Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
These are some doors from my trip to Auckland and Rotorua in New Zealand in 2016. The depict some of the amazing Maori artwork you will find in both these interesting places.
Maori house at RotoruaA larger Maori house at Rotorua – the artwork is amazingMy boys in front of a decorative door frame at RotoruaThis is the door onto the ferry at the harbour in AucklandHere is Michael in front of an ornate Maori house with a tiny door at the museum in Auckland
I am a chartered accountant and it took me six years to qualify which is one year less than the normal time frame for this qualification in South Africa. I did my degree part time through a correspondence university and managed to do my full course credits each year as well as work as an assistant in a video shop. I used to work the afternoon/evening shift from 3 p.m. until 9.30 p.m. and study from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. every morning/early afternoon.
I was fortunate as I won a scholarship for the university after my first year and didn’t have to pay a cent for my second to fourth years at university. This was a great boon as I didn’t need to take a student loan. I was also selected for a part-time bursary at a local college and was able to attend lectures for selected courses I was taking. I really enjoyed being able to attend classes for the more complex subjects like statistics and economics. I also enjoyed being able socialise with other students.
After I finished my degree, I started my articles at a “Big Four” auditing and accounting firm in Johannesburg. I worked full time doing my first year of articles while I did my honours degree through the correspondence university. I successfully completed my honours at the end of that year and went on to take my board examinations during my second year of articles.
I met my husband during my first year of my articles, but I was very diligent and our relationship never impacted on my results or academic performance. I finished all my academics after five years and had all my core work hours by the end of my second year of articles. I was very lucky as the firm let me move to corporate finance at the beginning of my third year instead of completing another year in audit. I was not a big audit fan although my husband is an auditor.
I loved corporate finance and I have been involved in that world ever since. I love deals and transactions. It’s like doing a giant puzzle, you get the picture of what the client wants to do and once you know the end point, you work backwards to get all the pieces in place to build the financial history and the deal “story”. I am fortunate as I have an innate ability to work out what the end result needs to be and to work out how to achieve that result using the existing accounting and legal rules and regulations. Everything I do is strictly above board but I am good at working backwards and juggling the pieces into position.
During my time in corporate finance, I wrote a series of publications about investing in Africa, the African debt market and investing in Africa. These were well received and I learned a lot about writing and publishing. They were fat publications of over 400 pages and covered all the main financial markets and stock exchanges in Africa. I also did comparisons of the African stock exchanges to others around the world and gained a good working knowledge of the exchanges in London, Beijing, Toronto, Australia and New York. I have also worked with a lot of the Euronext exchanges (EU) and the rules and regulations of the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission).
I still do a lot of work for various stock exchanges and work predominantly with London and the USA. I am currently also working with Australia which makes for some interesting working hours for me.
So that is a little bit of information about my work life and what I do for all the hours in between my blogging and writing and home schooling.
What about you? What do you do when you’re not blogging or writing? Let me know in the comments.
Charli from Carrot Ranch’s 99-word flash fiction challenge this week is: August 6, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about molten lava. It can be real-time, such as a volcanic event or the result of one in the geologic timeline. Or, think about making the prompt into a metaphor of heat. What is so hot? Go where the prompt leads!
Firestorm
The dust storm distracted the authorities from the wildfire. No one realised, until it was to late, that it had developed into a firestorm, creating its own fire-induced winds which spread the blaze faster. Smaller fires started on the outskirts of the town as a result of firestorm induced spotting and lightning strikes. The winds spread the blaze and the change in the wind caused by the reduction in temperature from the dust storm, activated the sides of the main fire and the smaller ones, making them broader and bigger. It swept through the town, destroying everything and everyone.
Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
When we visited Scotland last year, we went to Inverness and toured Loch Ness and the surrounding tourist sites.
These are some of the doors I photographed during this small part of our Scottish tour.
The door to a cottage at the Culloden Battle GroundSubmarine outside the Loch Ness Museum – it has a round door at the top.Terence and Greg outside the door to the reception at Glenmorangie DistillerySide door into Inverness Castle
When a married man’s overseas business deal goes wrong, the one person who can help him has ideas of her own. A madcap comedy where true love finally prevails and everyone lives happily ever after—but only after a lot of screwups.
