A little snippet from “Autumn Magic”

” Ina welcomed the morning through narrowed eyes, the beautiful rays of the sun penetrating through a gap in the curtains. Birds were singing softly in Velka’s lush garden whilst Boruta found his way to Ina’s chest and now was sitting there smacking her cheek, asking for food. Raising her head from the soft fluffy pillow, Ina glanced around the room

“Will you all just shut up!” She moaned, stifling her gag reflex. The hangover was a bitch, the painful cost of such careless drinking. Her cat moved himself to the end of the bed and stared at Ina with patent accusation. Hearing the commotion, Velka’s servants knocked softly then entered the room, carrying breakfast and a toiletry set. They looked around, unsure what to do next, seeing the witch sitting on the bed with her head in her hands, trying to shelter her eyes from daylight. To their relief, she waved them away, and they spared no effort to leave the room as soon as possible. Sit appeared yesterday’s procession was too much of a strain of their senses, especially since they had to drag their guest up, and she looked more like a corpse at the time.

Ina moaned, “why do they all have to be so loud today?” Dragging herself out of bed, she approached the toiletry set and poured some water into the bowl; after a few initial splashes, she just gave up and dived head into the liquid. Unfortunately, the water was too warm to soothe her headache; hearing the door slamming again, she thought, “Oh, just let me die.”

Thunder suddenly assaulted Ina’s ears. “Inanuan Zoria Thornsen, what in the gods’ names have you been up to?”

Hope you like it – with this, your author is off to her second job healing broken bodies 🙂

The Doors and determined woman

As, crazy cat people, we have 5 furry beasts in our house. One of them our little Diesel have refractory epilepsy. That means we need to give him his meds 4 times a day to the dot otherwise he has a seizure.

Unfortunately one of those times is 7am and trust me no one in this household like to wake up early. Today was my turn, half asleep I went to the bathroom as no sane person would chase the cat around the house with a full bladder. and everything was normal till I tried to open the door.

It just didn’t budge.

In our book “Autumn Chaos,” the witch has a running relationship with the doors mostly sending them flying and now I was facing a similar dilemma.

Mark was peacefully sleeping on the other side and here I am with 7am ticking on the clock and doors that no gentle persuasion no shoulder barge could open. I could of course call for help. Mark as a skilful engineer would free me in no time but …

I’m a strong independent woman so hear me roar.

Bracing myself on the radiator I raised my leg to “break and enter” kick in the lock only to land in quite an acrobatic pose on the other side.

The doors that didn’t move when I shoulder hammer them suddenly decided to click and unblock themselves.

Just … why?

Oh, and did I mention Mark was sleeping about 3 meters away from this ordeal. Nope, he did not wake up. When this man sleeps, he sleeps. In the case of war, I think I just have to move his sleeping beauty self into a safer place.

Fair (sex) Barter

Art by Zohar Lazar (https://www.gq.com/contributor/zohar-lazar)

Yesterday Mark came down after a full day of editing. Dark circles under his eyes told me he once again fought with Grammarly and ProWrittignAid for dominance over the English grammar. He approached me in the kitchen and cuddled to my back.

My first thought was,  “he is hungry again.”  Don’t get me wrong, I feed him well as I firmly believe the glucose levels can affect the quality of the work. But no, this time, he only cuddled and whispered.

“Do you realize I never worked that hard, not even in the forces?”

That was strange since he was deployed to Gulf War and had a good time listening to someone’s orders. Compering to this, I didn’t consider myself a cruel master. 😁

“What makes you work so hard now, it’s not like I can force you to do 10 hours of editing.”

I took a bit of offence. Did he suggest I stood there cracking a whip over his head? He cuddled me even closer and, after a moment of silence, said.

“No, but since I’m trading this for food and sexual favours, that’s only fair.”

Now I have to review the sex scenes in the book, just in case my editor lets his imagination run wild. 😉

Lost voice and other existential problems

Mark is slaving upstairs editing our first book, and I must admit I am pushing him to the limit with my endless “can you polish this scene a little bit more demands.” I don’t think he will ever forgive me this, let’s write the book we would like to read idea, but as a supportive partner, he is doing everything in his power to polish my English 🙂

I don’t like to sit and do nothing, so while he is busy with the first I’ve started the second book called “The Winter Dragon.” I have the right idea, the outline of the book is planned, some scenes drafted in my head and it will be awesome ( yeah, I know all writers say so about their books). Yesterday I sat down and put 2000 words on the paper, but unlike with the first book when words just flow freely and I could easily produce 5000 words on a day this time it feels more like hard labour.

