November 2019 update

Well, there's a dull title.
First, GOES: still marching on. Slowly - what do you expect - we have a joint age 164 now! We haven't been travelling a great deal due to a problem finding affordable travel insurance, but we have a reliable team in the villages who keep an eye on what needs doing and making sure it gets done properly!
A school has been re-roofed, homemakers have been supplied with bags of cement to weather-proof their walls. School fees and teachers’ wages have been paid. GOES has covered medical expenses for several elderly people and children – and covered the wedding expenses of a couple of friends.
Funding has been sufficient; several friends have made regular contributions, Gift Aid has refunded income  directly to the GS bank account, and we have tithed our income to the charity.
The Malinding Village books bring in a small (tiny?) regular income. The two ‘dark novels’, Chasing Freedom Home, and Story’s End told the story of a dystopian society so for the present work in progress I’ve chosen a more gentle word, populated by good-natured ghosts. I’ll publish a few first-draft pages later.
   

Here it is - provisional title is Ghost, writing?

I'm on a boat. This friend, Karen, lent m e her boat.

'Call me Nameless' she said. 'It's a basic boat' she said. 'Simple, like me. The less there is means there's less to go wrong. It's a boat. A hull, a cabin roof, furniture from Ikea, and an engine. It's a proper boat engine, strong as a horse, never goes wrong – there's fourteen million of them in boats all over the world – perfect piece of design. Can't go wrong. Send me a postcard from Runcorn. Don't worry, the boat knows the way. Bon voyage.'

What's a postcard, I feel you asking. How should I know? There's something I do know. The perfect engine, as used in zillions of boats all over the world, won't start. Sorry, that's wrong too; it won't start again. It started yesterday. Perfectly. So quiet you couldn't hear it running. You can't hear it not running either. Silence all round. Just like that library my dad bangs on about all the time. You’d think silence would breed silence, wouldn't you?

Swans breed swans. Cygnets. Swans in the future tense. Somebody said my dad disliked swans. They attacked a canoe he was paddling across Hickling Broad, forty years ago. I was about minus fifteen at the time, waiting to be an egg or a cell or a seed. Perm any two of three and you might get me. What's a Hickling anyway?

Anyway, here I am. You might want to know where 'here' is. I'll tell you this for free, you're not half as curious as I am. Let's look around; what can I see? I can see water. The water is about thirty miles long and forty feet wide, and three feet deep. I'm glad we're using Imperial again, that metric stuff was fine for people who like counting on their fingers and toes; there's no variety in it. There are trees, assorted shapes and sizes. One tried to get into the boat yesterday; big ugly thing, branches everywhere, loaded with gazillions of imitation furry caterpillars. I hope they’re imitations. I'm not Thomas a Kempis, what do I know? I know Nameless omitted to tell me about invading trees. Or ignition keys; the sort of ignition keys that get stuck in the lock and won't start the engine because really it's the key to Nameless's house's front door. It's the master key, switches all the computers and the washing machine and the swimming pool filter and, oh, and everything that needs switching in her life. Just not the boat; perhaps because it's broken in half and I don't know where the other half is.

I do know that we’re drifting along the canal. I do know that we’re heading for a bridge hole and I can see that we’re going to miss the hole and hit the bridge. The bridge should be all right, it’s been there for two hundred years. I’m worried about the boat because I’m on it. It’s fragile and I’m even fragiler. Look, don’t worry, I survive. I live to think these thoughts, don’t I?

Thomas Cook ltd fails.

Thanks, Thomas Cook, for all the flights, more or less on time, for all the help GOES received with generous extra baggage and all the donations from staff at our local travel shop, and for the interest you showed in our work. We'll miss you.

Good Intentions :-)

Greetings :-)

Life has been busy for a few months - celebrating 60 years of marriage takes a while! We will continue to support the excellent clinic at Mandinari village on the south bank of the river, and contributing support for an equally excellent nursery school on the outskirts of Serekunda town. We haven't forgotten GOES but we have decided to modify our attempts to help everyone all the time!
Our celebrations actually raised some very kind donations, which we used to restock the medecine cuboard at the clinic and replace some roofing at the school - you know who you are, thank you.

