Gardening Girl

We ll it’s a gorgeous day and early this morning I went out to trim the hedges (don’t be rude) and by trim I mean hack down to size brutally. They are tough and thicken nicely from a rough pruning twice a year so don’t feel bad or them. I weeded and then braved Shelob in the garage so I could mow back and front and Neil & Nicola’s front (they usually do it for me, overdue my turn). Eventually I cleared out a bit of the garage too. A small start, but a start still.

I even set up a sun lounger, turns out I had two cheap ones unopened in the garage.

Pics, because it’s pretty.

view from near the kitchen door towards the neighbours

view from back corner towards house and road. That’s the back wall of my garage, there are steps down.

a plant, bears breeches, and two clumps of things that grow tall spurs of orange and red flowers.

just to the left of shot is a thick clump of lavender, you can see most of the thyme, there is london pride, honeysuckle, roses and other stuff in there.

still in the shade this am, but so pleased with how it’s all growing.

and my scruffy little pond, will get some decent plants for in it at some point.

In the movie of the movie

Ok so we have been getting into planning in earnest for the Fantasyland movie later next year. This provoked a conversation about who would play me in a movie about making the movie. This is how we have been cast this after noon on twitter.

So for your Producer and fearless leader.. me, I want this foxy tough chick

well doesn’t everyone level up a few for the movie?

For our Director, Screenwriter and Editor, we decided on a sex change, especially since he wasn’t around to defend himself, but I think it’s a good fit for movie Vince.

It’s ok, we can rename him Veronica, no one will notice.

And for our illustrious presenter Kat, who is sometimes a red head and sometimes a blond and no one knows her natural colour, we offer you this…

I am a little concerned about our ages, perhaps they should start pre production now and film in parallel.

Stress and the Drama Llama

It came to my attention recently that I may be a bit stressed this year.

The evidence:
1) I’ve caught a lot of colds, rarely getting stay off work sick, but often snuffling, headachey and fighting off something. My immune system does not appear to be up to snuff this year.
2) I’ve had to hand in my mouse at work and get a trackball because I was getting the start of RSI in my right hand (don’t be rude). The pain has stopped i’m pleased to say. RSI is known to be tied to stress.
3) I’m struggling to get up in the morning, my exercise and eating have been out of whack all year, which after 18 months of getting up at 5 – 5:30 am no problem, heading to the gym and eating very carefully every day. Sleep and carbs have always been the go to stress responses for me.
4) The team physio checked my shoulder on thursday. The problem that has been occurring periodically and annoying me or months…. a big knot of stress!

It’s interesting, the last couple of years have been obviously screamingly stressful, this year has been quiet undramatic underlying issues. This year, there has been little drama. That’s not entirely true. All the same sort of issues have happened, the difference is me. Instead of freaking out and crying I have found myself meeting the unexpected trauma’s with a resigned sigh. Mum is right, you have to stay on your toes because life always has another sucker punch lined up and if you aren’t ready for it, it will floor you. This year nothing and nobody is taking me down, but the strain shows.

In fairness of course, stress and drama are entirely different things although often related. Drama transmits easily to others and stresses them out, stress we carry ourselves, in big knots in our shoulders apparently. I am most definitely suffering from stress and have been for some months, but it won’t beat me.

There are lots of reasons for my stress this year. I won’t go into them though right now but  i’ve almost just resolved the small issue of my tyre being on the verge of splitting.

Anyway, I am under instruction from our team physio to try and relax, so yesterday I bunked off work early and trotted off to Brum for coffee with some of the GGSA girls, Ren, Karen, Catherine and Fran. Had a great time talking about fights, filming (we have some more vols Vince, and they have weapons!), Nun & Dragon, books, life, and all sorts of other stuff. Was lovely and judging from the knot reduction worked. Today, I did training first thing and am spending the rest of the day split between dozing on the sofa, watching tv and pottering in the garden. Tomorrow i’m having coffee with a friend in Harb.  I’m taking echinacea and vit c with zinc, i’m trying boost my immunity and to unwind. I will get back on top, I have to.

Tricky though. There is always something new. M should have been off the deeds and mortgage at the end of last year but due to everyone on the close having to sign up to a management company that went defunct and some guy in middlesex who bought the subsoil of our road thinking he could charge us for living in our homes (he can’t, totally illegal as we are freeholders). Six months on it’s still not done. Now M wants to buy a house and can’t because he’s on my mortgage, suddenly communicative again. Hah. Well it’ll be fine. I’m dealing with it. That’s what I do.

I’m pleased with the garden though, i’ve been pottering for a while now and it’s starting to look all gardeny. Pleases me.

Oh look garden photos. ;p

From the living room patio door end looking toward the road. this bed needs deepening, it gets the most sun.

From the kitchen door looking at the neighbours, that back corner is going to be shrubs and mum and I are going to extend the bed round the pond too.

The pond. It needs edging properly and some more plants in it. There are ferns around it and hellebores and some other flower things and some slightly dead thyme.

Part of the main bed, with my two honeysuckles, these were almost dead sticks when I put them in last year.

and I just put up a gift in the garden. Love it.

There are always more problems, but I have books, cats, a garden, kickboxing, a shedload of projects and a great support network. How can I possibly fail?

