The more I look at that title, the less sure I am that I even know how to write. Corpses. It looks wrong. It is a word - I checked on Google. I even looked up 'use corpses in a sentence', but I'm not convinced. It sounds like something that Gollum would say. I know the children at school have similar moments: a couple of days ago, the most intelligent girl in the class sat with her head in her hands, moaning that she'd forgotten how to spell 'when'. I know I'd fail the SATs grammar test our year 6s have just done. What the heck is 'past progressive', and why do you need to know when you're only 11 years old and struggle to put a comma in the correct place? I know that some schools use old SATs papers to test the intelligence of prospective teaching assistants. I would re-enact that scene from Shirley Valentine, where she rips her exam paper into little bits and throws it over her shoulder. Either that, or I'd creatively deface it. 'Tick one box in each row to show whether the word after is used as a subordinating conjunction or as a preposition.' I can think of an answer to that, but it wouldn't be one that would score me any points. I have nothing against learning grammar, but at age eleven surely you just need to be able to tell whether your sentence makes sense or not. Learn the finer points later. If you want to.
Anyway. (And I know that's not grammatically correct, because a sentence needs a subject and a verb. Do I care?)
Going back to corpses (my little Hobbitses) - we have an assortment of dead animals in the back garden thanks to one of our cats, who has decided it is rabbit-hunting season once more. He uses our hammock as the roof of his outdoor eatery, which means that when the sun appears (ha ha), whoever wishes to bask has to clear up a little pile of rabbit ears and rejected hind legs. It's not pleasant. Especially when a major disembowelling is taking place when I'm trying to eat my breakfast.
There are also a couple of skulls around, that Son Number One has found on his rounds as a Forest Ranger. I love my son's job title. It makes him sound like a character from Yogi Bear and gives us endless opportunities to take the piss and sing the Lumberjack Song from Monty Python. He found a roe deer skull some time ago, which we scrubbed with Jeyes Fluid and which now sits on a bookshelf. Because that was greeted with interested enthusiasm, he's also brought home a huge red deer skull and a fox skull, complete with jaw bone and rather wobbly teeth. The red deer was hard to identify as it came from an individual with deformed antlers, meaning we couldn't find it on any guide on the internet. So Son Number One took it to the Wildlife Rangers, who told us what is was. They've promised to show him around the whole wildlife department, and I'm wondering if I'll be allowed to go, too. (Apparently, they once had to shoot a crocodile.) We've become so used to having these skulls around, that they've faded into our surroundings, but we try to remember to put them outside when people visit, just in case they think they've found the headquarters of a Norfolk Satanic cult. I took the deer skulls to school a few weeks ago, because they'd been doing a bit of topic on types of teeth (but mainly because I knew they'd just like seeing some skulls). I drove the car to school that day, because the antlers stuck out the top of the bag, and I knew I'd get some funny looks. I don't get that some people think bones are disgusting or creepy. I'm with those children that stick their fingers in the brain cavity and go, 'Wow, this is where the spinal-stuff leads. Cool!'
And on to zombies...
I was having an interesting book-chat with our school dyslexia lady yesterday. We discovered that we were in total agreement that there are such things as books for girls and books for boys - something that would get us lynched by the sexism brigade. (We agreed that we weren't saying that certain books should only be for boys or girls, by the way.) And that did link in with something I learnt from a book I mentioned a while ago: Invisible Ink, by Brian McDonald - the best book on writing that I've read. McDonald writes about what he calls the masculine and feminine aspects to a story - basically action vs emotional stuff - and how a good story will have a balance, but those without the balance tend to appeal to a particular gender. Anyway, the conversation got me looking at my bookshelves. I have realised that, in a literary way, I appear to be bisexual. Clive Cussler is sitting next to Jane Austen. Bridget Jones and Jack Reacher are sharing a shelf. Reading-wise, I have just ditched Sense and Sensibility for a zombie apocalypse novel. And, yes, it does seem to be because of the action. The most action in Sense and Sensibility seemed to be a group of people going for a stroll up a hill before someone had a headache and had to go home. I really want to send all my Jane Austens to a charity shop, and the fact that I haven't shows me up as being a raging book snob.
Anyway, I must go. This guy's got a broken leg, forty days of food left, and is stuck in his London flat, watching the undead slowly wander past. Actually, someone did write a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I may give that a go...
Anyway. (And I know that's not grammatically correct, because a sentence needs a subject and a verb. Do I care?)
Going back to corpses (my little Hobbitses) - we have an assortment of dead animals in the back garden thanks to one of our cats, who has decided it is rabbit-hunting season once more. He uses our hammock as the roof of his outdoor eatery, which means that when the sun appears (ha ha), whoever wishes to bask has to clear up a little pile of rabbit ears and rejected hind legs. It's not pleasant. Especially when a major disembowelling is taking place when I'm trying to eat my breakfast.
There are also a couple of skulls around, that Son Number One has found on his rounds as a Forest Ranger. I love my son's job title. It makes him sound like a character from Yogi Bear and gives us endless opportunities to take the piss and sing the Lumberjack Song from Monty Python. He found a roe deer skull some time ago, which we scrubbed with Jeyes Fluid and which now sits on a bookshelf. Because that was greeted with interested enthusiasm, he's also brought home a huge red deer skull and a fox skull, complete with jaw bone and rather wobbly teeth. The red deer was hard to identify as it came from an individual with deformed antlers, meaning we couldn't find it on any guide on the internet. So Son Number One took it to the Wildlife Rangers, who told us what is was. They've promised to show him around the whole wildlife department, and I'm wondering if I'll be allowed to go, too. (Apparently, they once had to shoot a crocodile.) We've become so used to having these skulls around, that they've faded into our surroundings, but we try to remember to put them outside when people visit, just in case they think they've found the headquarters of a Norfolk Satanic cult. I took the deer skulls to school a few weeks ago, because they'd been doing a bit of topic on types of teeth (but mainly because I knew they'd just like seeing some skulls). I drove the car to school that day, because the antlers stuck out the top of the bag, and I knew I'd get some funny looks. I don't get that some people think bones are disgusting or creepy. I'm with those children that stick their fingers in the brain cavity and go, 'Wow, this is where the spinal-stuff leads. Cool!'
And on to zombies...
I was having an interesting book-chat with our school dyslexia lady yesterday. We discovered that we were in total agreement that there are such things as books for girls and books for boys - something that would get us lynched by the sexism brigade. (We agreed that we weren't saying that certain books should only be for boys or girls, by the way.) And that did link in with something I learnt from a book I mentioned a while ago: Invisible Ink, by Brian McDonald - the best book on writing that I've read. McDonald writes about what he calls the masculine and feminine aspects to a story - basically action vs emotional stuff - and how a good story will have a balance, but those without the balance tend to appeal to a particular gender. Anyway, the conversation got me looking at my bookshelves. I have realised that, in a literary way, I appear to be bisexual. Clive Cussler is sitting next to Jane Austen. Bridget Jones and Jack Reacher are sharing a shelf. Reading-wise, I have just ditched Sense and Sensibility for a zombie apocalypse novel. And, yes, it does seem to be because of the action. The most action in Sense and Sensibility seemed to be a group of people going for a stroll up a hill before someone had a headache and had to go home. I really want to send all my Jane Austens to a charity shop, and the fact that I haven't shows me up as being a raging book snob.
Anyway, I must go. This guy's got a broken leg, forty days of food left, and is stuck in his London flat, watching the undead slowly wander past. Actually, someone did write a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I may give that a go...
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