Charlie's latest newsletter
Nov. 23rd, 2018 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charlie_cochraneGradually life over here is returning to normal after an extraordinary outpouring of creativity (local and on a wider scale) in remembrance of the hundredth anniversary of the Armistice. I wonder if the powers that be had any idea how the events would touch such a wide range of people?
News
December is almost upon us which means the Rainbow Advent Calendar will soon be live. So many free stories – at least one every day – from some cracking authors. Clearly, as it’s an Advent calendar, you won’t know who or what is lurking behind the door until you open it and then – glory be! – you’ll find some little gem or other. I’ve got my story written; it’s heavily inspired by a strange sequence of events Mr. C and I experienced earlier this year up in the Arctic Circle.
Talking of short stories (cliched link time again) I had one featured in the recent Manifold press newsletter and they’ll be featuring more stories from other authors in future editions. Sign up here if interested.
The new Cambridge Fellows novella, Lessons in Cracking the Deadly Code, comes out on Monday, both in kindle and print.
It’s apt to have a snow related excerpt as we had our first flurries of the season here. I drove through a veritable blizzard (okay, it wasn’t that much but it counted as a blizzard for Hampshire) after having lunch with my old mucker Clare London.
“Snow. Ice. Snow. Ice. Bloody snow. Bloody ice.”
Jonty Stewart glanced over the top of his reading glasses to where his friend—plus lover plus colleague plus constant companion all rolled into one—was standing by the window. “As a song lyric that has originality but could be said to be slightly repetitious.”
Orlando Coppersmith snorted. “This weather is more than slightly repetitious. I suspect we’ll never see the sun again.”
“You can’t see the sun now, anyway. It’s evening.”
“Don’t quibble. You’re well aware of what I meant.”
“You should live at the top of Norway. They go without it for months on end. Anyway, you complain like billy-oh when it’s too hot.” Jonty went into his best impression of his friend’s deep tones. “Sun. Heat. Sun. Heat. Bloody sun. Bloody heat.”
“I’d come over there and slap you if I wasn’t too cold to move.”
“Then come away from the window. There’s bound to be a draught with the wind blowing a gale out there. It’s toasty by the fire.” Jonty patted the arm of his chair.
“My mother always said I’d get chilblains going from extreme cold straight into extreme heat.”
Jonty sighed. Orlando’s mother had told him many a thing, most of which appeared to have been a load of old rubbish. This particular tripe hadn’t been aired before, but then they’d not encountered a day quite so bitterly cold. January had certainly given them a blast of almost arctic conditions, conditions which they’d attempted to brave, but returned home after no more than ten minutes, feeling like explorers attempting to reach the South Pole and failing abysmally. No amount of wool or fur lined collars seemed able to keep the cold at bay.
“Why don’t you edge closer, then, old chap? At a rate of, say, one foot per minute? That should allow your feet to thaw without risking them provoking a medical episode.”
“To hell with it.” Orlando frowned, set his jaw, then strode over to a spot in front of the roaring hearth. “Ah. Bliss.”
“I told you so. When will you ever learn that Jonty knows best?”
Orlando muttered something along the lines of, “Never, I hope,” then carried on warming his backside. “This is the worst weather I can recall in a long time. Worse even than the snow at the Old Manor, that time I had amnesia.”
“Very true.”
What a few months that had been, a simple fall leading to a head injury that had robbed Orlando of a whole year’s worth of memories. At least part of the loss had probably been psychological, his body and brain adjusting to events which had turned his world upside down. It had been a hard winter in many ways, not least the weather, but the frozen part of his mind had thawed at last and returned him stronger and more resilient than before. This winter, while not as fenced about with traumatic events, was equally bad in terms of the snow, ice and general misery.
“It’s a different sort of cold compared to back then,” Jonty said. “Wetter, somehow. And with that howling wind it penetrates through every seam and buttonhole and into the Lord knows what or where. It’s at times like this one thinks of hibernating.”
“You’ve enough layers of blubber on you to do that right now.” Orlando grinned. “But in this instance I will grant that you’re absolutely correct. It’s not the dry cold we had down in Sussex. That was almost a pleasure to be out in.”
“Sussex is always a pleasure. Mama loads so many layers onto us, no cold could penetrate. It wouldn’t dare, anyway. Mama would tan its hide.”
