Home in both senses of the word. Back to BC, that's the main thing.

As I may have mentioned, a lot of blood results came back yesterday and I have questions.

A further blood test appeared today - it seems I have MRSA :( No wonder I was feeling cold!

I do get Staph infections from time to time and they suck the heat out of me, which is one way I recognise them. Oh, well, off to the doctor tomorrow. They won't operate on me unless I can nuke this from orbit.

Penny

Regrettably they are not the edible kind, but at least it means progress - of a sort.

Tomorrow (22nd April) I go to London for a pre-operation consultation.

I have noticed the site has been slow for a few days, but then I do know there's a nasty DDOS going around, it must be the change in weather.

Having just logged on, I got this:

Notice: MemcachePool::getstats(): Server 169.197.80.86 (tcp 11211, udp 0) failed with: Connection timed out (110) in require_once() (line 19 of /var/www/html/bcmain/armoire/sites/all/modules/memcache/memcache-lock.inc).


Just a note to say I changed a name in the latest Voyage of the Visund: Count Corbrian to Count Korboro.

This is my own fault for losing a piece of paper with certain names on and then forgetting what I wrote. Julia would have jumped on that immediately.

There are rough rules governing name formats along the Great Valley... rules which change as one moves along. I forgot those rules. Also, technically, to be consistent a 'C' should never be used in a name of anything - but 'ch' is fine as it represents a different sound.

As always, there are exceptions :)

This surfaced today, there are articles everywhere:

Pattison in a skirt

You may consider my link frivolous but its only one of many that DDG threw up.

I'm not sure that I like this trend. OK it may be comfortable for men to wear but it blurs the lines over something most of us didn't want blurred: we'd rather just be on the other side!

Penny

The Genesis of Scratch!

This little amusement created itself while we were away for a few days in East Anglia. The hotel had been booked before Her Majesty died, which meant that we ended up with two days (Sunday and the Monday of the funeral) when almost nothing was open. Stuck in a hotel room with only sandwiches bought the previous day and kept chilled in the room mini-bar, the idea slowly matured...

I absolutely hate writing in fitful starts and stops. At worst it means that my reader has to keep going back to re-read previous chapters to remember what was going on. Unfortunately, as we all know, many if not most of us do not have the leisure of being able to write all day every day - or even every week.

I apologise for the delay. In Real Life, stuff happens.

So my muse hit me with a little bit of whimsy and out came Personal Protective Equipment. It was just a tiny bit of amusement in these strange times, or so I thought. But my muse didn't let up, and began expanding the idea in all directions. If I had tried to make a coherent story I could probably have stretched that 150 words to maybe 10 or twelve chapters. Unfortunately, I have too many balls already in the air to even consider that.

Saw this today. Unintended consequences, anyone?

When a DNA Test Says You’re a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away

So, if you have a bone marrow transfer from a member of the opposite gender, say...

Interesting, no? Looks like good material for a story or three.

Penny

As is often the case, things didn't go to plan after my previous blog. I am embarrassed that you haven't seen the level of output from me you might have been accustomed to.

Then, Monday 14th January at 00:45 in the morning, my father died. I can't blame him for much, but his death just makes one more distraction for me.

I've had a cold for about two weeks, one that seems to be a bit like that mythical snowball. It was so bad this morning that I have canceled the appointment I had with my consultant tomorrow. I won't drive there and I don't want to expose everybody else to my viruses.

Then, at about 5pm on Saturday last, the hard disk on my main server died. Joy! Try fixing that when you barely know which way is up!

I apologise in advance if this is inappropriate. I have no connection to Baen Books except as a long-time satisfied customer.

As somebody mentioned a few weeks ago, a 'Magical Girl' story, previously seen as pre-publication, is in fact now on sale from them:

Princess Holy Aura

Price is $8.99. I shall be buying a copy just as soon as I can find my wallet...

Penny

So, there I was, on a roll after getting the last two chapters of What Milsy Did out in a reasonable time. I'm heading off into the next, crucial chapter, and with about 5,500 words written, a never-ending and seemingly random series of unexpected happenings has derailed me almost completely.

Author's Commentary on Somewhere Else Entirely: Chapters 27 to 30

Garia recovers after her first major test. We learn more about Anmar as she becomes more comfortable with life in the palace.