China is renowned for its exquisite silk, so naturally, a visit to the Silk Spinning Factory is part of today’s tour.
After that, we will be heading downtown to an unspecified location where we’re getting a boat ride, walk through a typical Chinese shopping experience, and coffee at a coffee shop that is doubling as the meeting place, after we soak up the local atmosphere.
The problem with that is that if the entire collective trip a deal tourists take this route then the savvy shopkeepers will jack up their prices tenfold because we’re tourists with money. It’ll be interesting to see how expensive everything is.
So…
Before we reach the silk factory, we are told that Suzhou is the main silk area of China, and we will be visiting a nearly 100 years old, Suzhou No 1 Silk Mill, established in 1926. Suzhou has a 4,700-year history of making silk products. It is located at No. 94, Nanmen Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.
Then we arrive at the Silk Factory, another government-owned establishment with a castiron guarantee of quality and satisfaction.
The look and feel of the doona cover certainly backs up that claim
And the colors and variety is amazing (as is the cost of those exquisite sets)
We get to see the silk cocoon stretched beyond imagination, and see how the silk thread is extracted, then off to the showroom for the sales pitch.
It isn’t a hard sell, and the sheets, doonas, pillows, and pillowcases, are reasonably priced, and come with their own suitcase (for free) so you can take them with you, or free shipping, by slow boat, if you prefer not to take the goods with you.
We opt for the second choice, as there’s no room left in our baggage after packing the Chinese Medicine.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the second revision and release to beta readers.
…
A night meeting
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Who can sleep when you’re stressing over whether the girl of your dreams is or isn’t the girl of your dreams? Yes, it can be that confusing.
It’s obvious the father doesn’t think it’s over, yet.
And when he gets the call, in the dead of night, it’s a ridiculous question to ask him if he’s still awake, especially when he answers the phone.
Yes, the heart does flutter at the sound of her voice.
And a meeting, in the middle of the night. At the diner. A diner that was once a den of iniquity and now just an empty reminder of what the city was before it was bypassed with the new interstate.
Looking for the chauffeur he figures she hasn’t arrived. He doesn’t believe she drove herself.
Does that come under the category, you learn new things every day?
He finds her already there, nursing coffee, and looking like an unmade bed. In other words, she is definitely the most beautiful girl he has ever met.
And the kiss tells him this thing is far from over.
Perhaps it’s worth it when he tells her she will be coming with him, and learning the ropes.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
It was an easy choice from the start, yellow is a colour, in any number of shades from very pale to very dark.
We have yellow egg yolks, yet another y word, and depending on whether the eggs are farmed in cages or free range can dictate the shade of yellow. Free-range gives the brightest yellow, by the way.
We have yellow cabs, but oddly enough these cabs are orange, not yellow as in this country, though the same may not be the case overseas, particularly in New York. Good thing they are bright yellow so you can see them coming if you are crossing the road, perhaps illegally.
We have yellow bananas and lemons, probably the most common answers when asked, what is yellow? That, and perhaps the yellow rose of Texas.
Then there is a more sinister meaning of the word, and it is associated with cowardice, and cowards are said to have a yellow streak down their backs.
If you have yellow fever then you are in a whole world of pain.
You can sometimes have what appears to be yellow skin, a sign of jaundice.
There is a yellow sea, and then there are the yellow pages, sometimes a substitute name for a telephone directory of businesses.
