Inspiration in the coffee shop

I gave up several social activities to concentrate on writing but found I was running short on ideas, decided to get out a bit more, and went along to the local coffee shop. Two well dressed ladies came and sat at the table next to me and began to talk. 'Did Maisie's cousin come to fix your tap?' one asked. 'Yes he did. I was in my underwear when he came but it was from Marks and Spencers, so it was quite respectable.' the other answered. There's more unsaid than said but it's the kind of thing that stirs the imagination and I concluded that I'm one of those who need to have people around to keep my creative wires humming.
One of my favourite inspirational sites is the bus when the WI are on a trip or at the bowls club. That's when you hear about all kinds of human foibles and I get several episodes for another Welcome to Oakhaven or Best in Show's Cairndhu. The big thing about those episodes is that people can identify with them, they've usually happened elsewhere and, in addition, they are important enough in normal life for them to be commented on.

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Caffeine free

A friend  of mine was feeling the need of a restorative but had his mother-in-law staying so didn't want to have anything she might criticise and went into one of the new coffee shops. He asked for a coffee. The attendant asked him what kind he would like, pointing to the long list of varieties he could choose from. My friend looked at the list, couldn't see anything that looked like just coffee and left, even more stressed than when he went in.

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Sunburn in Oakhaven or Cairndhu

One of the things I like about writing village stories is that they bring out memories to people. this recent spell of hot weather reminded me of one of those episodes that many people can recall. A teenage friend got sunburnt one day and couldn't sleep. He went to the bathroom cupboard to get some calamine lotion to cool it down. The bathroom switch was one of those with a string you pull, make a CLLLICK and waken the whole house, so he probed around in the dark, found a bottle and rubbed the liquid on. Ten minutes later the whole house was awake anyway as he scrabble back to the bathroom and turned the light on to wash the stuff off. When he looked at the bottle it was Deep Heat.
More like Best in show than Welcome to Oakhaven, but Elaine's grandson would be a candidate for that story.

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Fit for Heroes

With the last two posts I'm in danger of becoming a 'when-we'. The trouble is I have met so many wonderful people, not just as a journalist but in ordinary life. I wrote used one, an old teacher as a model for A Land Fit for Heroes and then added two to the cover, my mother as a young girl and an uncle who was one of the wonderful people. My wife liked the cover so that is four on that one book. I also remember some who were unconventional and their early lives are recorded in the same book. They became intermingled, bits from one attached to bits of another and a little of a third and through that, they grew into the characters who make up Cairndhu. I enjoy devising a plot but the real fun ios when those characters take over the tale.

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Best in Show

One of the things that I remembered from visits to Pniel was the Flower Show in the village I grew up in, which in turn led to the book Best in Show. My father had been a keen chrysanthemum grower and, when I mentioned that, Linda insisted I meet with the local flower show competitors. We had a good chat about the tricks otherwise honest men tried when the prize of Best in show was at stake. It was the wrong time of the year for blooms or harvesting anything but I was shown pictures of some of the winning exhibits. The pumpkins were enormous and it reminded me of how much colour village life had added to my living. The close contact that is forced on people in a village leads to mixtures of such a variety of characters that is unnecessary on a city where one can pick and choose to socialise with. I suppose that's why I have enjoyed writing about villages and country folk. I can bring the most unlikely people together.

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