Dubai

Well, I survived and I'm here! Today was dd first day at school and she was incredibly brave. I was quivering for her inside but steady on the outside as she was. What was great is that a few of her friends from three years ago are still here! Which means some of mine are too.

All things being equal I will post a few photos tomorrow but still trying to sort life here at present!

Capturing

I'm trying to freeze frame my memory so I thought I share a few of the images. I know I see will new glorious images to inspire await but gosh it's hard to leave these.

This morning I woke to a pink sun rise and valley and field filled with mist blurring all the lines......my camera wasn't up to the job so you'll have to imagine it.

Looking Forward

The weight of sorting the house is upon me and I am procrastinating like crazy. In fact I shouldn't be blogging but sorting and packing! However this morning I was thinking about Dubai and how much I enjoyed living there three years ago. There many things that made it a special time. I've posted a few photos from my fortieth birthday surprise - two nights at the Al Maha Resort in the desert. I hat camping for my card from dearly beloved said he was treating me to two nights in a tent. Click hereto see the tents!

So I sat this morning thinking about the things aside from writing that I will do. This time I will take Arabic lessons as last time I didn't and I regretted it. I will take up belly dancing again (OK have you stopped laughing now?) - it is brilliant exercise and such fun. I hope we will be able to travel in the region more. When there last time with had to cope with the SARS threat and the war. Having said that we traveled frequently to Oman and once to Jordan and Egypt.

So trying to look forward and focusing on clearing so I can get there!

Move Update

Several of you have asked what's happening with the move......well DH is there and working. The temporary accommodation is in a building site and in a dry hotel! 'Nuff said there.

Here in Cornwall the slow process of closing up the house is taking place. It is slow because I am dragging my feet. Not because I don't want to go to Dubai but because I hate leaving Cornwall. It was been a wonderful summer despite periods of terrible weather and it is always sad when it comes to an end. The past few summers haven't had such an abrupt end. The garden furniture remained out until October half term. The wetsuits were not shoved to the far back of the cupboard. Now all these things must be done. Yesterday I cut the lavender back as the sun beat down on my back. I will not be here to harvest my apples and pears this year. However on the bright side I won't lose my tan!

Snowy is making hay while the sun shines or the moon that is. He refused to come in last night. I think he knows he'll be chasing lizards again soon rather than shrews. Snowy came to us when we lived in Dubai. He was a rescue cat! Yes, a Turkish Angora rescue cat. Only in Dubai. He'll be winging his way back to the lizards soon. Unfortunately he will have to be in kennels as we don't have a villa yet! But that is another story.

So my time in Cornwall is dwindling fast but I will be back for Christmas (with a tan) and hopefully a few roses will still be blooming :-)

Brain Dead

If you look at the side bar August Rock has rolled past the 100,000 word mark. Rewrite 5 is done. Tomorrow I need to do the edit typo edit my reader has found, print out, rework the synopsis and pop into a Jiffy bag and forget while I move.

August Rock is definitely better for the rewrite. I know it's not a prize winner......yet. When I have some energy again I need to Sol Stein and then do some more breakout work with it. However I have enjoyed the rewriting process. I have seen my work grow to a better level and I will have met my goal under difficult circumstances. That makes me feel better even though my head is pounding and my eyes ache from looking at the 'puter!

As they say you never finish you just stop writing.

Normal Life Returns

At 7:30 in the morning Venice is a buzz of activity. I love that all things in Venice arrive by water. I also love it's contrasts.

But enough of Venice and it's contrast. Yesterday I returned to revision which mainly consisted of new writing. Many new scenes had to be added to keep the twists turning. This is much slower work as I have to keep thinking about how much my characters have changed since the beginning. When I am writing a whole draft straight through their changes evolve and it's not something I am fully conscious of ....... now I need to be. I keep asking myself things like - is this how Judith would react now?

The work now totals 96,500 words of which 78,000 is reworked. I will hit the 100,000 words with all the new scenes that have to be added. On another note, over on Judy Merrill Larsen's blog http://notafraidofthefword.blogspot.com/ she is talking about the control of writing - the control we have over the story and the lives of its characters. She also mentions letting go of that control and letting the characters lead in part of her revision process. I definitely let them have their way in draft one. I think what has focused me on this fifth rewrite is that I have more control which with the move and all the chaos is the only thing I have control over at present.

