Ghosts and Macular Degeneration

   I've never believed in ghosts and used to think ghosts were explained by the usual suspects: People in white sheets play pranks. Miss a night's sleep and you are open to suggestion. Trees backlit by street lights cause shadows on the bedroom wall. After somebody dies you keep seeing them, wishful thinking. But now there's a sensible explanation.
   I had read about this just after my late father's death. He was an optician. I scanned through all the copies of optical journals he'd saved because he was not a saver and I thought they might have something vital. One of the journals had an obituary of a friend of his. Another had an article on macular degeneration being a suspect you test for if a patient confesses to seeing worrying images.
   if I remember the article correctly, it suggested that large heads and large hats might be blurred after images or negative images, especially if you sees white light in darkness with a silhouetted of a person or tall object and then turn to the light, you see the reverse.
  But now, out in the daily newspapers, to reassure everyone, are accounts of sensible people suffering from Charles Bonnet syndrome. Add on a new theory. That when you have a blank in the middle of a picture, caused by deterioration of the eye, your brain tries to fill the blank with familiar images.
   The eye and brain are amazing. You know if you acquire bifocals, invented by American Benjamin Franklin, or trifocals, you may have difficulty seeing through them. However, if you persist, as I did, some time between three days and a week, you will find you automatically adjust.
   Back to the eyes and ghosts. The trick in life is not to allow yourself to believe that weird forces are performing spiteful or unpredictable random acts. Most of nature and science follows regular patterns. If you find a regular problem, a pattern, persist long enough until you find the pattern which provides the answer. That's what I learned today.

Wine and Dine At Home Club Events

We started in the lounge with smoked salmon on brown bread cut into tiny squares, and the same with a platter of pate, plus two white wine aperitifs.

Small glasses - the bottles were shared between 10-12 people. We planned on having two wines with each course, so a eight quarter glasses of wine is two glasses of wine each. 

We drove there car sharing, so we had one driver who had to limit his drinking, three non-drivers who had only their health and waistlines to worry about.

Cheeses with grapes.

Cheeses with grapes, celery, assorted biscuits and crackers.

A sweet finish. Muscat or any sweet wine from your local supermarket.

Dessert of pavlova with strawberries and cream brûlée. Yummy.

Many groups of friends meet in the UK and Singapore.

Central London Wine society.

Hertfordshire wine society runs Grand Cru suppers. Prices are about £35 per person which includes food and wine. To join you need to be able and winning to take your turn hosting a dinner, which means cooking a three course meal for up to 14 people, including cold starters to serve for the stand up reception in the same or another room, and having space for one or two tables seating the 14 diners, and be willing to supply the two starter wines. 

To save the burden on the host, one of the guests or organisers supplies the other bottles of wine and the wine glasses. You need two glasses per person as you usually have two wines to compare.

The comparison might be a pair of wine both using the same grape, or similar style but a French or European contrasting with a New World wine, such as USA or South American or Australian or New Zealand. Often one wine will be cheap and/or recent, the other will be older and more expensive. You end by voting which you preferred. If you keep your own notes, you can go home pleased to have tried a good wine and seen how much better it was. Or, you will have preferred the cheaper wine and be glad to know you can save your money and get the same or more enjoyment.

Dr Page from the uni of Hertfordshire has designed a mini home you can build at the end of your garden which needs no more skill to build than an IKEA flatpack. (I do hope it comes with good instructions. I had a lot of trouble with some of my flatpack chairs, from IKEA - and more so from elsewhere.)
 
It's fine for the agile twenty something year olds - so long as they are not drunk and don't roll over in bed. Now please design a granny flat which somebody with bad legs or a wheelchair could live in. Then young families will have a built-o babysitter at the end of the garden. Add a version for a single Mum with a baby. (Single bed please. No room for a second baby.

Could I save the money I spend on writing holidays by sitting in my DIY shed home for a week and finishing my novel. It would be a great hobby home, for a writer or painter. Plus a bed if you sit up all night finishing the novel or poem or painting or composing a song or opera. And the bed for an afternoon nap, the day after you sat up all night. Or just for meditation.

I won't mention the orgy or the brothel. Let's just stick to the novel - and let the novel include the more adventurous ideas.

I dream of a bed
In a little garden shed
Where I wrote my great novel
That at least one person's read.
Angela Lansbury
Copyright May 10 2014

Harrow Writers' Circle & Pinner Writers' Short Story Competition Winner

The subject for the short story competition was revenge. Here's the winner.

We had several entries from both clubs. Each club chose the top three stories from the other club's entries. Then the six winners were read to an audience of members. We voted for the first and second choice. The score was two points for the stories a voter thought was first place, one point if the story was considered second place. 

After the interval the writers of the winning first and second place stories were announced. Two of the runners up stories were read. One of the runners up was Brian who is a member of both Harrow Writers' Circle and Watford Writers, another group with whom Harrow writers organises competitions.

The story subjects included an illegitimate daughter returning to get revenge on the father who had abandoned her mother, and a vengeful date who was not the wife but the sister-in-law. Lovely cakes were provided for everybody to enjoy by Julia seen in red at the front of the picture. She made chocolate cake, carrot cake with white icing on top and fruit cake. 

Pinner writers meet in Pinner library and a member's home. Harrow writers meets in Harrow Arts Centre and a member's home.

For more details of club meetings look on the web.

Why didn't I win? Revenge is not really what I'm after. I'm too kind.

That reminds me - I should publish my short stories in a collection and expand one of my short stories into a a children's book.

You can see my recent books on lulu.com

Angela Lansbury 

Author, Poet, Speaker

More details from

harrowwriterscircle.co.uk

Scio Will Change Our Lives For The Better

Scio, invented in Israel, analyses everything from the food in your shopping basket to bodily fluids. this is the invention of the century. What can it do?

The Cure For Sickness
   The medical advances will be marvellous. Find out whether somebody has meningitis. Stop sick people getting on a plane unless in a quarantine section or on a special hospital plane.
   Put a plaster on a scratch as soon as you need to and prevent problems. Spot sickness soon enough to cure it. Call the family if somebody is seriously ill. Save hospital queues at self-analyse machines in hospital.

Shopping and Cooking Transformed

   Everyday life will be transformed. Shopping and shipping. All food fresh.
   Calorie count your meals for your diet. Shop sensibly.
    No more horse meat in food when you are paying premium prices. No mistakes in supermarkets when marked down food has already gone off. Spot the worm in the apple.

People and Pets
   Animals, pets. Know if your dog will hurt anybody, or the dog in the street. Identify a lost pet and return it to the overjoyed owner.
   And maybe pick a healthy husband. Or, if you are the nursing nurturing type, find somebody who needs your loving care and appreciates being looked after.