Now relax

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

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FRENZY on Amazon U.K
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Frenzy for the rest of the world
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I got a phone call from a good friend. She has been exploring her spiritual side of life over the last twelve months and has been studying the oriental art of Reiki. 'Would you mind if I could try it on you?' What could I say? There was only one thing I could and that was yes.

Friends and family can make strange request at times, and it's your response to these moments that show how good a friend you are. I was for a fraction of a second unsure what was required of me, but no matter my misgivings I replied immediately. 'Yes.' I said. 'No problem when do you want to do it?'

We checked our diary's and the best date for both of us kept going further, and further, into the distance, and at one stage I thought we would never find a suitable time until I decided to bite the bullet, and suggested. 'Why don't you do it today?'

She was over the moon and a time was set. I explained to the wife what had been asked and I think she was happy to get me out of the house so she could put her feet up, and watch her soaps on the television without me being by her side moaning about what a load of rubbish they are, and are nothing like real life.

So there I was laying on this table on my back with all my cloths on. There was soft music playing, scented candles burning, and an old thirties style clock that tick tocked away every couple of seconds that sat on the mantle piece.

'Relax.' She said and I tried my best. 'Now I've told you to relax so close your eyes, and let your mind and body be free.' Then she spent a minute in pray and concentration before holding her hands on either side of my head. She didn't touch my but I could feel her warmth and slowly, very slowly I began to relax.

Slowly, very slowly her hands moved over my body as I relaxed to the music why the tick tock of the clock reminded me that time stands still for no one. It lasted for about forty five minutes then it was over, and I must say when I first stood up my head went dizzy. It was a very relaxing experience and afterwards we sat together and had a cup of herbal tea.

When I got home I told the wife she should give it ago.

Like I've said before I will try anything once and if I like it I will do it again, and if i don't then I won't, and on this occasion I think I will give it another go. My friend asked me for my honest opinion and I came up with what I thought would help improve the experience. My first suggestion was to get the clock out the way, because it's hard to relax when you are being reminded every second that time is slipping away from you.

Time is very precious because you don't know when it will stop for good, either for you or your loved ones. This is why I started on my quest to become an author when my father-in-law passed away and Frenzy a Daniel Jones story was the finished product, but its not the end of the story because my own clock is tick tocking away, and this thought is inspiring me to complete Daniel Jones Doom the sequel.

If you clock is ticking away then you should be grateful it still is, and don't waste any more time.

So do what you need to do today.

Regards

Mark.  

The 10 hour blast

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
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markkingtheauthor@gmail.com

This is going to have to be a sort post because I'm absolutely knackered.

I've just spent the last ten hours today writing over seven thousands words when I went on a writing bender were I completed a whole chapter. To be truthful when I get into one of these situations it can almost become manic as the words flow in a never ending stream, and I could go through the whole day, the night and through to the nest day without stopping.

I titled the chapter 'Brotherly Love' and it's slap bang in the middle of my new book Daniel Jones DOOM. I'm looking to complete between 80,000 to 90,000 words in the sequel to FRENZY a Daniel Jones story which was set in about 62,000 words.

I do love writing and it's a pleasure to do a job that you like to do rather than being stuck in dead end job. So even though my head is spinning with words I still enjoyed completing this sort posting on my blog at always-hanging-around.

I'm now going to sign off and try to settle my mind with a nice cup of herbal tea while I put by feet up on the sofa, and try to get lost in the world of television for an hour before I head to my bed, hopefully with a sleepy head. On the other hand I'm just as likely to lay there with more of my story whirling around my mind why my fingers twitch to get back onto the key-board.

So good night to all of my readers around the world and I hope you sleep tight tonight.

Regards

Mark.

The Three Wifes

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
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markkingtheauthor@gmail.com

To my readers around the world you will have noticed that this blog is a little bit late and not posted on Friday as normal. This is because once again my laptop had been suffering its daily breakdown, and ended back at the repair shop.

