A Chocolate Jigsaw

My favourite presents are those that are so totally random, you had no idea you wanted one until you were given it. My friend Carole (of CaroleFindsHerWings) is particularly good at finding such items. About two years ago now she gave me a chocolate jigsaw for Christmas, and I figured it was high time I did it.

Having only a small kitchen, and limited culinary resources, I took it round to my mum’s where there are such luxuries as pyrex bowls. (I exaggerate, my kitchen isn’t quite that bad, but it’s not far off.) My little sister is of an age where cooking is starting to interest her, and she loves to help, so I got her to help me make it.

Washing our hands ready to start!

We broke the chocolate into little pieces, ready to melt it. I had to do most of this, as the little sister’s hands weren’t really strong enough to break the chocolate – though she did enjoy licking the melted chocolate off her hands after she tried.

Ready to melt

I had to do the melting, but she got a chair to stand on and watched the proceedings, very interested. She thought it was very funny when the chocolate started to go gooey. (And when I burned my hand trying to take the bowl out of the pan of hot water…)

Stirring the chocolate

When the chocolate was melted, we poured it into the jigsaw mould, which wasn’t easy due to it being very thin and quite flimsy. But any spilt chocolate was chocolate Addy could eat, so I don’t think she minded too much.

Yum!

After that the jigsaw had to go in the fridge for a while. I’m not sure we left it in long enough, as the chocolate was a little soft when we took it out, making it difficult to break it into the jigsaw pieces, but oh well. Addy couldn’t wait any longer!

Ready!

Well, it almost worked...

Sharing with the family

This was part of my Day Zero List Challenge.

The Writing Workshop: Gifts

I am back, with more from Adam and Ava, for anyone out there who still reads this blog, despite my increasingly infrequent posts. How does anyone do a full time job, blog and manage to have a life to blog about as well?? I need a Time Turner to fit all that into my day!

Anyway, usual drill – the prompt this week was gifts, and as I’ve already done a story loosely based around giving gifts, I have interpreted this in a slightly different way. If you are interested in the rest of the stories in the series so far, you can find them under the ‘writing’ tab above. The first is quite long, but they are mostly around the 1000 word mark, so it won’t take you long to catch up! Feedback, as ever, is very much appreciated. Hope you enjoy.

Gifts

by Liberty Gilmore, 19/08/11

Adam tries to build bridges with flowers.

Adam was quite used to people avoiding him. It was a tactic many girls in his year had employed since he started secondary school as a scrawny little eleven year old with an obsession with faeries that put him strictly in the ‘weirdo’ camp. He didn’t care about those girls – with their shallow obsessions about how they looked and what boyfriend they needed to have next – and had never really cared that they chose to keep out of his way. Ava, however, was another story.

Adam cared a great deal about Ava. He loved her, always had. And it hurt in a way Adam hadn’t thought was possible to see her catch sight of him across a corridor and swiftly change direction to avoid him.

He hadn’t told anyone about what had happened that day, nearly two weeks ago now, down by the river. He’d done his best to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and so far he didn’t think even Holly had noticed something was up with him. This was a small mercy, as he thought the only thing that could possibly make him feel worse than he did was the humiliation of everyone else knowing.

And if Holly knew he’d tried to kiss her best friend… Well, he probably wouldn’t survive the night.

Except, to say he’d ‘tried’ wasn’t the most accurate description. There had been definite kissing. At one point, Ava’s hand had been in his hair – something that caused Adam’s stomach to perform strange flipping manoeuvres every time he thought about it. In a way, this was worse. If she’d shoved him away and told him to get lost, he would have at least been certain that there was no chance at all. He might have even been able to laugh it off, let things carry on as normal. Now he was left wondering exactly what the kiss had meant to her, and how much of her reciprocation was just a case of getting caught up in the moment.

Adam had half a mind to collar her while she was with Holly and therefore couldn’t escape and just ask. It would be infinitely simpler than trying to read the body language of a girl who barely lasted three seconds in the same room as him.

