El Andalous - Valentine's Day

Sunset View from Bar by the Bridge on Valentine's Day

Warning: Today’s blog has adult content!

I don’t usually do anything on Valentine’s. In fact, I’d unwittingly invited friends round for dinner that evening, but Stephen and Kathryn refused as Stephen had a Valentine’s meal out planned for Kathryn (ahhh!). So, I reorganized.

But then, shortly after, Stephen suggested I could join three friends of mine who were going out that evening to the same place. I wasn’t too sure about it, as I was happy enough to forget it. However, I was on the beach one afternoon, when the three people walked past and asked me if I was coming. It seemed impolite to refuse, so I said I’d go.

It was actually a very reasonable deal. It was at the Bar by the Bridge, which is where I had my Christmas meal and which used to be run by my friend, Theresa. However, she’s no longer there now, so I think it goes by a different name. Anyway, they were offering a four-course meal for 250 LE, which is around 12 quid or 15 CHF.

I had the shrimp cocktail, mushroom soup, steak and chips, and cheesecake. The food wasn’t as good as at Christmas, so we missed Theresa’s touch. However, I’m not going to complain as it was still most enjoyable and a great price (which is hard to come by in Sahl Hasheesh). I deliberated at the end whether to have the cheesecake for dessert or the strawberry tart, but it turned out that it didn’t matter what you ordered, you ended up with the same thing!

Tina regaled us with an amusing story about her time in Thailand with her (ex-) boyfriend. Apparently, In Thailand (others at the table had been to similar events), you go out for a meal and there’s like a porn show happening on stage. This is not a seedy restaurant; it’s an extremely posh dining experience. The show wasn’t what upset Tina. They watched as the naked women popped ping-pong balls out of their vaginas and into the audience. Then it progressed to getting a hamster to crawl up their vaginas (really?! Apparently, this is true!). Tina is very hot on animal rights, so she stormed up on the stage, right in front of everyone, and rescued the hamster.

Meanwhile, her boyfriend was horrified and embarrassed at her going up in public like this and dumped her! Happily, though, Tina found a good home for the hamster and it lived for another two years. 

Beat that story for Valentine’s!

Anyway, it was a fun evening. I did see a few things on FaceBook that Valentine’s Day can be used to celebrate friendship, but I guess that’s another way to reel people in. On the other hand, everyone is struggling these days, so I don’t resent it. I had a great evening!

Hurghada - Luca's

 

Luca's

I’m turning into your typical ex-pat, I’m rather ashamed to say.

In the last six months or so, a new place called Luca’s Pub and Grub has opened in the marina in Hurghada. It’s run by a Brit. On FaceBook, I’ve seen them advertise their curry night, their fish and chips, their full English breakfast, and their Sunday roasts. Gary and Maria said the Sunday roast was amazing and the owner was a friend of theirs. I’d heard something similar from someone else as well.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to go for a while. Apparently, they do chicken, beef, or lamb for the roast dinner. I can’t remember the last time I had roast lamb! It’s years at a minimum, possibly a decade or more. It’s not really served in Switzerland either. The thought of it made my stomach rumble. Oh, and did I mention the apple crumble?

I’d told Gary and Maria they must invite me along next time they go, but I got a bit impatient. And then I remembered that Safi had been craving a roast dinner for years. I let her know about it and within minutes we were booked!

We went, in separate cars, with Kathryn and Stephen. I was a bit worried about it being overcrowded as their photo on FaceBook made it looked packed, but when we got there, it wasn’t too busy. There were maybe two other tables occupied (outside).

The food was great, although as usual I got food envy, and did wonder if maybe the roast beef looked even better than the roast lamb. Everything was served with Yorkshire puddings (and when was the last time I had one of them!); they had mint sauce for the lamb. So really, all the trimmings were there.

Afterwards, I had the apple crumble (sticky toffee pudding was also an option if that’s more your thing) which came with custard. Oh yum! Again, I can’t remember when I last ate that. At least years ago.

Inside, it was packed (but I guess complying with the 50% regulation – these days if there are more than two customers, a place looks packed!), apparently, although I never went in. We sat outside to be safer and it wasn’t even too cold.

The guy running it is a Brit and has that peculiarly British sense of humour where you’re a bit rude to people as a joke. I kind of wonder if everyone would get it, but he’s a fun chap and does an excellent job at making sure everyone is being served and is happy.

Safi got very excited at the Full English breakfast option, so I went with her the following weekend for that. This is a lady that says she doesn’t really eat anything! She was super excited about getting a proper English sausage and Daddy’s sauce. I’m always happy just to eat. I’m surprised she didn’t drive the owner mad with all her requirements for sauce, and not to have this, but make sure it’s a proper sausage, etc, but the two of them bantered off each other really well. It was the perfect springboard for his sense of humour and we all had a lot of fun.

So, I’m a bit ashamed to be living in another country but eating the food of my own culture. However, in my defence, it is years since I’ve had the chance to eat this stuff and I think I’m entitled to some home comforts every now and then! I can highly recommend the restaurant.

El Andalous - UK Tax Return

 

Birds in a Queue (Just Like Me!)

I’ve given you a fortnight’s rest from my admin woes, so I think I can return to regaling you with my problems. This blog was supposed to be about me leading my dream life, but admin always gets in the way. When you’re growing up, no-one ever tells you that your life will be dominated by admin.

It’s hard enough to get round to doing my UK tax return. If I was organized, I’d be putting all my rental incomings and outgoings on my spreadsheet as they came through. Instead, I leave it until my tax return is due and then have to scour through all my emails to find the information. I do have email folders, but I’m not even that disciplined with filing the mail as I receive it.

