4 things

I discovered this meme on Dovegrey Reader’s very readable blog, here’s my attempt.

4 jobs I have had

A Saturday girl in a drug store, my first job and it was horrible. I don’t think I was thought trustworthy/intelligent enough to work on the tills so I restocked the shelves most of the time, but when I did work on tills it was horrible, they were little raised wooden cubicles, designed so that the cashier could sit down on stools whilst working, yet our boss decided that it would be far better if we stood up and towered over everybody, which was murder on the feet but very handy when a packet of condoms came to the till with no price and we needed to yell to another shopworker “x how much are the condoms,” yes I was one of those mean drugstore girls.

My second job was far better, also a Saturday job it was for a little independent book store, run by a lovely old couple who’d retired from publishing and risking ruining my anonymity here slightly but the bookstore was called Cornwall’s or Cornwell’s, I think the latter but I can’t remember and it was in a North Norfolk town, I’d love to know what happened to them if anyone reading this knows. I think they sold the bookshop to someone else, shortly after I went to college and I don’t think whoever took over the ownership lasted long, the net book agreement had just ended, allowing the big chains to sell books for whatever they wanted, giving the kiss of death to alot of lovely independent bookshops. Anyway back to what I used to do there, it was only a small shop, so most of the time I was the only person working in the shop (whilst one of the owners was in the back), I used to serve customers, take their orders, order books from stockists, do book searches on a little old micro-fiche, it was bliss. I blame that experience for me trying to relive my youth by my current not very successful book selling enterprise (and once again I’m being thwarted by the big book sellers). I still have the ambition to one day own my own bookshop . . .

My worst job ever though was a secondary school science teacher in East London, I only lasted 6 months, it was an absolutely bl**dy horrible experience, I used to stand at the tube station on the way to work and let the trains go past me rather than get on, it was that stressful.

My most boring job has to be the temp job I had after I quit teaching, I joined a science temp agency and due to the fortune of timing (my CV arrived on their desk just as they were looking for temps for a new work placement) I landed a temp job in forensics but it was the most boring job on the planet, whilst other science firms had robots to label their test tubes, I think where I was working, people were cheaper (I’m talking nearly 10 years ago now by the way, I’m sure it’s changed). So I spent 7 months labelling test tubes, writing numbers and sticking barcodes on batch upon batch of little ependorf tubes, it was as scintillating as it sounds, however my bosses liked me and I was promoted, made permanent and had a very pleasant and interesting career climbing up the career ladder to a position I wouldn’t even have dreamt of back when I was a tube labeller, before leaving to have kids.

4 places that I have lived (in no particular order)

York (a lovely, gorgeous city, with the best bakeries and fish and chip shops on the planet, but bl**dy cold)

Llantwit Major (a little South Welsh town by the sea, an absolutely idyllic place to grow up)

Northampton (very briefly and put it this way, that’s where my in-laws are and I don’t want to go back!)

London (the best place on the planet)

4 places I have been on holiday

New York (we saw it at it’s worst of times (9/11) but it’s still a fantastic city)

Poughkeepsie, New York State, (our New York holiday was planned to be spending the first week in the city, then travelling back to JFK to pick up a hire car and then spending the second week exploring New York State before returning back to JFK to fly home, 9/11 occurred towards the end of our first week and when it came to getting the hire car (which we’d prebooked) the airport was still closed, all other routes out of the city seemed impossible, so it felt literally like we were stuck, so some frantic searching online and pouring over train maps and hire car locations we found that there were hire cars in Poughkeepsie and we could get a train there, so our first night outside the city was in Poughkeepsie, we took the train from Grand Central Station, this amazing train with great big black leather seats, with hardly anyone on, passing this amazing countryside, landing in this town which we didn’t have a clue about. So we walked to this nearest cafe from the train station, which was just like out of a movie and poured over a phone book to find a room to stay and a taxi to get us there before picking up our car the next day. Much as I’d fallen in love with New York City and I’d go back there in a second if I could, it was a relief to leave that day).

Istanbul, probably the most ‘foreign’ place I’ve been to, it was an ‘experience’ but it was more of a journey than a holiday.

