The innocuous explanation for this photo is that I took it at my grand daughter’s little athletics competition, now most sensibly being held on Friday evenings.
For those who don’t know how the weather can be in Brisbane, Queensland, it is generally hot, particularly from November when temperatures are between 35 and 40 degrees centigrade.
But not only is it hot but humidity, the real problem, is around 100 percent.
So at the moment we have reasonably cool evenings, ideal conditions for the young athletes.
But, where a photo could be innocuous there can a more interesting, if not sinister description.
Lurking in the back of my mind, and perhaps a lot of others, that there might be an unidentified flying object somewhere in the sky.
Of course, there might not be any, but it doesn’t mean that we stop looking, or assume, sometimes that a moving light in the sky isn’t a UFO.
And its been said that humans are quite arrogant in thinking that we are the only people in the universe.
Personally, I don’t think we are, and I keep an eye on the sky every time I’m out at night, perhaps the most likely time we might see one.
The only issue I might have is that if I am that lucky to see one, or that it lands nearby, what I would do when confronted by an alien.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some years ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits, I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. He’s being somewhat difficult.
I’m trying to discuss the nuances of a Mexican standoff, a concept I’m sure he is fully aware of.
Except…
He keeps telling me that he’s part Siamese, so how the hell could he be in the middle of a Mexican standoff.
He then says, in a tone that drips sarcasm, I’m not Mexican either, but part British, so would it not be more appropriate to call it a British-Sino standoff?
Wow!
I’m doubting he knows what a standoff is anyway.
And since this encounter started he’s avoided looking me in the eye, except for one condescending as, when I first arrived, as if to say I was interrupting his morning siesta.
I’m wondering if it’s not time to get another cat and update our mouse catching equipment.
Oh, yes, now I’ve got his attention.
New cat, what’s this about a new car?
Have I found his Achilles heel?
We’ll find out next time when I pull the new cat routine on him
The problem is, there are familiar faces and the question of who is a friend and who is a foe is made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
…
Lallo was gone ten minutes, perhaps a specific amount of time that was supposed to make me sweat. It was warm in the ward so it wasn’t his presence or the questions that made me feel uncomfortable.
It was fear of the unknown.
If anything, it was more likely I’d be going to a black site rather than rest and recuperation in Germany. And apparently, over an operation, I had little or no knowledge of its inception or execution beyond being used for target practice.
Unless the army in its infinite wisdom was looking for a scapegoat, they’d tried pinning it on Treen, but he didn’t play ball, so now it was my turn. However, just to complicate that thought, why didn’t they just kill me on the ground when they had the chance?
Because they needed me alive.
My mind went back to that fateful operation.
I went over as many of the crew as I could remember. Ledgeman, Sergeant, explosives expert, he was with me until he was shot, caught in the crossfire, which now made me consider my first assessment of what has happened to him, that it might have been one of us who shot him, was the likely outcome.
Willies, a Corporal, also an explosives expert, sent with Mason, Gunnery Sergeant like me, who was providing cover for Willies.
Breen, Lieutenant, Leader, although it didn’t exactly appear to be the case, the more I thought about it, there seemed an undertone of indifference from the team towards its leader, one I should have picked up on. Informal command never worked when push came to shove.
Andrews, Cathcar, Edwards and Sycamore, regular soldiers with combat experience along for protection, Andrews and Sycamore were with us and had worked together before, their camaraderie didn’t extend to me, but they were professional soldiers.
Of all the people in that entire group, why did Treen survive? In putting the pieces together now in my mind, and if what I remembered was right, he should have been the first to die.
I mean, drugs and paranoia aside, that was the one single damning conclusion I could draw from events. If he had, then a lot of the others might have survived.
But time was up; Lallo was back, squirming in his seat, and armed with a different coloured notebook.
First question, “What was your opinion of Treen?”
Relevance? “Competent, but perhaps not truly in charge of his men.”
“How so?”
“I got the impression it was a case of familiarity breeds contempt.”
“You question his ability to command?”
“Just his style.”
Groups who worked together in close combat as a unit, from the top to the bottom, acquired a level of camaraderie that transcended rank. It was not supposed to, but it did. It was built on mutual respect and got to a point where everyone knew what they were doing without being asked, or ordered. I got the impression that had been the case for Treen and his team up till that operation. Perhaps the loss of one of the team had changed the dynamic.