What he needed, he thought, as he daydreamed his way through French revision classes (lost cause, for sure, he could afford to waste the hours on his relationship with Ava, which was only ‘probably’ a lost cause) was a gift, a gesture. A peace offering. Something so thoughtful and considerate that Ava couldn’t just ignore it. She’d have to talk to him and maybe they could figure things out.

After school, he wandered through town, perusing the shops. Jewellery was no good – it was too suggestive. Cuddly toys, ornaments – they all seemed so twee to Adam. He picked up a bear holding a little love heart, with the words ‘I’m sorry’ sewn into it, a couple of times, but it wasn’t right. He wasn’t sorry for a start. Well, he was sorry things were the way they were, and if put on the spot he probably would have lied and said that the whole kissing thing was a complete accident and he didn’t know what had come over him, but the way his mind wandered so frequently back to the taste of Ava’s lips, how soft her skin, her hair felt, was his subconscious clearly stating it wasn’t sorry in the slightest.

Adam left the highstreet and started walking home. He was so absorbed in his own misery that he almost walked past the flower shop, tucked down a little side alley, almost out of sight. It was the blue of the rose in the window that caught his eye – just the same as the flower he’d bought for Ava’s birthday.

He paused. Then turned back and walked into the shop.

The smell of moist soil and vegetation filled his nose, clearing his head of the jumble of confused thoughts that inhabited it. Ava liked plants. She’d been delighted with the single rose he’d bought her for her birthday – visibly more so than she had been with the jewellery Graham bought her. Whenever Ava was left to choose a place to go, invariably she would pick a garden or a place of natural beauty, whereas Holly would be much more likely to choose the cinema. And Adam hadn’t forgotten her propensity to run off to the nearest woods when upset – something she hadn’t done for a long time before the fashion show, but when Adam strained his memory back to their childhood, he recalled it was something she used to do a lot. She’d been in the gardening club at primary school until her mother had forced her to quit.

‘Can I help you, my dear?’ the owner of the shop asked, appearing from behind a counter.

Adam’s eyes had fallen on a Peace Lily – a pot plant with thick green leaves and unusual white flowers. A Peace Lily. Adam didn’t think it likely he would find anything more appropriate.

‘I’d like to buy that,’ he said.

The next problem was getting the gift to Ava. He couldn’t exactly walk up to her and say: ‘here’s a plant, I’m sorry about that thing the other day, forgive me?’ That would invite unwanted attention and questions, not least from Holly who always liked to expound on ways that Adam was a complete imbecile.

Adam kept the plant for two days before a plan formulated in his mind. There were places Ava went to regularly that anyone else wouldn’t have known about. Holly, maybe – they’d been friends a long time, after all – but Holly didn’t pay half as much attention to Ava as Adam knew he did. Which felt a little stalkerish when he thought about it in that sense, but he was too exhilarated at the thought of his foolproof plan to get back into her good books to spare too much thought worrying about that.

When the weekend arrived, Adam set his trail. Little things, things that no one else would notice, but he knew Ava would, as long as she started looking in the right direction. In the days he’d waited to instigate his plan, he had poured over his idea, perfecting it, and it took him little time to set everything up. All that remained was the most important piece of the puzzle. The thing that would point her in the right direction.

That was the problem though, how to get Ava’s attention. He could have gone round her house, he supposed, but Adam was a little frightened of Ava’s mother, who always looked at him like he was dirt. He could email, but he’d tried that already and it hadn’t yielded any results. There was every chance she saw his address and deleted his mail before reading.

Then it came to him in a flash of inspiration. Ava’s family always went out to dinner on a saturday night, without fail. Ava had been worming her way out of it as often as possible for as long as Adam could remember, but with her avoiding him, she wouldn’t be likely to go over to Holly’s, which meant the house would be empty between six and eight

It was a risk, leaving it that long, and there was always a chance that Ava’s family would break with tradition this weekend (though Adam thought it very unlikely) but it was his best chance. He waited nearby until he saw their car leaving, Ava’s distinctive profile in the back, then snuck into the garden.