Another time-occupier has been age-proofing the house and garden. Steps seem steeper these days, and walking can be a wobbly affair. We were refused a Blue Badge, which would have been helpful, but we now have a Rollator walking device and the local bus service is excellent.

We've fitted grab rails at the doors and over the bath, and extra hand rails on the stairs. Next job is the replace the front and back doors - and we'll make some modifications to the back yard. We had fitted some wild flowers and butterfly bushes, and insect hotels --- we can't walk there now and birds have eaten all the apples and butterflies have feasted on the figs. Goblin Market - J loathed that poem long before we became a wilderness.ch

The Malinding books, which I enjoyed writing (with the thought that they might help finance GOES) have proved to be unreadable failures (Proof? Nobody bought them), but the friends of GOES rallied round and helped support our tithes.

Life in our eighties is good - we have slowed down, we're listening to the 5th Test Match on R4 as I write this - and I've put my glass of alcohol-free Pinot in some safe place somewhere - it's a small house but I manage to lose lots of things, including most of my socks, the Stone-age flint scraper that inspired part of the Girl on Wheels story, and my fountain pen. Still, I've got time to find them now. Did I celebrate discovering my treasured but mis-placed 1958 copy of The Chatto Book of Modern Poetry? Must find the faux-wine and celebrate ...

Post-celebrations

Fourteen days since the public declaration of our diamond wedding. We’ve become hermits, anchorites, even. Well, anti-social plague bearers. Joyce arrived home after our celebrations and declared a state of cold. Coughs, splutters, and sneezes. Oddly, Val was also afflicted. Me? I don’t get colds, I just minister, saint-like, to the sufferers. Val went home. Women. Men don’t get colds; a belief I fostered for another week.

J seemed a little recovered by the following Sunday so we went for a drive and a coffee. By the time we were home I had a slight scratchy feeling at the back of my throat. By next morning I had a streaming, steaming, cold. We boarded up the doors and windows, took to our bed, ordered groceries and medication – well done Ocado and Brown’s Chemist. We lived on just coconuts and fish from the sea (via the freezer), and paracetamols. We planned adventures in weak, rattling voices. We escaped once to post a letter, then stumbled back to bed.

A good neighbour, believing we had gone abroad, cut the grass and put the bins out. The boy delivered the papers and the milk and orange juice. We sneezed on one another but never, not even once, did we sneeze on another human being.

We hope to venture out next week into a better, cleaner, germ and Brexit free world.

I believe ...

I originally posted this about four years ago. It still represents my beliefs.

 All religions/faiths/beliefs have their share of extremists/fanatics/thugs looking for an excuse to behave violently.
All religions/faiths/beliefs have their share of wonderful, loving, caring people who seek only to help their fellow human beings in any way they can.
Fortunately, the good people outnumber the evil ones ten million to one, or more.
Sadly, the good people rarely appear in the headlines.
I was born into a Christian family and attended a Christian school and college. I was amazed and dismayed when I encountered people who called themselves Christians but were intolerant of people who did not share their extremist views.
Rarely, if ever, is violence prescribed in Sacred Writings. Feed the poor, care for the sick and elderly, help the stranger - respect one another. We can only continue to set an example in our own lives: it can be very difficult. Sadly, it seems impossible to reason with the blinkered folk who believe that they are right, and are willing to murder men, women and children who disagree with them.
Our gentle friends in West Africa have fed us, shared their last cup of rice with us, trusted us with their children, cared for us when we have been sick, chatted to us about their beliefs and questioned us about ours. Never once have we felt threatened. They have earned our love and respect: I hope we have earned theirs.
Je suis Charlie?

Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, North Wales.

