Quirkyworks

Competition is a sin.

2012-03-16T09:16:00.002Z

Is it?

John D Rockefeller said this.

If he hadn't been such a philanthropist I'd say he was a hypocrite. Perhaps he was both? "In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and ran it aggressively until he officially retired in 1897." Tell me he didn't slaughter his competition, tell me he didn't use them as a driving force to succeed.

I've got a strange (paradoxical?) attitude to competition. (Add that to the long list of other things about which I have a strange attitude.)

Evidence:

1. I won't go to the gym at the moment because I have a cracked rib and I KNOW that, even so, once I get there, I'd be unable to take it easy. I'd not be able to stop myself from striving to achieve. So it's best not to go at all.

2. I enter a lot of contests - writing contests - and, yes, I WANT TO WIN THEM. Of course I do. Forget all that stuff about 'It's the taking part that's important...'

I want to win them fair and square, though. On merit. So, for example, if the contest requires people to vote for you, and the winning entry depends on who has the most, and the most favourable reviews, I will NOT ask all my mates. I won't even tell them I've entered. (So I don't win things very often!)

3. I find it very, very hard to watch competitions - particularly the bit where the winner is announced. I love a programme on TV called Masterchef. It was the final last night - the fifteenth episode, and I'd watched the other fourteen avidly. I watched it right up until the point where the judges said that Tom's rhubarb could have been cooked a little longer. Tom's crestfallen face was enough to make me run from the room.

I simply couldn't bear to see the pain of the two who didn't win, that awful TV-manufactured suspense...

"And the Winner is..."

...followed by an eternity of waiting, of focusing on each face, on tears welling up in exhausted eyes.

I went to bed and pulled the duvet over my head so I couldn't even hear.

WHAT is all that about?

Well done, Shelina.

Though I wanted ALL of you to win.

My first big break came when I was five years old.

2012-03-15T11:03:00.000Z

It's taken me more than seventy years to realise that. You see, at five I first learnt to read. It's that simple and it's that profound.

Who said that? Here's a clue. It wasn't me. (I'm not seventy five years old.)

I just had to show you this. It's my name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Yes, really.

(With thanks to Mel Hermanny, my dear writing friend, who made a stellar day even more so by sending me the card above. Okay, so it's only a card but it COULD be real.)

Before I go any further - the person that talked about his first big break was...

Sean Connery

I'm taking his words seriously because it would be easy to be swept away by everything that was said to me yesterday about my work as a screenplay writer - importantly, by someone with an impressive track record in the business, who knows the business, who knows what is favoured, what will sell, is someone who will have his own reputation at stake by endorsing me.

I was surprised and delighted. Importantly, too, I didn't leave the London Film Academy bouncing off the rooftops and screeching along Fulham Broadway in a state of manic hysteria. I've done that before (in different places) when I've had some little glimmer of excitement about my work - and inevitably, it's all come to nothing.

Yesterday felt REAL. Practical. Considered. Full of promise, but without empty hype.

It WASN'T my first big break.

My first big break was to be the daughter of a talented writer who instilled in me his love for language and literature.

Thanks, Daddy.

Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants won't help.

2012-03-14T06:00:00.000Z

(from Calvin and Hobbes)

I don't even have any lucky rocket ship underpants. Now I feel seriously underprepared for my big meeting.

I do, however, have a lucky top. I'm going to wear it today. I'm sure it'll make a HUGE difference to my performance. I'll probably wear other clothes too. And some shoes.

“The trouble with most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation. They do not want to attract attention," said Edith Sitwell.

There's attracting attention and there's attracting attention, Edith.

I'm not going to be wearing lucky rocketship underpants. I'm not going to be dressed like a mouse. Or like Edith Sitwell.

I am going to be me.

If everything's under control, you're going too slow.

2012-03-13T10:42:00.001Z

...said Mario Andretti.

My very first quote from a Formula One racing driver. (I was going to say 'deceased' because it seems to me that many from his era are - but he's very much alive. Sorry, Mario.)

There's a picture to encourage a whole new readership to my blog - and possibly turn away many others. You win some, you lose some.

