Rambling Sunday

I have three items of interest tonight.

First: I am guest posting tomorrow (Monday the 14th of March).
Rosie Connolly and Charity Bradford are kicking off their HONE YOUR SKILLS Blogfest on Wednesday and as part of their preparation they are hosting some published authors. I’ll be on both blogs on Monday SOOO check it out!

Second: Deb and I have had a mini-vacation.
This weekend is a long weekend in Victoria. We have our Labour Day holiday tomorrow.
Deb and I stayed overnight in Gippsland (eastern Victoria) last night. We came back this evening to avoid the worst of the traffic tomorrow.
I’ve taken some nice shots of various spots between here and Sale. I don’t have enough time or energy tonight so I’ll just give you a taste.Two piccies of the old jetty at Port Welshpool.Third: I’ve taken to giving a taste of my work on my WIP on Sundays so here is another section.
Poor Valentina got quite a surprise following Penelope last week. Here is what happened next.
Once again this is a first draft that might never find its way into the book.
A warning for those of you of delicate sensibilities, it does feature a little bad language.


Valentina Meshcova
Berlin 1948
The workshop was very dark, the only light seeping in was through cracks around the door frame. And that was the weak watery light of a grey Berlin afternoon.
I struggled between being a little girl frightened of the dark and a soldier ready for a fight.
I fumbled in my bag as my hand closed around the gun butt I was more like a soldier again. I slid it out and held it by my side. Where to stand? By the inner door, they'd come through the inner door. If they opened the outer one I might escape.
Not much chance of escape now, but I was a Soviet and I would take as many with me as I could.

I stood beside the door and waited. It was only a moment, the room blazed as someone turned on the lights. The click of a latch, another click as I cocked my gun. Confidently, almost casually Penelope stepped into the workshop, my gun came up pointing at her face.

The confidence fled, she hadn’t expected the gun. Her hands came up defensively. Slender white fingers, no protection against a bullet, or were they?
Her look of pure terror made me hesitate. I knew fear, it was not something I ever wanted to inflict. ‘Valentina, please…’

My anger surged, hate boiled, how dare she lie to me, betray me, risk everything.
I stepped close bringing the gun to within a centimetre of her eye. ‘Valentina, don’t’
‘You filthy spy, I’ll blow your head off.’
‘Put the gun down!’
A man standing in the doorway, a huge gun pointing right at my head. Penelope hissed urgently, ‘Fred don’t shoot!’
English! She spoke to him in English! Everything I had dreaded proven in that instant.
He was almost apologetic to her, ‘Sorry Miss, my call,’ he bellowed at me, ‘Put it down!’

My mind raced unbelievably fast. At this moment I hated her more than anything or anyone.
I could finish her lies and end my pain at the same time.
End the pain.
End the pain of loosing everyone and everything that mattered. Family, friends, future all gone.
End me.
It would be so easy. Revenge and death in a heartbeat.

It was Natasha who saved me again. A vision popped into my head: Natasha waiting for me to come back.
Waiting.
Alone again.
Waiting.

I couldn’t do that to her.

Ever so slowly I moved the gun’s barrel until it was pointing at the ceiling. Penelope sighed and stepped back.
If I wasn’t going to shoot her, I would go carefully, minimise any reason he had for shooting me. I eased the gun’s hammer down, then I carefully changed my grip so it dangled between my forefinger and thumb. Gradually I bent lowering the gun toward the floor.

I was about half way down when he surged forward. He hit me hard with his shoulder driving me sideways. My hands flew out instinctively to save my face from hitting the cobble floor, the gun skittered away.
There was no stopping my fall, no saving my face. One of his hands found the back of my head, his weight driving me down. My mind still racing, I thought stupidly that at least it was my scarred cheek that would hit the floor, I wouldn’t end up any uglier than I already was.

His weight drove my head hard into the cobbles, light and pain flashed through my brain. Matched by the pain of his knee driving into my kidneys, a sickening tearing feeling forcing all the air out of me.
As I lay on the floor I was barely aware of his weight trying to push my face into the floor and of his gun barrel grinding into the back of my neck. ‘You fucking bitch! You won’t pull a gun on one of mine so quickly again!’

Strange Experiences in the Job market.

As I have said I am looking for a new job and have put in a few applications.

Both yesterday and today I have had strange job hunting experiences.

First up I had an interview back on the 1st.

I thought it went really well, but I hadn’t heard anything. So I kind of assumed it wasn’t as good as I thought.

I had decided I would phone next week to ask for feedback on how I’d interviewed. I’d leave it till then because I knew I had another interview coming up today.

But yesterday they phoned me up and said:

1. They were really sorry they had taken so long to get back to me.
2. They weren’t going to give me the job but they had really been impressed and it had been between myself and one other candidate.

