“People say you don’t find witchcraft, witchcraft finds you.” Terry Pratchett

Hasn’t 2021 been an awesome year! Chur! I’ve achieved very little. And I’ve achieved a lot. I wrote over 91,000 fictional words/2 books. I cast a lot of spells, and I carried my crystals down to the river. I tried my hardest to learn to meditate. I welcomed long-gone children back home. My empty nest and my heart filleth with love. I baked no sourdough. I did pick eleventy trillion peonies and plant the equivalent in Snapdragons. And earlier this year I plucked up the courage to get in touch with my chakras. I have told no lies in the following recount of: 

‘What Really Happened at the Crystal Healers’

I’m not really in tune with my four chakras I told Pandora (while dying to ask her if her mother had really named her Pandora Patchouli!) There are seven chakras Pandora informed me. Then she rattled off their Sanskrit names and pointed to each chakra point in her body, from crown chakra to root chakra. Reminding me of an air hostess, double handed-ly, pointing out the exits. Inwards.

Prostrate on Pandora’s ‘work table’, my feet anchored on what looked like a lump of obsidian, I felt as relaxed as a sleeping cat. I nary twitched. A loose weave cotton blanket was placed over me and then the contents of multiple crystal mines, by the feel. No, not really. The only heavy crystal was over my solar-plexus-chakra. I did wonder if this lump of quartz on my stomach added to its gurgles. These turned into a waterfall soon after Pandora felt strong vibrations and a sense of deep sadness within me. I’m going to draw out the negative energy, she said, and started this incredible breathing. She had an impossibly long out-breath. I opened my eyes. Pandora’s were closed. Her hands were sweeping over my body in short and long ushering movements. During the course of the session, she held my feet and firmly patted my left thigh and my left hip. It felt intimate. But it was when she had her hands cradling my head that it all started pouring out. That sadness. I was asked to call my guides when I’d breathed myself up and out of my crown chakra into outer outer space. I tried and tried. I longed to meet them. Who are you I implored? But it was just me floating up there in an infinite void of black. 

Then I started to see things. Conjure up memories. I saw myself as a happy child in my great-grandmother’s walled garden, high on Napier hill above the grey-green Pacific ocean. I was six. My dress was flowery. Homemade. My hair surfer blonde and pixie-chopped. I saw my dead brother. Then he disappeared. Pandora told me it was my time to receive love. I smelt my great grandmother’s shortbread and the leaky gas in her dark kitchen. As a child, love is unconditional. No one knows the person you’ll become in adulthood. The time when every human starts to feel unloved in varying degrees. Questions love given. I am loved, I reminded myself. Tears streamed from my eyes. They ran through Pandora’s fingertips down into my ears. She did not dry them. My body was as still as an actor playing freshly dead in a movie. All the same. I shook inside and swallowed back the salty tears now in my mouth. Curiously when Pandora’s hands released my head, my heart instantly ached something wicked. An axe could have been stuck in it. Holy healing powers, was I having a heart attack? I felt for the crystals on my heart chakra, they were two, and small. 

When I sat up at the end of the session, I was exhausted, drained. I asked, Who are my guides? (You have one male and one female.) Well, I met my dude. But my female remains elusive. I often end up in the ocean looking for her so I’m guessing she’s one tough as, don’t mess with me mermaid.

Pandora told me to be kind to myself for the next 72 hours. Drink lots of water. Don’t interact with arseholes. Your sleep may be disrupted for the next two nights. You’ll have one good sleep. And one disrupted sleep. The world might seem brighter. One hundred percent hi-res. I walked outside expecting to be hit by asteroids but wasn’t. I sat down at the wharf and wrote six pages of nothing much in my journal. I tried to surreptitiously take a photo of an unkempt couple with a scruffy dog in a pram. The lady saw me and told me to fuck off with a vengeful grimace. Arsehole, I mouthed back. That evening I took the ferry to a friend’s book launch in Ponsonby. The women’s book shop was packed and glowing with the joy of a new publication. Author and friends went to dinner afterwards. At one point, I regaled details of my crystal healing experience. And laughed on the inside as their eyes glazed over at my spiritual levitations.