Sorry, petrolheads. This is nothing about accelerators, engines, races, pit stops, wet weather tyres (and now I've run out of Words To Do With Cars)

Writing - yes - my writing is often absolutely under too much control and isn't going too slowly, it's at a complete and utter standstill.

I was thinking about control this morning, in a different context. "Am I a control freak? AM I?" I was thinking to myself, as I was beaming with pleasure at the yard this morning.

I can stand beside Poppy, say 'lift up,' quietly, and she'll raise the nearest hoof ready for me to pick the stones and mud out.

I can go to the field gate, call out 'Alfie' and he'll come galloping out of nowhere (admittedly because he's after some grub, but still...)

Roly will sit when I ask him to (mostly!) Oh - he's a dog, not a horse. Now that WOULD be something...

It gives me such pleasure, all that.

I don't think it's because I'm a control freak. I think it's because I'm so delighted that I have such close relationships with these free-spirited animals that they're willing to listen to me as much as I'm willing to listen to their requests and anxieties.

I think it's the best feeling in the world.

If only my writing brain and I lived in such harmony...

Dreaming about being a writer is more exciting than being one.

2012-03-12T10:47:00.002Z

Maybe.

The quote is a misquote or rather, an adapted quote from Marilyn Monroe, who said it about being an actress.

On Wednesday, something I've been dreaming of as a writer is going to happen. A month back, I won a screenplay writing contest with the first ten pages of my feature length film The Melting

That wasn't the dream, as such, but the prize IS a dream - A meeting at the London Film Academy with David Pope, "the director of advance films, whose directing credits include the award winning feature film, Miles From Nowhere. As the former head of the New Producers Alliance, David knows the who’s who of the industry, and he will get your pitch up to speed so that you’re ready to be introduced to a network of contacts tailored to your project. David will help you position your screenplay for the industry and recommend to you the producers and executives who are just right for you."

This is worth more to me than a zillion pounds (well, almost.)

I'm bursting with excitement and full of hope (as you can probably imagine) - and scared and unsure how it'll be and wondering what will happen and whether I'll mess it up and will I ask the right questions and will I give the right answers and how should I prepare? (as you can probably imagine)

It's a big chance for me.

Positive vibes please!

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

2012-03-11T11:02:00.001Z

Bizarre quote No.367

You wouldn't think Margaret Atwood said it. Correction, I was surprised Margaret Atwood said it.

I've always had an image of her, something like this:

Intellectual. VERY intellectual, To be found only in the hallowed halls of academia.Not outside, up to her knees in mud.

"The Economist called her a "scintillating wordsmith" and an "expert literary critic", but commented that her logic does not match her prose in Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, a book which commences with the conception of debt and its kinship with justice. Atwood claims that this conception is ingrained in the human psyche, manifest as it is in early historical peoples, who matched their conceptions of debt with those of justice as typically exemplified by a female deity. Atwood holds that, with the rise of Ancient Greece, and especially the installation of the court system detailed in Aeschylus's Oresteia, this deity has been replaced by a more thorough conception of debt."

Look, I'm not stupid. I already had a bit of a headache. My headache is now worse. That's not to say I don't love her writing. I share her opinion about science fiction - the differentiation between it and speculative fiction. She says "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." Science fiction, as opposed to what she herself wrote, was "talking squids in outer space."

Science fiction (if we are to endorse her definition) leaves me cold. Speculative fiction - I love. I write.

However, her father was an entomologist, and she spent much of her childhood in the backwoods of Northern Quebec. She lived on a farm in Alliston, Ontario, not at all far from where my boy Jamie now lives (so she MUST be okay!)

Very well, Margaret Atwood. I shall now revise my most awful stereotypical opinion about you and who you are.

Here's a kinder image.

At the end of today, I can promise you I shall smell like dirt.

Men make use of their illnesses at least as much as they are made use of by them.

2012-03-10T12:01:00.000Z

Notice Aldous Huxley said 'men' not 'women'...

There, now I've made him despair. He's saying 'Duh! I didn't mean men as opposed to women, airhead. I meant men as in the human race.' Or something like that.

