heleninwales | Recent Entries

The Get Your Words Out challenge on DW is still proving to be motivating. It's not provided as much writerly chat as I thought it would, but perhaps that's for the best? There is the danger that you end up writing about writing rather than, you know, actually writing more words for the story.

Anyway, the first week of February has been productive. I had been worrying that I was getting the details of scenes out of order, but having written some of them, I have managed to at last get them in the right order and some do follow on from one another. I just have to keep plodding along.

Yesterday a miracle happened. It didn't rain for several hours. Indeed, it remained dry long enough for us to enjoy a walk in the forest. Because we hadn't done it for some time, we just did the walk up one side of the valley to the waterfall and then back down the other side. Though the weather was dry, it was still gloomy so I didn't take many photos.

As you approach the head of the valley, there is a sign board showing an artist's illustration (based on old photos) showing what the processing mill at the gold mine looked like when it was at the peak of production.

After all the rain we've been having, there was plenty of water going down the waterfall.

( More here... )

It has actually been dry for most of today too. It's been raining for so long that the absence of the pattering sound as water falls onto the conservatory roof, feels strange.

I've just started reading Lockwood & Co. Book 2: The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud, but I'll talk about Book 1 of that series The Screaming Staircase and, because they sound superficially similar, The Library of the Dead by T. L. Huchu. (Both novels are probably classed as YA.)

When I say superficially similar, both novels are about teenage girls who can see ghosts and make their living from this supernatural ability. Both are in first person from the girl's viewpoint. Both are set in British cities. The Lockwood & Co. book is set in London while The Library of the Dead is set in Edinburgh. However, the books have a very different feel.

The The Whispering Skull is set more or less in the present, but it's a world that had diverged considerably from our own. Back in the mid-20th century, ghosts started becoming a problem. In fact it's referred to as the Problem with a capital letter. Society is therefore very different. Children can see, hear or sense ghosts, but that ability is lost as they grow into adults. Therefore many young children work in the ghost detecting and removal business. The youngest form the night-watch who simply warn the adults if ghosts manifest. Teens can become agents who work for the Psychic Investigations Agencies which are called in to deal with ghosts when they become dangerous. The whole of society lives in dread of ghosts and there is a curfew with everyone hiding safely in their homes at night. Anthony Lockwood, George and Lucy Carlyle are the entire staff of Lockwood & Co. while the Fittes agency, their main rivals, employs many agents. Because of the Problem, many of the things we take for granted like mobile phones and the internet don't exist.

Meanwhile The Library of the Dead is set in a future where there has been some sort of catastrophe (unspecified) but Britain now seems to be ruled by a king. That was one aspect I found it difficult to accept. The probability that the royal family (given the current state of it) could somehow regain total power is probably zero. Ropa lives with her gran and younger sister Izwi in a caravan, under which lives River her semi-tame fox. The writing is very much in Ropa's voice, which is both vividly and written and also where I had some problems. Ropa, although of African heritage, was born and brought up in Edinburgh yet doesn't, to me, sound Scottish enough. Kids will pick up the local accent, even if their caregivers speak English with different accents. Having said that, T. L. Huchu has written a pretty convincing 14 year-old girl, which considering his native language is Shona not English, is quite an achievement.

Regarding dealing with ghosts, Lockwood & Co. have what might be called a scientific approach. Other than their ability to sense ghosts, there is no magic used in dealing with them. Iron, steel, silver, salt and Greek fire are all useful weapons in dealing with the spectres that have been classified as to how dangerous they are. Ghost touch can kill, though if you can receive an injection of adrenaline quickly enough, you're likely to survive. The ghosts Ropa deals with are more random in appearance and level of danger. In fact many are benign. She uses the music of her mbira to calm them in some cases, in others she can use the instrument to banish them. She makes money mostly by taking messages from the recently dead to their bereaved loved ones who pay her for bringing news and information. Her grandmother tries to teach Ropa her traditional magic, but she doesn't take to it. Then a friend from school takes her to the library where people are taught magic. Despite the title, the library doesn't feature much. Racism and prejudice against the poor mean that the librarian simply gives Ropa a book to read and then sends her away. The main story is about trying to find out what happened to the son of one of the recently deceased ghosts.

I did enjoy both stories. Lockwood & Co. is rather in the adventure yarn tradition of being given a problem and dealing with it by logic, research and using suitable weapons and defences. Lockwood, Lucy and George get into some deadly situations, but extricate themselves using courage, determination and the weapons they carry. Ropa's story, on the other hand, shows a much more emotional way of dealing with the supernatural. If I have a criticism of The Library of the Dead it's that when it comes to the pinch, the bad guys are dealt with a little too easily, considering that Ropa is completely untrained in the use of magic, I'm already on Book 2 of the Lockwood series, but I'll certainly consider reading the sequel to this book too.