Venice, a lot and I’d still happily go back for more.

4 favourite foods

Pepperoni pizza

Chocolate

Coca-cola

Pasta

4 places I’d rather be

New York

A little cottage on my own, in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands.

Bhutan (much for the same reason as above)

One of the big houses on the road next to mine, which have the added much wanted features much lacking in my flat of stairs; at least two more bedrooms, a loft, another reception room, a much bigger kitchen (not hard).

Tagging anyone reading this!

Z is for Zoo

I used to volunteer for a zoo. Not feeding the animals or anything like that, although many people would like that sort of thing, not me, I’d worry more about becoming the animal food. Anyway, it was a really interesting experience, I was one of those people who did the ‘education stuff’ around the various exhibits. However three things occurred which meant that I no longer wanted to do it;

1. I’d just started a partime Masters, so I had enough of my plate, but I would have found time somewhere if it weren’t for the following two factors -
2. The food in the staff canteen was well and truly gross, honestly I’d swear the animals were fed better. All very well but there was no where else to get food from.
3. The other volunteers I worked with weren’t the nicest people in the world, I was the youngest volunteer by far, most of the others retired or at least reaching retirement age. They used to sit there and make fun of my day job which was at that point labelling test tubes, which ok is a pretty ridiculous job but you don’t make fun of a fellow colleague you barely know, I just could not be bothered spending my increasingly precious spare time with people like that.

So, I left, but one thing I’ll always miss is that walk through the zoo just before it opens, deathly quiet compared to the hub bub of opening hours, before opening hours all you’d hear was the chatter of the monkeys or the roar of the lions. You’d walk past them and they’d be curious in you, not yet numbed by the repetitive boredom of the countless faces peering at them that day.

I’ve also been left with an appreciation of what (good) zoos do. They truly are modern day arks, doing their best to battle against mankind’s malignant influence in the outside world. It gets my goat when people complain about how expensive a visit to the zoo is, zoos are businesses, they have to pay their staff, feed and care for their animals, with little or no support bar the people that come through those gates. Plus a good zoo will be doing so much more than that, working in the animals natural environment to preserve what is left of it, all on principally the money that is coming through those gates. Worth it isn’t for the price of a pricey (but fun) day out?

So that’s it then, I’ve reached Z, the end of the encyclopedia of me. Some of the letters have really scraped the barrel for connections to me but I’m proud of myself I’ve done it! To see how others have fared in the encyclopedia of me, please check out Bella Dia’s blog which has a list of everyone participating.

X + Y = algebra

No, I haven’t gone mad, this is part of my attempt at the encylopedia of me meme and as you can see I’m scraping the barrel but at least killing two letters in one go.

So X + Y = algebra, which I quite liked when I was in school, I liked how it was a skill you learnt and not a fact.

See, told you I was scraping the barrel!

V is for Voice

When I started school nobody could understand me, so a prompt referral to speech therapy was obviously pretty necessary. I improved quite quickly and haven’t had a problem to this day excepteveryone now thinks I speak ‘posh’, the highlight of this when was on my first day of secondary school which was two terms later than everyone else. I was quite a shy child, although used to changing schools fairly regularly, anyway I managed to slip into fairly quiet non identity for most of the day, that was until English. The English teacher was loathed by my classmates with the unflattering nickname of ‘Sweaty Betty’. We were reading that day in class, my first day let me remind you again and Sweaty Betty was picking on random pupils to stand up and read aloud from the book they were reading. Sweaty Betty picked vicious fault with each kid that stood up to read, taking apart their tone and pronunciation. Then it was the new girl’s turn, I stood up to read , I read it normally, didn’t try and talk ‘proper’ or anything but you can guess what happened can’t you? The loving praise lauded upon me by Sweaty Betty, with even worse her turning to the rest of the class telling them “Now that’s how you read this”, as you can imagine, if the looks from the class could kill I’d of been dead 29 times over.