The next morning, I was a ball of energy. My chakras were on fire. Especially my sacral c. Good lord, Pandora did not warn me that I’d be boasting in the comments section. I decided I’d fit in some fitness before werk. I jogged to the nearest park. Yes, I jogged. A track zigzagged through trees around the park’s periphery. It was one of those city parks with fitness stations. I participated in every single one of them. There were ten dotted along the circuit. I even threw in my own versions of outdoor gym work. I was bouncing. A set of lunges. Sets of triceps dips on a park bench. I even planked for one minute on a patch of grass partially behind a shrub. (I timed myself on my phone’s stopwatch.) When I got home, I flipped out my yoga mat and did four sets of four: roll downs, plank, press-ups, downward dogs, roll-ups. Four. Sets.

The next day I could barely move. My obliques ached. My hamstrings snapped. My abs would not laugh. What a div. I meditated at lunchtime. The sun shone onto my flowery duvet and me. I breathed my way up through my third eye, through my crown, way up through the sky, and into that black space. I saw my grandfather again. He wore his vicar attire. White dog collar, robes. He smiled his thin-lipped smile. He died when I was six. I did not know him well. But I got the feeling he’d hung around.

I’m not a religious person but I do believe in some sort of spirit world. I have a growing collection of crystals. I leave them on the window sill, in the full moon. I take them down to the river to bathe. I meditate (but mostly fall asleep.) Anything, that gets you through. 

Merry Christmas, friends! Love & light in 2022

Jane x

The Witches In the Willows

 

A Family of Witches
(Close relations of mine)

The Beginning Before

(A prologue-in-progress)

It was love at first sight when Petulia Picklewhip’s parents, Pablo and Sophia-Paloma spied each other across the lawn. The Priory’s feted Cauldron Casserole Fiesta was boiling at full bubble. The day was brilliantly sunny. But as soon as the couple ogled each other, lightning flashed, tree tips fizzed and a shower of warm rain sprinkled down. A purple rainbow even appeared, in a perfect arch over the experimental topiary garden.

Pablo was a well-known wizard of twenty-five years.

Sophia-Paloma was a well-known witch of twenty-one. 

That afternoon, Motherwitch McMinty won ‘Best Potion’ for the 500^th year in a row, with her Bewitching Belladonna Youthful Forever Formula. Meanwhile, Pablo and Sophia-Paloma were concocting a spell to make the cherry tree they were sitting under in the Bonsai garden, burst into blossom. Pink, papery petals soon unfolded and they discovered their lifelong ambitions were the same! They both wanted to make good witchcraft. The world as they knew it was becoming increasingly filled with untidy, land grabbing witches. Forests were being cut down willy nilly. Crystal lakes were being polluted. Witch-castle prices were through the turrets! False nonsense by the way of misinforwitchmation was being spread across the land.

While the couple chatted, Pablo studied Sophia-Paloma’s features. Her long hair was as shiny and as black as a raven’s. Her eyes were the softest silver-grey. Her skin the softest ivory. Her high-necked, black taffeta gown was extremely flattering. And she smelt fantastic. She was wearing the latest and most hypnotic witch-fragrance on the market – Poisonne by Cauldron Klein.

At the same time, Sophia-Paloma studied Pablo. She admired his dark hair, slicked back into a wizard-bun. His smiling moustache waxed into two, upturned tips. His ruby red lips, which revealed a mouthful of pearly-white, slightly pointy teeth, when he talked. (Pablo had a slight lisp, witch she also thought cute.) His eyes were as green as green glass bottles. Pablo wore a snappy black suit and a white shirt with a very stiff collar. His boots were black lace-ups with sharp pointy toes. In fact, everything about Pablo was sharp! Especially his wit. That was razor-sharp! 

The priory bell rang. It was time for supper – share plates of meaty cauldron-casseroles. 