Not that the final product is bad, I re-read it several times and the scene is good, tension is good, characters are vivid, but it was just so much work. It felt like this two weeks break I took in writing made me lose my voice and now I have to rail myself back in.

It is so annoying.

Still, the second book won’t write itself, so setting myself a realistic goal of 1000 words a day I’m hoping I will be able to push past my writer’s block and finish it before April.

it looks like my fortis crisis brought me to a more creative side.

Gardening, Mark’s revenge and Sharpe’s ass(2021)

We started a bit of annual leave, Mark tends to dread those when we stay home because I tend to have “an idea” and he has to work his ass off to make it happen. Today despite the weather, I had an idea we need to prepare the garden for winter

.Yes I know we have clay, ground, and I know it gets waterlogged, but the grass is not going to cut itself, so my brave man sloshed like a pig in the mud was pushing lawn mover through the bog. I head muttering sounds something like

“ I will pack you and send you to your mother for next leave, lock-down or not”

But of course, I just misheard it as he would never be unhappy doing such a simple task, so peacefully I continued to pick up dry leaves and gravel the pond area. Finally, he finished, and yes, I realize we will have to buy a new lawn mover for the spring, but the grass looks nicely cut, so it was worth it.

At this point, I was using very colourful language to explain prickly brambles they have to go, and resistance is futile. I won’t quote as that would be a risk of having a Facebook ban. When I turned to Mark, he just brushed mud and looked at me with determination,

“I’m done for the day.”

… and he marched to the living room.

“Yeah, right,” I thought, and after finishing a few knicks and knacks, I went back home. Mark was on his “dad’s chair” a monstrosity otherwise called a snug chair that can freely hold two people and rotates. Yeah, I know, but he loves it so … Any way he was watching something and I had some computer work to do so I didn’t bother.

Three hours later I realize we are watching the same movie, or as I was enlightened later, we are watching the epic adventure of captain Sharp from the Sharpe series. To give you context I binge, mainly on Chinese historical TV dramas, but when I binge I do it like many things in life, very professional. I watch several hours straight when I sit, and Chinese historic dramas tend to have 60 episodes or more. Mark suffers silently, he knows more chaotic work is more I need slow-flowing very in the past things, this time my muddy monster took revenge and I’ve got Sharpe. Several hours straight, I even got told off when I ask how many episodes as of course I was suggesting we watched for too long.

So we were sitting and watching, well half watching, I was building my civilization in the game, till at some point I looked at the screen and here he was Sean Bean, all in his shirtless glory nicely bend over horse trove.

“WOW!, he has a really nice ass”

I blurted. That was the last episode of Sharpe we watched that night, I don’t know why.

Happy Cat Day my fellow Crazy Cat people (Diesel Story)

Love can make miracles. This is my Diesel – the day I found him coated in diesel oil and a few months later.

Sometimes you choose to be a hero, more often it is thrown on you like a cart of bricks.

It was around 4am, still dark and we were driving back from visiting the patient. With no patient in the back of the ambulance and no call waiting to answer our vehicle slowly toddle along the old forest road. Strange movement in the middle of the road caught my attention, being a Capitan of this vessel I commanded to stop and went to investigate.

In the middle of the road, crawling aimlessly was a kitten. There were no houses nearby, just this lonely few weeks old baby we almost crushed under the wheel.

What choice have I had?

I picked up the kitten only to notice he is covered in black goo, which easily transferred to my work uniform – and guess what I was holding him on my lap so … Now with just 10 minutes away from the station I was asking all cat gods to not have a call because arriving as dirty as I was wouldn’t testify well about the quality of service. My silent prayer must have been listened to because not only we didn’t have a call at that moment but we also were left in the station till the end of my shift.

Little that I know picking this little bundle of oil will change my life. You see, Diesel got toxic brain damage and as a result, he had epilepsy. Now our life turns around his medication and every holiday have to be carefully planned. Still, I never regretted the choice I’ve made that night.

He was supposed to perish on the road, we were advised to put him down because of uncurable refractory epilepsy and expensive treatment, and yet he is with us his 6th year living the best life we can give him.

If you can today look around and support your local cat charity, they choose to be a hero for stray, injured or neglected cats. hopefully, we give more kittens their own happy ending.

