Tempus Fugit and All That - Time to Win Again!

The seasons roll by, or in the case of here Ireland they all just roll together. Marble City Publishing's Summer Draw is closing in just a couple of days and someone is going to win a $100 / €90 / £70 gift card or a Kindle Paperwhite. Make sure you're entered in the draw here because if you're not in, you can't win. (Existing Marble City subscribers are automatically entered.)

Also just to mention that I'm slowly migrating this blog to a new website rubybarnesbooks.com which has more flexibility. The front page highlights my new Zombie series (thanks to Jane Dixon-Smith for the cover designs) and book 1 is available for free to subscribers. Please wander over and help save the human race! My crime fiction, thrillers and historical blog posts will be following over to the new place once those ninjas have tidied the zombies up a bit.

   

Time waits for no man

The grass under the tree is mostly moss. Roots break through to trip the unwary. Sky blues the thickening thatch of fresh spring leaves and lets the sun’s gentle rays warm me.

This willow and I, are we of an age? My waistline thickens faster than its trunk.

A bird searches the greening branches for a moment and then flies on. My nestlings will leave me in due course. I don’t want to contemplate that.

My complexion has fared better than the bark, rough and crisp against my back.

The sun is stronger now, easing limbs and promising a summer of slumber. I settle deeper into the willow’s womb. It pulls a share of the moisture from the ground, roots that go deeper than mine. Leaves bud, grow and thrive on light while I must consume, like a raptor, to survive. The imperceptible synthesis, my audible breathing.

A breeze aloft is more movement than sound. The pulse beats in my ears. It skips, then resumes.

This isn’t the time. There’s much to be done, some of it not yet known. When all is done and the birds are flown I will return and let willow take me to her bosom.

And the caretaker said "I'll have to ask you to move off the lawn." 




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Size does matter! Keep it small. Tiny.

Please tell me you all have the same problems as I do in this internet-based world that we live in. It's all driven by usernames, passwords, URLs, cookies and crumbs or something. An infinite number of web places with wondrous free things awaiting if you just register, sign up, log in, tune in and trip out. Maybe there's a log in with facebook option, or twitter or something? It all just seems to work. Until it doesn't.

This person is saying terrible things about you ... A friend has tagged you in a photo ... I can't believe this is you in this video. You click the message and, hey presto, someone has hacked your twitter, your facebook and who knows what else. You might not even know you've been compromised, unless a kind friend who has received spam from your hijacked account decides to let you know. Do you use the same username and password for internet banking and social media? System meltdown.

Almost as bad is when someone munches your cookies. You go to Goodreads, facebook, twitter, Google, webmail or whatever and hit the first letter of your username. It doesn't fill in the rest like it usually does. You type it in and wait for the long forgotten password to automatically appear as a row of asterixes. It doesn't. This can happen accidentally (using too broad a brush when clearing out internet history so no-one knows you've been looking at cute puppies), deliberately (if you let comeone else use your computer and they trash your cookies while eradicating their forensic trace evidence, because who can you trust these days?) or inadvertently (e.g. when you start using a new browser or your employer does an upgrade that wipes the slate clean or your hardware / software spontaneously combusts because it just knows your life is becoming dependent upon it). But when those cookies are gone, they're gone.