“He’s there to lead, not be liked.”
“Then why ask me what I thought? You’d know what I meant by that if you were out on the front line and your life depended on your team. Something was not right.”
“How did you fit in,” he asked, with an emphasis on the word ‘fit’.
I didn’t, but I was not going to tell him that. In the end, I just didn’t trust them. You can get a measure of a man in that first meeting with or speaking with them, and they closed me out from the start.
“I had a job to do and I did it.”
And, it was probably the reason why I walked away.
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
And so it begins…
…
Just crossed the finish line
…
That’s it for another edition.
67,941 words written, but if I sat down now to contemplate what I’ve just done, the post-it notes would get in the way.
Oh, there was so much revision to do!
But, at least I managed to revise a complete novel in a month which is what I try to do each year, and then worry about editing and refining the next work in progress for the next eleven.
Not looking forward to that job, no sir.
Of course, the ending is nothing like what I envisioned the first time around, but when does it ever once the characters take over.
Until November for the next new novel, or something momentous, I bid you all a good night.
Whilst a rather important place for the French, for us visitors, it has a convenient hotel located just behind the square, and an underground, or Metro station, underneath.
Added to that was equally convenient cafes, one of which, The Cafe Republique, we had dinner every night. The service and food were excellent, and we had no problems with the language barriers.
At the top of the monument is a bronze statue of Marianne, said to be the personification of France.
Surrounding Marianne is three more statues, representing liberty, equality, and fraternity.
At the base is a lion guarding what is said to be a ballot box.
Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people who work well to plans, so setting goals is not a good idea.
But…
I did make several new year’s resolutions that I would try and do things differently each year.
Except…
This year, I set a goal to restart editing one of my novels on 1st Feb. I thought, setting it so far into the year it would be easy.
It would give me the time to clear up all the outstanding writing tasks that have been getting in the way, what are more commonly known as distractions, and be free to finally finish it.
No such luck.
Going away, spending long, sleepless hours flying from one side of the world to the other had fuelled my imagination more than I expected and I now have three stories that need either a continuing plot outline or be written as ideas come to me.
If only I could focus on one story at a time.
So…
I’ve been working hard on getting those stories done, and now that November is approaching, I have come up with a brilliant idea.
I’ll work on the novel then as my NANOWRIMO project. At least I have completed every one I’ve started over the last four years.
This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.
His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
We have been to Paris a number of times over the years.
The last time we visited Paris we brought the two eldest grandchildren. We took the Eurostar train from St Pancras station direct to Disneyland, then took the free bus from the station to the hotel. The train station was directly outside Disneyland.
We stayed at the Dream Castle Hotel, rather than Disneyland itself as it was a cheaper option and we had a family room that was quite large and breakfast was included every morning. Then it was a matter of getting the free bus to Disneyland.
We spent three days, time which seem to pass far too quickly, and we didn’t get to see everything. They did, however, find the time to buy two princess dresses, and then spent the rest of the time playing dress-ups whenever they could.
In Paris, we stayed at the Crown Plaza at Republique Square.
We took the children to the Eiffel Tower where the fries, and the carousel at the bottom of the tower, seemed to be more memorable than the tower itself. The day we visited, the third level was closed. The day was cold and windy so that probably accounted for the less than memorable visit. To give you some idea of conditions, it was the shortest queue to get in I’ve ever seen.
We traveled on the Metro where it was pointed out to me that the trains actually ran on rubber tires, something I had not noticed before. It was a first for both children to travel on a double-decker train.
The same day, we went to the Louvre.
Here, it was cold, wet and windy while we waited, Once inside we took the girls to the Mona Lisa, and after a walk up and down a considerable numkber of stairs, one said, “and we walked all this way to see this small painting”.
It quickly became obvious their idea of paintings were the much larger ones hanging in other galleries.
We also took them to the Arc de Triomphe.
We passed, and for some reason had to go into, the Disney shop, which I’m still wondering why after spending a small fortune at Disneyland itself.
Next on the tour list was the Opera House.
where one of the children thought she saw the ghost and refused to travel in one of the elevators. At least it was quite amazing inside with the marble, staircases, and paintings on the roof.
Sadly, I don’t think they were all that interested in architecture, but at the Opera House, they did actually get to see some ballet stars from the Russian Bolshoi ballet company practicing. As we were leaving the next day we could not go and see a performance.
