Confessions of an Author

I told you in my last last blog all about how the ancient Egyptians thought that if something was carved in stone, it was true forever, and how therefore if they didn’t like part of history, they simply never recorded it – because then it never happened. They also applied this to statues, so if the didn’t like someone they chipped the face off (hence ‘defaced’). There was lots of stuff in the museum which at first glance (to me) looked completely boring, but when I listened to the explanation of what I was looking at, was very interesting. We saw things like the wall tiles from the city of Nineveh (of Jonah in the whale fame). We leant about Jericho (the city the Israelites marched around until the walls fell down) and how archeologists have identified a ‘dead zone’ in the remains, showing when the walls fell. It was harvest time (shown by the amount of seed remains – which also indicate that the siege was very short. And not all the walls fell – which tallies with the story of R...

Deleting the Family Tree… 1 We began our tour in a large room full of Egyptian stuff. I didn’t know much about the Egyptians, and wasn’t sure how much I  wanted  to know about the Egyptians – but actually it turned out to be very interesting. We were on a Bible Tour at the British Museum, and although I wasn’t completely sure what that meant, I figured I might learn something useful. We met our guide next to the stairs, picked up a folding chair (which I was later very grateful for, as the tour involved a lot of standing for those people who didn’t have chairs) and off we set – to the Egyptian room. The ‘Family Tree’ of Ramesses – with all embarrassing relations deleted! Before we could begin our tour, we needed to learn a fundamental truth about Egyptian psychology, which was that  “If it isn’t carved in stone, it didn’t happen”  and therefore anything unpleasant or embarrassing about their history, they simply deleted. So, when we looked at the...

I hope you will love my new book: The Sarcastic Mother's Holiday Diary. I have always written a diary on holiday, so last Christmas, I decided to find all my old diaries and blogs, and make a book for my children. However, several other people also asked for a copy, so I have written a public version – it's available on Amazon and has been described as  "The Durrells meet Bill Bryson" ! The paperback version is currently available for £9.99, but as I will need to buy copies for book fairs, I will need to cover my postage costs, so this price is for a very limited time (I think it will be around £12 in the future, but I wanted to let you, my blog readers, know that they can buy it for the cheaper price, until March). It is also available as a Kindle book. Why not buy a copy today? I think it will make you laugh. The US link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Sarcastic-Mothers-Holiday-Diary-ebook/dp/B07N95281F/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549015525&sr=8-1&...

All Quiet On The Chicken Front… 1 I thought I would give you a quick update on my news. First, the family of cockerels. As you may remember, I was fortunate (!) enough for five of the six hatchlings to be male. Now, contrary to popular belief, it  IS  possible to have a flock with more than one cockerel and not have open warfare. I know this because I had two cockerels who lived very peacefully alongside each other for a couple of years (until a fox ate them). However, five young cockerels, plus their father, seems like a lot. As the hatchlings grew, and were allowed to roam freely around the garden, the flock separated. The parents and the female wander around the garden together, and the young cockerels form a separate flock. A few weeks ago, they started ‘facing off’ to each other. None of them has spurs yet (the deadly sharp talons on the back of their legs) so I figured they were unlikely to kill each other, and were probably simply sorting out the pecking ...

The Red Light District of Mumbai 3 So, deciding to be brave, I went to the red-light district of a Mumbai slum. Husband was working, so I contacted Tearfund, and they arranged for me to visit one of their projects. Beforehand, I was very nervous about going on my own, but I am so glad I did it. I was met by Max, who is the director of Sahaara. We’ve never met, so it was a little like a spy story -“I will be under the arch with a pink carnation in my buttonhole” (Well, actually, he just told reception who he was and we met in the hotel lobby, but you get the idea.) We then got a taxi to Turbhe, the area of the slum he works in. We chatted in the car, and I could check on a few things I’ve included in my latest novel (which is set partly in the slums of Delhi). As we walked through the slums, it was all very similar to places I saw in Delhi: homes made from scavenged materials, uneven walls, unglazed windows, corrugated iron roofs. The hard mud paths were litter strewn ...

Walking Through Manhattan 1 We decided to walk up through the districts of Manhattan. We weren’t sure we could manage to walk down, and then walk back up to our hotel, so we decided to brave the subway. Bearing in mind that we walked 21km by mistake in Central Park, I was slightly worried that we might spend all day going the wrong way on the subway, so I asked the concierge, who assured me it was easy—and promised to send a search party if she never saw us again. Actually, it  was  very easy. There were ticket machines, and you can pay for a single journey (seems to be to anywhere within a certain time). You can also pay for multiple journeys, and pass the ticket back to another person at the barrier (we were told to do this by the woman in the ticket office, so it’s allowed). All we needed to know was which line, and where to get off, and the concierge had told us that. We decided to get off at the WTC stop. It feels very odd to me that the World Trade Centre i...

Bible Blog – Jonah 1 Reading through the Bible is taking way longer than expected! This is partly because there is more there than I realised, and partly because I often don’t understand what I’m reading, and have to spend time doing a little research. There are stories which I knew well, others which I’m sure I’ve never read, and some which leave me with this huge “What???” feeling. The book of Jonah, however, is one which I felt I knew well. When I was a child, aged about 12, a man called Mr Goss did a series of five sermons on Jonah at our church. They are the first sermons I ever really listened to, and I still remember some of the things he said. (On a different note, I heard recently that Mr Goss’s life went wrong after this, he made some bad decisions, ended up in prison, and died young. I hope the people who knew him remember that he was also a gifted preacher, and some of what he did with his life was good and worthwhile. This is an especially poignant thought ...