Family man Mike Torino lands an important business project in Italy, home of naked art, Valentino, and taxi-crashing yoga pants, so he brings along his wife, hoping to rekindle their marriage while securing a promotion. But romance gets derailed by head colds, constant bickering, and assaults from ankle-breaking cobblestone streets. Their daughter develops a gelato addiction. Mike’s Italian partner has a coronary. And as for amore . . . Mattie tells Mike to handle things himself—and storms back to America.
Mike is trapped. Leaving Italy will blow a promotion; staying might cost him his wife and family.
While reeling from Mattie’s frantic departure, a replacement liaison is assigned—a top-notch, beautiful young Italian woman who is instantly smitten with Mike and determined to reveal the passions of her homeland—whether he wants to see them or not! Normally immune, Mike is tempted—but is headstrong, voluptuous Julietta worth the risk?
My review
Poggibonsi is a light hearted and humorous read, as its title suggests. I don’t read many books in this genre as my taste runs more to supernatural and horror books, but I read the blurb for this book and it sounded like a lot of fun, so I decided to give it a try.
The story revolves around a high flying corporate financier, Mike, who works for a high profile and successful company and who has an idea to create an exclusive holiday and recreation facility in Tuscany, Italy. His “tough as nails” boss likes the idea and gives Mike the go ahead to head for Italy and convince the locals to sell their businesses and properties to his company and become participants in the project.
Right from the beginning, Mike comes across as a nice man, but a conflicted one. He desperately wants to be at the top of his game from a business perspective and to become a partner in his company, but he also wants to be a good husband and father. I identified with his internal conflict as I work in the corporate finance world and understand the cut-throat and ruthless nature of transactions and deals. It is tough on the families of the top players as they work excessively long hours, travel frequently and are continuously under a great deal of pressure.
Mike is married with a young daughter, and his marriage is suffering due to his career choice. He convinces his wife, Mattie, to come with him to Italy, together with their daughter, for a family holiday before he starts work in Tuscany. Mattie agrees and that is when all the trouble starts as everything that can go wrong does. Traveling with a young child is always a challenge and the author brings out the humorous side of everything to do with family travel, including misplaced baggage, a lost child, sickness and excessive shopping.
I didn’t particularly like the character of Mattie. Perhaps because I understand the world of deal making so well, I felt she was very unsupportive of her husband’s career and ambitions. She is angry when Mike’s Italian partner has a heart attack and ends up in hospital and didn’t want him to visit the sick man which felt very selfish and inconsiderate. Her poor attitude eventually results in her leaving Italy with their daughter in a huff and on bad terms with Mike. This, of course, leaves Mike wide open to the overtures of the beautiful Italian assistant who replaces his sick contact. His unsolicited and wild romance with Julietta is fraught with all sorts of unexpected problems, some of which are accidental and some of with are created by either Mike or Juliette. Their ill advised exploits are hilarious and, while there are some sex scenes, they are not explicit and are aimed at being amusing rather than heavily erotic.
While this book is funny and will give you a good laugh, it also touches on a lot of sensitive and difficult situations modern families face in our fast paced world where the expectation is that business people should be available 24/7 and you are only as good as your last deal.
I enjoyed Poggibonsi a great deal and would recommend it to people who enjoy a humorous look at the trials and tribulations of life and romance.
Thank you to Prof Charles French for reading and reviewing Through the Nethergate. There is nothing as encouraging as a good review.
I am very happy to write this review of an excellent novel I have just finished reading!
Through The Nethergate by Roberta Eaton Cheadle is a wonderful YA novel that will be appreciated by readers of all ages! Cheadle does an excellent job of weaving true historical characters into her tale that pits a teenaged girl, along with her Grandfather, and a few other helpers, against the very forces of Hell itself.
I deeply appreciated the way Cheadle was able to tell the historical tales and intertwine them into the main plot. Cheadle makes this book about history and its connection to our times.
I’m late this week for the SoCS post. The reason behind my lateness is that I spent the entire day yesterday assembling my Covid-19 memories twisted nursery rhymes cake. It took a lot longer than I expected which left very little time for blogging. Today, two of my sisters visited for the first time in four and a half months. Their children came and everyone had a wonderful time. All three families have been sheltering in place so the risk of virus contamination and cross-spread is limited and I felt it was worth the calculated risk. The kids were so happy to see each other and had a marvelous time.