Pablo fashioned a ring from a piece of gold thread and the skull of a blackbird that he found in his pocket. He slipped it on Sophia-Paloma’s ring finger. ‘Will you be my best-witch-wife?’ 

A smile crept over Sophia-Paloma’s face, and the apples of her cheeks turned a rosy blush. ‘If you will be my best-wizard-husband?’ she replied. 

They held hands and said together, ‘I will!’ While unicorns pooed glitter in a far-off unicornverse.

‘We’ll live a long happy life together casting make-better spells on all the wicked people,’ beamed Sophia. (She’d recently won Kindest-Eco-Witch-of-the-Year.)

‘And we’ll have a happy family with lots of little witches and wizards running about,’ said Pablo. (He was an only wizard-child and had longed for siblings to turn into moths.)

Then they kissed, a very polite but very electric witch-kiss. The sky went dark. Cloud-sized, golden fireworks crackled and fluttered out of the sky. Hand in hand, they ran back to the crowd to share their magical news.

They had set a date for their wedding. It would take place in exactly one year’s time. On exactly the same day. The sixth day of the sixth month, June 1866.

Sophia-Paloma already knew their first child would be a girl, and they would name her Petulia Paloma.

Unfortunately, Motherwitch McMinty knew too …

PLEASE NOTE: This work of fiction (like all writing) is protected by copyright. This simply means do not copy it in any shape or form. If you do your hair will fall out! Or you may turn into a mouse. You have been warned.

Always Back a Kiwi Horse - Melbourne Cup 2021

The last time I thought I’d take a flutter on the Melbourne Cup my daughters were in primary school and my son kindergarten. At around about 3.15pm on a warm November afternoon, I determinedly dragged them into the first TAB pub I found in downtown Queenstown. With my sweet blond boy child on the hip and girls holding my skirts, I scanned the crowd sinking jugs at leaners, pencil stubs poised over racing books, and instantly realised they were not my people, and left.

My grandad on my mum’s side, Buster, was a keen Hawkes Bay racegoer. I still have his racing binoculars in their handy leather case. A wedding present from my gran, which cost a cool sixty pounds way back a long time ago. Like Buster, I’ve often enjoyed a flutter on race day. Two bucks each way on a fine steed named Lady Jaynee or Sir (insert bf name) and I was as happy as a filly.

But on Monday, I went all out. Under the current feeling of doom pervading every New Zealander, I felt a glow of optimism. Something good was about to fall from the heavens. On me! I’d been sniffing around on Twitter. I had the hot tip. A kiwi horse from Rotorua. Owned and trained by a smooth looking dude with a moustache and a beige hat. The father of great crime writer JP Pomare. The horse was my favourite horse colour – chesnut. It even had a cool name - Ocean Billy. 

I told The H and Lily. Hey, I’ve got a hot tip on the Melbourne Cup. Before I couldn’t even name drop OB I was told he’d been on the nooz the night before. Everyone already knew. Lily said, get in quick. She should know the system. She dated a bookie in Sydney who handsomely substituted his student allowance working the big meets. 

I didn’t even have to walk over the sticky carpet at the Pig & Whistle, I could bet online! All I needed was a TAB account. 500 hours later this Boomer managed to make one. It didn’t take much, my mother’s maiden name, ID facial verification, microchip in my forehead, my right forearm, 5000 passwords, 50 pin numbers, and I was in. Only I’d locked myself out and had to reset. And re-enter my credit card details 50,000 times. You have to be in credit to bet, you see. When I finally selected my bet amount and hit pay, another warning triangle flashed at me. Good god almighty, I was a loser before I’d even lost. The winning stake on Ocean Billy had already dropped from $51 for a win, to $41. I gambled anyway.

