Now here's something you may not know ...

Today is Roald Dahl Day!

Or to give it it's official name ... Roald Dahl Story Day !

It's a global annual celebration of the most brilliant British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter ... and wartime fighter pilot - Roald Dahl, and today we're encouraged to enjoy and celebrate our favourite Roald Dahl stories, characters, and moments.

We do all this today because it was on this day, September 13, in the year 1916, that the author was born!

Roald Dahl is best known as a children's author, of course ... think The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  and Matilda - and that's just for starters, I think you could probably name more.

But Roald Dahl wrote not only for children, but also had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories (I was scared witless back in the 1980s by television dramas based on his spooky and and bizarre Tales of the Unexpected.) Briefly in the 1960s he also wrote screenplays including two adaptations of works by Ian Fleming - the James Bond film ‘You Only Live Twice’ and 'Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang'. 

If you look online you'll see loads of quotes from Roald Dahl - and this one here is one of my favourites I think.

He could be funny and profound at the same time. He could write about cruelty and kindness in equal measure. And, as we've learnt from some of the films which have been created from some of his stories, his words encourage children, and all of us really, to be the people we should be, to dream big and to believe in ourselves.

He was and still is a true superstar!

In fact, as it says writ large on the building which houses a Museum named after the author, he and his creations are 'Truly Swizzfigglingly Flushbunkingly Gloriumptious!'

When I lived in the UK, I actually lived quite near to a leafy village called Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, which is home to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

Step through the doors of the museum and the Willy Wonka Gates and prepare to leave reality behind as you enter the weird and wonderful world of Dahl.

The gang’s all there including the aforementioned Big Friendly Giant, Charlie, James, Matilda ... Danny, the Champion of the World, The Witches, Esio Trot, Fantastic Mr Fox and so much more!

If you fancy it, you can dress up as your favourite Roald Dahl character, and get crafty making a mask of, as the museum literature says, ‘a crodswoggling creature’.

Just like Roald Dahl, who invented hundreds of new and whacky words and phrases – over 200 just for the BFG ‘gobblefunk’ dictionary apparently – you can even let your imagination run riot and create your own crazy words. It’s fantastagorically hands-on and fabulously intriguing, even if you’re not 6 to 12 years old! 

His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide but his talents actually extended much beyond the written word and the Museum and Story Centre is also a window on that world.

In the ‘Boy’ Gallery we can find the famous ‘mouse in a gobstopper jar’ and learn more about Roald Dahl’s schoolboy days and pranks! There’s loads more about his life as a Welsh-born lad with a Norwegian heritage and as a husband, father and grandfather as you read original letters and delve into the Dahl family photo album.

Step through into the ‘Solo’ Gallery and discover more about Dahl’s life as an RAF (Royal Air Force) fighter pilot in the Second World War and his unique literary archive. You might have to fight a 4-year-old for a place by the touch-screen monitors, but if you are forced to wait your turn, you can always sit back and enjoy extracts from some of the films which have been created from Roald Dahl’s books.

Then, if the kids haven't already beaten you to it, it's into the Story Centre and Crafts Room. There you'll find the aforementioned dressing up box, and that word creation area, tables where you can be all messy and crafty, and there's even a space where you can make your own stop-frame animation film.

Roald Dahl originally wrote his stories for his own 5 children and encouraged creativity in all the kids he met, so it's not surprising that his Museum is a place where the words ‘Don’t Touch’ are banned! Here there are items to play with, spin and manipulate, holes to peer into and wonder what lurks beyond, things to prod and poke. Anything that is not for touching is out of harm’s way or under glass. In fact, touching and feeling and getting into a little bit of mischief is positively encouraged!

However, my favourite spot at the Museum is the replica of Roald Dahl’s Writing Hut - it's in the Story Centre and it's fascidoodly - here I go, making up words already! 

It was in the 1950s that Roald settled down with his family in 'Gipsy House' in the little village of Great Missenden in the county of Buckinghamshire (sort of north east from London). He was then married to his first wife, the American actress Patricia Neal, and it was here in the quiet and idyllic countryside that they raised their family.

At the bottom of the garden at Gipsy House, Roald had a little hut to which he retreated to write most of his unforgettable stories. Research tells us he couldn’t type - he always used a pencil to write for several hours a day locked away in his hut, sitting in a big old shabby chair, leaning on a ‘writing board’ which he fashioned to fit perfectly around his body.

Apparently the hut wasn't warm or particularly clean and tidy, but it was here, in his special writing place, that Roald wrote for two hours each morning and two hours every afternoon, using exactly six freshly sharpened, yellow, Dixon Ticonderoga pencils which he popped into a small Toby jug on the desk next to his chair. He'd worked out that he needed six pencils for a two hour writing session and always started each session sharpening the pencils!

It’s just one of the rituals which Roald had when it came to writing and, as you sit in the replica chair in the replica Writing Hut, surrounded by the fascimiles of the author's special objects, you feel something of the man and the genius. Well, at least, I did!

This is me some years ago trying to channel a tiny fraction of Dahl Inspiration in that replica of his very own chair!!

Small Kid or Big Kid - whatever age you might be, there will something for you!

The Museum and Story Centre regularly hosts Revolting Rhymes sessions from roving storytellers in the Courtyard around which the museum nestles. In Miss Honey’s Classroom there are ‘fantabulous’ weekend and holiday workshops with storytellers, authors, crafts experts, scientists and chocolatiers (Roald Dahl ADORED chocolate which makes me admire him even more!)

