I just finished up writing for today when I got a case of the guilts. I started to think about my other characters and Book 1 & 2 of the trilogy that I have been working on since 2009. I haven’t spent time with these characters since NaNoWriMo finished and I can feel them, deep inside, where I’ve locked them up so I can complete something else.

It’s an odd feeling knowing that there are other stories waiting to be written. Or completed. Characters that are sitting patiently (or in some cases very impatiently) waiting to be written into scenes again. I wish I could work on everything all at once but I know that it would do my head in. Straddling different worlds, different genres, just isn’t a good idea.

I love writing. I love being a writer. I will love it more when I finally have a book, any book, finished. I love molding characters and gently coaxing them into situations. The hard part for me seems to be pulling everything together. So I’ve essentially blocked out the next few weeks and I will be working on getting Chapters 1-5 finished. It’s daunting y’know? But I’ll push through.

I was having an issue with blogging back then and I really didn’t share anything about our trip, including the masses of photos that we took. But I thought I would begin to rectify that with a look at a little cemetery that was behind the first hotel we stayed in – The Bolton (as an aside I am never staying in a hotel that doesn’t have five stars – seriously. We stayed in two during our trip and wow, just wow).

The cemetery was the burial place for a lot of Wellington’s earliest settlers and I spent a good chunk of time going from headstone to headstone reading about their lives and their deaths. It was sad but fascinating.

So here we go. Here’s a look at the Bolton Street Memorial Park.

Beards, beards everywhere!

You can’t flail around on a busy street without hitting a hipster with a beard. Am I right? I’ve got to be honest with you, I’ve never really gotten the whole beard thing. I’ve just spent the last hour analysing why this might be and I keep arriving at the same conclusion. Here, let me share it with you.

You see, I was born in the 70’s and my formative years were in the 80’s. Child psychologists will tell you that you gather a lot of your ‘baggage’ during from this period because it’s when you are the most moldable. You experience things, they scare the shit out of you, and you ‘live’ (if you can call it that) for 37 years with a fear of ducks. And I should know.

Now the 70’s and 80’s were decades of serious facial hair worship championed, in my world, by men such as Peter (G’Day) Russell (G’Day) Clarke (see above photo), Bill Oddie and my math teacher, Mr Baker. All three were amply bearded and super scary so consequently beards, to this day, conjure memories of swearing and cheese, giant kittens prowling the streets of London and never, ever knowing what x is equal to.

Beards are not whimsical to me. They are not an accessory. They are not twee. They are serious business feller and you should be prepared for some cold hard facts before you start manicuring your follicles.

Here are five solid reasons not to have a beard

1. Beards are itchy. And they don’t just itch you; they itch your special friend too.
2. Beards look really hot. As in your face looks like it’s 25 degrees hotter than the rest of your body. Unless you’re in the Arctic. The Arctic is one of two regions were beards are acceptable. The Antarctic is the other.
3. Beards make you look older. Want to age a decade? Grow a beard. Is that your intention? OK then.
4. Beards attract all kinds of food remnants, which in turn attract vermin. When I leave food on my kitchen counter it attracts cockroaches. You don’t want cockroaches squatting in your beard do you? I didn’t think so.
5. Beards make you look dodgy. What are you trying to hide guy?

The end is nigh

The problem with beards is they have gone the way of visible thongs, faux hawks and Rickrolling – they’ve been embraced by the great unwashed. Once any social phenomenon has that kind of uptake you know it’s coolness currency is devalued.

I’m lucky. I know a trend is over when I hear the woman at the deli talking to a random customer about it. She’s my ugg boot wearing, frosted tip coiffing cultural thermometer. And she’s never, ever wrong.

  

#1 – My winner badge after completing NaNoWriMo
#2 – A stormy day 6th December 2011
#3 – Izzy at Myer in the city after deciding she wasn’t going to sit on Santa’s knee
#4 – White Square storm brooch
#5 – Lightning at 10pm on 12th December 2011
#6 – My first print byline
#7 – My obsession with fairy lights continues
#8 – Our 2011 Christmas tree

Here are some of my favourite Christmas posts from recent times.

Christmas 2010
Christmas 2009
Christmas 2008
Christmas 2005

I started on LiveJournal then went to Blogger then to Moveable Type and finally to WordPress and people like Si helped me out enormously on what was quite a steep learning curve.

Most of the time my posts are inane, boring stuff about what is going on and that’s fine. It’s a digital hodgepodge. It was never meant to be anything other than a journal of sorts anyway. After several scattered periods of introspection (over the last decade) I’ve come to accept that this is what Too Askew is. An amalgamation of everything that makes me, me. Furniture coveting, bear obsessions, paper nerdishness, random thoughts, writerly pursuits, dealing with loss and thunderstorm lovin’. All me baby.

I trawled back through my archives and found my first proper post. I’ve written 1670 posts since then. That’s an average of 3 per week for the last ten years. Not bad really. While I don’t get as many comments as I used to, I know you’re still coming by, reading my stuff. As much as I say I keep this blog for me, I also do it because I know that you’re out there and you enjoy dropping by for thirty seconds a couple of times a week. Thank you dear readers for keeping the blogging fire alive.

Here’s to 10 more years.

(Image credit: Will Clayton)

Yes. Today was a good day.