Have I been making use of my illness? Not really. I've carried on carrying on. The only thing I haven't felt able to do is train for the marathon. I've examined my soul and I do believe I wasn't fit to run. Cracked rib. Breathless. Flu. The hospital doctor told me not to run for two weeks...I was glad to have An Official Mandate so I didn't feel guilty.

I was wondering whether or not to pull out of the marathon altogether. It seemed just TOO hard to contemplate. Damn it. I WON'T.

So, today...soon...honest...I promise...back on the road. Not after two weeks but 9 days...

I can do this!

How to make difficult tasks easier

2012-03-09T12:36:00.000Z

There's loads of guff written about this on the interweb...

I'll just add some more guff then, shall I?

It's not so much about making difficult tasks easier, BUT...

Here's the thing. Poppy is an adorable horse. She's also hard work and challenging.

(Can't you just tell from the picture?)

She knows what she wants to do and when she wants to do it and it may or may not coincide with my intentions. It takes quite a lot of energy to get her going, keep her going, keep her going steadily without any bucks and bolts. If she feels held back then she'll simply dig her heels in and refuse to go AT ALL. Or she'll say 'You want me to go? I'll show you what going means!' and she'll explode in a chestnut and flaxen ball of pent-up energy.

I love her to bits AND she's hard work.

Today, my chest was dodgy. I decided to brave a lesson at the same time as my friend Katrina and her pony Milton, a sweet 13.3 palamino.

After a few minutes, Tessa suggested we swapped horses. Milton was NOT difficult for me, after Poppy. He was most obliging. He did anything I asked. IMMEDIATELY. I found it refreshingly easy. (He's not that easy, in fact. Quite a few people can't get him to go.)

Katrina did great on Poppy but she found her extremely HARD WORK and had to keep stopping to get her breath back.

Then I got back on Poppy. She was still hard work but suddenly it seemed easier. WHY? Because, having ridden Milton, I realised how difficult she really is and that it's not that I'm a pathetic, useless rider.

SO - one way of making a difficult task easier is to accept that it IS a difficult task.

Simple as that.

Thanks, Poppy.

I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life...

2012-03-08T09:55:00.000Z

...provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better. (Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, 1903)

Let me find a picture of Samuel Butler so I can print it out, stick it on the back of my study door and throw darts at it.

I HATE being ill. Absolutely HATE it. I'm not very good at it. The thing is, I'm very strong-willed about it and think that if I pretend I'm not ill and carry on as normal, then I'll conquer it. (I don't want to make myself out as some sort of heroine. I'm not. I'm just explaining how I behave when I'm ill.)

I have flu. Not a nasty cold that I've labelled as flu because it sounds better than saying I have a nasty cold. I have flu. Compounded by the fact that sneezing and coughing is excruciatingly painful with a cracked rib.

I'm just back from seeing to the horses. (The fresh air DID make me feel marginally better) When I left, Peter said 'If you're as ill as you say you are then you wouldn't be able to go to the yard.'

WRONG. I just did.

Samuel Butler says it's a pleasure being ill provided one "is not obliged to work till one is better." I have to say that if I had what Peter calls 'a proper job' I wouldn't be going in to work.

Working for myself, working from home, being freelance, depending on commissions, working to tight print deadlines...am I 'obliged' to work?

Yesterday, I thought so. A very tight deadline for a holiday brochure about Florida.

It took me 7½ hours. I don't know how I did it. I don't know if it's a pile of rubbish. (I must check in the clear light of day) I DO know that I have developed an abiding hate for Florida. (Sorry Florida)

I'm sure, however, that my brochure will encourage zillions of unsuspecting Brits to take a holiday there.

I'm good at pretending.

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.

2012-03-07T09:16:00.000Z

(It makes me sad, [or is it annoyed?] that if I Google Winnie the Pooh, pages and pages of Disney images come up before E.H. Shepard.)

HOWEVER...when I took the trash can off my head (see yesterday) I could see that part of my trouble is that I'm not very organised. Another part of my trouble is that sometimes I spend a lot of time organising, with To Do Lists and plans and then spend very little time DOING. Sigh. Another paradox.