Anyhow, back to this post. More … Of course, more songs.
First up today is my favourite song from Fiddler on the Roof. When I first listened to this record of my mother’s I didn’t know anything about antisemitism. Even now, it is not something I’ve ever encountered in my daily life although I am obviously now horribly familiar with the tragedy of the Second World War and the Russian pogroms. Matchmaker has always been my favourite song from this wonderful theatre production.
My mother never had a record of Phantom of the Opera. I knew the story before I saw the theatre production … a few times. Okay, ten times, but I really love Phantom. I adored the book, there was something so wonderfully creepy about the disfigured man in the mask haunting an opera theatre. I remember reading it first when I was about twelve years old. I re-read it every now and again when I feel like being enchanted. Of course, everyone has their favourite song and for most people it seems to be The Phantom of the Opera theme song. For me, however, it is Think of Me.
Terence is not here tonight to help me with one of his pop up music songs, so I’m going to share my current favourite song with you. I will listen to this on replay for a few weeks until I get sick of it and then I’ll never listen to it again.
Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). You can join in here: https://miscellaneousmusingsofamiddleagedmind.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/thursday-doors-july-30-2020/
My door pictures this week were taken at Dunvegan Castle and gardens on the Isle of Skye. The castle is built on an elevated rock overlooking an inlet on the eastern shore of Loch Dunvegan. Dunvegan is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the ancestral home of the Chiefs of Clan MacLeod for 800 years.
Main door access to Dunvegan CastleFor context, this is a picture of Dunvegan Castle, taken from the gardensAn enclosed garden at Dunvegan. You can see people coming through the doorway in the hedge at the back on the pictureDoor in the garden at DunveganDoorway to Fairyland? Door into a squirrel’s hole? You tell me.
Under one cover for the first time a collection of Crime Shorts from Jane Risdon featuring previously unpublished stories which will have you on the edge of your seat. There is an extract from Jane’s forthcoming novel (series) Ms Birdsong Investigates Murder at Ampney Parva: Operation Matryoshka – with the title of Undercover – for those who’ve been awaiting this series about a former MI5 Intelligence Office, Lavinia Birdsong. There’s something for everyone who enjoys a good yarn and more twists and turns than Spaghetti Junction. Author and former detective Roger A Price says: Undercover: Crime Shorts is the ideal companion for the crime fiction fan’s daily commute. You’ll run out of journey before you run out of book with this cleverly crafted mix of crime fiction short stories. Beware as you might miss your stop! Reader Gloria Clulow says: As with all your stories I find them intriguing and unpredictable, leaving me wanting more; I don’t want them to end. Margot Kinberg, Associate Professor and author says of Undercover: What a gripping story, so well written. You’ve packed so much ‘punch’ into it, loved it. I really felt the rising tension and suspicion! You’ve captured the suspense of it beautifully and it is such a great set-up with good characters. Reader Tina Jaray says of Undercover: Wow, I could hardly breathe while I read this. Glad it was short or I would’ve joined the corpse! Author Dave Michael Prosser says of Murder by Christmas: What a fantastic story. I was glued to the screen and stopped work which means another late night (thanks). Author Jeff Lee says of The Honey Trap: Great story. You completely blind-sided me with your twist at the end. I didn’t see that one coming. Loved it. Jane is an awesome writer and an author of exceptional talent. Author Stacy Margaret Allan says of Undercover: Wow, Jane, this is one of the best stories I have ever read. It doesn’t matter that it is so short, I was right there with her and this blew me away. You are such a good writer!
My review
I take my hat off to this author. Jane Risdon has taken the genre of murder mystery short stories to a new level with this collection of six superbly different and unique stories. Each story is complete and stands alone with a proper story line which I really liked as I have read a number of short stories that feel incomplete, as if they are intended to be part of a larger work. There is also an excellent extract from a forthcoming novel included at the end as a bonus.
My personal favourite story was The Watchers which starts off on a horribly creepy note with the main character, Candice, being stalked telephonically by an unknown someone. The tension as she stands there with the telephone in her hand following the latest call is almost unbearable. “Her heart was making her blouse shake as it thudded faster and faster. Sweat ran down between her breasts and her legs felt as if they were going to give from under her. The constant ringing vibrated through her hand and up her arm.” Wow! I was shaking with Candice. This story certainly is not your standard peeping Tom tale and the twist at the end is clever and unexpected.
