I invented the skateboard - more from Lynne's Secret Diary

I remember this day so clearly. I’d been on about having roller-skates for ages but Mom wasn’t happy. She told everyone I was ‘accident prone’ and she was right. I was forever falling down the stairs, falling off my bike. Once I even fell through a window. Luckily we lived close to the hospital and its casualty department.

Here’s the entry from my school diary about my Dad finally giving in and buying skates for me.

And it wasn’t long after this that Mom was proved right. I didn’t tell her the accident was caused due to me inventing the skateboard. She assumed I’d fallen off my skates (plural as there were two, one for each foot). I didn't tell her I'd fallen off one skate because I'd balanced a short piece of wood over the top of it and set off from the top of the steepest hill near home (also quite close to casualty) and expected to reach the bottom intact. I didn’t. I soared and then fell. Two black eyes and a broken nose.

Many years later someone decided to fix the flat wood to the skate-wheels and made a fortune.

The picture shows the shop counter. Note the large glass ash-tray, front left.

Time-travelling with a laptop

This blog is called I Should Be Writing and I am. Guess what I am doing. Two things at once. I’m writing and time-travelling, stepping back in time and writing about our adventures when we went around the coastline of Britain in our motorhome. I made lots of notes back then and am enjoying doing the trip all over again but this time from my desk. And when I’m not time-travelling? I'm also critiquing a book for a student, planning another book which I shall sensibly try to sell as a series of articles first (short stuff pays better) and writing up a couple of interviews.

Today I need to plan my talk for the Gloucestershire meeting of the Society of Authors. Leaving everything until the last minute again, like a true writer. The meeting is tomorrow.

I don’t often blog about writing because when a subject crops up the realisation dawns that I could use it for my Novel Ideas column in Writing Magazine (and get paid).

I’m busy and loving it.

I'll believe what I want to

Last week a triangle waved to me. It was about my height and definitely a triangle shape but it had arms with chubby hands. I was in the car, as a passenger, and I waved back. No-one else was waving so when I did the poor ignored triangle put its chubby hand on its heart. ‘Did you see that?’ I asked my chauffeur (The LSO). ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was someone dressed as a slice of pizza to advertise the new take-away.’

No way! To me it will always be a magical triangle.

Still giggling but not here

Susan Jane Jones has changed her giggle blog to a Glam Granny blog at the beginning of each month so I thought I’d have a change too. I try to post a new blog entry every Monday but from now on the first Monday of each month will be my Three Beautiful Things blog. So here we go.

1.    1.  I look out of my window to the remains of an ancient orchard and watch the wind blowing the trees. The pear blossom drifts onto the lawn like snowflakes.

2.    2.  The LSO runs up the stairs and isn’t out of breath because he is now all mended. (He now has ten stents in his heart for those who don’t already know. There can’t be many of you. I’ve told the world.)

3.   3.   A carpet of royal blue has been fitted over one side of the Malvern Hills. Bluebells. They look even more sensational beneath the trees that are unfolding tender new leaves in the brightest shades of green.