Option 37B - what I fondly call retrospective planning. Here is how it works: I make a list of everything I've already done.

Then I cross things off.

This works in two contrasting ways.

1. It makes me feel good about what I've achieved
2. It makes me feel bad that I've achieved so little.

Yesterday, I created a table. The title at the top reads 'THINGS I HAVE DONE TO PROMOTE MY CAREER AS A CREATIVE WRITER'

It contains some uplifting entries - cataloguing those people I've contacted in the past few days, those production companies to whom I've sent scripts following requests, the index cards I've put together for my latest feature length screenplay.

It was only later I noticed that it doesn't mention me actually doing some writing.

Procrastination is, hands down, our favourite form of self-sabotage.

2012-03-06T10:40:00.001Z

Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby (American manager and author) almost said this. Except she didn't put the u in favourite.

That's quite a name, Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby. Does it REALLY have all those Ys in it or is that just for effect?

If I wanted to sound important I might change my name to Carolyne A. Crucial-Coxon (the Third.) The A stands for Awfully, because I'm British.

Enough of that...confession time.

Oh, you didn't realise?

Origin of PROCRASTINATE

Latin procrastinatus, past participle of procrastinare, from pro- forward + crastinus of tomorrow, from cras tomorrow. First Known Use: 1588

(I haven't been doing it THAT long.)

The thing about procrastinating is that it's meant to mean 'to put off something until later', isn't it? I find zillions of things that Must Be Done before I get on with my writing. What's it called if you put off something FOREVER?

Cowardice? Stupidity? I Googled those words to find an image and here it is:

Today, I'm going to remove the trash can from my head. I hope there's something under there.

The last thing you want to do...

2012-03-05T10:39:00.000Z

is so often the very best thing that you could do.

Isn't life a contrary beast? A paradox.

I promised I wouldn't whinge today, so take everything I say as a statement of fact, not as a pathetic moan.

Last night I tried to sleep sitting up to prevent the phlegm from trickling down the back of my throat.

This morning I woke to find that someone had been scrubbing my upper respiratory tract with Brillo Pads while I was temporarily incapacitated.

The weather? Cold. Windy. Threatening rain.

Oh, how much I didn't feel like getting out of bed at 6 a.m. to go to the yard to see to the horses!

Oh, how much I didn't feel like saddling up Alfie and taking him for his exercise!

I did though. I started off telling myself we'd just go to the end of Perryman's Lane then come back...but by the time we got there, the sun had come out and we carried on.

My upper body feels as though it's been stamped on by a Large Boot...

...but in myself, I feel SO MUCH BETTER.

A week is a long time...

2012-03-04T11:18:00.002Z

...not just in politics, said Caroline Coxon and Harold Wilson (British Prime Minister twice, during the 1960s and 70s.)

Harold Wilson also said '“I'm an optimist, but an optimist who carries a raincoat.”

He could do with one today, that's for sure.

I was thinking that this time last week, we had just arrived back from our holiday (we as in Pete and I not we as in Harold and I. He's been dead since 1995 and that would be just too weird.) and I felt refreshed, relaxed and clear-headed, raring to go.

This week, I've been to hospital with breathlessness following on from a thumping ski fall when I hurt my ribs and now I seem to have caught Peter's flu-type coldy bug so I feel like...how can I put this politely?...

I won't even try.

My beloved brother was admitted to hospital with heart problems, son Tim hasn't been too grand, Pete's been ill in bed. The weather has reverted from mild spring sunshine to dank, windy, drizzling rain with the threat of snow, too.

Do I feel refreshed, relaxed and clear-headed, and raring to go any more?

No, I do not.

Am I a miserable old whinge who doesn't appreciate how lucky she is?

Yes, I am.

I do apologise.

Normal unrealistic and ephemeral optimism will be resumed tomorrow.

In the grey of the morning my mind becomes confused...

2012-03-03T12:21:00.001Z

....between the dead and the sleeping and the road that I must choose.

Mondrian's Grey Tree

See, I was looking for quotes with grey in them. (English to American translation: gray) Grey it is today. Drizzling. Cloudy. Misty. Miserable.