Fast forward to adulthood and I still worry that I talk ‘posh’ but even more weirder is the number of people who think I talk with an American accent! The American accent thing has been actually been haunting me since a child, it started when we moved from South Wales to the Midlands when I was 10, people at my new school thought I was American, so I guess they were confusing the slight welsh accent with an american accent for some reason. This problem hasn’t left me, though, even going far as a boss of mine a few years ago, when I was booking time off to go on holiday to the States, she thought I was going back there to visit family, I replied confused why she’d think that, that I didn’t have any family in the States and she goes “Oh I thought you were American” and this was my boss!

I think your voice is such an important part of your personality, reflecting your history, your background, your confidence or lack of it. I love how I can hear the faint traces of a London accent forming in Girl Lacer’s voice, showing the beginning of her roots.

U is for Umbrella

Remembering an old beer commercial (at least I think it was for beer) when I was a child, where the man in the ‘men at work’ sign, you know the one of a man digging into a pile of dirt, climbs out of the sign because it’s the end of the working day and it’s raining and goes for a pint in a nearby pub.

What I loved about the advert and what makes me smile everytime I see a men at work sign now, is how the man takes the handle of his spade and lifts it above his head, pile of dirt and all and it turns into an umbrella. So everytime I see that sign now to me it looks like a man opening an umbrella, not a man at work.

N is for New York and 9/11

I was in New York on 9/11 as a tourist. We’d be staying in a pretty grotty hostel on the Harlem side of Central Park, the bunk beds squeaked loudly and dangerously with every move so that combined with jet lag meant me and Mr. Lacer were up with the birds each morning. That day we had planned to visit the Natural History museum which is on the edge of Central Park but it was hours before it was due to open, so we spent that morning like we normally did, wandering through Central Park. At one point we sat down on a bench for a rest, sitting near us was someone who looked like a business man. What looked like a bum came wandering up to the business man, completely ignoring us, the obvious tourists, the bum said to the business man “A plane has just crashed into one of the World Trade Centre towers”, the business man looked at the bum like he was crazy, like he went round every morning telling random people that planes had crashed into the World Trade Centre and that’s what I put it down to as well when I overheard the bum’s remark. We wandered a bit further, nearer to the roads that ran through the park, as we sat down on another bench, suddenly it seemed like every fire engine in New York city was running, sirens blaring through the park, firemen clung to the outside like they couldn’t fit enough men onto the engines and I remember one in particular was flying a large United States flag behind it, fluttering in the breeze. I saw the stream of fire engines and I began to wonder whether there was something in the bum’s comment. We progressed to the museum, deciding to wait outside for the last few minutes before it opened, it never did that day, a security guard came out and explained what had happened. Mr. Lacer thought it best we find an internet cafe somewhere to contact his parents who’d worry (I correctly guessed that my dad would think I was still in bed), the metro wasn’t running and neither did it turn out were the internet cafes, the phones were unrealiable to. I remember clearly to this day standing in Time Square, every inch of the Square jammed with people standing transfixed looking upwards at the giant TV screens playing news footage of the planes hitting the towers, it was a start of a new era. For a long time afterwards, even when back home, if I saw a fire engine running through the streets, siren blaring, I’d say a silent prayer for the guys on that engine and think back to the firemen I saw that day in Central Park as they rushed past, I hope they made it.

K is for Kids Books

Ok, this post is going to be a bit of a mish mash, as by listing my favourite kids books, it’s going to be a mixture of books that were favourites of mine when I was a kid, books that my kids like now and that I enjoy reading to them plus books I’ve been studying in my attempts to improve myself as a children’s writer.

So if I start with books I liked as a kid, I liked most books, as I was a complete bookworm, there were a few I hated, who’s titles escape me unsurprisingly, although I remember one was the spin off novel of a Santa Claus movie and another one seemed to feature a lot of rainbows and elves, I don’t think I even finished that one, both books had this weird effect on me, reading them made me my head feel muzzy, like I was sitting reading in a hot stuffy car, even though I wasn’t.