Gladstone's is the finest library in the world. Founded by a British Prime Minister, Mr W.E.Gladstone as a home for his collection of books. It has become a wonderful refuge for writers and readers from all over the World. Imagine a silent reading room, a lively dining room providing three good meals a day, constant coffee and cakes, a sitting room with a log fire and an honesty bar, peaceful gardens and thirty comfortable bedrooms - that's Gladstone's Library.
It's fact, but it features in several works of fiction; I'll confess now, I considered burning it down in 'Chasing Freedom Home'. Not me, of course; Ed-Lamin who was imprisoned in the dungeon there after his capture by the PPP (People's Purity Party - the worst ever government ever to have gained power in the UK). Young Ed's mum and dad had spent part of their honeymoon staying in room 9, delighting in the atmosphere and eating cake. Twenty five years later their first son, Ed-Lamin, was a prisoner there.
I'm delighted that common sense returned to the fictional electorate and the library remains to this day, a haven of peace in a peaceful world. I know this to be true - I'm working in the silent room, the sun is shining outside, I've had a walk round the garden and all's well with the world ... apart from Brexit.

Extract from 'Chasing Freedom Home '

' I need this cup of tea, I’m exhausted, and a mince pie. Woman! You’ve eaten the last one. I didn’t even see it go, I didn’t have time to wave it fare-well.’

 ‘Wasn’t me. A centipedy hand reached out and grabbed it. Just put your hand on my belly, just here – you can feel it munching away.’

 ‘Yep; munch munch munch. If it’s a girl centipede will she want high heels? High heels and designer jeans? Hundreds of them? Or will she be content just to have fifty different pairs and wear them on different legs every day? Or will just the back legs need jeans and the rest can manage with leggings? How many legs will be arms?’

‘No. Stop it, Ed, please. Suddenly it’s not funny. I want just one beautiful, normal baby. I lie awake at night, listening to my tummy rumbling, and wondering who’s in there. I want one ordinary, wonderful, lovely baby boy or baby girl. I want her or him to have a normal happy life and fall in love like we did and live a long, useful and contented life and, oh shit! I’m so scared. Hold me. Hold me. Tell me it’s going to be all right.’ She closed her eyes to shut out the darkness. He pulled her to her feet and embraced her, whispering, stroking her back, assuring and reassuring her as best he could.

 ‘Our baby will be fine. We’re young and healthy and we get good care. It’s normal to worry, I expect, and to be concerned. You’re a fit English thoroughbred and I’m a, well, I don’t know what I am; I’m a mixture of excellencies; our baby will be as beautiful and intelligent and fit as both of us put together. If anything had been wrong it would have been detected long ago. Both your parents are in bustling good health and humour – well, until they see me. My dad lived to a ripe old age and my mum’s indestructible. Her granddad lived to be a hundred, and that’s in a country with limited resources. Come on, let’s go for a drive round the lanes, then you can put your feet up and I’ll sing you to sleep. How’s that for an idea?’

 ‘Promise no singing?’

 ‘OK. No singing. Promise.’ He hovered anxiously as she put her coat on and lumbered to the door. The day was warm, gently mild; the kind of day when romantic poets wooed their disenchanted lovers. He had already rolled the fabric roof of the little yellow car back in readiness for the trip. She settled herself in and allowed him to fuss with a rug round her knees, and tolerated him checking that if he closed the door it would not trap any part of her anatomy or clothing. Heavens, she longed for him to accept she was not made of chocolate icing, likely to melt or crumble or shatter if a breeze or a dragonfly or a speck of dust ventured too near. He started the engine, double checked the mirrors, looked over both right and left shoulders and pulled carefully out onto the deserted road. He glanced at her. She was the loveliest, sexiest woman on the planet. She slipped her arm across his shoulders as he drove, stroking the nape of his neck with one finger and smiling to see him smile. He turned back to his chauffeuring with a wide grin on his face. He drove carefully, avoided overtaking anything faster than a bicycle and returned his precious passengers an hour later, refreshed and sleepy, to their front door.

 The crunch of broken glass underfoot alerted them to disaster. The daubed obscenities across the fresh white paintwork disgusted them, and the parcel of excrement that had been flung through the broken window had them staring in frightened horror at one another.

 They stared at the desecration of their lovely home.

 ‘Why? Who could do this? What’s the point? What have we ever done to deserve this?’ They had no answers. Jane reacted first.