Very little success.

There were lots of quotes from someone called Skylar Grey (never heard of her); lots of quotes from Jeremy Grey (never heard of him); quotes from Grey's Anatomy (never watched it) but hardly anything containing the word grey.

Then I came across the quote from The Moody Blues song Question and I was transported straight back to 1970. (Do listen!) No greyness there. Just sunshine.

What a year that was! Of all the years of my youth - this was THE one I remember. Every Sunday evening, I used to listen to Pick of The Pops and patiently write down the Top 20 in my diary.

It was a pretty good year, let me tell you.

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
Layla - Derek and the Dominoes
Let It Be - The Beatles
Your Song - Elton John
Lola - The Kinks
Fire And Rain - James Taylor
Alright Now - Free
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
and...
Question - Moody Blues.

Excuse me if I say...they don't write them like that anymore. (I'm turning into my parents)

WELL, THEY DON'T!

Loosening the reins

2012-03-02T11:23:00.000Z

Loosening the reins when riding, in some situations, is definitely counter-intuitive.

Like this:

Out riding on Alfie, in the early days, when I was less experienced and he was more nervous. On a sharp bend in the road.

Ahead, Tessa riding Hero.

Immediately behind, a queue of impatient mothers in 4x4 vehicles doing the school run. (In my experience these drivers are The Very Worst; worse even than White Van Men. Why can they not just set off a little earlier so they're not in such a screaming hurry all the time?)

To the left, a high hedge.

To the right, a grass bank on which was Man With Strimmer.

...Man With Strimmer and ear mufflers, intent on his task. We were just level with him when he started the strimmer. Alfie had nowhere to go but up, in his fright. My instinctive reaction - pull him back.

'LET GO!' screamed Tessa.

I remember thinking 'Is this woman MAD? I'm clinging on for dear life on a vertically rearing horse and she wants me to let go?'

But I did. And Alfie went down onto four feet again. (Man With Strimmer carried on strimming. The mothers in the 4x4s gave us a wide berth. I hope they felt suitably guilty but I'm sure they didn't.)

OF COURSE I should have loosened the reins or we'd both have gone over backwards.

I'm a bit like that with work. I hold on SO tight, try to keep everything under control, then it has the habit of rearing up unexpectedly and I must remember to...

'LET GO!'

Loosen the reins.

March is a month of considerable frustration...

2012-03-01T11:04:00.000Z

It is so near spring and yet right across the country, the weather is so violent and changeable that outdoor activity in our yards seems light years away.

I've not heard of Thalassa Cruso. I'm not sure if her weather predictions are accurate. I'm hoping March won't be a month of considerable frustration.

I'm thinking it's up to me to make sure it isn't.

To start me off, here's a beautiful March hare, not at all mad.

I love the work of Karen Davis. Here's a link to her Facebook page. I have some postcards from her and I'm going to put them up around my desk to celebrate March.

Now, here's a daffodil!

Today's St. David's Day. He's the patron saint of Wales and the daffodil is his flower. I'm going to buy a HUGE bunch for myself just to say Dydd gwyl Dewi Hapus!

THERE, March isn't frustrating at all. It's rather wonderful.

It is a truly wise man who does not play leap frog with a unicorn

2012-02-29T12:04:00.000Z

Wise words indeed. I was looking for a leap year quotation and couldn't find one but thought this would do (and also prevent potential serious injury, should you ever have thought of taking up this particular extreme sport.)

First find your unicorn.

Really, I'm thinking this day should be Very Special, that I should do something extraordinary to mark it. It seems quite churlish not to make the most of this gift of an extra 24 hours in my life.

As a woman of the married persuasion, proposing to a man is a little out of the question.

"Believed to go back to an old Irish legend, it's said that a man who refuses the proposal of a woman on a leap day must buy her a gift as an apology. Some versions of the tradition say the gift should be 12 pairs of gloves, so the woman can hide the embarrassment of not having an engagement ring."

Who needs twelve pairs of gloves, anyway? Or an extra husband.

One is quite sufficient.