I’ll look at the positive and say I didn’t misread the situation in the interview. I interviewed well and came close.

Today I had another interview, this was for the Victorian public service job I put in for.

I was asked to arrive at least half an hour before the interview.
When I got there I had to read through a number of scenarios and take notes because part of the interview would be based on my responses to their scenarios.

The interview panel was made up of three senior public service officials. To be honest I had decided that although they are interviewing me I didn’t have much chance. It is quite a senior position and I have ZERO public service experience.

Perhaps because of this I went in feeling really relaxed. It seemed to go really well.
I felt I really hit it off with the panel, they seemed to be very impressed with my answers to their scenarios and I didn’t struggle with any of the other questions they asked.

At the end the most senior manager elected to walk me out of the building. She will be my immediate superior if I get the job. It seemed relaxed and chatty still.

As she left me at the lift (that would be an elevator) she warned me that while they will probably make a decision quite quickly I will probably hear nothing for several weeks. This is because any internal applicants get to hear first and run through grievance processes if they don’t get the job before they can appoint someone external.

So I came away thinking I have a real chance at this.

Then on the way home I get a phone call. It is one of the interview panel.
He says don’t get too excited because they haven’t made a decision yet.
But, he is happy to tell me they are all really impressed.
Then he says he will probably get in trouble for trying to poach me off his senior but there is another job at an equivalent level that he really wants me to submit an application.

I’ve never experienced anything quite like this before. I guess it is likely that they have someone else in mind for the job I went for today, but here is one of the panel asking me to apply for another job they have.

Seems very positive however I look at it.

Tassie Again: Day 6 Continued

Believe it or not this is my third post on our sixth day in Tassie.
We packed so much in on that day it is hard to believe in retrospect.

Our primary destination for the day was the ruined Convict town Port Arthur.

Port Arthur began life in 1830 as a timber cutting settlement. But from 1833 until the 1850s it served as a convict settlement taking prisoners transported from Britain and Ireland and re-offenders from the Australian colonies.

It was an incredibly harsh environment to which convicts dreaded being sent. There are stories of prisoners with life sentences deliberately committing murders to find away out via the gallows.

Transportation of convicts to Tasmania ceased in 1853 and from then until 1877 the town continued to function as a prison.
The prison closed in 1877 and the government tried to sell off the property. Soon after the first of a series of devastating bushfires tore through the site and it was essentially abandoned.

From the 1890s tourists began journeying to Port Arthur to see the ruins.
In 2010 the town was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Now the potted history is done the piccies. I have had huge issues sorting which piccies to use for this post as I took about 500 while I was at Port Arthur.

Our first sight of the ruins was across the green to the original prison. It was initially built as a flour mill and store but was soon converted to the prison. Like all the buildings in the town it was built using convict labour.This building just gets more impressive the closer you get. I love the effect of looking through arches and doorways in piccies; this is the tower at the front of the prison.Swinging around the end of the prison you get an idea of how extensive and multilayered the site is.Behind the prison is the officers’ quarters.Dominating the high ground behind is the “Guard House.”And from behind looking down over the bay.The interior of the guardhouse is original as it was one of the few buildings not destroyed in the bushfires. Once again I had fun trying to get decent shots through the building.Directly behind the prison is the hospital.This building was extensively damaged in the first fires.
The government gave it to the Catholic Church to use as a boys’ home.

This photo from the 1880s shows the hospital as it was being repaired.
Another fire left it as it is today.
I played with shots of the hospital’s archways from different angles. From outside:And inside:The north side of the hospital.And below it this massive dry-stone granite retaining wall.We then went for a short ferry ride around the bay.

This is the isle of the dead. It was used as the cemetery of the settlement. There are 1646 graves recorded to exist there, only 180 were marked. Prison staff and military personnel and their families had regular headstones. The convicts were buried in unmarked graves, not even in death was their humanity recognised.

Heading back to the harbour I took some shots from the vantage point of those arriving in the 1800s.A hallway in the "guest house".And last of all I visited the church

Again from inside:and outside:

Sunday Rambles.

I am going to talk about the trip Deb and I had yesterday.
We drove up into the ranges overlooking Warburton.

For a little while I wandered around taking piccies like this flower filled field.
My isn’t that an alliterative sentence :-)
The flowers were nothing special, just happy looking dandelions.Dandelions are incidentally an introduced weed in Oz.

Sipping the nectar from the flowers were these handsome but tiny butterflies (or moths). Their antennae say “butterfly” but the way they hold their wings says “moth”.
I don’t know what they are but I think they are quite attractive.

I didn’t take many photos because we settled in the shade. Deb read her kindle book (she is reading the Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest at the moment) and I worked on my WIP.

