Are we becoming shut-ins?

So far today I’ve swapped banter with several writers around the globe, and my husband Andy has done an electronics lecture at MIT (Massachusetts), and now he’s giving a tutorial to someone about website management in Boston, and all without leaving the house in Gloucester!

I am very much in love with technology (well most of the time) and love being able to travel online and in my mind, but I am wondering if perhaps we need to get out more?

Poverty is partly the reason for our lack of movement.  Filling the car with fuel or travelling anywhere costs lots of dosh which we haven’t got in oodles at the moment.  There are lots of things I’d love to go and see – theatre, film exhibitions, but when it’s a choice between paying bills or having fun, well unfortunately we don’t actually seem to have a choice – the bills just have to be paid L

I’m sure it’s affecting our writing as neither of us has had any new input for ages – we don’t even watch telly (no license). 

However, this isn’t going to be a complete whinge!  We do both have exciting things in the pipeline, and we are managing to keep ourselves entertained by making wacky videos for YouTube.

We were going out and about doing investigations in various spooky sites, but even that was beyond us this month, so instead we created a short video about the dangers of smoking.  I know lots of you have taken a peek at Loo Roll’s adventure but we haven’t had much feedback yet.  Go on, have a peek and tell us what you think – really - do we need to get out more?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCVPbYr086Y&feature=youtu.be

APRIL ADVENTURES

Trying to find monthly adventures to go on with my husband, Andy despite having absolutely no money has been quite a challenge.  But it’s also been quite a lot of fun!

We searched through all our reference books for ideas, and yesterday came up with a double adventure.  There is a small churchyard a few miles from our house, which contains one famous resident and on 24^th April the possibility of seeing spectral visitations.

Driving into the tiny village of Haresfield we saw the church steeple in the distance, but couldn’t find our way to the church.  The village was deserted, but then as if by magic a man appeared.  Stopping the car we asked for directions to the church, and the reply came, ‘I’m on my way there now, I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.’

We followed his directions through a closed gate, and along a road marked ‘Strictly Private – No Entry’ and finally came to the church.  Passing the sign warning us of unexpected rabbit holes we quickly got on with videoing ‘Jarek Adams Investigates’ before the man appeared.  He then produced an enormous iron key and let us into the tiny church.  Our eyes were immediately drawn to an ancient oak chest with two further giant iron keys sticking out of the lid.  He explained that in medieval times the vicar held one and the verger held the other, and that the church valuables were stored inside.  Our imaginations immediately worked out how to use this glorious object in our books.  Brighton Bites, which I’m working on at the moment will feature it in a hopefully unexpected way.

The very nice chap also pointed out the empty fields surrounding the really eerie graveyard, and explained that these had been full of houses until medieval times when the plague drove everyone away, leaving the church as it is today in a tranquil island of its own, with only the crows, and our mysterious guide visiting daily.

Although we’d love to have the money to skip off to the Caribbean, our monthly adventures are turning out to be just that.

You can see the video by following this link.

http://youtu.be/7cOyBFVfHg8

     

Spooky coincidence or portent?

What would it be like if we could see the future?  What if there is some pre-set pattern that we’re all following to our eventual demise?  Although I’m not sure I believe that, my recent birthday made me ponder a few strange patterns in my life.

Like the day I woke up with an ominous feeling that I shouldn’t leave the house that day.

Yes, I often wake up feeling like that, but this was different in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  I was supposed to drive to Cardiff to see a friend, and it would have been easy to cancel the trip, but it seemed stupid to say to my best friend, ‘sorry I can’t see you today, because I’ve got a funny feeling.’  Superstitious nonsense that I chose to ignore.

As it turns out I had a completely uneventful journey, a lovely visit with my friend, and made it all the way home to Gloucester before an uninsured driver ploughed into the back of my car causing over a thousand pounds worth of damage!  Coincidence, or was there something to that feeling of foreboding I woke up with?