However, I have a little bit of geek in me, and once I get started, I quite like seeing how my finances have progressed (or not). Some years it’s been a wake-up call to reduce my bills or to make sure the letting agencies are on the ball.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was that I’d have problems getting onto the HMRC self-assessment site. I tried to login, but for some reason the telephone verification code would never come through. It worked perfectly well last year, with the very same phone number I have now, so it shouldn’t have been an issue.

I emailed them, but they said to see my internet provider. My internet provider told me the problem was with HMRC. I emailed again and I was asked to phone, only the phone number didn’t work. Or was it my phone didn’t work? I can’t remember now.

Anyway, I finally got the number to call, plus put credit on my phone. The first four or five times, an automatic message just cut me off, saying they were too busy.

By this time, I was getting desperate.  I found an accountant who could submit it for me at the last minute if I had no luck. That at least gave me some peace of mind.

I finally got through to the waiting queue. That felt like a major success. Only I waited ten minutes and then my credit ran out. Ugh. I recharged my phone and tried again. Once more, I was cut off immediately. I finally got through, waited twenty minutes, but again my credit ran out.

The local shop only has limited quantities you can top up with, so I went into the shopping mall to the proper shop and got a huge top up there.

Back home and same old rigmarole. I finally got through. The guy on the other end said he’d done something and I needed to follow the instructions when I next logged in. I was not really sure what he meant but he seemed to think it would be obvious. He didn’t realise he was speaking to me.

I logged in and there was a new option available to set up a new account, so I decided that’s what he meant. Only it didn’t work. I tried to set it up using the authentication app (how modern of me!) rather than the phone code. But you couldn’t use the app if you lived abroad; you had to phone up and ask for assistance. Ugh.

So, it was back to phoning HMRC yet again. Same old rigmarole. Finally, I got through to a lady who told me I shouldn’t have set up a new account and she’d have to delete it. Oops. Fortunately, she stayed on the phone and talked me through what I should have done and, hey presto, I was in my account. I can’t explain how relieved I was. Even when I accidentally logged out, I was able to login again using the app. Phew.

I’m still a bit suspicious of this app, to be honest, but for this year, at least, it worked. Next time, I’m going to fill my tax return in early!

El Andalous - Finding My Middle Grade Voice

 

Searching for the Right Word?

Maybe it’s time to talk about my writing, since most of my days are spent either writing or swimming (or doing admin, but let’s give that a rest for now).

I’ve got to the stage now where Time Tells has been sent to my critique group in its entirety. I’ve written it over a long time, although there have been periods of several years where I haven’t touched it all. So, it’s difficult to say how long this has taken me.

A major problem I’ve had is on deciding the age of my protagonists. Over the years, I’ve had them anywhere between seven years old to sixteen years old. I’ve finally settled on the age of thirteen. It’s middle grade on the brink of young adult.

So, my challenge now is to try and nail “the middle grade voice”. I’ve been reading quite a lot of middle grade books to get a feel for it (which is the general advice). If you’re interested, books I’ve read have included Serafina and the Black Cloak, Things are Not What They Seem, The Darkest Part of the Forest, Coraline, Flour Babies, Through a Shimmer of Time, the Secret Lake (and more).

I really wanted to dodge having to write in the middle grade voice (it was so tempting to push Time Tells into the young adult category). It’s not just getting the characters to speak and act in an age-appropriate way – for middle grade it’s also the narrative.

I’ve scoured the internet for help. Apparently, agents won’t accept a manuscript without the appropriate voice as they think it’s not something they can get the author to correct (oh dear). They advise simple things like short sentences, clarity of expression, no sex or bad language, don’t be patronizing, don’t be scared to use an enlarged vocabulary (explain or contextualise something that might be difficult). But it's more than that.

Looking at published middle grade books, to me it seems there is more telling than in books for adults. If you haven’t come across this before, the first lesson in fiction writing is to show and not tell. John Doe isn’t nervous as he enters a room (telling), John Doe wipes the sweat off his forehead and hesitates before entering (showing). That’s probably not the greatest example, but hopefully you get the gist. But my personal impression is that there’s quite a bit of telling, or maybe showing and telling (John Doe wiped his forehead and hesitated; he was nervous about entering the room) in middle grade literature.

It's hard to go back to telling, when it’s drummed into you that fiction writing is all about showing.

I scoured pages and pages on the internet, wondering if telling really was a characteristic of middle grade voice. Perhaps you have to learn to pick up body language and perhaps by middle grade, you’re not quite there yet. And so, the author needs to do a bit of telling and a bit of showing. It seemed a reasonable assumption, but I couldn’t find anyone saying this. Instead, I did find agents complaining that too many authors submitting middle grade manuscripts were telling rather than showing and that showing was of utmost importance in middle grade. I got more confused.

I did come across someone saying that if you literally write the way middle grade readers speak, they’ll find what you write far too childish. That made me smile as it struck me as true (despite advice being to listen to children to learn what to write).

I have noticed characters with strong opinions in middle grade literature and a tendency toward exaggerations or extremes; indeed in my critique group someone noted in my draft that kids don’t say “probably” (that’s the philosopher in me coming out, never wanting to be too certain about anything!).

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. Battling with myself to maybe break some rules to gain voice and also wondering just how strong that middle grade voice has to be. My manuscript is now definitely now closer to that elusive voice, but my instinct is telling me it’s not yet there.