Do you keep a diary? Why did you start it, and, if you started one then stopped, why was that? What sort of things do (or did) you write about? I ask as, as a long-time diarist myself, there is an interesting piece in The Guardian today which talks about one woman's diary habit, which she began at the age of fourteen. I started a diary around that age too, but destroyed it after my mother accused me of using cocaine.  A stern scene followed, with both parents perched ram-rod straight in their armchairs, while I was subjected to a heated inquisition. Where had I bought it, and who from? Didn't I know such things led to death and doom? I struggled to decipher their bewildering accusations, until Mum blurted out, "I read it in your diary!" To find my diary, Mum would first have had to rummage through my dressing table, obviously when I wasn't around to protest. Her intrusion on my privacy was assumed by both parents to be acceptable, and now, with this handwritten c...

In February, I turned 60.  I can clearly recall feeling slightly depressed when I reached the milestone of 40. Once you're 40, you can't pretend to be anything other than middle-aged. It may well be only early middle-age but there it is, an inescapable finale to the remnants of youth. Or so I thought at the time. This turned out to be utter tosh, and the cliché which insists that you're as old as you feel is a cliché for a good reason: it's true. So, my 40th birthday was 20 years ago already. Yes, even my mathematical skills, as dire as they are, can manage that much "mental arithmetic" as it used to be called in school. School - now that was even longer ago... Can you credit that in the final year of junior school our teacher insisted that we, her pupils, all learn to write with a dip pen? No, not an ink pen fitted with ink cartridges; they were too modern for her tastes. Her choice of pen had a scratchy metal nib fixed to a stick, which had to be physicall...

Since writing my recent blog post which mentioned the male chauvinism and other bigotries of some 1970's TV shows, and how present-day statistics for domestic violence demonstrate how misogyny still damages far too many lives, America has banned abortion in thirteen states. So much for "the land of the free". America's female population is no longer free to control their own bodies. Apparently, Justice Samuel Alito , who presided over the Wroe vs. Wade case, quoted the writings of the 17th century jurist Mathew Hale , who was known for his part in the trial of  Amy Duney and Rose Cullender, who were accused of bewitching their neighbours' children and who were subsequently killed by hanging. Quite how a dealer in such superstitious nonsense could offer relevance to a 21st century legal case is beyond me. Meanwhile, America has introduced this retrogressive and oppressive law which is really about control - the control of women by men. Consider this: if the anti-...

Because it's Pride Month - and Love is Love. Back in 2020, I   blogged about being made redundant from a place where I'd enjoyed working. I quickly landed a similar job, and have worked there since as a part-time Activity Co-ordinator. Anyway, out of the blue my old job was offered back to me, and without hesitation I have accepted. It's still part-time, which suits me fine, and at a higher rate of pay, and I'll be working with a much more socially active group of people than I am currently. So, to keep the story short, I'm looking forward to starting my new (old) job on Monday 27th. Mum turned 93 this month, and I was finally  able to visit her. I'd not seen her since before the Covid-19 pandemic began, as I wasn't the designated visitor, and then each time I had planned to visit either her care home or the home where I work had a Covid outbreak which meant I couldn't go. Countless other people have been in similar positions, of course, unable to visit...

Life drawing, 2019. Arriving late at the Oxton life drawing group, the only seat left to me was squashed into a corner. This  offered a severe sideways-on view of the model, Eve. Initially I assumed this would result in a poor pose, but then I realised I could actually turn it to some advantage by using negative space - and so composed the model to fill the lower triangular half of the paper. The end result is perhaps a bit unconventional, but I'm quite pleased with it. What do you think of the drawing? This next life drawing presented a few challenges also. This time I was sitting directly opposite the model, Rob, which meant I had to do a fair amount of fore-shortening on both legs. The hands could be improved, but I'm satisfied with that thigh-knee-foot and raised arm-shoulder. I have maintained a site on Hubpages for some years now, and there you will find a whole series of non-fiction articles written by me. The subjects range from How to Make a Frog Pond , to ...

The Dawn of Misty Dreams by Adele Cosgrove-Bray; watercolour; 2018. I've been thinking about the internet and how it's changed over time, and how my use of it has changed too. Around 17 years ago, purely out of curiosity, I took a Learn Direct course which promised to be an 'Introduction to the Internet'. I quickly became hooked on this strange new world where the creativity of total strangers provided a seemingly infinite variety of entertainment. Intrigued, I set out on a journey of exploration which not only made research for my novels easy but also brought me into the world of RPGs. I won't reveal which characters I played, or on which boards our games were played out. That would spoil the mystery - and mystery was all part of the fun. As a talented co-player, Tristan, once told me, "If I wanted reality, I'd go to my parish." We used message boards and linked LiveJournal blogs to these; role-played in Yahoo! IM till dawn broke. We...