Tuesday 2^nd November 2021, as fellow Melbourne Cuppettes sloshed on their fake tan, Showpo Dresses, Kmart hats and started preparing to get totally shit-faced at a Covid free venue by commencing pre-drinking, I received an email from my new best friend the TAB. Informing me of ‘The Shark’s Top Four’. There set out under four, easy to follow punter headlines. BEST. NEXT. VALUE. ROUGHIE. Horses and jockeys were listed and their stakes. I should note at this point I was HIGHLY alarmed not to see mention of my sure-bet-baby Ocean Billy. However, VALUE (with a Silverfern) caught my eye Verry Ellegant paying a decent $17. Well, I scratched my fascinator and logged into my account. Thanks to the handy feature on Chrome – save password. I hovered. I dithered. I thought no, I’m addicted to a lot of things but I’d already spent more than I ever had on a horse in the hope I’d reap the returns which would be more than what I’ve earned from my writing this year. $4,400 to put you in the picture. It was tough, but I drew the line I would not put $10 bucks each way on the sexy Kiwi mare very, Verry Elleegant. More fool me.

At 5pm I turned on TVOne. We all watched the race. I’d chilled champagne to celebrate my winnings. What a dick. My horse lost. No, I wasn’t the punter who put a heady $27,000 on the nose of Ocean Billy. While the totalizer quivered at the thought of paying out close to one million buckeroos. Nevertheless, I felt a huge disappointment and a certain shame as I turned off the telly and took the dog for a walk by the river.

Moreover, I didn’t even realise until the next day that sweet, three-white socked Ocean Billy game 23^rd.  Dead last! If I’d pressed ‘place bet’ on the clear winner Verry Elleegant I would have covered my foolish gamble and taken home a hundy. 

Kiwi jockey, James McDonald rode an extremely elegant race. He pulled the dark bay mare out from the pack at the 500m mark and bolted down the field to win by a whopping three and a half lengths. The pairs’ first Melbourne Cup win. Woohoo

But that’s gambling for you. I guess I’ll have a flutter nek year. Unless I lose my password. 

How Do You Take Your Coffee?

Even when my dad’s Alzheimer’s was progressing like a boss, he continued to prepare a breakfast tray for his ‘wife’ and deliver it to her in bed, each morning around eight. I put wife in inverted commas because they never actually got married but they referred to each other in the correct spousal terms. This was my dad’s third wife. All three had sing-song, three-syllabled names ending in a cheerful ee. My mum was the first wife. And the best. Felicity.

The breakfast tray continued as did many daily habits, but it was always going to be a tricky game of remember-what’s-on-the-tray. In time, the boiled egg came without a spoon. Or with the spoon came and without the egg. Only the egg cup. As far as I know, the egg was always cooked. But one thing remained a stalwart, the mini Bodum of coffee, freshly brewed, piping hot.

Everyone loves their morning cuppa, eh? The H was reading an article out to me the other day. “The Top Reasons For Divorce”. The info was drawn from a bunch of divorce lawyers. Where are you reading that?! I asked (and why, more to the point.) One dude’s reason for divorcing his wife was that she asked him each morning how he took his coffee. For a long, no doubt crap-morning-cuppa-filled, seven years. I know there’s a minefield of milks around these days but it can’t be that hard. Bovine. Almond. Oat. Soy. Coconut. Rice. Macadamia. Warmed. A splash. Half and half. Black.

One time, I went to look after dad while his ‘wife’ (we’ll call her Verity) went away for a well-earned holiday. Dad still prepared her elaborate breakfast tray by 8 am. Each morning as I appeared in their sunny kitchen, Dad looked at me with curious eyes, as though freshly arrived. Verity’s away I reminded him. I’m here looking after you, Dad. 

Oh yes, so you are, he’d say.

After breakfast, I go with him on his first walk of the day. We’d ambled east along the Pohutukawa-edged clifftop with the sea green-blue and glistening in the background. Then inland passed houses and back home via Penguin Place. Dad’s cat came with us. We walked as slowly as a three-legged tortoise. Stopping to listen to Tuis or if a car approached to herd SmudgeBum the cat into the safety of the gutter until it had passed. Miraculously that cat was never run over. 