It is difficult in a short story to get your reader to really connect with your characters as you have such a short time to do this in. Jane Risdon has done it seamlessly in this collection and I really felt for all her characters. Sweet Sable – also known as the Red Siren, a gorgeous woman with her own agenda and the determination and ruthlessness to achieve it; China, the writer next door, who gets pulled into a very strange situation involving her neighbours and the Russian Mafia; Candice the seemingly innocent victim of a stalker but who has a past; the photographers who both had “the look”; a wealthy deceased woman with an extraordinary sense of justice and humour and a successful British diplomat whose encounter with a prostitute doesn’t go according to plan.
If you enjoy the murder mystery genre and like stories that are fast paced, exciting and unique, you will love this book.
The topic of this weeks Open Book Blog hop is write what you know. I have heard this said may time since I started blogging and writing in 2016 and have found that I tend to do this unintentionally.
Some examples of where I have written what I know, outside of my fictional autobiography of my mother’s life, While the Bombs Fell, which is obviously based on the real facts of her life, are as follows:OCD / PTSD
Mental disorders: OCD/PTSD
I have a bit of experience with obsessive control disorder and some of the related conditions including anxiety disorders including panic disorder and social anxiety disorder, trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder), excoriation (skin-picking) disorder and tourette syndrome (tic disorders). I have featured characters with OCD in a few of my short stories including The Willow Tree (Dark Visions anthology) and Missed signs (Whispers of the Past anthology). I also featured a main character with OCD in the trilogy I started writing about climate change and the fourth industrial revolution but which I put on hold to finish A Ghost and His Gold.
Alleries: Bees
I have a strange allergy to the bacteria carried by bees. Whenever I get stung by a bee, I develop blood poisoning within a few hours and have to have strong antibiotics and antihistamines for two to three weeks. Needless to say, I really try to avoid bees. I wrote a short story featuring an MC with a bee allergy called Last of the Lavender (Whispers of the Past anthology).
Countries of origin
My mother’s family originates from a small town called Bungay in Suffolk in the UK. I have visited the UK a number of times during my life and most of my visits have centred around Kent and Suffolk. Frequent visits have ensured that I am fairly familiar with life in Britain and, as my mother and I immigrated to South Africa when I was a child, my upbringing was very English. My book While the Bombs Fell was set in Bungay as that is where my mother grew up and this fictionalised biography is an account of her life as a small girl growing up in a small English town during WWII. The fictionalised element is due to the fact that my mother was only 7 when the war ended so I had to fill the gaps in her memories. Through the Nethergate also centres around a real inn in Bungay which is said to be haunted by over twenty ghosts. I discovered these fascinating ghost stories while I was doing the research for While the Bombs fell and it was these ghost stories that inspired Through the Nethergate. Some of my ghostly characters play significant rolls in the story.
I grew up in South Africa and have lived here all my adult life so it was natural that I would also gravitate to writing about South Africa. My current WIP, A Ghost and His Gold, is set in South Africa and the ghosts are all active participants in the Second Anglo Boer War. I am also writing some short stories that centre around South African history, especially The Great Trek in 1836 and the 1820 settlers from England.
Profession
Many of my readers know I am a chartered accountant by profession. I know a lot about life in the corporate world, especially in the fields of law and finance. As a result, many of my characters are in finance.
The haunted couple in A Ghost and His Gold are both chartered accountants who met while working at a Big Four auditing practice (just like my hubby and me). Tom, the husband, is a corporate finance practitioner in the firm and Michelle, his wife, has left the firm and is doing mornings only work in the accounting line and developing her writing. Just like I want to do. I am going backwards at the moment and my hours are longer than ever but I live in hope.
In my short story The Path to Atonement (Nightmareland anthology), the MC is a chartered accountant working at an auditing firm.
People
The grandfather in Through the Nethergate is a brave, kind and clever man and I did model him deliberately on my dad. The character of Tom was developed using a bad experience I had with an ex-boyfriend although my experiences are not nearly as bad as Tracey’s from my book.
What about you? Do you use real experiences and people in your writing?
Find out what other writers do in this regard here:
Rules: 1. Link your blog to this hop. 2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop. 3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs. 4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting. 5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