Their house was different to his, but not that different. They were the same in fundamental design, and Adam knew that Ava had what was the equivalent of his bedroom – and if he could climb to his window, there was a good chance he could climb to hers. Careful not to be seen, he hoisted himself onto the single story utility room, identical to the one outside his own bedroom window, and then pulled himself up to the window.

From one of his pockets he pulled a post-it note. On the underside he had written ‘August 12^th, Age 10′. It would mean nothing to anyone, except Ava. He stuck it to the window so the words were visible through the glass from inside her room.

Satisfied he had done all he could, Adam climbed back down and left for the end of the trail. He would wait all night for her if he had to.

 

The Police Can’t Win

I’m not particularly interested in politics, nor am I one to preach on my soapbox about things, but something about all this riot business has really got my annoyed.

And it’s not that people are burning down homes and businesses, destroying peoples’ livelihoods – though that is a particular brand of stupid I am very glad the vast majority of people in the country are above; and it’s not about the politicians and banks and whoever else we can point fingers at for plunging this country into crisis over money – personally, I do believe a lot of the blame lies on the banks and government, but we as a society do have this notion that we are owed something, and we’re almost all guilty of spending money we don’t have.

No. It’s this attitude that it’s all the Police’s fault.

Some guy gets shot and that, however much it is related to the violence now, is being cited as a trigger for the initial riots. People are angry that someone got shot by the police.

Now, I’m glad that we have a policy in this country of ‘shoot only if absolutely necessary’. I’ve been to countries where the police are armed with guns and it’s intimidating. However, I think most people in this country would probably shoot someone if they were being shot at themselves. So why are we criticising the police for this?

A child is abused and it’s the police’s fault. A crazed gunman goes on the rampage through a town and it’s the police’s fault. A shop gets looted and burned down in London – where were the police? We need more police, we need to give them more freedoms, more powers. Then someone gets shot and suddenly the police are savage and cruel and racist and any other number of negative things spat to news reporters across the country. And the rioters themselves seem to agree with this sentiment, setting fire to police cars in a bid to show the police they can do what they want.

Of course there are instances where the police get it wrong, and we are right to demand that those negligent officers are made to pay for their mistakes. However, just like the vast majority of people in the country are not rioters, the vast majority of police officers are just normal people, going to work, doing a good thing for their community and trying to make a difference in a time that has become very hostile towards them.

With pay and conditions being made considerably worse, and cuts being introduced across the country to police forces, it’s a wonder the force is managing to make any difference at all in London, Birmingham, Bristol etc. So let’s not blame them for the damage done to buildings because they didn’t get there quick enough – let’s remember who set fire to the buildings in the first place.

Tonight the Boyfriend is not going to Birmingham like so many other officers in the West Midlands. (He is a Community Support Officer as well as a Firefighter, so I get the story from both sides of the emergency services.) I’m glad. I don’t want him to be there amongst that violence – as much as he would love to go and put out some of the fires, being the closet pyromaniac that he is. And I feel for the husbands, wives, partners, parents, children, friends of all the officers on the front line in the cities tonight.

Next time you think about pointing the finger of blame at the police, remember the empty chairs at dinner tables across the country that should be occupied by someone who is out there struggling to keep your country safe.

I leave you with an amusing little song about playing the blame game. Some swearing (it is South Park after all) but the message, I feel, is particularly pertinent.

The Writing Workshop: Big Screen Inspiration

I missed the workshop last time it was up due to being on holiday, but I am back, hijacking the fortnightly prompt for my own fictional ends! This week was Big Screen Inspirations – choosing a quote from a film to inspire a piece of writing. I chose an old favourite quote of mine ‘Sometimes, I guess there just aren’t enough rocks’ from Forrest Gump. It was the first quote that came into my head, and even after reading through a load of ‘top 100 movie quote’ lists, it was still the one sticking in my mind.

This hasn’t been proofread, so any mistakes – please let me know! Once again, click the writing tab above for the previous intalments.

Sometimes, There Aren’t Enough Rocks

by Liberty Gilmore, 08/08/11

Adam takes out his frustration on some rocks.

Life’s like a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you’re gonna get.

‘This film is stupid,’ Adam said, sneering in the direction of the TV.