But not long after my stay, dad fell off the cliff in front of his house. How he didn’t die instantly is a miracle. He was throwing over some leaf litter he’d collected. Being a gardener from way back there were probably a couple of weeds in his clutch too. He managed to slip down a wide clay crack, between tree roots and land on a rock ledge above the tide. He knocked himself unconscious, didn’t remember a thing, and never once complained of the pain of his injuries. He dragged the local volunteer fire brigade from their dinner, won a ride in a Westpac rescue helicopter, and had his escapade noted in the New Zealand Herald. He also won a seven week stay in North Shore hospital's geriatric ward. And a one-way ticket to a rest home.

I ate expensive deli sandwiches with dad in the ward’s day room, telling him we were in a café. Are we the only table? he’d asked. Fraught family meetings were held in that room when deciding on Dad’s next move, once his ribs, neck vertebra, concussion, and lacerations had healed sufficiently. At the first meeting, I suggested he and Verity move into a villa in an aged care residential whatnot, so they could stay living together. That went down like a tonne of ammonium nitrate under the sky tower. He had become a liability. Verity could no longer cope. No extra carers had ever been employed to take the load off. Most of his wanderings off up to the village to check the post box at the store several times a day were safe. Until they weren’t. He was a familiar sight. His white hair, browning above his ears because he refused to shower. His corduroys smelling of urine and losing their pile around his fly because of it. Try telling any old dude he needs Poise-for-boys or adult diapers then ensure he wears them. It’s a fragile line between dignity and loss of freedoms. Independence. 

The hospital aged care facilitator did some basic life-skills-test with dad in that room. What the fuck they were supposed to achieve I do not know. Dexterity: 8/10. Dad’s results basically dictated that he’d never set foot in his seaside home again. One test was making coffee. Dad failed. The facilitator told me, he put a heaped dessert spoonful of coffee into the mug! She scoffed as though he was clearly deranged. I told her right back, that’s because he and Verity don’t drink instant coffee. He thought he was making real coffee, with fresh grounds. In a mini Bodum. He just got the vessel mixed up. She was not impressed. Her Moccona clearly had lost its Mmmmm. 

Dad was always a creature of habit. In his working life in London, he wore Church’s brown brogues. He had two pairs which he wore on alternate days. I was never quite sure why he didn’t just wear one pair out and then buy a new pair. It’s like driving a car way below the empty mark to save petrol. Many of his shoe rituals probably started when he was a naval officer in New Zealand. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was dad sitting on the edge of the parental bed tugging on his long white naval socks. Firstly, he would pepper in between his toes with athlete’s foot powder. Next, came these white, inside-out sock snakes. He would peel them on over his feet and up his calves. Tanned despite the sock-wearing. A thick rubber band, hidden by a wide turndown, held the socks in place just under the knee. The shoes were white also. Sort of white-washed leather. Strange that my father wore white shoes without realising their possible nuances; he was a major homophobe. At the same age, my future husband’s mother was warning him to never trust men in white shoes. We grew up with a lot of ignorant schizz in the 70s.

 

I saw my dad in the nude once. I was both mortified and impressed by the size of his (what I later found out when mum read my sister and me a small green book titled Where Do Babies Come From) was his penis. I think at the time I thought it was some form of mini elephant trunk. A trouser snake. I might have smiled.

Once we were playing tennis in Malaysia, back when my dad had a job at the New Zealand High Commission in Singapore. Dad was a wasp magnet and highly allergic to them. He was getting hassled by a thirsty bunch of vespas. He hopped about the court, waving his tennis racket in defense. I helpfully yelled out, Dad, Dad you look like a fairy! He blew his top. I was hurt and confused, only thinking that what looked like playful antics required a compliment. His outburst probably coincided with the exact time that he was stung. Several times. Right above his eye, which blew up like a prize fighter’s post pummelling. My mother had to administer whiskies and water back in their hotel room. Later the kitchen provided a raw steak to draw out the sting. Not long after that, my parents divorced. It was nothing to do with coffee. Or milk. But another woman. My godmother.

But that’s another story. 

If there is a moral to this tale it would be – learn how to make your partner’s morning brew. Make it with love. Make it good.

