a long time and it is thicker than her other works, so I must get this out for the festive season. Yes, I know the story and how it all ends happily, but it is a bit like visiting old friends, like putting on your pajamas and sliding your feet into those comfortable slippers.

What do you like to read to wind down at Christmas?

First Taste of Christmas

I spent a long weekend in Frankfurt recently for a family celebration.The Christmas market had just opened so I paid it a flying visit. I really love these markets even if I don't usually buy anything other than mulled wine and a Bratwurst (fried sausage) or a pancake filled with cheese and ham. Yummy.
 But I love the smell of all the spices - cinnamon, aniseed, roasted almonds and of course mulled wine.
I went to Sunday morning Mass in the Dom, Frankfurt's cathedral, which is a huge tourist attraction. This historic cathedral served for 300 years as the site of coronation for Holy Roman Emperors. Although it was more or less destroyed in the Second World War, it still retains that venerable feel of times long past. Guided tours take place when there is no church service being held. The inside is awe inspiring. There's a museum and you can climb the 95 meters to the bell tower to view the city. A word of caution: the stairs are narrow and very steep so if you are a bit creaky on your knees, it's probably better if you skip this. If you can do the climb you'll be rewarded with a breathtaking view of Frankfurt. I must admit I didn't have the energy although I would have loved to be able to view the city and its Christmas decorations.
I love the whole area around the cathedral and the Roemer, with its half-timbered buildings. This time, the Christmas market stalls had been set up but were not open until next day. It all made me  feel how close we are getting to the festive season.

 I am currently editing a novel which I wrote some years ago and a small part of which I have set in the Roemer. I mention the St. Nikolas church, the Nikolaikirche, in the story. It is such a lovely building and very typical of Germany, I think.

All in all, my short trip put me completely in the Christmas spirit so I decorated my apartment today and now I am all set for this happy season.

Christmas Novel

I love Christmas. Today I had to force myself to pass a shop which had a wonderful display of festive decorations including a cute little Christmas tree. There was just no way I would have space for it in my little apartment.
One of the reasons I started writing my Christmas novella, Christmas at Castledarra was because of this love for the family season. Thinking about my childhood and those walks to Midnight Mass when the sky was bright with frosty stars, and later when as a young adult I came home for Christmas, I asked myself the question nearly every writer asks when they are planning their novel: what if? What if Molly has dreams for herself and her family? What if her children have very different dreams and difficulties? Will all of these dreams come true? How will it all end?
And so I sat down and wrote the story.
One of my readers told me the other day that it was her favourite of all the novels I have written so far. "You have to write a sequel", she said and proceeded to speculate on how the story continued. I was both touched and surprised at her interpretation of each character and told her so. She said she felt like they were her personal friends and she would love to keep in touch with them.
These somewhat rare experiences of meeting readers face to face and hearing how much they enjoyed what I wrote has to be one of the most uplifting experiences in my life. It more than compensates for all those times when I sat in front of a blank computer screen or deleted pages of text because that wasn't where I wanted the story to go.
Readers, please, when you finish a book, leave a review even if or perhaps especially if it is a critical one. No writer claims to be faultless. But your feedback is essential and very welcome.