I need this.

someone make me one?

 

Luckiest Girl in the World?

I feel fortunate. I had one of those days that makes you realise what you have and puts all the things you struggle with into perspective.

I have an amazingly supportive and loving family. My Dad is subbing my gym fees from mid this month so I can get back to the morning workouts because it made me happy and it’s been tough the last few months after having to quite because I couldn’t afford the gym and kickboxing. I chose KB.

I have a lovely pseudo family with my once baby brother in law Justin and my great friends parents Delaine and Charles. Between them I have a whole other family to enjoy and vent to and be supported by.

I have the three musketeers, Vincent Holland-Keen, Steve Savile and Alasdair Stuart and my ‘wife’ VC Linde. All of these people have offered unwavering support and a willingness to commiserate and celebrate with me through the ups and downs of the last couple of years.

I have a few incredible friends at day job, lovely neighbours and an amazing group of friends on line and in the real world through the bookiverse. I also have an excellent therapist.  I have my kickboxing family, who keep my feet on the ground, except for when they sweep me….bastards.

There are people who take a chance and let me try things, with varying levels of success and the awesome apocalypse girls and unbound team who have thrown their lot in with me for no good reason I can fathom.

Difficult things are so much harder on your own and the good things so much less fun, the people in my life are what makes it amazing.

And last but not least, my mum treated me to pretty shoes and that is important.

An Alternative CV – a slightly tongue in cheek post

I’ve been brushing up my CV. This is largely an academic exercise since i love my job and have no reason to believe I am at risk at present. Still I haven’t written one since I started in transport, most of my working life ago, back when it consisted of education and such skills as ‘fax, file, photocopy, audio typing’. I figured it’s time I took a look at my CV now I have ten years in transport behind me.

I have included Alt.Fiction and event management, because the tie in to project management is obvious. I have not yet found a way to introduce some of my other proudest moments as part of a project managers CV. If you have any ideas how I can turn these items into professional assets i’d be interested to hear them. ;p

Ok, here are the things that don’t quite fit on my professional CV. Have at it my darlings:

Jadi Tention (world class kickboxer) called me a warrior.
I can take a hell of a beating and keep attacking, earning me fighter of the month recently.
I lost nearly 8 stone and a husband all in the same year and I rocked it.
I can kick you in the face if you are 5ft 10 or less.
I am fearless leader of unbound, unbound video editions & the Girls Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse.
I have had my baking described as ‘godbaking’ and it has a cult following.

So, come on, how do I turn those into professional assets. ;p

And here is a picture of the ginger cat.

‘I’m not the girl I used to be’

I realised this week i’d been in this house 4 years.

When I moved in I was size 20, engaged, 30 years old, a new driver, a keen reader with no other hobbies. I went on steam trains and to the pub because my fiance wanted to and never fought to do the things that I wanted. I didn’t really know what I wanted. I’m not sure I knew who I was. Oh and I kept rats and had never been to a book event.

4 years on i’m size 14, divorced, 34 years old, a keen reader (oh look some things don’t change), a kickboxer, a blogger, an apocalypse girl, I deliver alt.fiction, I go to three or four events a year. I am not interested in trains, I go to pubs rarely, for food and company. I have a tattoo. I know who I am, I know what I want, I am not the girl I was 4 years ago. I am stronger, more capable, more sure.

Oddly, I am perhaps the girl I was as a child, before I hit my teens, or I am at least more who she thought she was going to be.

I am happier with my life than I have ever been. I am happier with the people in it too.

The Truth about Cats & Dogs,

..  a post in which there are no cats, or dogs.

I am 34. I started kickboxing just before I turned 33. At 35 I officially become a ‘veteran’. I suspect at heart this is a polite way of saying ‘out to pasture old mare’, or a hint that it’s time for me to accept that, to quote Danny Glover ‘i’m too old for this shit’.

Face it, if I was going to have a glittering championship career then around now I should be stepping back from competition and focussing on teaching. I started too late for that. So no glittering championship career and no teaching for me, just training and competing and ignoring the fact that i’m never going to make up time on all those years I didn’t do martial arts.

My flexibilty has improved massively in the last 18 months, along with my technique, speed, power and well… boom. In the next 18 months that will continue to improve. Of course by then I will be 36 and presumably they will try to avoid letting me get my face mashed in by fitter, faster more flexible twenty somethings.

I’m kind of ok with the all that. I’ll keep fighting as long as I enjoy it and i’ll keep training for a long time I expect. It’s an important part of my life now. At the end of the day though, i’m not up there fighting for medals.. i’m up there fighting the only fight that matters to me now, the one with and for myself. As long as I win that one then i’m happy to take a few black eyes and bloody noses, i’m ok with taking second place, because as long as I fight better, harder, faster than before and do fight every second i’m out there, then I win the important fight.

In other news I have mastered vegan baking, not that i’m vegan, but I had to prove my baking skills surpassed reliance on dairy and the reference to them as #godcookies would suggest they have.

I am also very pleased that GGSA has recieved nearly 80,000 hits in just shy of six months, which is quite remarkable.

Finally, three unbound video editions are available now, #4 is in planning for summer and #5 will be a feature length ep so may be a while coming.