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Planting My Footsteps in the World of The Great Gatsby by Griselda Heppel

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I spent much of last month zipping around all over the place, mainly fulfilling long-planned visits to friends we rarely see because they live so far away. This included a lightning five-day trip to Long Island (nuts, I know, but she is a very GOOD friend and sadly on her own since her husband died a couple of years ago).  Coe Hall, Planting Fields Park, Long Island, USA. Now Long Island, as you probably know, is famous for several massive mansions built in various historical styles by nineteenth and early twentieth century industrialists who had made huge fortunes in America’s growing economy. The period is known as the Gilded Age, and some of these houses and the wealthy people who owned them are said to have inspired Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The families have now long gone and many of these fine houses been demolished, sadly, or (much better fate) turned into museums. Our friend took us to see one, Coe Hall in Planting Fields Historic State Park , a Tudor-style hous...
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Adulting

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  Don’t tell me to grow up. It’s never going to happen. Who wants to grow old gracefully when disgracefully is much more appealing?   I don’t mean you should completely neglect all your responsibilities – you should still pay your boring bills and feed your fam – but if growing up means to lose your curiosity about the world, as it so often does, then I’m all out. I believe that if we all managed to retain a little sense of wonder in everything around us, and stopped sneering and complaining, the world might be a better place to live in. Dress the way you want; cut your hair the way you like; have a tattoo; laugh a lot. Trust me, you’ll be happier. Keeping a young outlook will allow you to approach everything with new eyes. And take risks – everything can be an adventure.   I’m childish – I like toys and stupid jokes. I like to dance in the kitchen. I like to sing loudly in my car. I am endlessly curious about anything and everything. I like to keep an open mind. Numerous...
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Hallowe'en and All That -- Susan Price

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  Writing about them, though?   Hauntings: Nine Haunting Stories   More than happy to write about spooks. I've always loved ghost stories.     Overheard in a Graveyard  "Who weeps on my grave, who keeps me from sleep? Is it you who unearths me to this cold rain, this dark, this wind and all its grief?"   Nightcomers     "I'll tell you a true story -- how my dad met the ghost dog..."   It is a true story .  One my dad often told me.     But 'Cold Silver', one of the other stories, is ghostlier . It's based on old folk-lore, as many of my stories are.       But never mind the quality, feel the width! I can do you book-length occult, ghosts and soul-sucking, as well as short stories...       The Bearwood Witch tells of Brummie witches consulting demons and generally getting up to no good...             While The Ghost Wife is set at the time of the industrial revo...
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A Year of Horse Books: Chariot races in historical fiction by Katherine Roberts

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While I was starting to approach publishers with my early work, I worked in National Hunt racing yards with thoroughbred horses helping to prepare them for racing over fences such as the famous Grand National. Flat racing is also a common sight here in the UK, but racehorses are not always ridden. Harness racing, where the jockey rides in a light buggy or 'sulky' pulled by the horse, bears more resemblance to the chariot races of Ancient Rome which were, by all accounts, far more dangerous an activity than our current racing under rules! Deaths on the track of both the drivers and their horses were common, and you only have to think of movies like Ben Hur to imagine how brutally competitive these races could be. Although no horses died in the filming of the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston shown in this clip (where strict welfare standards were followed), it appears that over 100 horses were shot during the making of the original 1925 silent film, some of them unnecessaril...
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King Lear's Lament - Umberto Tosi

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Lear and daughters Choices narrow as I approach 90. I see across denial. I find that I must adjust, while struggling to preserve as much as possible of what I find most essential. I see why we ultra-oldsters disturb our juniors. It's not just individual disposition. We rattle their operative mythology. Yet I have no choice but to accept death's proximity -  no choice when I consider the alternative.  At the same time, I find that everyone needs some degree of denial. The feeling of immortality comes with consciousness.  As an outspoken critic of an 80-year-old President who mocks the aged and fakes youth, and for whom denial is a way of life, I don't like admitting to any degree of it.  But I try my best to admit my shortcomings. I'm not a felonious poser and sexual predator. I don't dye my hair, wear makeup and demand flattery from those around me. I continue to write, edit, and publish drafts of my latest novels, essays and short stories with more urgency, but pro...
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Location: Greenwich, London, UK
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Ghosts by Allison Symes

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 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. I don’t celebrate Halloween (much preferring the following day, All Saints Day) but I do have a soft spot for a well told ghost story.  My favourite is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (with The Muppet Christmas Carol being my favourite adaptation). I like the redemption theme with this marvellous story and that ghosts are used to bring about a change of heart in Scrooge. Ghosts don’t always have to be scary (though there are dark moments in that book which The Muppets, to their credit, don’t shy away from). I like ghost stories which make me think. One of mine was where a character hadn’t realised they were a ghost, were wondering where their family was, and needed another ghost to show them the truth.  I like stories which encourage empathy for characters and see no reason why ghost stories can’t contribute but, as with any tale, the ghost has to be in the “cast” of characters ...
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Writing about your parents, by Elizabeth Kay

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  My dad, Feliks Krzewinski, at work as a display artist in London in 1960 Most people seem to prefer to do this after those concerned have died. Not so easy if your mother lives to 104, like someone I know. However, if you had a good relationship it’s not such a problem – it’s the things you’d like to get off your chest that’s the issue. My parents were elderly, 42 and 49 when I was born, and I was an only child. They both died over 40 years ago. Having a clear-out, I recently discovered a note I wrote after my first trip to Poland to visit my father’s relatives on my own. My mother was English, and after my father died the Polish side cut off all contact. Unbeknownst to me my mother, on her one and only trip abroad, she told my father’s relatives I considered myself to be entirely English, and didn’t want anything whatsoever to do with my Polish heritage. Many years later, out of the blue, I had a call from my cousin who was in the UK for a visit. I cried my eyes out with relie...
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