I AM HEATHER dot COM » Summer is upon us

And yet the rain still falls. As does the hail. The leaves are not growing properly and it makes me very sad. The sun has been shining sporadically hip hip hip hip hooray. He puts his hat and mac on as the rain falls down again.

A little ditty for you there.

When he does decide to show his face for more than five minutes and without the ominous clouds looming behind and around him ready to pounce on his happy beams, I shall be armed with my picnic blanket, cloudy lemonade and my Mr Kipling favourites.

They are discussing the political climate of Britain on Channel 4 right now. Who ever thought that Gordon ‘my-face-is-messier-than-my-politics’ Brown could do a better job than Tony Blair? Oh yes. Only he did. Who gave him the right to rule our country? Yes, only he did. Surely there have been some illegal doings here. Why couldn’t Blair have just completed his run. Another ten months or so before the election. I shall say no more other than it has been a complete farce.

I am still in my pyjamas, but that is okay as I am curled up on the uncomfortable sofa wrapped in a comfortable blanket reading Nabokov’s Lolita and whirring my Hitchcock ideas around my head at the same time. Do you sometimes feel that you can think two things at once. Perhaps it is something to do with the two hemispheres of the brain. Working and thinking and talking simultaneously yet separately from one another. I just had pins and needles in my feet. It is funny that that is the term used for the strange sensation. It feels exactly as it is described. There was an Enid Blyton short story I read as a child that was about pins and needles. And Faeries. I can’t remember how it went.

I adored Enid Blyton. I was thinking about her before. The Enchanted Wood with Moonface and his wonderful toffees that grew and grew in your mouth, or the hot and cold cakes. Amazing. Or The Children on Cherrytree Farm with the wonderful old tramp who lived in a cave. Amelia Jane or the Naughty Schoolgirl (I imagine a certain movie industry may have capitalised on this title a thousand times over).

Enid Blyton was fabulous. She took me to magical worlds and I met magical people and animals and creatures. All because of her.

Enid Blyton

Cherrytree Farm

The Enchanted Wood < This was the same copy I had as a child. I coloured in the black print pictures with my felt tip pen. I think I gave Fanny (a character, before you ask) a purple face.

One day I will buy them all and read them to my children before they go to bed. i will let them colour the pictures in with felt tip pens too.

Scott says...

The British summer always gets me. Even if its sunny for 5 minutes I all of a sudden wear shorts and t-shirts and dream of long summer days at the park in Frodsham. Only to be rudely awaken again by the hail the size of baby fingers hitting my head.

Why am I so gullible? Damn you High and Low pressure weather fronts!

We had Enid Blyton books in our house but I think they were read to my sisters more than the boys. However I sure they didn’t escape my felt tip pen rampages.

Amber says...

I want to read your british children’s books. or i want YOu to read them to me. : )
My dad read us lord of the rings and ‘the Congo’ when we were little. i had nightmares about gullum and gorillas living in our basement. I remember this one part about the gorilla eating somebody’s eyeballs. Why did he read us that? But I think I begged him to. He also read us ‘the phantom tollbooth’ which, if you haven’t read it, is amazing. I remember laughing so hard when he came to the part about picking words off of trees and using the “Freshly picked Buts” to begin sentences. Of course, we heard “freshly picked butTs” and thought it too funny.

Heather says...

You must read Enid Blyton! She is so simple in her language, but wonderful with her imagination and ideas.

I didn’t read Lord of the Rings until I had watched the first film. Instead I had read up to book 8 of Katherine Kerr’s epic fantasy novels, the Deverry Series and nobody had bothered to tell me about the existence of Lord of the Rings. Which is extremely odd as I have had an obsessive fascination with all things magical, mystical and other worldly since I was very small. My dad doesn’t know why he never told me about it. Now I am a huge fan…a HUGE fan. The Silmarillion is on of my favourite books of all time.

I remember my dad used to tell us stories of King Arthur. He never read from a book, just from his mind. I distinctly remember the last story he ever told us…Arthur and his Knights were travelling deep below Morgana’s Castle, in rickety boats. He never told any after that but I still remember. I asked him recently what the ending was and he said ‘And They Lived Happily Ever After’

A teacher once tried to read the Hobbit to my class. We were about 9 years old. I had to draw a Hobbit and mine looked like a caveman because he kept on telling us how hairy they were.

I also remember my Nana reading me a Postman Pat story when I was very young, and me, her and my sister laughed hysterically on the bed for half an hour as he accidently bought a herd of cows from a Farmer’s Market because he was waving hello at everybody and didn’t realise waving his hand meant that he was bidding for everything on sale.

I am glad we have such great memories of stories and books

Scott told me to tell you that he wants a basement to put his monsters in.

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