A time to heal...

I haven't blogged for a few months. To be honest I've been  too raw. 

The last time I posted on here, things were looking great. One of my latest films had garnered BFI Network support, and we were just about to go on holiday to Crete for a family wedding. The future seemed rosy...

But like all things in life, there were events lurking around the corner - things I wasn't yet aware of. One of them was that my beloved Rottweiler had terminal cancer. 

She'd had a limp for a few weeks before I had it investigated. Earlier in the year she'd tripped over her own paws when chasing a squirrel, and had limped for a week or so. Second time around, I assumed the previous injury had flared up, even though I hadn't witnessed her doing anything to cause it. 

But the x-ray told a different story. There was a huge tumour on her left shoulder and shadows in her lungs, indicating that the cancer had already metastasised. My shock and horror on hearing this was profound. I couldn't believe that my sweet dog was so bravely and uncomplainingly suffering through this horrific disease. 

The vet was right when she said the particular type of cancer she had was aggressive - within the week we were making another visit to the vet's to give Roxie a dignified end to her life. I held her and comforted her,  and knew that she had loved me just as enormously as I had loved her.  

We entered a period of grieving. I couldn't look at her beds, her toys and bowls... but I couldn't get rid of them either. To have lost my dad and both dogs within just less than 18 months, seemed too cruel. 

I came through the front door and there was no lolling tongue, no wagging tail to greet me. Just silence and too-clean floors. 

I came to hate the way the floors stayed clean when I vacuumed; to be repelled by the echoing silence in the kitchen when I entered first thing in the morning; to be heartbroken that I no longer got to kiss her goodnight before I headed up to bed. My heart was broken. 

And then something happened. 

I decided to foster. Not to adopt, but to take on and try to heal a dog that was as broken as me, one whose spirit had been crushed by the sheer force of its former bad luck. 

So I contacted a rescue centre. After the home check, I explained that I would take the dog that cowered in the corner of its kennel, the dog that would greet no-one, the one that no-one wanted because it was just too broken...

They gave me Beauty. A street dog from Bosnia that's terrified of people and who refused to come anywhere near me or anyone else. 

With only one eye and a large scar on her side that looks like a burn mark, it's easy to imagine that she lost her eye through some deliberate act of cruelty. But she can't say and I'll never know. 

What I do know is that she has a lot of love to give, now that she's becoming so used to us. And I think that as much as I'm helping her, she's helping me too. 

Who knows, maybe we'll both emerge stronger from this experience. Whether we do or not, I know one thing. There's a happy face and a wagging tail in the house again, and my heart is filled with hope. 

It's the summer holidays [almost]

Where are you going this year? Spain? Cyprus? Greece? Or are you holidaying at home? A staycation, as it's been coined. 

A few years ago a staycation would have been a poor choice. But this year? This year it seems like an excellent alternative to the charms of anywhere abroad. 

In fact, sitting looking out at my garden right now, and the dried up, shrivelled brown grass of what used to be my lawn, reminds me more of a holiday in Lanzarote than anywhere else. 

I'm not a great believer in the idea that the weather has to be blisteringly hot in order to have fun, but that said, sitting on the beach in a raincoat with its hood up against either driving rain, or gale-force winds, isn't going to appeal to many [if indeed anyone]. 

So I'm hoping for fair weather when I go to the beach to scatter my dad's ashes in the next few days. I want him to be lifted and carried by the wind, taken far out to sea and made at one with its great vastness, it's eternal swell and ebb. 

My dad had a particular fondness for the sea. As wild and untamed as he himself was, it brought out the very best in him. Again and again, like a lover, he would return to the same spot, the easy familiarity of known stretches of sand; the indomitable rocks which had been there since the beginning of time...

We sat on those rock and ate fish and chips; played beach tennis on the sand. 

Now, after the sprinkling of ashes, this place will hold other memories for me. And also for my children.  

It's true what they say about one life touching many. 

And in this time of bereavement, I can't help but wonder at the beauty of life in the midst of all its cruelty. 

So whatever you're doing today, remember one thing: Take nothing for granted. It will stand you in good stead. 

Happy reading. x

As you know I don't often paste things that have external links but today I found myself thinking once more about this extraordinary image. For that reason I decided to post it here and now.