I've been unable to do any writing on Daniel Jones DOOM so its afforded me the chance to read a book.

Now normally I try not to read fiction when I'm writing because I don't want another author's words to influence my own style, but on this occasion I decided to make an exception to the rule, and try out a new author I had never read before. I had a copy of the The Three Wife's of Don Quixote Smith by Roy Murry and I glad I did.

It's only 200 pages long so great for reading if you have some spare time to kill like when you're travelling any distance or in my case waiting for the return of my laptop. It's also very easy to follow as you basically find out about the life of Don Quixote Smith through the eyes of three women that came into, and then left his life. So you have four main characters plus a couple of side characters.

One thing I don't like to read are books that have too many characters in the plot line so it becomes very hard to remember what person is who. I've read the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and at one stage twenty plus family characters are mentioned. I kept loosing the visual in my mind of who was who, and how they were connected to each other.

You didn't have that problem with Roy Murry's writing which is why I liked it. The other thing I must point about The Three Wife's of Don Quixote Smith is that it's what I would call a very sexually book. If you're a red blooded male like myself or a women that loves saucy reading material then you will find your pulse racing at times. All in all it made a nice change of reading for me, and now that I have my laptop back I shall go back to non-fiction for the next couple of months while I finished the sequel to Frenzy a Daniel Jones story.

But I won't put Roy Murry's book onto my book shelf just let. I will wait until the dear wife settles down on the sofa with a glass of wine in her hand, and then when the children are tucked up in bed, and fast asleep, I will nudge the book in front of her, and suggest she has a read.

Then I will sit back and wait for Don Quixote Smith to work his magic!

Regards

Mark.

Learning from history

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
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markkingtheauthor@gmail.com

History was always my favourite subject at school and today I still like it. I like to read about it and I like to watch documentaries about it. You can't predict the future, but by knowing your history gives you a guiding hand in life.

In the U.K over the last two weeks we have had terrible ran fall in certain parts of England especially in an area called the Somerset levels, and the Thames estuary west of London.

The Somerset levels is a large area of flat land that is surrounded on three sides by higher ground with flowing rivers that run down into it, and the fourth side backs onto the sea. When it rains it's like various taps running into a bowl floating in a sink full of water. Any Englishmen who knows their history will know that Alfred the Great was the first King to unite various Saxon kingdoms in the fight against invading Vikings. This new union became known as England.

It didn't start well for him as he lost various battles, and he had to take refuge by hiding in the Somerset levels because then it was a large area of marshy bog land that was surrounded by water. It was very easy to defend and even harder to live in. Of course the area has been built over now and people who live there wonder why it floods so much when it rains. Then they need someone to blame and normally it's the government. If they had learnt their history they may not have been so keen to build homes there.

The other example I saw on the news last week was an piece when a television reporter interviewed a man who had only bought his first home the week before. He was now hopelessly trying to empty the house as it sat in five feet of water with a bucket. He would scoop some up walk across the road and dumped it back into the Thames river only ten meters away. Now the Thames has been flooding since the days when mankind first turned up on these shores and in them days the River Thames used to flow into the sea from my part of the world in Norfolk. I live 125 miles from London! Yes it has flooded and moved its way over all this distance. So if you had knowledge of this history you would expect to suffer the rage of the Thames especially if you lived only meters away on a part of its upper reaches that has no flood barriers or protection.

Four years ago when our family were looking to move home we visited a house on the river that flows through Thorpe St Andrew. It was nice with plenty of features including its own private mooring. Now this river floods every twenty five years causing major damage to local properties. As it hasn't flooded in the last twenty years it is due a big event within the next five years.

So did we buy the house? No we didn't. And why didn't we? Because I knew the history. Because I could see what was going to happen in the near future.

In the U.K ever home that is put up for sale has to have a property information pack which contains a lot of printed legal information, including a map on the flood risk of the area. So with a sheet of paper and a bit of history its amazing what light can be shone onto the future, and when the two come together in a book the power of the message is increased five fold. 