Rain over the Loch by Adele Cosgrove-Bray; watercolour; 2018.  Here in Wirral, we've been basking under a fierce summer. England's seen high temperatures in the past, of course, and the news is full of excitable fluff about today possibly becoming the hottest day on record - remembering that British weather records date back to 1659 in the form of diaries kept by amateurs, which are now known as the Central England Temperature series. The method of recording the weather only became more standardised in 1914, however, and so it's from this more recent date that the Met Office measures its statistics.     Life drawing by Adele Cosgrove-Bray. Prattling about sunshine gives the media something to talk about other than the looming disaster of Brexit. As the countdown to the current government's B-Day (pun intended) looms ever closer, they're still batting ideas around in increasingly desperate attempts to sort out the mess their own par...

The exhibition at Seagrass Studios and Gallery, in West Kirby, Wirral, closes this weekend so if you wish to view my watercolour painting on show there - plus lots of other truly lovely art - then be sure to call in.  The gallery can be found on Acacia Grove, which is directly opposite the train station. Birkenhead Park sketch, and my painting (centre by lamp) in Seagrass Gallery These last few weeks, I've been busy writing Morgan .  Explained simply, there are three ways to write a novel.  One way is to plan everything in advance, making detailed notes which are then followed rigidly.  The opposite method is to plan nothing at all, to have a loose idea and start exploring this through writing and slowly discover where it might lead.  The middle way offers a compromise between these two extremes; the writer has a few notes which log important plot twists and outcomes, but which also leaves plenty of room for flexibility and improvisation. Each writer nee...

"All that we profess to do is but this, - to find out the secrets of the human frame; to know why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply continual preventatives to the effort of time.  This is not magic; it is the art of medicine rightly understood.  In our order we hold most noble -, first, that knowledge which elevates the intellect; secondly, that which preserves the body.  But the mere art (extracted from the juices and simples) which recruits the animal vigour and arrests the progress of decay, or that more noble secret which I will only hint to thee at present, by which heat or calorific, as ye call it, being, as Heraclitus wisely taught, the primordial principle of life, can be made its perpectual renovator...." Zanoni, book IV, chapter II, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, first published in 1842. Oroboros keyring - Spooky Cute Designs The idea of being able to achieve an immortal life is probably as old as human life itself.  Folklore and myt...

There is an interesting article in The Guardian today which discusses reactions to the decision not to have children.  Richard and I do not have children and are perfectly happy that way.  We have never had any desire to become parents.  This was one of the first things we agreed on when we initially became a couple some twenty years ago.  We wanted to do other things with our lives and neither of us have ever regretted that choice at any point. Now I'm 50, people have finally stopped insisting that I'll change my mind about not wanting children as I get older.  Instead, I'm told that I'll regret it when I'm elderly as there will be no-one to visit me.  I know plenty of elderly people with grown-up children of their own, plus grandchildren and a network of other family members, who rarely if ever see any of them for a host of reasons - geographical distance, economics and family politics, for example.  Clearly, breeding additions to your family tre...

Can there be a more meaningless term than 'the over 60's'?  Yes, the term can be easily applied to any person above that age - but what does it actually tell us that is of much practical use? Age is no indicator of health or personality, of activity levels or financial stability.  Neither does an age grouping reveal a person's interests - unless it's the under 5's, when life mostly revolves around food, sleep, playing, parents and getting the hang of walking and talking.  While life for the 5's to 16's age group  tends to revolve around school, already more diversity is apparent.  The teenage world of angst, obsessions and first loves are, obviously, very different from, for example, a thirty year-old's ambitions to buy their own house. No-one would lump together everyone under the age of 40 as one social group having similar needs and interests.  So why do this with the over 60's? Most 60 year-olds are part of the work force and will rem...

I'm currently enjoying a week's annual leave from my day-job while writing more of Fabian.   I've also been busy in the garden while I've both the time and the weather for it.  Some of the borders were looking rather neglected, so I've been weeding and pruning and re-shaping the edge of the lawn where the divide between lawn and weedy mess had blurred.  The contrast between sitting still, other than from fingers tapping at the keyboard, and thinking creatively and analytically as I write, and moving around with tools, a bucket full of dug-up roots and pruned, leggy stems or fronds of invasive ivy, is marked.  It still requires analytical and creative thinking but of a different kind, (for eg., I'm planning to put in more spring bulbs this autumn, and move a young buddleia before it gets crowded by the holly tree, and can see that the forsythia needs pruning back now its buttercup-yellow petals are strew...