Jane xo

Let's Talk About SLEEP, Baby! & Calm App

 

In a desperate quest to get more zzz’ds every night, I recently downloaded Calm. App. It’s been a total gamechanger for this ol sleepless pillow princess. So while I’m on a sleep-buzzed high I’ve reviewed my favourite sleep stories for you.

Let’s start with Harry Styles’ - Dream With Me. Hazz stepped up to voice a story after a heavy-fan-flex requested it during our first introduction to Lockdowns, 500 years ago now. DWM is the most listened to story and crashed the site when it was first released.

I can almost guarantee that as soon as you get horizontal, shut your eyes, don your noise-canceling headphones, and flick on ‘Dream With Me’ you’ll be seeing Mr. Styles in a Gucci loin cloth flying about the Sistine chapel playing cupid with a heart-bow-and arrow. I was. But honestly, his voice, with a backing track of wet violins and wetter piano is so oozy it can only be described as sexy-whisper!

I’m proudly a late adopter of most of the tech whizzes of our world. Tik Tok wot? I’ve nary listened to a podcast, nor a talking book but if you haven’t tried listening to a sleep story when you’re all alone and wide awake in the middle of the night; let me convince you in one word why you need it. Harry.

I had to google, “why did harry styles narrate a sleep story”. To grab a quote from the sweet boy of rock and good god almighty up popped 471,000 results in .54 seconds! 

Harry said:

“SLEEP AND MEDITATION ARE A HUGE PART OF MY ROUTINE … FINDING A BALANCE HAS BEEN ENDLESSLY BENEFICIAL TO BOTH MY PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH. IT’S CHANGED MY LIFE! I’M SO HAPPY TO BE COLLABORATING WITH CALM AT A TIME WHEN THE WORLD NEEDS ALL THE HEALING IT CAN GET. TREAT PEOPLE WITH KINDNESS.”

Also, every lusty wench and her apartment-bound cavoodle had already written about him. It. 

The co-CEO of Calm states, “Harry’s mellifluous voice is the perfect tonic to calm a racing mind.” 

While Elle magazine reported, “Turns out Styles' sometimes rhyming, always rhythmic delivery is counterproductive to the REM cycle.” Elle also noted, “Harry is terrible at putting me to sleep”. 

No doubt because every single gal or guy searching for a Tinder date is gonna get quite carried away with Harry’s ‘you’ and ‘me’ narrative. It begins. 

“Hello I’m Harry Styles”

And tonight, I’m going to help you drift off to sleep

With some soothing words and calming music

A sleep story just for you!

With all the business of your day I know how hard it can be to get to sleep

So thank you for choosing this story and ME to help you

I wish you a wonderful night’s sleep

So make yourself comfortable take a deep breath in and then out

In and then out … and when you’re ready close your eyes”

Yeah baby they’re closed! I spent 50 bucks on an annual subscription and here I was instantly under the duvet with Harry Styles! He seems to lick his words at the end of every sentence.

“Tonight, we’re going to think about (sexy pause) anything you’d like. 😜

So first let’s visualize some scenes to see us through the night.

Settle back and clear your mind, where heading somewhere special

Beyond the world of consciousness to places more celestial.”

(watery music interlude)

I’d like you to imagine …”

 

Well, let’s not go there. He does hold your hand. And snuggle with you on a raft. There's even a log cabin with an open fire. I’m not going to let on about the bearskin rug. You will never tire of my #1 Harry but if he’s not your jam …

#2 Cillian Murphy’s gentle Irish brogue will lilt you in an imaginary locomotive across the verdant plains of leprechaun country in the aptly named ‘Crossing Ireland by Train’. Not that this travelogue, circumnavigating the Emerald Isles reads clackety clack. Cillian’s dulcet tones are more of a meditation, a literary lullaby. He points out the landscapes that inspired the enchanted world of Narnia in the C S Lewis classic and quotes Wilde, Beckett and Joyce. This is your thinking women’s bedtime story. A mattress masterclass of sorts through an enchanted green, green land. By the end, you won’t give Peaky Blinders a thought nor see that rude Thomas Shelby haircut again. All hale, Kill-ian. I’ve never been to Ireland. But I feel I want to now. This story can only be described as a polite invitation. 