Of the course the greatest history book of them all is the Bible!

Regards

Mark

Ever changing relationships

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
twitter@author_king

markkingtheauthor@gmail.com

Friends and families are always changing. Not in physical form but in the fact that people come into your life and also leave it. Friends change with your school, work place, or you just drift apart because of distance, or because you circumstances change like marriage and children.

Again family changes with distance. Cousins you may have grown up and played with move away like my cousin Kevin who now lives in Australia. Births and deaths also change the family unit. All our Grand-parents have passed away, but one day in the far future I would like to be a Grand-parent myself, and if I'm really lucky maybe a Great Grand-parent. Then you have divorce or relationships just split up.

When my wife went to her girly weekender in London recently I thought it would be nice if the children and I took the mother-in-law out for the day. We are a close family but you never know what the future holds so I phoned her up, and asked if she would like to bring her new puppy for a walk with me and her grand-children.

She was over the moon and when lunch was mentioned our Sunday had been planned out. We picked her up and then drove to The Dove public house just outside Poringland.  I always say a pub is only as good as the landlord that runs it, and at the Dove they have a very good owner. It has the feel of a traditional country pub with a nice selection of ales, but also serves good value for money food. It has the roaring fire, and wooden beams, along side a more modern conservatory.

It also has a varied mixture of animals that keep the children amused from peacocks to chickens, and horses to goats. There is a friendly mixture of locals and people like us that will travel miles to get there.

Afterwards we picked up Pippin and took him for a walk in the local woods. It was muddy although a sunny clear day with a chill in the air; then finally we ended up back at the Mother-in-laws for warming mugs of tea.

Things aren't always so rosy. There are arguments and sad times too. I know people who just don't get on with members of their family. They don't see them, never speak to them and in some cases don't even know if they are still alive. It's a shame because families are ever changing relationships which mean it can work both ways.

If a family friendship has broken down then it can be fixed again and sometimes all it takes is a phone call!

Regards

Mark

Repairs required

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
twitter@author_king

markkingtheauthor@gmail.com

For my regular readers around the world you will know that every now and then I have a moan about technology, and how it's always so unreliable. Well once again I have been proved right because my little lap-top computer has been ageing quicker than a damsel fly. My H.P is only just over three years old, and it's so slow, and keeps seizing up so often; I have known people in their nineties who are quicker off the mark. It's already had a new battery after I ruined the last one in a fit of rage over the lap-tops refusal to work, and after taking advice it now looks as if it will need a new hard drive.

So it's booked in on Monday to have a full investigation, and for repairs to be made. For you out there with eagle eyes you will have seen a blank posting that mysteriously appeared on Wednesday on this blog! It wasn't by choice, but because my damn machine was playing up, and I was checking to see if things were still in working order.

I hope the lap-top won't be away for too long, but it looks as if there will be no posting next Tuesday, but hopefully I will have it back before the next weekend so I can complete my Friday posting as normal.

It's quite frightening to think now how hooked most people have become with modern communications, and how desperately most of us miss our gadgets when we don't have them. For writers the computer is an important tool of the trade. No publisher will except a manuscript written down on paper using ink (unless you are so commercially successful you can dictate you own terms) and this means that I'm unable to write for the near future on my next book, Daniel Jones DOOM.

This is the most frustrating bit for me because over the last ten days I have been a flurry of inspiration that has flowed through my fingers, and onto the computer screen, like buds flowing on bright spring day.

The other thing is the cost. Like our old car we have just got rid off there comes a point when you are spending more money on it than it is worth, and you have to start looking at maybe getting a newer model. I have already spent £90 on the battery, and the investigation work plus repairs could cost anywhere between £100 to £160. I could get a brand new machine with more power and memory for about £350!

What should I do?

