NaNoWriMo

This year I am taking part in NaNoWriMo, the national novel writing month which is held in November every year. This is a free event which encourages people to spend one crazy month writing the first draft of a novel, which should be at least 50,000 words long.

In November 2007 Skry and I both decided to take part in this, but in retrospect our plans were doomed from the start because that was the same month that we emigrated from Ireland. Naturally we did not have the time or energy to spend a couple of hours every day writing, so neither of us finished our novels, and mine would have been pointless drivel anyway. I had no real plot nor much potential to develop one with the shallow and boring characters that I had, so there was no way that what I started with could have lasted the course.

This year we are trying again, properly this time, and I already think that it’s going to go well. Not only do I have a proper plot (with some holes but a lot of potential), but I have also been doing some research and will be able to write with some degree of historical accuracy rather than just making everything up. In fact, the more research I do the more I think I should just abandon half my original plot and focus entirely on New Zealand in the late 1800s, because that’s where all the interesting stuff seems to be.

Of course my novel’s success is rather dependent on my ability to write it well, but NaNoWriMo doesn’t ask for polished perfection after thirty days; in fact, it positively discourages such thoughts. No editing or revising is allowed – this month is all about the word count and getting the story on paper (or screen, in most people’s cases).

Keeping up the momentum for a full month may be a problem too, I suppose. I’ve never suffered from writer’s block, but nor have I attempted anything on this scale or over this duration. The minimum that I should be writing every day is 1,667 words, which is pretty easy as far as volume goes but may be more of a challenge as far as content goes. Still, I’m really looking forward to the challenge, and have roped in as many friends and family members as possible to join us - so if you're reading this, and it sounds tempting to you, now's your chance to sign up!

On Driving

I am an embarrassment to my gender. Yes, I’m admitting it – despite all that we know about equality and ability, I let the side down by being a crap driver.

It’s not driving itself that causes me problems. I’m a careful and attentive driver (most of the time, anyway!) and haven’t experienced any problems navigating or getting myself from A to B. What gives me trouble is anything that involves spatial awareness. I just don’t know where the edges of my car start.

When I first got my licence (I was a late starter, not even taking lessons until I was in my mid-twenties), I was fresh from hours of practicing manoeuvres under the watchful eye of my instructor, Laurence, who was close to retirement age and probably hoped I was his last client. It took him months to get rid of me, and I’m sure I saw tears of relief in his eyes when I finally passed my test on the third attempt. Laurence was a great instructor with a lot of patience, and he taught me to parallel park swiftly and accurately and to reverse into spaces and around corners with no trouble at all. I finally passed my test in his little Nissan Micra, and thought that everything was done and dusted.

Sadly for me, I had failed to take into account the fact that my own car was considerably larger than Laurence’s. As soon as I was left to my own devices I dropped the ball. Laurence had shown me how to detect the edges of his car from my position in the driver’s seat, but had failed to make me understand how to transfer that knowledge to a different vehicle. Sitting in my brand-new four-door saloon rather than his dinky little hatchback, I soon foundered. In fact one of my very first solo jaunts resulted in my smashing the passenger side wing mirror as I backed through our driveway gate. 

Things soon went from bad to worse. My parallel parking skills stayed with me for a while – I distinctly remember impressing my boyfriend mightily by nipping into a very tight space on a busy shopping street with nary a pause – but it didn’t take long for me to lose confidence. The straw that broke the parking camel’s back, so to speak, was when I got trapped in the car park at Sainsbury’s supermarket. However I managed it, I pulled into a parking space at an angle, attempted to straighten up, and somehow edged myself to within inches of the car to my right. Not only could I not squeeze out my door but I could not reverse the car out of the space either – its rear end was even closer to the neighbouring car than the front end was, and I was terrified of damaging somebody else’s vehicle. So there I had to stay, for several minutes until the person who had parked nose-to-nose with me came out of the supermarket and drove off. With their space freed up, I was able to drive straight out without doing any more reversing. 

Not long after I got married, my husband and I went to visit friends. The visit was wildly successful until they waved us goodbye, at which point I reversed into their neighbour’s fence and broke it. I also punched a square-shaped hole in the back bumper, but that barely mattered because of the other scrapes it had accumulated; the broken fence, however, was an embarrassment.