In Haste

I am sooooo excited. I am off to Venice for the weekend with DH. We so need this time. I have even promised to leave my lap top behind!!! I must love him.

Revision is cracking on....72k and I think the total will be around 96 so I am within striking distance!

Stress: low, excitement: high, writing: good, schools: 1 definite and 1 possible, move: nothing in writing yet!

Better

Thanks to all of you who stopped by yesterday and helped to stop me spinning. Being a whirling dervish is not my favorite thing.

Several good things happened yesterday along with all your good wishes. I remembered to check out the Samhain First Line contest and the first line of August Rock made it through. I was rather chuffed! Especially as I decided that I would throw myself into the revision again to try and forget the chaos and the people trailing through the house. I made great progress. The time off clearly let my brain store things up and then bang. I am suddenly at the half way mark. I still may not make the deadline but if I can continue I will be close. Now, this may not be the final rewrite by any means. Currently I am working of structural and big plot twists. Once these are complete it is then down to the detail.......

Next good thing is I have found one school that can take my dd. Today I will try another. It would be great to have a choice.

On the down side we still have nothing in writing and the packers are here in three and a half weeks!!

So stress levels : moderately high, writing: good.

Back to Reality

Reality hit with a bang today. In a few minutes the first showing of the house takes place! It's a tip but I've been away. At the same time one of the moving companies is coming to give a quote! However we still haven't a clue where we are going?????? Reality........

I have promised myself to return to my revision. Last night I printed off all the changes so far. There have been many changes - content and structure in the first 100 pages. I lost the prologue and lost much of the flashbacks by making chapter one open with the prologue and direct into the crisis after the failed wedding. I hope this makes the story stronger. I may yet put a prologue in but if I do it will probably be Toby watching the wreckers' boat going down at August Rock when he was seven. There is time yet to sort that out.

I am now doubt that I will have this thing knocked into shape for the 2nd of July but I will continue trying.

One last photo from the wedding. Despite my fears one of the best bits was catching up with long lost friends. So here's a picture of me with one of them.





Now off to tidy the house a bit!

Laundry and Expat Blues

I have piles of laundry. My eldest son goes back to school today and I have masses of laundry before that event can take place. He arrived home the day before we left for Florida with all his kit including trunk and tuck box. All that stuff has remained in the front hall fermenting for the past three and a half weeks. Last night when we returned from Cornwall, I approached the trunk with great trepidation. He sat on the stairs and watched so he could tell me whether the kit would be needed at school this term! His next comment was, 'I can smell it from here!'

The odor of adolescent boys socks filled the fetid atmosphere of a hot London house that hadn't been lived in for three weeks. The aroma should be bottled to kill off opposing armies!

Today begins the slow return to normal. I am happy to say the sun is shinning. All the off-spring are tucked up in bed and a feeling that all is normal is returning. With that comes the huge tasks ahead of me. Finishing A Cornish House is the high point to look forward to in the next day or so. The low is the knowledge that we are moving and don't yet know where. Once in my life I looked eagerly to each transfer but at the moment with the sun shining in London I can't think of another place I want to live other than my home in Cornwall.

This is the joy and pain of expat life. The problem was that although the company treated this as just another move - coming back to London was returning home. This happened once before and it was was brutal then. Leaving home is not the same as leaving another international posting. You know in your mind that you are on borrowed time in some foreign locale but back in the UK roots start to find their way into the soil and it hurts when they are pulled up.

Hence why the elder two kids are ensconced in boarding school. They are both at an age when ripping them out and changing schools every few years isn't fair. But then my soul yells what about me...I miss them terribly and yes I say this with a long bickering car journey from Cornwall still clear in my mind.

So back to smelly laundry and to unpack from Florida which is just a distant memory. Why haven't I unpacked yet.......well, we had to go to our home in Cornwall so once we landed and hit London I became a fierce animals herding the troops into the car and straight down without a chance to think. I knew once settled into the house in London they would never get out the door again and our beautiful home beckoned........

Enough rambling.........back to normal soon before the packing crates start arriving :(