Our old car had many happy memories with it. Both our children came home from the hospital in it after they were born, the many wonderful places we have travelled in it from London to Scotland, and many other happy times in between. My laptop is very similar. I wrote my first book FRENZY a Daniel Jones story on it. I have investigated the world on it and we have bought many lovely things through it.

So on this occasion I'm going to give it one more go and spend the money on it to get it back on its feet. But like I always say there is always a but, this will be the last time. If it keeps letting me down, and becomes to expensive to maintain, I could easily be seduced by a younger model.

I would like to be able to tell you that I'm going to have a technology free weekend, or maybe even longer and not go near a machine for a whole week, but I would just be lying. Now I have a new touch screen 3G phone I will be using this to get my Internet fix.

Just one last thought. Last Friday as mentioned on my Tuesday post I watched the fourth film in the Terminator series of movies. That great genre that made Arnold Schwarzenegger famous, and revolves around the story of how machines came to takeover the world; then tried to eliminate their nearest-rivals, the human race.

It does make you think how close are we to this tipping point? Because in just two decades we have gone from technology being something used by a few professional geeks to world-wide addiction for the human race!

Regards
Mark

Things don't always go to plan.

Postings every Tuesday and Friday

Links to

FRENZY on Amazon U.K
FRENZY on Amazon America
FRENZY on Amazon Germany
FRENZY on Amazon Canada
FRENZY on Nook
Frenzy for the rest of the world
twitter@author_king

markkingtheauthor@gmail.com

Things don't always go to plan, and the plan for last weekend with the children started to fall apart by Friday evening.

My young son is at the age were he picks up every bug flying about his class room. Both the wife and I had a bet after Christmas on how long it would take him to catch a bug once he was back to school in the new year. Tens days into the new term the first sniffs appeared. It has bubbled away ever since, until Friday evening!

The wife was away for the weekend and I went to bed near to midnight after getting engrossed in one of the Terminator films that was showing on the television. I was just nodding off to sleep when my son woke up coughing very loudly, and in distress.

I went to his aid. It was one of the most terrible coughs I have ever heard. It sounded like his whole lungs were being torn to shreds, but the worst part of the experience was his struggle to breath. I gave him water to drink, rubbed his back, but it just got worse, and then it looked as if he was hyperventilating. He stopped breathing and I was 60 seconds away from calling an ambulance. I did the only thing left a father can do in such a situation. I picked him up, held him in my arms, gently swayed him while stroking his hair, and quietly reassured him that everything would be ok if only he tried to breath through his nose.

Slowly it worked. I calmed him down and took him into my room. After I had tucked him up on the wife's side of the bed I spent the rest of the night stroking his hair, and being there for him when he had other coughing fits. I got no sleep that night. When he asked at 5.30am if he could get up to watch his favourite television programme I was in a weird place. My head just wanted to go to sleep, but my body was running at full speed. I suppose it had been pumping the relevant hormones around my system to keep me awake all night, and now I had over-dosed.

My son couldn't  go to his football training, and I was too exhausted to drive my daughter so my mother-in-law took her instead. As for watching the football on the big screen at the Kett's Tavern. Well Norwich lost 2.1 while our arch rivals Ipswich ( who are commonly known as the Scum) won their game. The only thing that went to plan that day was eating pizza in the evening.

On Saturday night my son went to bed with some cough mixture, but again woke up crying at midnight. He wasn't coughing so much, but had a terrible fever so after giving him some Calpol he again spent the night with me. I did manage to get a couple of hours of sleep, but once again by Sunday morning my mind, and body, were running at two different speeds.

Sunday went to plan and by the late evening when the wife returned from her weekender she was non the wiser to what I had been through.

The whole experience just proved to me how hard it must be for single parents who have to bring up their children, sometimes for decades, on their own. There are many occasions when the unknown can scare the living daylights out of you, and it is especially frightful when it involves young children.

I'm just so grateful that for 99.9% of the time I have someone by my side to share, help and reassure me during the bad times, and I hope that out there in this big wide-world there is also someone by your side too.

Regards

Mark.