I Am Here! - A Mardle

It's been at least four years in the making, but I have finally taken the plunge and become a Blogger! I'm late to the party - story of my life - but I'm actually incredibly proud of myself as I've had no help in setting it up, it's all my own struggle (and believe me, technology is no friend of mine). It may not be the most polished of sites, it may be lacking in sophistication but its mine to do with what I will.

So a little history as to how this came about.

I love to write. I have always written ever since I was a young girl. I remember sitting at the kitchen table hand writing 'The Greenfinch Club', a story of a girl whose parents moved her to an old rambling house in the country which still had an air raid shelter in the back garden. She formed a club with her new friends, used the air raid shelter as the clubhouse and the story was all about their adventures and of course, a pony was involved. I sent it off in all good faith to a publishing house, full of hope and expectation of becoming the new Enid Blyton and was, no doubt, suitably distraught when it was returned with a 'thanks but no thanks' letter. The sheer hurt and humiliation has clearly been suppressed in my memory as I can't remember much about it, but not the urge to write.

I've periodically had bursts of writing and taking correspondence courses over the years but before the explosion of social media and blogging, it wasn't really a very satisfying hobby - at the end of the day all I had were a pile of papers that had been crossed through in multi-coloured pens when editing. If I'd been an artist I would have had something to put on my wall, or a sketch book to look back at, if I'd been a crafter I'd have had beautiful cushion covers around the house, crochet blankets to cuddle under or papier Mache bowls to display beautifully whittled wooden fruit! But all I had, alongside the pile of papers were rejection letters - albeit with some very nice comments about my writing - but they were still rejection letters, so I went down the self-publishing route.

I had a series of children's picture books drafted out all based on observing my son's imaginary play when he was young. I had 3 stories written and had submitted one for a professional critique which was confusingly helpful. I also joined an on-line forum where in return for critiquing other people's writing, mine would be critiqued and the feedback I received really encouraged me to take the plunge and find an illustrator. I found a young man in America who was very much at the start of his career and had already illustrated picture books and his style was just what I had in mind. So over the course of several months we corresponded via e-mail and my characters were born and eventually 'Trouble in a Sub' was launched on an unsuspecting world. Once again, I waiting with baited breath for it's success and a series of lucrative publishing deals to coming rolling in and once again, the general public sent me a general 'thanks. but no thanks' message. I wasn't crushed this time, the book was published via Lulu and was also available via Amazon, but it was expensive and although I set up a Facebook page for the book and published discount codes several times a week, the only people who bought it were close friends who wanted to support me. So my main characters, Ben and Captain Mack in 'Trouble in a Sub' and all their subsequent adventures have stayed in draft form until such time as I feel like trying to revive them again. I can actually feel their restlessness, their need for their adventures to be heard before it's too late and with the help of all the different platforms that are available to us today, who knows what may happen.

So in an attempt to scratch the writing itch I increased my journaling (or as we said back then, I kept a diary). My journals are few and far between, but lovely thick notebooks and go through stages of being illustrated, having momentos attached and just pages and pages of writing. During the Covid Pandemic I journaled a lot - I mean, what else was there to do except eat and drink? There had been quite a gap in my entries prior to that so it felt good to start the pen scribing again. Using a laptop is great and gives you scope to create a lot quicker but I love a pen and paper - it's an ancient art and one I don't think (and hope) will ever die out. A quick search on E-bay and Amazon will produce the most incredible array of paper, journals and notebooks, pens of every colour, shape and size and embellishments to satisfy even the most discerning person. This in turn reignited the flame for starting a blog, but being a lady of a certain age, I was in the slow downward spiral of menopausal hell. I didn't realise it of course and just kept trying to plod along, wondering why I never had any energy, why I was feeling anxious over the most ridiculous things, why I wasn't keen on going out with friends anymore, or a meal with my husband, why I was suddenly taking offence to things people said and did that never used to bother me, why I just wanted to hibernate indoors on my own, read and watch movie after movie. The Hubster made several tentative suggestions about HRT all of which I ignored after all, menopause was all about hot flushes and erratic monthlies wasn't it? That didn't apply to me so I was just feeling under the weather. However, eventually, after he'd listened to a Radio 4 program all about the menopause, told me I really needed to talk to my doctor about the situation and the possibility of using HRT. He said why suffer if there was help out there, why put life on hold for an indefinite period of time while my body sorted itself out, why waste away indoors when there was a world of opportunities out there? If I'd had a tail it would have been well and truly between my legs as I took myself off to the doctor.....well, actually that's not realistic either as we all know that you have to literally be knocking on Heaven's Door to get a face to face appointment with a doctor these days, so let me rephrase that. If I'd had a tail it would have been well and truly between my legs whilst I had countless telephone appointments with my doctor over a three week period but eventually I attended the pharmacy and managed to secure three boxes of what I now know to be, the most magical transparent squares that you're ever likely to find - and I say 'find' as believe me, the national shortage of HRT products is very real and can be the cause of many women waking screaming in the darkest hours !!

So...I'm here mainly because of those magical transparent squares, they have given me back my omphh and the desire to want to do things. I'm booking things up left, right and centre, saying yes to things I would have declined a few months back, signed up to singing lessons again (another passion of mine) and as well as starting Musings, Moaning and Mardles have signed up for on-line writing sessions and am looking at improving my grammar. I've also got my eating back under control, something that had escalated way out of control pre HRT although, in part this has become necessary due to a problem with my right foot, something that is still under investigation. But hey ho....it feels good to be back...I'm never going to run a marathon, start a business or scale Everest but I am feeling part of the human race again and it's good.

I AM HERE.