“You can’t tan the weather’s hide. Although I grant that if there were a way to do it, she’d be without peer in the execution.”
And finally – from our parish church, last Sunday, an example of that outpouring of creativity for remembrance
Charlie
News
December is almost upon us which means the Rainbow Advent Calendar will soon be live. So many free stories – at least one every day – from some cracking authors. Clearly, as it’s an Advent calendar, you won’t know who or what is lurking behind the door until you open it and then – glory be! – you’ll find some little gem or other. I’ve got my story written; it’s heavily inspired by a strange sequence of events Mr. C and I experienced earlier this year up in the Arctic Circle.
Talking of short stories (cliched link time again) I had one featured in the recent Manifold press newsletter and they’ll be featuring more stories from other authors in future editions. Sign up here if interested.
The new Cambridge Fellows novella, Lessons in Cracking the Deadly Code, comes out on Monday, both in kindle and print.
It’s apt to have a snow related excerpt as we had our first flurries of the season here. I drove through a veritable blizzard (okay, it wasn’t that much but it counted as a blizzard for Hampshire) after having lunch with my old mucker Clare London.
“Snow. Ice. Snow. Ice. Bloody snow. Bloody ice.”
Jonty Stewart glanced over the top of his reading glasses to where his friend—plus lover plus colleague plus constant companion all rolled into one—was standing by the window. “As a song lyric that has originality but could be said to be slightly repetitious.”
Orlando Coppersmith snorted. “This weather is more than slightly repetitious. I suspect we’ll never see the sun again.”
“You can’t see the sun now, anyway. It’s evening.”
“Don’t quibble. You’re well aware of what I meant.”
“You should live at the top of Norway. They go without it for months on end. Anyway, you complain like billy-oh when it’s too hot.” Jonty went into his best impression of his friend’s deep tones. “Sun. Heat. Sun. Heat. Bloody sun. Bloody heat.”
“I’d come over there and slap you if I wasn’t too cold to move.”
“Then come away from the window. There’s bound to be a draught with the wind blowing a gale out there. It’s toasty by the fire.” Jonty patted the arm of his chair.
“My mother always said I’d get chilblains going from extreme cold straight into extreme heat.”
Jonty sighed. Orlando’s mother had told him many a thing, most of which appeared to have been a load of old rubbish. This particular tripe hadn’t been aired before, but then they’d not encountered a day quite so bitterly cold. January had certainly given them a blast of almost arctic conditions, conditions which they’d attempted to brave, but returned home after no more than ten minutes, feeling like explorers attempting to reach the South Pole and failing abysmally. No amount of wool or fur lined collars seemed able to keep the cold at bay.
“Why don’t you edge closer, then, old chap? At a rate of, say, one foot per minute? That should allow your feet to thaw without risking them provoking a medical episode.”
“To hell with it.” Orlando frowned, set his jaw, then strode over to a spot in front of the roaring hearth. “Ah. Bliss.”
“I told you so. When will you ever learn that Jonty knows best?”
Orlando muttered something along the lines of, “Never, I hope,” then carried on warming his backside. “This is the worst weather I can recall in a long time. Worse even than the snow at the Old Manor, that time I had amnesia.”
“Very true.”
What a few months that had been, a simple fall leading to a head injury that had robbed Orlando of a whole year’s worth of memories. At least part of the loss had probably been psychological, his body and brain adjusting to events which had turned his world upside down. It had been a hard winter in many ways, not least the weather, but the frozen part of his mind had thawed at last and returned him stronger and more resilient than before. This winter, while not as fenced about with traumatic events, was equally bad in terms of the snow, ice and general misery.
“It’s a different sort of cold compared to back then,” Jonty said. “Wetter, somehow. And with that howling wind it penetrates through every seam and buttonhole and into the Lord knows what or where. It’s at times like this one thinks of hibernating.”
“You’ve enough layers of blubber on you to do that right now.” Orlando grinned. “But in this instance I will grant that you’re absolutely correct. It’s not the dry cold we had down in Sussex. That was almost a pleasure to be out in.”
“Sussex is always a pleasure. Mama loads so many layers onto us, no cold could penetrate. It wouldn’t dare, anyway. Mama would tan its hide.”
“You can’t tan the weather’s hide. Although I grant that if there were a way to do it, she’d be without peer in the execution.”
And finally – from our parish church, last Sunday, an example of that outpouring of creativity for remembrance
Charlie