Holly released Graham’s hand for a moment to throw a fistful of popcorn in his direction, but missed, accidentally showering Ava.

‘Nice one, Holl,’ Adam said, grinning as he picked a piece from Ava’s long hair.

‘Sorry,’ Holly said, shooting a tentative smile at Ava.

They were still on the uneasy post-argument stage, both keen to make amends and not tread on each other’s toes, but both still smarting from the argument. Ava gave Holly what she hoped was a warm smile, but everything about Holly was aggravating Ava at the moment, and it was difficult to put that to one side.

It wasn’t Holly’s fault. Ava wanted her friend to be happy more than anything, but her happiness, the smile she couldn’t help as Graham’s fingers entwined with hers, reminded Ava of everything she couldn’t have all too keenly.

She was only allowed to continue visiting her friends because it would look abnormal for her to suddenly lose all interest. Natalia had made it clear she wanted Ava to lose touch with these people in the chaos of University life. Natalia liked her daughter to have acquaintances, as long as they were useful, but not friends. Friends were a distraction. It wasn’t normal for Fey to befriend Humans.

Still, she was happier than she had felt in weeks, and hadn’t felt close to total meltdown for a few days.

‘Can’t we change to something that has a few more explosions in it?’ Adam protested once again.

‘Adam!’ Holly’s voice was a near growl.

‘What? It’s not like you’re even watching it, too busy making kissy faces…’

Before Holly could launch across the room at her brother, Ava stood up and dragged him out of the room by the ear.

‘You guys enjoy the movie,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep Adam entertained.’

‘Ava, you don’t have to…’ Holly began, but Ava could see she was happy at the thought of some alone time with Graham with no Adam to interrupt.

‘It’s okay, I’m sure your mum still has some Playdoh or colouring books or something else suited to his maturity.’

Graham and Holly both laughed, Adam’s offended cough only serving to make them more amused.

‘Thanks, Ava,’ Adam said with heavy sarcasm as they shut the door on Holly and Graham. ‘I’m only two years younger than you, you know.’

Ava raised an eyebrow at his unusual defensiveness. ‘I was just teasing.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe I don’t like the suggestion…’ Ava silenced him with a finger over his lips.

‘Come for a walk with me?’

‘You don’t have to hang out with me just to make me feel better about being kicked out by my sister.’

‘It was me who kicked you out, and to be honest I was kicking myself out with you.’

‘I know, right?’ Adam said, much more his usual self. ‘Those two can’t stop making gooey eyes at each other. It’s disgusting.’

‘It’s sweet,’ Ava corrected.

Adam’s expression was disbelieving.

They walked out of the house and down the quiet side roads of their home town, wandering aimlessly and in a silence that didn’t quite manage to be companionable.

‘You seem tense,’ Ava said after a while.

‘You seem relaxed,’ Adam said.

‘I didn’t know that our moods were inversely proportional.’

Adam smirked briefly, but his expression soon settled back to something like a grim smile. Ava reached for his hand and he flinched away from her.

‘Adam?’

He looked torn between apologising and sulking, and decided after a moment that storming off was the way he wanted to play it. Confused, Ava followed after him. His path took them into a fallow field, near the small river that flanked their town. It was an area the local kids often went to hang out.

‘Adam? What’s the matter?’

‘What?’ he said, turning suddenly, anger on his face. ‘You thought you had monopoly on storming off without so much as an explanation?’

‘Adam!’ Ava closed her eyes a moment, let the maelstrom of conflicting emotions calm inside her before the grass about her feet started growing wildly in response to her energy. When she opened them again, she met Adam’s cold gaze. ‘I know I’ve been a bit of a train wreck lately, but that doesn’t mean I don’t absolutely appreciate every time you’ve been there for me.’

‘Well, maybe I don’t want to be the person you only talk to when you’re upset with everyone else!’

‘I don’t only talk to you when I’m upset, do I?’ Ava said, a stab of hurt cutting through her at the thought that she could be so awful to a dear friend. ‘I’m talking to you now?’

‘Because Holly’s a little preoccupied with Graham.’