And lastly, an expression that comes out of the past, and not used so much these days, but people from Asia were thought to have yellow skin.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
The shrill ring tone of my phone woke me. And, for a moment I was in a state of panic because I’d woken in unfamiliar surroundings. Until my eyes cleared and I realized I was still at Nadia’s. And it was morning. What the…. The phone was still ringing, and Nadia, lying on the bed beside me rolled over and said, sleepily, “Are you going to answer that?” I picked up the phone off the bedside table and pressed the green button. I already knew it was Boggs. “Don’t you know what time it is?” It was nine, a respectable hour of the morning to call. It was just that I was tired. “Where are you?” I could lie, or I could tell the truth. I don’t think I should say at home because I suspect that was where Boggs was now. And my mother would be there, wondering what happened to me. “Out and about. Nice day for some exercise. Why?” “Your mother is not happy you didn’t come home. And I’m surprised. Where were you?” Good question. One that needed time to consider, time I didn’t have. “Surveillance. I’ve been watching Alex and his friends. It’s been a long night. What do you want?” “I was going to head down towards Kentville, check on the other river. We need to drive down there.” “Well, right now I’m busy, so it will have to wait until tomorrow morning. Sorry. I have a job to do, and then I have to get home before I go to work.” “What was Alex up to?” “Not over the phone. I’ll tell you when I see you. Come back home about lunchtime.” I could tell by the silence he wasn’t happy. “OK.” He hung up. I glared at the phone and put it back on the table, then turned to look at Nadia. First thing I noted, we were both still in the clothes we were wearing the previous night. “What happened?” “Nothing.” A momentary look of disappointment crossed her face. “You were tired and I told you to stay.” “Nothing can happen, or I’ll become Vince fodder.” “I wouldn’t tell him.” “He’d find out. He has walls as spies.” I looked around the room looking for potential spy cameras or bug locations. “He wouldn’t dare.” I climbed off the bed and smoothed out my clothes. It didn’t make much difference to the crumpled look. “At least it looks like I’ve been on an all-night surveillance assignment.” “What are you going to tell Boggs.” “Nothing. There’s nothing concrete to tell him yet, just that Alex is, like the rest of us, running around in circles. Nadia remained on the bed, and even though she looked as messy as I did, hers was a far more alluring messy. I could feel the pangs of a forbidden desire. Time to go. “Come back tonight. We can go on a voyage of discovery, see the mall as you’ve never seen it before.” “Sounds like a Discovery Channel documentary advert.” She sat up then stood and teased the knots out of her hair. It was the first time I’d seen it out. It gave her a whole new, softer look. “Is that a look of desire I see in your eyes, Smidge?” And the whole moment was shot to pieces. “Don’t call me that. I’ll see you tonight, though I’m not sure why.” I let myself out, after carefully checking to see if the way out was clear. The last thing I wanted, or needed, was to tangle with Vince. Or ending up letting the dream become reality.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
When we arrived back at the underground site Martina was waiting, and it was clear she was extremely annoyed. Word, somehow, had filtered back of what just happened.
“Are you totally mad?” she snarled. “You know what’s going to happen now?”
I had a good idea but chose not to speak.
“They got what they deserved,” Carlo said. “They found the missing man that you left on the side of the road, by the way, and it was lucky we were there when they found him. Whether they believed it was an accident or not, they were heading to Chiara’s, and we had to do something about that.”
“And you didn’t think that might have consequences?”
I think all of us had considered what would happen as a result of what could only be described as an ambush. And, while I thought, as no doubt the others had also, it might lead to retribution killings, it might not. Wallace could not afford to be seen acting like the Germans, who certainly would have lined up a dozen villagers and shot them and might not do anything.
But, when he realised I was involved, and that the so-called remnants of the resistance could and were willing to cause him trouble, he would have to do something about it. Especially with a high-value defector coming his way.
“Wallace certainly can’t do anything about it, other than come and ask questions. He can’t afford to be seen acting as anything but a British officer.”
“But he could get Leonardo and his men to do it for him.”
“Surely he wouldn’t kill the same people he’s lived with all his life.”
“Leonardo’s allegiance’s go to anyone who hands him a free meal ticket. Until the so-called British arrived at the castle, it was fine to be the resistance because he was being paid handsomely for his help. When the Germans left the castle, he considered his job was over, and we all went our different ways, hoping the war was over for us. Of course, that was only wishful thinking. Even when the British turned up at the castle, with the express intention of capturing and repatriating to England any Germans who wanted to defect, his advice was to let them do what they want.”
“What changed?”
“The man in charge, Wallace you call him, sent out a message for those who had been in the resistance to come up to the castle to talk. Leonardo thought it might be an opportunity to get back on the payroll. Carlo and I and several others didn’t go. There they were told they would be paid for each defector they collected and brought to the castle.”
“Didn’t he think that might be a little suspicious since it was just as easy for Wallace to send his own people to collect them, and not have to pay anything?”