Whimsical or the product of a deranged mind?

2012-02-28T11:20:00.000Z

Neither, in my opinion.

The Librarian

I was watching University Challenge on TV last night. In case you don't know, it's a BBC quiz show where teams from British universities compete. The quiz master, Jeremy Paxman, has the sort of cutting wit that would reduce me to a quivering jelly of mortification in three seconds.

The questions are...not easy (unless you happen to know the answer)

"What subfield of physics deals with plasmas, such as those in fusion reactors and interplanetary space, and more generally with the interactions between a conducting fluid and a magnetic field?"

or perhaps...

"Which French chemist refuted the phlogiston theory of combustion by identifying and naming oxygen? He was guillotined in 1794 for tax crimes, despite having helped reform the taxation system."

Actually, I can usually (sometimes) answer the artsy questions and, oh, what a thrill that is when I get an answer right! Small pleasures...

The picture of The Librarian was a starter question for the picture round. I'd not seen it before. I thought...'Picasso? Braque? Definitely 20th century avant-garde."

I'm glad I only thought and didn't SAY out loud. The humiliation would have been too great to bear.

The Librarian was by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527 – 1593) - SIXTEENTH CENTURY? Well, only about four hundred years out, Caroline.

"After the portrait was released to the public, some scholars, who had a close relationship with the book culture at that time, argued that the portrait ridiculed their scholarship. In fact... it criticized some wealthy people who collected the books in order to satisfy their ownership, instead of to read the books."

Whimsical or the product of a deranged mind? Sheer genius, I'd say.

Unlike my feeble attempts to answer questions on University Challenge.

“Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, it is our duty to furnish it well.”

2012-02-27T06:08:00.001Z

I always loved Peter Ustinov and now I love him all the more.

We are not prisoners of fate. Only prisoners of our mind.

So, today, I'm going to choose my furniture. This time, I'm not going to Ikea. My mind deserves something more than sofas called Sven.

...or maybe...

or...

Interior designer of my own mind! Uncluttered, sunny, fresh and clean.

I'd like to live there forever.

“My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.”

2012-02-26T12:51:00.000Z

Was this from a self-development seminar? A transformational workshop? A psychotherapy session?

Nope. Samuel Johnson said it sometime between 1709 and 1784. (I'm not sure of the exact date.) Enlightened chap.

BEFORE

When I went on holiday, this is roughly what my mind looked like inside...

...only messier. And I didn't have a bolt through my neck.

Here was me working at the computer:

In fact, I don't really know how I functioned at all. I DID function though because I finished all my projects to deadline and got no complaints. (That's my understated British way of saying I got lots of thanks and compliments)

In the 'doing stuff for work' compartment - firing on all cylinders really. As for the rest - well, there wasn't a rest. I could hardly remember what day it was let alone entertain any thoughts of dealing with Important Matters like my life and well-being.

AFTER

Having a clear mind, by the way, is different from having an EMPTY one. I quite often get those. It isn't really empty, though, it's just so jammed full of can'ts that no rational thought can be squeezed out so it SEEMS empty. Not empty but stuck.

So here's me with a beautiful clear mind and I can see what's important and where to go from here in a calm and not at all driven way and I'm inspired by Eric Butterworth's thoughts - "More important than learning how to recall things is finding ways to forget things that are cluttering the mind."

The BIG question is: How long will it last?

“And every stranger's face I see Reminds me that I long to be, homeward bound”

2012-02-25T07:03:00.001Z

Holidays are wonderful. This holiday was wonderful, aside from the horrendous accident, but today we're travelling home and I'm looking forward to that.

Things I got from the holiday:

1. A clear mind
2. Bruised ribs
3. Tired legs
4. Happy memories
5. One sad memory (Guido's injuries)
6. Lots of laughs. (Oh how we laughed yesterday when we were in the hot tub and the kids chucked in a huge chunk of ice!)
7. Ski goggle face

(No, not a total regeneration including breast implants)

Things I missed:

1. Roly, Poppy and Alfie
2. My own bed
3. A PROPER ENGLISH CUP OF TEA

There is no such thing as an accident; it is fate misnamed.