‘Well, partly, yes… But that’s not to say I don’t enjoy spending time with you, Adam.’

‘Please, I’m just a kid. An annoying little kid.’

He stomped off again, down to the water’s edge. When the river halted his progress, he lashed out, kicking at a nearby rock, sending it far out into the water. It landed with a resounding splash. In the time Ava took to walk down to the river bank beside him, he’d sent four more in to join it. As the supply of loose stones dried up, he sank into the grass with a frustrated scowl.

‘Feel better?’ Ava asked, sitting beside him.

‘No,’ he said sullenly.

‘Sometimes, I guess there just aren’t enough rocks,’ Ava said, nudging Adam with an elbow as she hammed up the southern accent.

A smile flickered across Adam’s face for a moment. ‘I hate that film.’

Ava leaned her head against his shoulder. Felt the tension still in his body.

‘I don’t really understand what’s bothering you,’ she said, ‘but I’m sorry for my part in it. I shouldn’t have used you as an emotional crutch.’

Adam let out a sigh and shifted beneath her. Ava picked up her head and turned to face him.

‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I’m happy I can be there for you. I just…’

Ava took his hand and this time he didn’t snatch it from her reach. She linked her fingers with his and gave them a squeeze.

‘You can talk to me, Adam.’

He took a deep breath, but didn’t use it to speak, the words caught somewhere between his lungs and mouth. His brown eyes shimmered with something Ava couldn’t decipher, though they were close enough to take up most of her field of vision.

Adam released her hand, raising his tentatively to her face, fingertips brushing her cheeks as he edged closer once, twice, finally landing his lips against hers.

Ava forgot a lot of things in that moment. Forgot that it was her Fey aura that made Humans attracted to her. Forgot that her mother would kill her, and whoever kissed her if she was caught. Forgot that it was Adam doing the kissing, snaking his arm round her waist, tangling his fingers with her hair and pulling her closer to him with each passing second.

It was like the happiness had filled her brain, leaving her incapable of thinking about anything but the feel of his lips moving against hers, the touch of his hair as she ran her fingers through it, the feel of his t-shirt as she gripped it, holding him against her.

She could have happily forgotten everything for a lot longer, but she was drawn out of her reverie by the cold touch of something damp against her ankle. She opened her eyes, turning away from Adam to see a fox sniffing at the bottom of her jeans, its nose touching the bare skin revealed between her trousers and her shoes.

The fox was not alone, she realised. The animals of the surrounding area had been drawn by her energy. A number of birds were hopping around, a group of rabbits were sat watching her, unconcerned by the fox by her side. As reality came crashing back into focus, Ava realised exactly what she’d been doing and it was her turn to flinch away.

Her sudden change in mood sent the animals running. Adam opened his eyes, his lips slightly swollen, his hair ruffled, and looked at her.

‘I… I’ve got to go,’ she said, standing up.

Adam looked like his brain was still in a kiss induced fog, but her words started sinking in and his expression began to sharpen. Ava turned and walked away as fast as she could without running into the nearby trees.

She found a tree large enough to hide behind and slipped down the trunk to the floor, her legs shaking so much they couldn’t support her weight. Her hands were trembling too, her emotions churning. She took a deep breath and channeled her energy outwards, watching as multicoloured blooms erupted from the woodland floor, their chaotic entanglement reflecting her inner turmoil.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked herself, only she didn’t have the answer.

E Is For Eden Project, Enchiladas and the End Of An Era

Despite the Boyfriend’s insistence on surprising me for this date, he caved and told me what we would be doing with the same self-deprecating tone he used when he told me he’d kept the receipt for my birthday present in case I hated it. The boy should really have more faith in his ability to choose fantastic surprises.

So, I knew we would be heading down to Cornwall – a near six hour drive from where we live – to check out the Eden Project. I’d been before, but it was many years ago, when the project was in its infancy, and I was keen to see it again with fresh eyes. To make sense of the long journey, we also booked a hotel in Bristol, at about the halfway point, in order to break up the return journey, give us an extra night and do some shopping in Cabot Circus.