“Now that we know they are Germans masquerading as British, it makes sense. But Leonardo is little more than a fool and greedy. He doesn’t care who pays so long as they pay. I suspect he has no idea who he’s working for, or what happens to the people he collects. Anyone who opted out of the new arrangement seems to have disappeared.”
“Many?”
“Three that we know of. They’re probably locked in the dungeons with the others you saw there.”
“How come he hasn’t come after you?”
“Too much trouble, and possibly because it’s a fight he can’t necessarily win.”
“He might not have a choice now. Wallace is going to have to do something about us, simply because he can’t let the defectors fall into our hands, and especially now that we know that’s why he’s here.”
“Then if it’s a fight he’s looking for, then we’ll have to give him one.”
“On that, I just had a thought on how we might be able to even up the odds a little, but I have to give it a bit more thought.”
An idea came to me, one that might just work because I was counting on the fact Wallace would have to do something and depending on… “In the meantime, we have to do something about the rest of the villagers, just in case I’m wrong about Wallace. How many people are left in the village?”
“About twenty. All the rest scattered when the Germans came the first time, and half of those that remained were killed for one reason or another. The previous commander of the castle frequently lost it when any of us refused to co-operate.”
“Then send Carlo out to round them up and put them somewhere safe.”
“There are no safe places anymore,” Carlo said, “None that they don’t know about.”
“What about here?”
“It’s the only place we have left that no one knows about.”
“Well, you don’t have much of a choice.”
Martina was not happy. Her isolated resistance effort was steadily becoming a large-scale attack, not the sort of operation she had intended. But I don’t think it would have stayed that way for very long, given Carlo’s actions.
She turned to Carlo. “Go and round them up and bring them here.”
“And if they refuse?”
“Then we’ve done all we can for them. But tell them that it’s a distinct possibility they will die if they stay where they are. Take Chiara, and hurry. I doubt it will be very long before the castle finds out what happened to their men.”
Carlo and Chiara grabbed a weapon each and left. When they returned, it would be to formulate a plan to take down Wallace and the others at the castle, hopefully before the defector arrived.
That plan that was evolving in my mind didn’t exactly involve the villagers, but the three or four remaining members I was now working. Leonardo might not know of all of them, or even if he did, one of them would be Wallace’s first calling point. It just depended on who he sent.
And if I was a betting man, and if he knew that one of his men was ‘seeing’ Chiara, then that’s where they would go.
The only question to be asked at this point, would we be too late to take advantage of an opportunity to reduce the odds?
This is the moon, unexpectedly observable in the late afternoon.
For me, the moon provided inspiration for an episodic story I have entitled, for now, ‘I always wanted to see the planets’.
It’s about a freighter captain who gets a gig as First Officer on an exploratory starship, who by a series of inexplicable events gets promoted to captain, and has to navigate not only the outer reaches of space, but new species.
But in the back of my mind there is that expression ‘shoot for the moon’, which could mean almost anything.
It could mean going for the unobtainable, whether it be a job, or the partner of your dreams. Failing can be heartbreak. Success might mean you’d be ‘over the moon’.
Them there’s travelling to moon, perhaps the next logical step for regular people, heading off the spend a week on a moon base hotel. I’m not sure what we would see out there in space; Perhaps a UFO?
Fictionalised, a moon base might just be the meeting place for various species, and being the mystery writer I am, what if there was a murder?
This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the second revision and release to beta readers.
…
Walking in another person’s shoes
…
Going to volunteer at a charity is not the place to be wearing shoes that are more expensive than the daily food budget. This is the task our boy is given, to take her with him as another volunteer.
Of course, how to break that news to a girl whose old clothes are probably more expensive than his car.
He goes to pick her up and there he discovers just what the work staff think of him. Not the sort of people they expect at Daddy’s company. Emily comes to his rescue.
Then there is convincing her he was not going to be able to take her in $5,000 Gucci dresses and Prada shoes. They were going to Walmart, a different type of shopping spree.
Of course, that’s not without its problems, the staff are members of the school she used to go to and people she tormented and treated badly. People seem to have long memories.
If only life was simpler.
That hurdle negotiated, more by luck than good fortune, they move to the next.
Our boy takes her home to his place, and when you live in a castle, literally, well…
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 