#3 Matthew McConaughey pants his way like a lanky rhinestone cowboy through ‘Wonder’. To claim this is a “story about the mystery of the universe” is a bit of a push. With all these narrations, it’s all about the voice, not the content. While Matthew gets all hippy trippy about the infinite magnitude of the cose-mose, I find my subconscious drifts happily towards come-a-tose. There is probably a smirk on my face as I imagine Matthew chewing a piece of grass in his Wranglers beside the campfire. He’s just polished his cowboy boots, fed me beans with a spoon, and is reading to me as I lie exhausted after a day rustling wild horses on the range.

“Well, hello there I’m Matthew Mac-Con-nay-hay and tonight I’ll be reading a special sleep story called Wun-derrr. Before we begin, as you settle in under the covers with your head eeeeasing into the pillow and your body eeeeasing into the mattress I’d like you to let your mind drift with me…”

I should point out that it is a rare thing to find yourself awake on the conclusion of these readings. Like the child you once were, you will happily listen to them over and over. And never tire of their repetition.

#4 Idris Elba reads ‘Kingdom of the Sky’ a ‘trek across the mountains of Lesotho.’ If you know nothing about this “tiny jewell of a country, nestled in the breathtaking mountains of southern Africa” you might learn a few facts. However, alas, you will also find yourself seeing Idris (Idd-riss) as a middle school geography teacher, not the next James Bond. This is a wholesome Sunday night story of the geographical kind, for all ages.

If you’re not single or middle-aged, or for some strange reason you don’t feel comfortable nestling into your feather topper and deep breathing with a male movie star, there are alternatives.

I have enjoyed ‘Dr Doolittle’ with Stephen Lyons. Stephen’s lively yet calming voice is bound to make you feel like a contented child being read to by a loving grandparent while under a lavender-scented eiderdown.

Former Great British Bake Off judge, Dame Mary Berry reads ‘A Very Proper Tea Party’. This very proper story makes Jane Austen read like a bodice ripper. I’m still alarmed that the host made herself a pot of Darjeeling and enjoyed a cup in the window seat before her guest arrived. WTH? 

‘Sienna the Sleep Sloth’ with David Walliams just gave me creepy Little Britain vibes. For some reason, DW’s voice (which is either on fast-forward x 2, or he’s on diet pills) made me envisage a grown man with five o’clock shadow and a dad-bod snug within a wife beater and nappies. IKR! I shut him down pdq. I have no idea what the sloth got up to.

The library is varied and endless. In conclusion, Calm App is a great way to clear your mind and get more health-giving sleep. I’m a convert. Chucking on my headphones at 3am and listening to “Softly Back To Sleep” is a whole lot better than lying wide awake catastrophizing about my current worries. Even a soundscape like “Bamboo Forest” or “Silk Waves” can do the trick.

Lastly, in the hope of improving focus on my book writing projects, I’m eleven days in to ‘How To Meditate in 30 Days’ with Jeff. Jeff promises that once you master the art of meditation your concentration will be next-level! I’m so glad I found Jeff. My concentration is shot. But I’m learning how to shut out the voices in my head. Be present. Yeeha!

Jane x

ps. I’m not sponsored by Calm App lol. If you fill out a survey on their site you’ll receive a discount voucher within days. Or sign up for a free 7-day trial.

Do leave a comment if you have success, insomniacs.

Sweet future dreams! Nightie night!

The Scriptwriter - A Road Movie Spoof

Plymouth Barracuda

*I dreamt I was awarded a writer’s residency where the host was a highway motel.

Naturally, I packed my duffel bag and rocked up the next day to start it.

But WTH did I discover/do there?!

Well, you could only describe it as some bougie sort of existential mind-altering experience worthy of … of submission to a Netflix production company keen on the splatter movie short-shorts genre.*

It’s all about the script.

Setup:

Desert road movie.

Two misfits. Both creatives.