That little misadventure led to what has now become something of a phobia about reversing in general and parking in particular. Because I rarely drive anywhere and the roads in New Zealand tend to be wide with lots of parking space, it’s not really an issue, but I will go out of my way to find a spot that I can just drive straight into with no manoeuvring, and then have to walk back to wherever I was actually meant to be. However, sometimes I just have to deal with what I’ve got.

My husband and I own a car that has had several previous owners since its manufacture in 1994, but despite that it was in very good condition when we bought it nearly two years ago. Now it’s a sorry sight. When I had no choice but to park in a busy hospital car park I somehow drove into a wall, scraping the paint off the front left bumper. Reversing out of a small space when we went to choose carpet for our house, I hit a bollard and took most of the paint off the back right bumper. Conversely I have also (frequently) parked several feet away from whatever I’m trying to avoid, leaving me practically in the middle of the road in some cases and at wildly unsuitable angles in others. I do my best, but I just don’t know where the air stops and the car starts.

I know I’m not stupid and I’m well able to understand technical details (I’ve got an IQ of 156 and a degree in computer science), but my brain just cannot grasp the seemingly simple concept of spatial awareness. Millions of people, men and women, park their cars every day without removing half their paint in the process. So why can’t I?

Please note that this is a rhetorical question, and any helpful instructions from my male readers on what I should be doing will be read, understood, but immediately forgotten when it comes to the point where I should put them into practice. I’ve had fantastic instructions (from the trusty Laurence) already but still can’t seem to manage to get it right when I’m on the road. I’ve come to accept that my otherwise reliable brain just doesn’t do well in this area. Luckily for me, my husband is well on his way to getting his own driving licence and he already does most of the driving when we’re together. Maybe I can live without this skill.

Things New Zealand doesn't have (Part 8)

One of the benefits of living in New Zealand is that we do not have to pay any television licence fees. The television licence in the UK is expensive – currently £142.50 per year for a colour television – and it only funds the BBC, contributing to their radio, television, and internet services and to some foreign-language programmes they produce for other channels. Although the BBC does provide some quality programming (Planet Earth springs immediately to mind), the vast majority of what they broadcast is of little or no interest to me, I don’t use their radio service, and there’s little news on their web site that I couldn’t get elsewhere. When we lived in Northern Ireland we had a cable connection and almost exclusively watched cable channels, not terrestrial ones, and rarely if ever switched to BBC (I did watch the soaps on ITV and Channel 4, but neither of those channels benefit from licence fees; they rely on advertising for their revenue).

Over the last few years it has become increasingly difficult to avoid paying a television licence fee in the UK even if you do not have a television. The licensing enforcement authority, TV Licensing, apparently finds it difficult to accept that a person truly doesn’t watch one, and if there is any sort of device in the house which can receive any sort of television broadcast then you are expected to pay for a licence. It doesn’t matter if you use it or not. Oh, and the licence is not per building either, it’s per household. You’re a student with your own privately rented room in shared accommodation? You’re expected to pay your own licence for that little TV in your room, or that computer with a TV card installed. If you buy or rent a device capable of receiving a television broadcast, the dealer you buy or rent from is required to notify TV Licensing. If TV Licensing catches you without a licence when you should have one, they can impose a fine of up to £1000, force you to buy a licence at full price, and saddle you with a criminal record to boot.

The BBC has stated that a licence is not needed simply because a television receiver is owned, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the enforcers have a hard time accepting that somebody in this day and age might actually not want or need to watch television. And of course they take no account of whether you use or benefit from any of the services which are funded by licence fees; even if you only ever watch Comedy Central on Sky you’ll still be expected to cough up annually in support of Auntie Beeb.

Because of the frustration and sense of injustice that I felt whenever I had to purchase a TV licence in the UK, I am doubly pleased that New Zealand has no such thing. Channels here rely on advertising, and licence fees were abolished in 1999. Although having American-style ad breaks every few minutes is very annoying when watching broadcast programmes, we mostly use our television for watching DVDs or playing games and so the ads are less intrusive than they could be. And they’re certainly less annoying than being forced to spend our hard-earned cash on something that we neither want nor support!

Chickens

I don't have any news. Here are some gratuitous pictures of the chickens just to keep you amused.