Last but not least was Notre Dame with its gargoyles and imp[osing architecture.
All in all, traveling with children and experiencing Paris through their eyes made it a more memorable experience.
The first we visited Paris was at the end of a whirlwind bus tour, seven countries in seven days or something like that. It was a relief to get to Paris and stay two nights if only to catch our breath.
I remember three events from that tour, the visit to the Eiffel Tower, the tour of the night lights, not that we were able to take much in from the inside of the bus, and the farewell dinner in one of the tour guides specially selected restaurants. The food and atmosphere were incredible. It was also notable for introducing us to a crepe restaurant in Montmartre, another of the tour guide’s favorite places.
On that trip to Paris, we also spent an afternoon exploring the Palace of Versailles.
The next time we visited Paris we flew in from London. OK, it was a short flight, but it took all day. From the hotel to the airport, the wait at the airport, departure, flying through time zones, arrival at Charles De Gaulle airport, now there’s an experience, and waiting for a transfer that never arrived, but that’s another story.
I can’t remember where we stayed the first time, it was somewhere out in the suburbs, but the second time we stayed at the Hilton near both the Eiffel Tower and the Australian Embassy, notable only because the concierge was dating an Australian girl working in the Embassy. That was our ticket for special treatment, which at times you need to get around in Paris.
It was the year before 2000 and the Eiffel Tower was covered in lights, and every hour or so it looked like a bubbling bottle of champagne. It was the first time we went to Level 3 of the Tower, and it was well worth it. The previous tour only included Level 2. This time we were acquainted with the fries available on the second level, and down below under the tower.
This time we acquainted ourselves with the Metro, the underground railway system, to navigate our way around to the various tourist spots, such as Notre Dame de Paris, The Louvre, Sacre-Coeur Basilica, and Les Invalides, and, of course, the trip to the crepe restaurant.
We also went to the Louvre for the express purpose of seeing the Mona Lisa, and I came away slightly disappointed. I had thought it to be a much larger painting. We then went to see the statue of Venus de Milo and spent some time trying to get a photo of it without stray visitors walking in front of us. Aside from that, we spent the rest of the day looking at the vast number of paintings, and Egyptian artifacts in the Museum.
We also visited the Opera House which was architecturally magnificent.
The third time we visited Paris we took our daughter, who was on her first international holiday. This time we stayed in a quaint Parisian hotel called Hotel Claude Bernard Saint Germain, (43 Rue Des Ecoles, Paris, 75005, France), recommended to us by a relation who’d stayed there the year before. It was small, and the elevator could only fit two people or one person and a suitcase. Our rooms were on the 4th floor, so climbing the stairs with luggage was out of the question.
It included breakfast and wifi, and it was quite reasonable for the four days we stayed there.
It was close to everything you could want, down the hill to the railway station, and a square where on some days there was a market, and for those days when we were hungry after a day’s exploring, a baguette shop where rolls and salad were very inexpensive and very delicious.
To our daughter we appeared to be experienced travelers, going on the Metro, visiting the Louvre, going, yes once again, to the crepe restaurant and the Basilica at Montmartre, Notre Dame, and this time by boat to the Eiffel Tower. We were going to do a boat rode on the Seine the last time but ran out of time.
We have some magnificent photos of the Tower from the boat.
Lunch on one of the days was at a restaurant not far from the Arc de Triomphe, where our daughter had a bucket of mussels. I was not as daring and had a hamburger and fries. Then we went to the center of the Arch and watched the traffic.
Our first time in Paris the bus driver got into the roundabout just to show us the dangers of driving in an unpredictable situation where drivers seem to take huge risks to get out at their exit. Needless to say, we survived that experience, though we did make a number of circuits.
There was something about this one that resonated with me.
This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.
I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.
For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.
For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.
For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.
Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.
When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.
But is it all the truth?
What would we do in similar circumstances?
Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.
And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
And so it begins…
…
Just crossed the finish line
…
That’s it for another edition.
67,941 words written, but if I sat down now to contemplate what I’ve just done, the post-it notes would get in the way.
Oh, there was so much revision to do!
But, at least I managed to revise a complete novel in a month which is what I try to do each year, and then worry about editing and refining the next work in progress for the next eleven.
Not looking forward to that job, no sir.
Of course, the ending is nothing like what I envisioned the first time around, but when does it ever once the characters take over.
Until November for the next new novel, or something momentous, I bid you all a good night.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 