Speaking of my WIP, here is the next instalment of Valentina’s story. Many of you have begun to suspect there is something ‘not quite right’ about Penelope.
Valentina has begun to wonder too…


Valentina Meshcova
Berlin 1948
Guns are a soldier's tool of trade. Even a glorified medic running an orphanage was issued with a gun in Berlin.
Mine usually stayed in an old safe in the orphanage office. But the next time I saw Penelope I brought it with me, an awkward heavy lump in my bag. Her blithe suggestion that maybe she reminded me of someone had set wheels turning in my mind.

Wheels that should have been ticking weeks before. The story they had ground out was not one that I liked.
We met at the canteen again. As usual we talked about nothing much, what we had done in the day, how Natasha was doing at school.
Trivialities, maybe that was what I liked about her, pleasant company with no complications.
No complications except one, who was she?
What was she?

With her beauty and her apparently privileged lifestyle I had assumed she was a 'Campaign Wife'.
I had accepted she was shy about her life given that situation. But that was not enough any longer I needed to be sure now, needed to protect myself.

When she left the canteen I followed. It was one of those cold grey afternoons that are so typical of Berlin where the day merges into night without a firm boundary. She pulled the collar of her coat up against the wind as she strolled along the street.

I was no spy. I had little idea of how to go about following somebody.
I stayed close enough to keep in sight of her and far enough that I hoped I had some chance she might not see me.
At first she sauntered along as if she had not a care in the world. Her path seemed strange, aimless as if she was walking with no destination in mind.

I did not realise quite how but at some point she realised she was being followed. Her pace picked up, now she was not wandering aimlessly. I had to move quickly to keep up.
It was almost at the same time as I realised she had led me into the west of the city, that I guessed I was being followed too.
A man in shabby grey overalls was sticking to me as I was to her.
We snaked through semi ruined city streets, around one bomb site after another. Close packed buildings and narrow alleys. A train of followed and followers.

Being followed threw me. Was it some associate of Penelope's. Did she have associates? If she did wasn’t that as bad as it could be?
Or was I behaving so strangely I had attracted the attention of my terror the NKVD?

I shouldn’t have been in the British zone out of uniform at all. A British patrol would be in its rights to arrest me. I looked back, a second man had joined the first. What should I do? Give up? Keep following? Catch up and confront her?
An agony of indecision gripped me. Nothing in my experience helped me decide what to do.

Indecision turned to anger, she had lied to me. She was not what she seemed, the reason mystified me but she was playing games with me. Dangerous games.

Without warning, Penelope broke into a run. An awkward run in dress shoes and good clothes, but a run.
Without thinking I sprinted after her. She clattered around a corner into a narrow lane way overhung with bomb damaged buildings.
The clatter of hob-nailed boots broke the air behind me, it seemed I was pursued as well.

Penelope darted under an arch between two heavy timber doors as I rounded the corner. Half elated by the chase, half terrified of the men behind me and not thinking at all I dashed after her through the doorway.
Into an empty garage or workshop. Penelope leapt through a door at the other side, without glancing back she slammed it behind her. I bounded across the space and heaved at the handle. Bolted. I spun to face the men following me.
A gun, I had a gun. I fumbled in my bag for my pistol, with a hollow boom the double doors banged closed.
I was shut in the dark.

An Award

Michelle Teacress has given me a blog award. The Stylish Blogger Award.
I have a really bad, and I mean really bad record of passing these on. So I thought I should pass it on straight away.
So if any of you have given me an award which I have failed to pass on or acknowledge please forgive me. I don’t mean to be selfish, it is a combination of life getting busy and a memory that doesn’t work as well as it once did.
All I can say is sorry.

Now according to Michelle I have to say seven things about myself and pass the award along.

Seven (fairly boring) things about Al.

1. I have large feet, especially for my height. I have the feet of someone who is 6’4” and I’m not. I have passed this trait to two of my three darling daughters. Whenever they are trying to buy shoes they curse me because they have to buy the shoes that fit rather than the ones they like.

2. I answer to my surname just as happily as my first name. I often get called Russell. When I am introduced to people Russell seems to stick in people’s minds more easily than Al or Allan.

3. My hair is very wiry. I have to wet it under the shower in the morning before it will stop rebelling. Then I have to make sure it is combed into order before it is dry, or I look like a wild thing going in to work.

4. I love fresh seafood. Fresh black mussels in a garlic and olive oil sauce with some crusty bread is one of the best dishes I have ever eaten. But with seafood you name it and I love it, fish, prawns, squid, octopus, pippies, crab, cockles, scallops, lobster, winkles and many others that just aren’t coming to mind at the moment.

5. I often have a number of books that I am reading at any given time. I am reading four at the moment.

6. I don’t have time to read nearly as much fiction as I would like. Most of what I have read in recent years has been for research for my own writing.