I had completely forgotten about the Merched y Wawr meeting this afternoon. For some reason I hadn't put it in the diary, so the reminder email (which actually arrived yesterday but I hadn't opened and read it) caught my by surprise. I wasn't feeling too bright, not ill, but rather tired. We'd had a visitor to the Quaker meeting yesterday. She's writing a book about Cader Idris (our local mountain) and wanted to know more about the Quakers. Fortuitously I was showing the video I've just completed about the Quaker Trail, but what with the extra hassle of taking and setting up the laptop and speaker, getting the budget approved by the other members and chatting to a complete stranger, I felt completely peopled out this morning. I'd also put a large number of tasks on my To-Do list that I really wanted to get on with. I therefore emailed back with apologies.

So, today I have done a load of washing and hung it to dry, I've also written notes for the Epilogue for the WIP. I try not to write out of order these days, but my writer brain hasn't got the message and gives me random scenes which don't necessarily follow on from what I wrote last. But I'm leaving it at notes. I won't write it properly until I get to the end.

I also nipped out to take the weekly alphabet photo. I wanted to get a shot of the church clock as it was striking eleven and this was the only chance all week. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain and the other mornings I'll be elsewhere at 11 a.m.

5/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: E is for Eleven

As a backup, in case the shots of the clock weren't good enough, I also photographed some fruit.

My husband likes little clementine type citrus fruits. The Co-op call them all "easy peelers" but if you look at the label on the box, there are a number of different varieties. These are Nadorcotts, which are "a high quality, mid to late-maturing Clementine-type of mandarin". They were grown in Morocco.

So far the Get Your Words Out writing challenge on Dreamwidth is helping with the motivation to sit down and write. Choosing the habit challenge was the right decision. I have either written words or done something useful to progress the WIP on most days, even though I didn't reach my goal of 9,000 words. That's because I'm groping my way through a part of the novel that hadn't been pre-imagined in detail and so I'm planning as I go which I hate. But I plod on.

However, for the habit tracker I can count things like setting up a database of characters to replace the character list in yWriter which wasn't proving searchable enough for my needs. I've got all the characters transferred over now, which revealed that I had a character called "Edred" and another called "Edryd". Both are very minor, but Edryd is now Alwyn, just to avoid any possible confusion.

Because that's one of the interesting differences between a novel and real life. In novels you virtually never meet two characters with the same name, whereas in real life, you might know several people called Sue. (I know at least four.) Having said that, I do have a King Gavran and Prince Gavran his son, but that's royal families for you. :-)

Writing progress
January writing goal: 9,000 words

A Deadly Gift

Total words this month: 7,539 / 9,000 (81%)
Words in novel (to nearest 100 words): 81,500

Get Your Words Out

29/31 in January

29/300 overall

Yet again we abandoned the idea of driving somewhere to walk or even walking on higher ground locally because it was much windier than yesterday's forecast said it would be. So it was just the walk to Penmaenpool and back once again. The weather was dry but chilly and it's 4 miles so good exercise.

It was so cold, even the fence posts were wearing hats. :-)

I wonder if the owner will come back to look for it?

The furthest point on the walk. This is where we turned back and retraced our steps.

It's sunny over there on the other side of the valley. Meanwhile we did our walk in the shadow of the mountain.

Note to self: If you decide that you don't need to take the rucksack and instead carry the camera in a smaller bag, when you slip the phone into a coat pocket, make sure that that is the coat you actually take off the peg and put on. It didn't matter because G had his dumb phone with him. Or, as he said, if either of us needed help, we could just wait for the next dog walker to come along -- it's a very popular trail, even in mid-winter -- but I did panic for a moment when I thought I'd take a quick phone snap and discovered that the phone wasn't there. I couldn't think how I'd lost it. If it had fallen out of my pocket, was sure I'd have heard it fall, and then I realised what I'd done.

Today's writing task will be the same as yesterdays, i.e. to add more characters to the database I've set up. I'm on Book 3 of a trilogy and there's a fourth book as well which is linked and there's some character overlap, so I need some way to keep everything straight.

yWriter (the writing software I'm using) has a place where you can list characters, but I'm not finding it easy to search if I can't remember a character's name, and that's the thing I'm most likely to have forgotten. I'll be thinking, "What was the name of the new scullery maid Elen has taken on?" rather than, "Who is Mari?" I have therefore set up my own database and I'm copying and pasting in the information I exported from yWriter.

It's a tedious but necessary job and, as I opted for the activity pledge rather than word count, it means I'm keeping on track with the Get Your Words Out goal, currently 26/300.

The problem with doing long-term projects is that I often feel like I'm on a treadmill, working at lots of things but not getting anywhere. There's occasionally a fleeting moment of triumph as something is finally completed -- like I posted about the video yesterday -- then it's back on the treadmill again.

