Being nudged over by Nelson, gently

When I woke up on Thursday morning the shed had been blown over on its side like a Monopoly piece. I'd been awake for a few hours before I actually noticed, and it was utterly dislocating to see. I felt powerless. When I went to bed on Thursday night Nelson Mandela had just died.  I  lit candles - these rituals we have because we don't know what else to do - and shed a fair few tears at some of the television footage. I was due to have a short story in the Scotsman this weekend but it has been postponed because they needed space for  tributes. It's something  of an honour to have been nudged over by Nelson. The shed is happily fixed (thanks to neighbours and joiners), and I'm now brimming with Mandela memories. So much to link to but I will just link to these: Nadine Gordimer  in The New Yorker; Marina Hyde in The Guardian; Teju Cole in The New Inquiry; this by Musa Okwonga; and  Jon Snow's blog .

Seems

It truly seems like a hallucination - daffodils and tulips and bluebells behind the sleet. I'm not sure whether I'm hallucinating the flowers, or the sleet. I fear for the tulips, they are almost horizontal.

A review from USA , & an Israeli novel

Thanks to Janis in USA for this interesting review of TSoM. I like her inclusion of other works that deal with illness. It really is lovely to still be getting reviews 30 months after book came out. I don't tend to write my worst days here, but I have been unable to do much today at all. I went outside for five minutes, it was freezing and the daffodils have been battered by the gales. I kept going back to bed, but I hate the feelings in my muscles, so I got up again. I went to the sofa and tried to read but my arms hurt holding the stupid book - no, not true, it's not a stupid book, it's a rather good novel called CrocAttack! by Israeli writer Assaf Gavron. Then I tried to 'meditate' - ie lie with eyes closed, but I can never empty my mind, NEVER - with some crappy New Age music - a CD I got in San Francisco in nineties - I feel like a parody when I listen to it, but it is undeniably relaxing all that cheesy tinkling of water.

Hating the gales(2)

I have such a headache from the ugly moaning and the windows sounding like they're being kicked in.