An A-grade actor with dyed black hair and one of those scalloped, receding hairlines/American. Keen to act and produce a new work near a place with three snow-capped mountains and a road called, the Desert Road.

A writer who had her first book published aged 51. Peach-toned hair/Kiwi. Keen to complete a new, ambitious project - a movie script.

They meet at a highway-side motel of nondescript architecture.

She’s come by Uber.

He drives a badass American muscle car. A Plymouth Barracuda ’71.

There are three cars in the car park. They belong to no one.

A mountain range is visible in the distance. Tumbleweeds tumble out of the tundra.

The motel owner’s son, a poppy-out-eyed greasy-haired youth is behind the desk. He will defo have a sick part to play later.

If you haven’t worked out the name of the US actor by now, let me help you.

Nicolas Cage. All 6 ft of him.

And the wannabe script-writer. Janet Bloomwayfieldmouth. 164 cm.

Scene 1:

Actor and writer greet.

They don’t say much.

Until they’ve shared a bottle of vodka. Something cheap. Finlandia.

They discover they’re the same age. 57!

They get to work on their movie script.

They sit on opposite sides of the bed in the poorly furnished motel room. They brainstorm like crazies.

Great visuals, genuinely droll snitches of dialogue, and kickass one-liners fly around the room.

Much like the overpowering patchouli-odor of the room deodorizer, which is giving Janet the sneezes.

Nicolas finds a box of coarse tissues in the bathroom for her.

The shiny brown quilt threatens to slip right off the bed.

The room is smoke-free but cigarette smoke seems to weep from the faux wood veneer headboard.

Nicolas sucks relentlessly on a grape-bubblegum vape. He explains he’s trying to give up the darts as he blows perfect smoke rings.

Janet tries without fail to find a window that opens. They both now have headaches.

Nicolas says, We’ve done great work, Janet. Let’s take a break.

He lifts the non-cordless phone beside the bed and dials '1' for the restaurant. He orders 2 x spicy pepperoni pizzas and a bottle of Finlandia. 

Scene 2:

Nicolas and Janet catch forty winks.

There’s a knock on the door. RAT A TAT TAT. TAT.

Nicolas takes the safety off his Colt 44. He’s been in short, desert road movies before.

Janet opens the door. She hands over a fifty and casually says, Keep the change.

The greasy motel youth laughs like a hyena and asks, Would you like extra sauce with that? 

He hands over the pizzas. Then he pulls out a lady handgun and aims it at Janet’s face. He attempts to pull the trigger.

Pepperoni pizza and what could be brains now splatter the ugly quilt.

Nicolas steps out from behind the door and wastes the youth.

He gathers up the script from the bedside table and flicks through it.

It’s covered in Janet’s boarding school handwriting. He has no idea what it says. It must be in a native language.

He thrusts the still warm Colt down the back of his jeans. The barrel rests under his Calvins, between his butt crack. He harrumphs and kicks the youth out of the way. Loser arsehole.

Scene 3:

Nicolas puts Janet’s hands in prayer position over her heart.

He grabs his vinyl hold-all and the vodka. He leaves the pizza, it’s covered in carpet fluff.

The motel car park still has the three cars belonging to no one in it.

A tan, three-legged dog jogs, past sniffing the air.

Nicolas pulls the door of unit 66 shut.

He does a stunt jump into the open front window of the Cuda. Forgetting he’s on the wrong side. It’s a right-hand drive.

Overcome with emptiness and emotion he slugs half the bottle of Finlandia and grabs the packet of Dunhills from the glovebox.

Lights up and takes a deep drag. Then another. 

With the cig casually held in the corner of his mouth, he drops a spectac donut, peppering the motel sign with gravel.

Then he floors-it and fish-tails onto the highway.

He wipes the tears from his eyes with the back of his hairy hand, almost burning himself on his cigarette.

Such a waste.

That was a great project. Janet was great to work with.

Oh well, writers are a dime a dozen.

Final Scene:

The Plymouth Barracuda ’71, flies westwards, airborne.

Into the blinding sun.

Janet is at the door of unit 66, waving.