Let me play you the song of my people(2020)

To set a background for this story, Mark’s son has autism, a bit of weird form as he loves his cuddles and tickles, also when he is bored or really want something he makes a noise we call singing but … just imagine Florence Foster Jenkins type of opera aria.

We also have a disabled cat with severe epilepsy who love to sleep on the first-floor stairs, so we had to protect the balustrade with a transparent PVC sheet so when he has a seizure he doesn’t fall down to the ground floor. My other cats discovered that if they bang in this plastic drum long enough one of the humans go downstairs and feed them.

Scene: lovely quiet house 6am Saturday. We were blissfully cuddling.

After spending 15 years working as an ambulance doctor(one of my jobs) in Poland I acquire some super skills, I can hear things while sleeping. How you ask, well you need to hear bleeps and calls from dispatchers when you are on night shift and sleep-deprived.So I can hear when Leo wakes up and plays in his bedroom, nothing suspicious and nothing to actually wake me up. Suddenly someone sneaks at landing next to our main bedroom and …-

BUM, BUM, BUM, BUM – cats war drums start banging

– YAAA…yooo….aaaaa…AAAAA – our own personal opera singer join the music

I just thought to myself “don’t show signs of life maybe they are like bears and they will walk away but hell no

.- BUM, BUM, BUM, BUM

– YAAA…yooo….aaaaa…AAAAA

– BUM, BUM, BUM, BUM

– YAAA…yooo….aaaaa…AAAAA

– BUM, BUM, BUM, BUM

– YAAA…yooo….aaaaa…AAAAA

After 15 min I just realize, yes you fecking monsters, sleeping Gods heard the song of your people and they will arise, grumpy as fuck.

And guess what? Once we emerge from the bedroom everyone was like a piece of sunshine, Leo instant went to Mark for cuddles, cats start purring like crazy and asking for strokes, just fecking ray of sunshine and of course house is now calm, quiet and perfectly at peace … and we sitting in the living room sipping coffee and trying to get rid of murderous thoughts.

Doctor, doctor,

Being a part-time author and a full-time doctor is not easy. Today my long nine shift ended up in a splitting headache. Crowded ED, difficult patients, doctors sick absence and me trying to make it work.

… but at least I can add realistic injury details to every battle. Every job has some perks it seems. 🙂

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines day.

Mark love to surprise me with unussual gifts – like this chocolate mini me.

This Valentines he gave me what I cherish the most – the hard work he puts into out book. Editor job is way more difficult than writting 🙂

Blood gore and new doors (story from 2020)

People do weird things this year; we, for example, decided to exchange doors for a new one. Installation was booked for today at 8 am, so we woke up early in the morning to lock the cats in upstairs rooms; we did not want any accidents with escapees to happen of course. As you all know, one of our cats is feral. Spitfire was born and raised without human intervention. Still, as we
moved houses, she moved in with us, and that is how we ended up with an untouchable cat who just enjoys our hospitality. With a few hours of installation and completely open doors we needed to secure her, Mark wanted to shoo her upstairs. Still, I thought if we were going to scare her anyway, I would have a bit of poking and prodding to make sure she was all right. 

And that is where the story begins. We get her into the corner and tangled
into blankets. I’ve got my poking moments, and she was ready. At this point,
Mark decided he would carry her up.

… BIG MISTAKE

… REALLY BIG MISTAKE

Once he started walking with her, our so far reasonably calm cat (except hissing and spitting) got possessed by the demon., and she began to thrash around. I said, “Let her go, ” but for some reason, this stubborn mule of the man decided to fight with a demon cat and hold her even tighter. 

THAT WAS IT.

Spitfire wriggles herself and somehow manages to sink her fangs into Marks’s hand, right in the vein. Blood was hosing everywhere but did he let her go. 

NOPE.

No cat will win with a determined man. So he is holding her with one hand, the second creating a puddle of blood on the floor. Gore and carnage were witnessed by Serennah, who, with the blaze of a 12-year-old girl, was munching her Frosties sitting on the stairs and saying, “that is just gross”. 

I finally convince Mark to let go of the cat and come to the kitchen to put his slaughtered hand under cold water. He was pissed like a bag of badgers and on adrenaline overload. Serennah needed to go to school, and there was a lot of blood to clean.

I doctored his hand – yeah, sterile strips and antibiotics are part of our cat-household first aid and calmed him down with the copious amount of chocolate to the point of coherent thinking. The kid was sent to school with a story to tell, and blood was mopped off the floor. Peace returned to the crazy cat house.

Summarising this entire story – we have new doors, and they are pretty

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