2012-02-24T13:56:00.000Z

Thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte for this pearl of wisdom. I'm sure Guido appreciates it.

"Many theories have been presented as to why Napoleon is traditionally depicted with his hand in his waistcoat. Some of these theories include: that he had a stomach ulcer, he was winding his watch, he had an itchy skin disease, that in his era it was impolite to put your hands in your pockets, he had breast cancer, he had a deformed hand, he kept a perfumed sachet in his vest that he'd sniff surreptitiously, and that painters don't like to paint hands."

Somewhat and rather horrifically ironic, this. I'm thinking Guido, dear Swiss skiing friend, will be holding his arm like that for some time to come.

We were skiing down the mountain merrily and a blood wagon came past...

...one of those occasions where you don't want to look but somehow you're compelled. Skiing next to the blood wagon was David, another friend, and in it was Guido. He had had a horrendous crash, badly smashed his R Lower arm and has broken his back in two places (but can still wiggle his toes)

An accident? He went for a black ski jump... twice. The first time it went well, the second time...madness really. Fate? I don't know. Who knows?

I do know that the longer the ski holiday goes on the more I think...I've got away so far without injury. SURELY my good fortune can't last?

Guido's certainly didn't. Quite.

We learned that someone died on that jump the day before.

Perhaps it's the prosecco?

2012-02-23T05:53:00.000Z

Penguin Pete injured a flipper yesterday. A large Germanic gentleman, allegedly 4 metres tall and weighing about 2000 kilos, ploughed into the side of him and knocked him flying.

Apparently, he may also have glowed in the dark.

Penguin Pete flatly refuses to wear a helmet when skiing. (He likes the feel of the wind rushing through his hair.) Now he has a nasty graze on his temple and a very, VERY swollen thumb, bent right backwards by the force of 2000 kilos of Germanic gentleman on one of his ski poles.

He also refused to go to the medical centre. In company, when any member of our group ask how he is, he replies manfully 'Oh, it's fine. Nothing really.'

Alone with me in our room...quite a different story.

Back to the prosecco. I drank some. Then I was looking for an image of a penguin with an injured flipper and look what I found:

I'm afraid to say it made me laugh. A lot.

It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry.

2012-02-22T05:52:00.000Z

There are lots of people listed with the name Joe Moore. One of them said that.

See what he means?

Yes, I'm in a land of ice and snow, but no there aren't any penguins.

Except, that is, for Penguin Pete. My husband.

On dry land, his feet are turned out at 10 to 2. I wouldn't exactly say he waddles but he's not the skinniest man on the planet.

On the ski slope, he's poetry in motion. Elegant, graceful, effortless. The equivalent of a penguin once it gets to the water.

Oh, and penguins mate for life, don't they? "That doesn't surprise me that much because penguins all look alike. It's not like they're going to meet a really great looking new penguin someday."

I am, for the record, not penguin-like either on land or on snow. More a cross between Bambi and a contorted goblin, if I'm honest.

This is where we were skiing today:

Except there were more people.

“Valour is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.”

2012-02-21T05:54:00.000Z

Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher,1533-1592, said this. So, I'm guessing, not many skiing holidays then.

No, he doesn't look much like a skier really, but he DOES look as though he has an awful lot of brains. He could have written the quote about valour just for me today.

Our hotel is at the top of a mountain pass. Lovely except at the end of a day's skiing when, in order to get back to it, you have to catch a lift right up the mountain then ski down The Most Horrendous Route Of Death to get to another lift that goes back to the hotel.

The Most Horrendous Route Of Death at the beginning of the day when my legs aren't tired...fine. At the end of a long day...not fine.

Not sure exactly how many times I fell over. One time, I crashed badly and slid down the hill. I couldn't stop and took out Geoffrey below me who sat on my face (and smashed my goggles) As Elliot said afterwards, in another culture that would mean we were most certainly married.

I made it down and, more remarkably, managed to do it without bursting into tears through fear, pain and exhaustion.

It really is a case of what's going on in your head more than how you're getting down the hill.

Yeah, skiing is such good fun!