7. I would love to be a full time writer, but most of you probably already know that. Anyone want to buy a book?

I am not exactly sure how many people I am supposed to pass this on to. I will choose five because that is what Michelle did!
In no particular order

1. Leigh More at That’s Write
2. Angela Scott at Whimsy, Writing and reading
3. Jai Joshi at Jai Joshi’s Tulsi Tree
4. Vicki Rocho at Rambles and Randomness
5. Rosie Connolly at East for Green Eyes

Beautiful Scenery and a Blue Pirate

Tassie Day Six: Part II
After having our lives threatened by the little blue bully at the look-out above Pirate’s Bay we drove down to the coast on the bay.

Our target was this. Why am I showing you some ruined foreshore facility you ask?

Well despite the regular lines these blocks are entirely natural.They are part of a feature called (rather boringly) “the Tessellated Pavement”.

Looking at these amazingly straight level blocks it is hard to believe they are not artificial.

As you can see from above the pavement is quite extensive.While we were there the tide was coming in.And washed up onto the shore was this blue fellow.
This is known by Aussies as a “bluebottle”.
They are often called “Portuguese man o' war” overseas.
Maybe an appropriate thing to see in Pirate’s Bay

These are fairly common in Oz waters and are responsible for thousands of stings each year.
I’ve never been stung myself, but Poor Deb was stung by one on the chest when she was 16 and says it was so painful she thought she was dying.

From Pirate’s bay we drove south into the Tasman Penninsula.We stopped at a number of places just to admire the scenery such as these sea cliffs.Then “Tasman’s Arch” We went for a short walk there where I photographed this Melaleuca flower It is very similar to the one I posted a few days ago. The last one was taken at Sydney thousands of kilometres away.

And one of the many plants colloquially known as “Teatree” this one is a species of Leptospermum. As an aside the Teatree that is used to make “tea-tree” oil is actually a species of Melaleuca.

On Thirtyish Women, Childbearing and Trying to be Someone You Aren’t.

First of all, I had my job interview today and I think it went really well. So it is a case of wait and see.
Also a bit surprisingly I have already heard about the Public Service job I applied for and they want to interview me next week! And I thought the wheels of government turned slowly.

Now on to the business of my post’s title.

In a comment on my extract of the other night Jennifer (AKA Old Kitty) asked:

“Why can't Penelope and Valentina have children of their own as they approach 30? Awww! Just curious!!!”

I can’t let a question like that pass without a decent answer.

First the simplest answer to Jennifer’s question is “Nothing.”
Of course biologically there is absolutely no reason most 28-30 year old women can’t have children.

But as an author it all comes down to trying to place a character in his or her time and mindset.

As a writer I attempt to at least be a little faithful to the cultural framework of my characters. I try to write something like they might have thought. Yes they might have to be rebels to make them interesting but everyone has baggage.

I am writing in the early twenty-first century and like most of my readers a product of the second half of the 20th century (or so).

Valentina is a product of the 1920s. Things had begun to improve for women by Valentina’s time. For example she had an education that her mother could only ever have dreamt about.

Many, many battles have been fought since then to improve things for women (and other marginalised people).
But of course that is still in the future for Valentina and she sees the world from her own reference point.

Many women of that period considered themselves ‘left on the shelf’ if they weren’t married before they were twenty-five. Before the war she would probably have disagreed with such a notion, but a lot has changed for her since then.

There are a number of factors that add to her belief that she will never have her own children.

Valentina grew up in a world where there were millions of middle aged women who had never found partners because of the casualties in WWI. She has just spent years in a war that killed around 11,000,000 young Russian Soldiers and maimed millions more. She is painfully aware there is a significant gender imbalance in her country.

Also, Valentina thinks she is ugly. In the fighting that killed her friend Raisa she was wounded in the jaw (never posted, you’ll have to read the book when it eventually comes out). There was a hint of her injury in an earlier extract. When she ran into Ronnie at the airport she said, “His hand brushed a wisp of hair from my cheek, and he gently, ever so gently cupped my scarred cheek in his hand.”

To add to her problem she cannot have the man she loves because (as she now knows) in Stalin’s Russia forming a liaison with a foreign national is next to suicidal. So on balance she assumes there is no one for her.

Finally, although she doesn’t know it Valentina is suffering from what we would call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She has experienced two of the fairly common symptoms: Depression and Suicidal ideas. So when she says Natasha saved her she is literarily telling the truth.

It is this mindset that makes her assume there is not much of a future in love for her. She just makes the assumption that Penelope being around her age would have a similar experience. Of course in reality, attracting men has never been Penelope’s problem.

So there you go my rationale for how Valentina tells me she thinks.
Because in the end I am never going to take all the responsibility for what my characters say :-)