But back to books I did like, there was a series set in the past (wow that narrows it down doesn’t it!) which I really liked, although the name of the series sadly escapes me to, otherwise I’d read it again. I also really liked Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dan (really pleased to see they’re still printing this one). It’s an environmental story where the animals have to leave their destroyed home and escape to a nature reserve.

Another favourite of mine, when I was a bit older was The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper, a series of books weaving Arthurian legend with (what was then) present day Britain. I loved this series and I remember really wishing I was an Old One (you’ll have to read the book!).

Another favourite, this time when I was a young teenager, was a book that haunted me for a long time, Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence. I clearly remember buying it, I was with my mum and sister in WHSmiths and our mum said she would buy us a book each, so I browsed the book section and came across Children of the Dust, from the blurb at the back of the book, it was clear the story was about a nuclear war and I remember thinking that my mum might not think it was suitable for me as the subject matter might be considered a bit too dark, so I kind of sneaked it into the shopping basket, carefully placing it, so that my mum couldn’t see what it was about. I don’t know actually whether she would have been bothered about the subject material or not actually, I know I now as a parent I wouldn’t mind my children as young teenagers reading it, in fact I would actively encourage it, children need to and want to read about difficult issues. The book haunted me for some time and helped clarify for me, my opinion on nuclear weapons. A brief precise from memory, it follows the survivors of a nuclear war from the moment the fire alarms ring at the first main character’s school, as nuclear bombs had just been dropped in Europe. The main character gets home in time and her and her family have to attempt to survive the nuclear fallout in their taped up kitchen. The family is split up because the father could not make it home in time and it follows the survivors of the family over a number of generations. A definite must read.

Now for books my children love (they’re both pre-schoolers) and that I love reading to them (a factor that I think is important in books for pre-schoolers, they have to be interesting for the person doing the actual reading to).

The number one favourite is the Charlie and Lola series, if you want to check the whole marketing merchandising marvel that is now Charlie and Lola, best check out the website, but even with the hype, they’re still really fun, readable books, I particularly like the ones written before the TV series came out. I’m sure I have a little Lola of my own.

My other favourite is the Hairy Maclary series by Lynley Dodd, some if it is a bit hit and miss but Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack is my favourite, it reads aloud incredibly well (another important factor with small kids books).

The final pre-school favourite is Where’s the Cat? by Stella Blackstone, which is sadly out of print now, lucky then that we brought a copy when we did after we borrowed it from the library and Boy Lacer fell in love with it.

And now onto children’s books I’ve been reading and enjoyed (there’s been a few that I haven’t) recently, as part of my ‘training’ as a children’s writer.

The Young Bond Series by Charlie Higson; I was in two minds whether to include these books as I think there are some major flaws in them, so much so I spent much of the book wondering whether if it wasn’t for the fact that the author was already famous, would they have got published. My criticisms of them being that Higson in many parts goes into way too much detail, specially considering the target audience these books are aimed at (teenage boys). Higson has obviously done a hell of a lot of research (something I struggle with as a writer myself, so hats off to him) but it felt like he’d done the research and he had to put everything in, so the readers are treated to way too much detail about life at Eton (and I felt much of the Eton stuff, plot wise, could have been lopped off anyway) and the inner workings of car engines, Sardinian architectural history and how crosswords are created (although I’ll give him his due on the crosswords bit, that was slightly more necessary for the plot). However, once you wade past the excess detail, the plotting is really exciting and there are some fantastic sequences in there, the sort of stuff I would love to be able to write. Oh and despite all the bad things I’ve just written the series, whilst just popping onto Amazon to get a cover photo for one of the books, I’ve just noticed that there is a new Young Bond out on 6 September, this year (see below for cover photo), titled Hurricane Gold and I’m really excited, will definitely be reading that one, even if it’ll probably go into great depth about the ecology of the Mexican jungle (the new book’s location) or something similar.

Finally, another favourite has been The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, set in Germany in the Second World War, it’s another book that tackles issues that should be written about and read about. It tackles how ordinary Germans took part in or in many cases did not take part in, the Nazi regime. It’s an incredibly sad book, not many books make me blub but this one did.

PS By the way, of course I love Harry Potter to, but I’ve written about that already.