Following From: Goals for 2013 Goals for 2012 For the last two years, I've started the year by making a list of goals - partially for fun, and partially because it's a way of tracking my progress with projects. So, here were my goals for 2013: Complete 1st draft of Fabian. Complete NVQ Level 3 in Customer Care. Publish a 2nd free ebook anthology (with Riverside Writers and maybe other writers too). Write one short story per month (minimum). Write one poem per month (minimum). Add one new design to Spooky Cute Designs per month (minimum). (...And last but not least), have more fun. Let's see how I did... Ok, Fabian is not finished; approximately 30,000 words are still to be written, so while the end is in sight clearly there's work to be done. However, I not only completed the NVQ Level 3 in Customer Care but also achieved an NVQ Level 2 in Business Skills, and an NCFE Level 2 in the Principles of Dementia Care. This goes some way to...

Emily and Poppi by the pond. I received a lovely email from someone who had noticed I'd deleted my old LiveJournal blog.  He had enjoyed the philosophical debates which had unfolded there, and was disappointed that the blog was no more.  I hadn't updated my old LJ blog since opening this Blogger site so I was a little surprised at this, but we all like to be missed, hmm? I'd like to reply properly to this person, but I accidentally deleted the email.  I've not blogged much on philosophical topics for some time, even though philosophy is a dominant part of my life.  Maybe I should?  Meanwhile, back at Maison Cosgrove-Bray, I've been busy creating a garden pond.  Earlier this year we were invaded by a huge number of baby frogs.  Apparently frogs don't reach maturity until they're five years old, and until their first mature spring season they don't spend much time in ponds.  However, we also have a small population of older frog...

On June 9th, The Daily Mail published an article by Tom Leonard with the title, "Three senior Oxford University academics will pay to be deep frozen when they die so they could one day be 'brought back to life'".  This article was also published on Iol .  Thanks go to John de Rivaz for passing on these links via the Yahoo! newsgroup for Cryonics Europe . The Daily Ma il article attracted 300+ comments, many of which were negative dismissals of the potential of cryonics.  As expected, many of these comments were based on inaccurate beliefs, such as cryo-patients being frozen in ice, or of cryonics being a money-making scam. The Cryonics Institute is a non-profit making organisation.  It's annual finances are published for all to view.  Its directors are elected by the institute's own members. Patients are subjected first to a profusion then a vitrification process, which greatly reduces tissue damage from ice crystals, before being stored in liqui...

Woodland dolphins?     A section of Ashton Park in West Kirby, Wirral, has been developed as a pocket-sized woodland trail.  The height of the old trees readily lends itself to this theme, even though the smooth expanse of one of the bowling greens lies just beyond the bench in the photo above.  Taking pride of place along the trail are a number of fairly new carved sculptures made from stumps of felled trees.  While I'm not too sure of the dolphins, which in my opinion aren't sufficiently site specific to work well, the other sculptures are lovely.  You will have to click on the images to see them full-sized in order to enjoy their details.   Sculpted owl   A pair of nesting owls   Old Man of the Woods   Dangling from low branches around the trail were an assortment of wind-chimes and paper Xmas decorations - mostly snowmen and tree cut-outs - possibly created by one of the ranger-led activiti...

I enjoyed this video, which shows what one man has done with the gardening space available to him.  It demonstrates how even small and seemingly uninteresting spaces can be transformed into something lovely.  The idea reminds me of the late Geoff Hamilton's BBC series, Paradise Gardens , in which he promoted a similar idea.  The series is a pleasure to watch for its own sake; it has a dreamy, tranquil quality as well as being grounded in practicality. A quick Google search for "gardening in small spaces" offered me 82,800,000 results.  Clearly there're plenty of ideas out there, such as using tubs, drain pipes, old tires, vertical gardens, home-made greenhouses, wooden palette boards and even a derelict car to house both ornamental and food plants. Our garden is a fairly decent size.  I keep talking about putting in a pond...and maybe a duck or two could then be added to the menagerie which hasn't been so small in a long time.  Having no...

Take a look at this well-made video which presents a large selection of ancient Mayan artifacts carved with images which, to 21st century interpretation, look like aliens. I don't place much credence on the 'aliens from outer space' theory, as the sheer practicalities of any species travelling for untold light years just to arrive here, create geometric designs in a few crop fields, or dismember a few cows or probe a few drunks' backsides is just too silly. If a species possessed the technology to travel rapidly from other planets, don't you think they'd have the sense to pick up a copy of Gray's Anatomy ? (It's even almost named for them...!) Inter-dimensional travel makes far more rational sense. If you assume you are aware of everything around you, watch this very short video  from an earlier blog post of mine.  So, (assuming you did watch the video!) if you miss that much going on in the dimension which we're all familiar with, then how...