Anyway, today I wrestled with the budget for our local Quaker group. Considering how small the amounts of money are, it shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but all the money is now held centrally so it took some time to ferret out the figures I needed.

Otherwise I'm still managing to do something to progress the WIP each day. Today I read over a scene from the end of Book 1 of the trilogy to refresh my memory about who knew who and when they'd met. I'd forgotten some things, but now I'll be able to write the next scenes with that information in mind.

Another dreary week regarding weather, so we didn't go for a walk until Saturday, and then only to Penmaenpool and back. It had been very windy overnight and was still rather windy on Saturday morning, so we didn't fancy the forest.

Cader Idris ought to be visible in this photo, but it's hidden by the low cloud. All that can be seen in the v-shaped gap in the hills is a grey mist.

However, the weather was much better yesterday (Sunday). It was a day when we hold a small Quaker meeting at M's house. I needed to do a top-up food shop so drove to Eurospar, did my shopping and then left the car in their car park. (They don't have a time limit, unlike the Co-op.) I then plodded up the very steep hill to her house. After meeting, the three of us who are the active members held an impromptu follow-up meeting standing in the lovely bright sunshine, admiring the stunning view you get from M's house. Sheltered from the wind, we could even feel warmth in the sunlight. There were also snowdrops in M's hedge.

And now, of course, it's cold and dark and tipping down with rain. Such a change from yesterday.

3/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: C is for Camera

This is my first serious camera which I got when I was about 12 years old. I suppose now you'd say it was vintage and I haven't used it for decades. It's not an SLR, neither is it just a point-and-shoot camera. It has a good lens. I had a separate light meter and it really taught me about aperture, shutter speeds and depth of field. No autofocus on this camera! I seem to remember that it was a combined birthday and Christmas present because it was more than my parents would normally spend on a single present.

The unusual name is because these cameras were made in East Germany, so it's pronounced "Verra".

The reason for such an easy subject being taken on the very last day of the week was that I'd seriously considered driving to Aberystwyth to photograph the camera obscura. But the weather was too bad and very windy to be climbing up a steep and winding path to where the camera obscura is situated.

We managed two walks last week, both just 4 miles. I had a lot to do in the week, so on Thursday we just walked to Penmaenpool and back. The weather was dull, so I didn't take any photos worth sharing. Saturday, however, turned out quite nice. Again I didn't feel like doing too long a walk so I drove us to Penmaenpool, left the car there and walked along the Mawddach Trail to Abergwynant, headed inland and walked back the short way through the woods.

Looking across to the sunny side of the valley.

( More here... )

Heading back to Penmaenpool. I always used to call this the Long Boring Bit when walking alone, but if walking and talking with a companion in sunny weather, it doesn't seem so long.

In further news of spring, there was a song thrush singing loudly somewhere in the trees beyond our back garden this afternoon. That's the first time this year that I've heard it. I know the song of the thrush, blackbird and robin, and also wood pigeon, seagull and buzzard, but I want to learn more bird calls and have just downloaded the Merlin app which many friends have recommended.

It's starting to be a little lighter in the mornings when I wake up. Not actually light, but no longer pitch dark. Someone mentioned this last week in the weekly Welsh chat and our tame native speaker said that day length increases each day now "fesul cam ceiliog" (by a cockerel's stride). We all thought this was a lovely idiom. I don't know whether all Welsh classes are the same, but we always like to collect idioms.

And speaking of idioms, I'm reading Still Waters by E. C. R. Lorac and one character used the idiom, "A Parthian shot". I vaguely recall seeing it before but these days it's normally, "a parting shot". Having looked it up. the original saying came from the habit of the Parthian light cavalry of, when they were retreating (or feigning retreat), they would suddenly turn in the saddle and shoot an arrow straight back at the soldiers chasing them. It seems that some people still have the riding and archery skills to be able to do it, though this chap has a modern saddle with stirrups. The original Parthians didn't have that help.

2/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: B is for Barbed

My first thought for the theme was barbed wire, but I didn't see any I could make a decent photo of. Fortunately today on our walk I spotted some gorse bushes which are naturally barbed.

I'll post more photos of the walk tomorrow when I have more time.

I said I'd post about books I've been reading, so here we go. Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines.

I really wanted to like this, but having got half way through, I've put it aside. Though the way the magic works is really cool, I had a couple of problems with it.

A libriomancer can use magic to pull items out of books into the real world. The main character, Isaac Vaino used to be a field agent, but now, after burning out on active service, is a librarian with a pet fire spider which originally came from a book. The book starts in media res to the extent that I actually checked that it really was book 1 in the series. There was a lot of back story piled into the first chapters that I don't think we actually needed to know until it became relevant. But my main turnoff was a) the vampires and b) Isaac doesn't seem to be able to meet anyone without ending up in a fight. Unfortunately I just don't like vampire stories. That's a me thing and anyone who was more vampire tolerant might well enjoy this book. However, every interaction ending up as a fight to the death felt like overuse of the "there must be conflict" advice. To say the book was fast paced was an understatement. The plot felt rather frenzied.