We drove down on Sunday night, after I ran(ish) 5K and after the Boyfriend had done a shift at work, so neither of us were in a particularly datey mood. A quick meal in McDonalds, a brief drink in the pub and we settled down to an early night. Of course, the Boyfriend, being the highly-strung, on call person that he is, was unable to completely relax and did leap out of bed in the middle of the night and run out of the room in his underwear, looking for a fire. I’m just glad it was at about half past two – I don’t think the other guests at the Premier Inn would have appreciated it too much.

After a massive breakfast, we took the rest of the journey down to the Eden Project. We were there very close to opening time, before it really got busy, but the Boyfriend was still surprised at how many people had turned out for ‘a greenhouse with a tomato in it’. A quick bus journey, and a ride on the ‘Land Train’ (that the Boyfriend got ridiculously over excited about) proved that it was more than just a greenhouse we were going to see.

We went through the Mediterranean Biome first, as I knew from experience that the Rainforest Biome would be hard work. We bickered about who could take better photos and chatted about nothing in a way we haven’t done for a while – largely due to me being completely exhausted by work pressures – and it was really nice to get away from work and home. I thought that I would miss not going abroad this year, but I think it doesn’t really matter how far you go, just that you actually get away – sleep in a bed that isn’t yours for a night or two. Spend some selfish time just on yourself and each other.

Just A Greenhouse With Some Tomatoes In It

The Rainforest Biome was next, and I thought as we walked in that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Within ten minutes I was unzipping my trouser legs to turn them into shorts and wishing for a cold bottle of water. That heat creeps up on you, exhausting you slowly so you’re shattered before you even realise you’ve started to feel tired.

Still, determined to make the most of it we queued nearly forty-five minutes for a chance to climb to the observation deck – a large platform suspended from the very top of the Biome from which you could look down at the Rainforest canopy. I was reminded very much of the highropes as we climbed up. I’m not afraid of heights, as such – I was fine once I’d got up there – but climbing up and down to the platform had my heart pounding and more than just heat induced sweat pouring from me.

It was well worth the climb and the wait though. And as it wasn’t built last time I went, it felt good to say I’d done something different this time round.

After that exhaustion, we bought some Baoab smoothy from a drinks bar in the rainforest. It was very sweet and sickly, but just what I needed to pick up my flagging energy reserves after the exhaustion of the wait and climb for the platform.

We didn’t hang around long after that. The Boyfriend bought some beer from the shop, and we had a scone in the restaurant, then we got the bendy bus back to the car park and began the drive back to Bristol. We stopped off at Plympton to see where the Boyfriend used to live on the way.

The Restaurant

Once at Bristol, the Boyfriend suggested we see a movie, and I essentially hassled him into watching the last Harry Potter. It was the End of an Era! I argued. That began with E. It was date appropriate. We had to wikipedia the plot of the last film, as neither of us could remember what happened (despite the fact that I have actually read the book) and then drove out to a leisure park outside of Bristol I used to go to when I was at Uni, doubling the nostalgia points of the trip.

We ate at Chiquitos, where we had Enchiladas (quite by accident) and I threw a Tequila Sunrise all over the table, much to my dismay.

Now, the Boyfriend doesn’t have a good track record with staying awake in cinemas. I asked him as the adverts came on what the last film he can remember watching all the way through was. His response was Constantine, which was the first film we went to see together, before we were even officially Boyfriend and Girlfriend. I laughed at him. He didn’t do too badly in Harry Potter (though his verdict on the film was less than favourable) and I only had to poke him a couple of times to ensure he wasn’t snoring.

Feeling very full and sleepy, we headed back to the hotel.

The next day, we did a bit of shopping, but were eager to get the last stretch of the driving done. I bought some new t-shirts and the Boyfriend picked up a really nice pair of shorts, then we headed home.

It wasn’t abroad, it wasn’t particularly adventurous, but I had an amazing time, and despite feeling very under the weather when I got home, I felt better than I had done for ages. F Date is being organised by Mum, but they haven’t done D yet, so we may be waiting a while for our next one. Still, no bother really – we have plenty of things planned for the summer, and should be kept very busy in the meantime.