Something else made me think about portents a few weeks ago.  My husband is a Londoner, and I grew up in Wales, but we decided to make our home in neither place, choosing to live somewhere in the middle.  We searched several towns for a home, and eventually found our house on Stroud Road in Gloucester.  Along that road, a little way from our house is a small Rose Garden, and I recently discovered that the lovely space we’ve enjoyed since we moved here was created when a house was destroyed after an aeroplane crashed into it.  Although the pilot was killed, 85year old Florence Drury, and her companion 69year old Ethel Hutchins who lived there both stayed downstairs that day and were unhurt.  Did something tell them not to venture upstairs?  But there’s more to this mystery.  We thought our move here was a random decision, but it turns out that the crash happened on the very day I was born.  Spooky coincidence or a strange portent?

Sometimes I just can't help my Welsh Roots poking through

In the Green Valley by Jarek Adams

(To be read out loud in a South Wales Valleys accent)

I add a baaaby

i woz a gorjus ikle thin

I cwched up to er airvry nite

wile she did ave a suck at me

I called er Blodeuedd

the farmer called er mint sorce

silly bugger

talks to me like ee’s my butty sumtimz

E cum rownd with is missis

a rite chopsy bugger

a bit twpt if ewe arsk me

norutorl nice

She pointed to my baaaby un sed

‘be luvverly with moron und pys’

I coon’t buleev my years

I wuz fewmin

I told er, ‘go waaay’

she sed, ‘ark at er

ew d’yew think ewe are?’

‘Thas rite, a bloody ewe I sed!’

I did a crap rite in frunt of er

she gor i on er shoo

and bloody moaned

‘wor a lor of do do they do do’ she sed

Wen I lookt rownd ee’d taken my baaaby

I was fewrius I can tell ewe

iss not wot ew’d call a gud life

next eel be takin the bloody coat off my back

KEY:

Cwch - cuddle

Butty - friend

Chopsy - talkative

Twpt - daft

Moron - carrots

Pys - peas

Time Travel

It seems like more and more these days I’m waiting on someone somewhere to make a decision that will have a direct impact on my future.  I put all the energy I can into a project, but how it’s received is out of my hands.

And the waiting is excruciating!

If I knew what the decision was going to be I could at least get on with dealing with it.  Full steam ahead, or a quick change of direction.

If only I could leap forwards into the future.  Everything would be so easy then.  It would be clear what I need to do now.

But while I’m stuck here in limbo, I can at least distract myself with ponderings about  time travel. 

Watch the video 'Jarek Adams Investigates Time Travel' on YouTube

http://youtu.be/Y6-3BmchPAo

Darkiss Reads: Brighton Sucks by Jarek Adams

Darkiss Reads: Brighton Sucks by Jarek Adams

After Dark Adventures

OK, after several years of being too poor to go on holiday or to do anything much besides work, Andy and I have decided that we need a really big adventure.  It has to be fun, interesting, and creative. 

Oh, and it also has to cost nothing - Peasy! 

After much thought we decided to find unusual and quirky things to celebrate each month throughout the year, starting in January.  We regularly celebrate Burn’s Night (what with Andy’s Scottish ancestry) but it didn’t seem any where exciting enough to call it an adventure, so we delved into our books and quickly discarded several other ideas. 

19^th January: St.Wulstan’s Day.  As that would have only involved a trip up the motorway to Worcester to visit his tomb is wasn’t any where nearly enough fun.

20^th January: St Agnes’s Eve would have allowed us to dabble in divination, but the various ceremonies involving the summoning of wraiths of future lovers seemed like a dubious activity for a married couple to engage in.

Then we came across the story of Bevil Blizard, ‘The Last Necromancer of Winchcombe in Gloucestershire.’  He’s said to wander the graveyard on the anniversary of his death on January 24^th, and his story grabbed us for a number of reasons-

1.      We live in Gloucestershire so travel costs would be minimal!

2.      Who doesn’t love wandering around graveyards after dark looking for deceased necromancers?

3.      Zombies are terribly trendy at the moment and will appear in the second of my Brighton Trilogy books, which will be published this year at Halloween.

You can follow our graveyard adventure on YouTube – Jarek Adams Investigates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtSLcH3rZbU&feature=colike

You can read Brighton Sucks as an e-book or now Print on Demand – just follow the links on my website.

http://www.jarekadams.com/