Having said all that, I may return to the book and finish it at another time. One reason for putting it aside was that it wasn't suiting my present mood, which at this time of year tends to be a bit dismal. The constant frenzied action felt jarring. Instead I've started reading Still Waters by E. C. R Lorac, a writer I very much enjoy. She writes mysteries and is more or less a contemporary of Agatha Christie, but IMHO write much more interesting stories. More about this book when I've finished reading it.

What with the snow and then Storm Goretti we hadn't been for a walk together all week. But yesterday we did one of our favourite forest walks in the Coed y Brenin, the one that starts in the village car park. The weather was cold, but otherwise good for walking. There were clumps of snow beside some of the tracks where the sun hadn't been able to reach to melt it, but the tracks themselves were free of ice.

The only photos of G I can ever take are a back view in the middle distance.

Sometimes the sun even came out! The forest was surprisingly busy considering the time of year. Perhaps people had had the same idea as us, namely to grab the chance before the next batch of bad weather rolled in? There are a couple of cyclists and a walker or two in the distance.

( More here... )

It was a good walk and I needed the exercise after being pretty sedentary over the Christmas period. I don't know when we'll get out again. Today is drier than forecast, but very windy. I don't like going out in high winds. There's too much danger from flying chunks of tree, falling branches and slates blown off roofs if I'm walking in town. I will have to venture out at some point because I need to post our daughter's birthday card. She's currently in Tenerife celebrating her birthday a little early. It's a special one this year as she's 50. How on earth can I be old enough to have a 50-year-old daughter?!

I tried another cake recipe from the vegan website I found. It was nice and easy and now it's baked it smells delicious and seems to have come out OK. However, why do the people who write recipes grossly underestimate the time it takes to weigh and measure the ingredients and get everything ready for baking. Ten minutes prep time, one hour baking, the recipe said. Out of interest, I set a stopwatch running on my phone and it took me just over 35 minutes.

Now possibly if I made the recipe a few more times, I wouldn't be reading, rereading and checking every step, but I still don't think I'd get it down to less than 20-25 minutes.

What point do recipe writers start counting from? If I'd counted from having all the ingredients weighed and measured, then mixing indeed took about 10 minutes. But pulling the ingredients out of the cupboard, measuring everything out ready to mix took quite a bit of time.

Anyway, the cake looks good. We'll be eating some for dessert this evening.

While I was uploading the photos and posting this, I was surprised to hear shouting in the distance. It's pouring with rain and cold, but the floodlights are on and the football practice is happening on the playing fields in the distance.

This is why the UK falls apart when it snows. Our snow lasted for three days and by this morning it had all gone. It hasn't snowed properly for some years, so keeping all the equipment to deal with snow or doing things like changing to winter tyres makes no sense here. It's actually more cost effective to struggle for a new days and wait for the thaw.

There is more snow forecast for some parts of the UK, but with luck we'll just get rain, courtesy of Storm Goretti which is due to sweep up the middle of Britain, no doubt causing more chaos.

Anyway, it's nice to start getting back into a normal routine. There were six of us in the cafe for the Welsh chat this morning and we swapped news about what we'd done over Christmas (not very much!). One group member we hadn't seen for quite a while has now returned from her trip to Australia and New Zealand, so it was nice to see her again.

1/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: A is for Aerial

This aerial transmitter is on a hill I can see from my study window. It re-broadcasts TV signals from larger transmitters further away and beams them down into the valley. I think the mast next to it is a mobile phone mast.

I don't do New Year resolutions but for the past few years I've tried to choose a word and a short phrase to help me focus on what needs to be done to make the year a successful one. For 2025 my word was "Fixing" and the theme was "Replacing, updating". Having decided not to have the kitchen completely redone, we continued last year to make small improvements such as a new dining table, Kallax storage unit and a replacement light.

For 2026 my word will be "Improving" and the theme is "changing, completing". I want to make more improvements to the house and especially the garden. I also hope to finish the first draft of Book 3 of the fantasy trilogy, so I'll be revising and hopefully improving the first and third novels with a view to self-publishing them later in the year. I also feel that I've plateaued with my Welsh, so that needs improving too. ( Boring waffling... )

So that's my vague plan for the year. I can get started on some things right away, but I'll leave travel until the days are longer and the weather is warmer.

Here are all the photos I took for the Weekly Alphabet Challenge group during 2025. I've signed up again for the 2026 group so there will be more alphabet based challenge photos in due course.