*Diolch a nos da. A consideration of language

As a writer I pride myself on my use of language and extensive vocabulary. I have had a series of good teachers in the past, not just at school but also during my career as a journalist. When I am faced with a different country I am determined to try a few words, at least, of the local tongue. I can say hello, please, thank you and two beers in several languages, and I was even taught, one unusual Christmas Eve, to say Merry Christmas in Icelandic. (Gleðileg jól)

But I'm in Wales, and I have to admit that the local language is totally baffling. Not only are individual letters pronounced completely differently from English (For Rhug, hear Rig) but even within Welsh some letters are interchangeable. C and G, for example, often sound and mean exactly the same. So the Cymraeg live in Cymru, or Gymru (pronounced Cummri) depending on what appears to be the whim of the writer.

Yesterday I tried my first ever foray into Welsh speaking. (I can't say that the North Walian attitude towards my Englishness has encouraged me to try to be friendly to the locals, but ...) The nice lady in the pub at Llechwedd Slate Caverns  (I was proud of my attempt to say Llechwedd because I wasn't TOO far off) was kind and so when she brought my bowl of lobscows (pronounced surprisingly like it looks) I said 'diolch', to which she replied 'croeso'. When I admitted that it was my first attempt at speaking Welsh she said it sounded right and I'd done well.

It's a start. But I'm a long way off mastering Welsh and I doubt if I'll be doing any writing in it any time soon.

*Thank you and good night.

Underground

Below ground, deep beneath the slate mountain, with only a candle for light. Hacking, pounding at the rock for hours on end, breathing the dust that cakes lungs and steals air. Life expectancy little over forty and all for a few pence a day. It was a living. It was a life. But not much of one.

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We've been to a Welsh slate mine today and learned about working conditions in the 1860s. I'll have more respect for my roof from now on.

Campaigner Challenge 1. The door swung open.

I'm taking part in Rachel Harrie's Platform Building Campaign (See the shield on the left. Click on it to get the details) and the first challenge is out today.  Here's my entry: (to save you counting, it's exactly 200 words)

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The door swung open and I could see outside for the first time.  I had lived with the darkness for so long that at first I was blinded and it was difficult to make out shapes, only blurs of colour that represented another world.  A long, cold winter I had slept, dreaming of the other side, the out side, knowing that I would have to face it again eventually, but unsure of what I would discover when I did.
My eyes slowly became accustomed to the day and I began to stretch, to make ready for my foray into the unknown.  I was stiff from hibernation and at first my legs were as reluctant as my sight, but gradually sensation returned and I took a few hesitant steps toward the rectangle of light. I had no idea how I would cope, only that I had to go and play my part.
The majority of my kind would not have survived; victims of cold, predators, or just weary old age. So it was my task to find another, to mate and to lay the eggs of the next butterfly generation.  Determined, I flew out, and behind me the door swung shut.

Sunday 160. Fall or autumn? Means the same.

They tell me that Autumn is a beautiful time of year. All the colour and the fresh, crisp mornings and rustling leaves. I guess it is – if you’re not a tree. 

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It's for the Monkey Man's Sunday 160 challenge.

Prepared in advance because I'm away from my computer right now. Not sure if I'll have web access so could someone please fill in the Linky for me? Thanks.

Welcome to new readers

Hello everyone. As you can see from the wonderful shield-shaped badge on the left I'm taking part in the platform-building campaign. As a result I'm gaining lots of new followers. So for their sake I thought I'd do a short introduction to me.

Please note I'm extremely grateful to all of my existing followers and I want you all to know that I'm glad to have you on board.

This blogging thing is a great way to make friends all over the world. Where else could you have a chat with people as far apart as North America, Australia, India and Hull (or even Wolverhampton!) all at the same time?

So. What is there about me that might be vaguely interesting?

I'm an ex-journalist and still earn my living with words, only now I'm PR officer for a charity.
Born in Essex but moved to seaside Yorkshire while still a babe in arms so I consider myself a tyke by default.
Nuts about history and historical places.
I have a degree in archaeology.
Read lots of crime fiction.
I'm owned by a pride of cats.
I live with a wonderful IT geek called K*****.
Write mostly short stories and flash fiction but have a couple of novels underway.
Have a number of online personae besides MorningAJ.
I make excellent soup.
I also make good jam and pickle.
If I hadn't become a journalist I have no idea what else I could have done. I don't like kids so I could never be a teacher.
I draw and paint (badly) and sew (even worse)
Can't sing to save my life.
Can order a beer in six different languages.

FFF55: September

September.
Look, how did it get to be September?
It can’t be September just yet.
I know the year started and went through a series of eight other months and it probably did it a day at a time
(like a good year should – take everything a day at a time)
But where was I?

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FFF55 is a weekly challenge run by the G-Man. Go and see what others have to offer this Friday.

Thursday extracts: A lesson in forensics – and suspense – from Jeffery Deaver

Crime fiction is one of my little indulgences. I love reading a good murder story, and one of my favourite authors is Jeffery Deaver. He has a number of regular characters but maybe his best known is Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic detective (played by Denzel Washington in the film The Bone Collector). Rhyme is not only a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, who can determine the most obscure facts from the least obvious observations, but he is also a forensics master.

Deaver loves to pass on the how and why of crime science and relates his lectures to the relevant stage in whatever investigation Rhyme is running. In this extract the crime scene technicians have removed a complete door and its frame from a site where a bomb was supposed to have gone off and destroyed all the evidence - except it failed to explode. The detectives assume that the perpetrator would not have bothered to use gloves because he was not expecting the door to survive. They are hoping to lift fingerprints.

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Fingerprints fall into one of three categories. Visible (the sort left by a bloody thumb on a white wall), impressible (left in pliable material like plastic explosive), and latent (hidden to the unaided eye). There were dozens of good ways to raise latent prints but one of the best, on metal surfaces, was simply to use store-bought Super Glue, cyanoacrylate. The object would be put in an airtight enclosure with a container f the glue, which would then be heated until it turned gaseous. The vapors would bond with any number of substances left by the finger – amino and lactic acids, glucose, potassium and carbon trioxide – and the resulting reaction created a visible print.

The process could work miracles, raising prints that were completely invisible before.

Except not in this case.

"Nothing," Pulaski said, discouraged, "Only glove smudges."

Jeffery Deaver. The Burning Wire. 2010. Hodder & Stoughton.