This made me cry. It is so beautiful and so infinitely sad... we are all of us in transition, every minute of every day. Only the ending is ever clear but its the middle bit that stumps me every time...

http://watchthis.net/live-painting-shows-stunning-transformation-of-a-woman-from-birth-to-old-age/#YqVq8rfcB3QU6JsJ.01

Happy Reading folks and have a spectacular All Hallows Eve and Bonfire Night.

Robin Williams

I wasn't intending to write a post about the recent death of Robin Williams...much has already been said about the man, his life, his work and his recent death...but I find myself unable to rid my mind of such thoughts. And as so often in my life, I find that writing is a cathartic process which perhaps does not heal a wound but at least lets the pus drain away.


I cannot claim to have known or even ever to have met the man but I do know of his work. I remember him best as the madcap Mork from Mork and Mindy, the fast and furious speech, the wide grin and the endearing behaviour. But most of all I remember sitting watching it, perched on the end of my parents' bed with my dad laughing uproariously and occasionally explaining the finer points to me - I guess I was about seven then.


I remember too, watching Mrs Doubtfire with my own children, my heart wrenched at his character's obvious love for his family despite his flaws.


Robin Williams was the very essence of a comic genius who could wring sentiment from even the coldest of hearts. I have no idea how this affected him in his personal life or whether he was afflicted with the neuroses that seem too often to accompany genius...all I know is that he left a family who loved him and a world that [to echo his daughter] will be a little darker with his passing.


For me personally this news comes at a strange time, for I am undergoing a small grieving process of my own. I seem to have come to a crossroads in life, I can see the many roads of the past which led me to where I now stand. Some of those roads are now careworn and covered with a thin veil of dust - the passage of time and the losses it wreaks on our souls serve to decay and rot the surface of such trails but other roads are yet fresh and beckon towards me with a strange eerie call. To go down those roads previously well trodden would be dangerous but the appeal is there nonetheless.


The future is less clear. And I guess that is true for all of us. We can only ever see to the very edge of where the light shines forth, beyond that is a darkness as thick and impenetrable as Sleeping Beauty's forest.


I don't know where the future leads, where its path will be smooth and where I might stumble upon the way...but I am nevertheless driven forward. Sometimes I wish I were not 'blessed' with the dark disposition that occasionally comes upon me but then again, it is this darkness that fuels my novels I am sure.


So to the family of Robin Williams, I would say this : venture down that path ahead as far as you feel you can and when the darkness gets too much, cast your eye back to the blazing trail your father left behind him. What that may have cost him I would not like to speculate but I hope that the knowledge that he made one little Glaswegian and her dad very happy, may light the darkness, even just a tiny bit.


Rest In Peace Mr Williams. x

So sorry, I seem to have almost abandoned you dear readers but there has just been so much happening!

Tomorrow I am at The Kingfisher Shopping Centre in Redditch, signing copies of my books and chatting with readers.

It would be great to see you there but in the meantime here is a little bit I have just edited, taken from The Owners Volume 6.

“Little babies grow up Eve. It’s wrong and it’s immoral but it’s not the first time the human race has considered genocide and infanticide as a solution to what they perceive to be a problem,” Jack said sadly.

I will catch up with you next week and tell you all my news!

Until then - have a great weekend.

Carmen.

Last night I watched The Green Mile. It is a film I saw only once before and that was around twenty years ago but my reaction to the fantastic action and the storyline was exactly the same as I remembered it. What was different this time was that I watched it with my children.

Now I know that it is rated 18 and many of you will be squirming in your chairs as your read this but I believed there were many valuable lessons to be learned from the film and as a very level-headed mother, who better than me to judge what my children can and cannot see?

I let them watch all but the electrocution and death scenes, where I ushered them into the kitchen until the film had moved on. What they got from the film was exactly what I had hoped they would get. They picked up on the dignity of both the character Tom Hanks plays and that of the very special prisoner in his care.

And do you know what? I learned something too. I have always been a believer in an eye for an eye, a staunch supporter of harsh treatment for perpetrators but I saw a different aspect of that last night, conveyed to me by the very understated acting. I saw that justice can be done in a quiet dignified manner and that the job of the executioner is one of grace, dignity and compassion. I have to say I had never looked at it like that before.

As for the more obvious themes within the film - that all the characters got their just desserts in the end, that good triumphed on the whole over evil and that extraordinary longevity is a curse more than a blessing...these were all mulled over by the teenager and preteen who sat red eyed and weeping with me by the end of the film.

A really beautiful film and so movingly portrayed.

If you missed it first time round, catch it on DVD. If you don't you will never know what you are missing.