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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Cooking for one

I wrote Welcome to Oakhaven to entertain my wife. That's her looking at Table Mountain. Unfortunately, she died three years ago and before she taught me to cook. Which means I have had to learn to cook for one. She made all kinds of delectable dishes needing multiple pots, which I cleaned and which left me terrified of any recipe that needs more than two pots. My kind of recipe is the one she used for shortbread. You chuck everything into the bowl and switch on the mixer. Just don't switch it on too fast or the ingredients explode and get thrown all over the kitchen, which is worse than cleaning multiple pots.

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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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About people

I love writing about people and I came across the following in a chat with a friend. A chap from the south of England was engaged to a Glasgow lassie and went north to visit his new proposed in-laws. It was all right when they talked to him one on one but when they got together, he couldn't understand a word. As he stood at the edge of the group his fiance came to make sure he was all right. 'You didn't tell me you had a twin sister,' he complained.
'Twin sister?'
'She was talking to your Dad just now,' he pointed out.
'That wasn't a sister, that was me,' his fiance told him.
The moral is, learn the language before you go to Glasgow, snow awfa hard, or in other words, it's not awfully hard.
Oakhaven may be in England but it is about people.


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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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