For an extra special treat for adults and slightly older children you can enjoy a special tour of the Dahl Archive, a behind-the-scenes experience where you get to meet an archivist who will show you some of the locked-away archive material, providing an even deeper insight into the mind, life and work of the author. When I went, we discovered that Miss Honey (the perfectly lovely teacher in Matilda) was originally intended to be an alcoholic and Miss Trunchbull (the hideous headmistress in the same story) started out as a much nicer person!

For those wanting to do more research on Dahl, the Archive and Museum Reading Rooms are also open to researchers by appointment and they also welcome researchers who can't actually get to Great Missenden - via the website.

Finish the visit with a stroll through the Shop where you can buy everything from books and pictures to Dahl themed games and weird stuff like a ball made entirely of elastic/rubber bands.

Finally, grab a drink and ‘delumptious’ cake in Cafe Twit. 

If it's a fine day sit in the Courtyard and just watch how much fun everyone - young and old - is having.

And forget any diet - because the cakes are perfectly delicious.

In fact, you could say they are ... Scrumdiddlyumptious!

*This blog is based on a article I first wrote for my Hub Pages website pages ... and it's still there if you fancy looking it up ... and also please feel free to check out my other hub stories!

Thanks!

Yesterday in this daily blog I was talking about the amazing children's author, Roald Dahl - it was his birthday yesterday, which is now celebrated as Roald Dah Day.

Hope you enjoyed it!

But I wanted to continue thinking about this amazing writer ... he was a real 'one off', a man with a huge imagination. Someone who was just true to himself. 

He never learned to type, he did all his writing in an old shed  with sharpened pencils. He invented a medical device to help his son when he suffered a head injury and the family could find nothing to help him. He made up his own language - or at least a language for his BFG (Big Friendly Giant) ... Gobblefunk!

And, of course, he wrote all those wonderful stories and much more ... see yesterday's blog if you want to read all about him!

Roald Dahl was unique!

Now, we can't all be world famous authors, or indeed hugely famous for anything.

But we can be different!

We all have things which make us stand out from the crowd, it's just sometimes we desperately try to fit in to other people's moulds and forget just to be ourselves! Instead of standing out and being proud of our differences, we squash them or hide them away. 

For most of my adult life I've been a little 'different' to others, but I did spend years being tempted to 'fit in'  - sometimes I DID do that, wore what people thought I should wear, looked like they thought I should look ... and that was just for starters...

But no longer! Now I am accepting my uniqueness and  I'm looking always for the things that make ME  different. And if people don't like it, they can lump it. I'm not going completely weird, but I am trying to be true to myself a lot more. And I'm finding it rather liberating!

So today ... I just want to encourage us all to embrace ... well ... ourselves!

We never know what we might uncover and how much fun we might have or where life might take us when we truly just become more 'real', more as we should be.

Have a great day everyone!

If I was to list the following books ... could you tell me what the link is? 

• The Time Machine
• The War of the Worlds 
• The Invisible Man

Yes, the well read and clever among you will know they were all written by the same man - Herbert George Wells.

Born on this day - September 21st - in 1886, HG Wells was an English writer and novelist. He actually wrote in many 'genres' - short stories, dozens of novels, and even social commentaries, history, satire, biography and autobiography - but is best known for his science fiction novels and works. In fact, I read that he is sometimes called the "father of science fiction", along with another brilliant author, Jules Verne.

Often, especially these days, as a writer one is expected to just write in one genre - crime fiction, 'chick lit' or women's literature, horror, science fiction, children's books, history, biography, academic etc et

But what I love about people like Wells is that he did it all. Like many of the great authors of the later 19th and early 20th century and some of my favourites - JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis - who weren't just writers but also educators, Wells started out as a teacher. And such was his imagination that he didn't stick to one type of writing, but diversified.

In fact, another of his books - The History of Mr Polly - is one of my favourite reads. It's a 'comic novel' about a man who feels very unfulfilled in life. It's also a bit of a social commentary on the times, English society at the turn of the 20th century, and in particular his descriptions of lower-middle-class life really tells us so much about life in those days. 

But of course, it's his science fiction which has grabbed all the attention. Those books listed above have all been made into (several) successful films so lots of us know about the themes. 

'The Time Machine' in particular has grabbed the imagination of readers down the years and it's also been credited with  the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel  forward or backward through time - think 'Back to the Future' - love those films! 

Actually, it was HG Wells who coined the term "time machine"! What a legend!

I'm absolutely intrigued by the idea of travelling in time, although I always say that I wouldn't want to travel to far into the future ... just a few years here and there to see how life might work out for us might be good for starters. In Wells' novels, and other time travelling works, the reality of  life far into the future is not always what's expected, it's not utopian and it's often overwhelmingly so different that the plot or story invariably doesn't work out well.

To celebrate HG Wells, today I am sticking with the idea of time ... which he obviously spent a lot of time not just writing, but also thinking about.

'The Time Machine'', which was published in 1895, is not just about a vision of the future, but also a commentary on the increasing inequality and class divisions of late Victorian England. It's also about dreams and aspirations for the future,  but also human ambition and what people will do to see their visions a reality ... and so much more!

But for those of us who fancy a bit of 'time travel', for those of us who maybe live with the future always just out of reach, it's easy to forget to live in the moment.

As Wells reminds us in this thought, we can get obsessed by time, by always looking ahead and thinking about what might be over the next hill. We might be one of those who always thinks the grass will be greener in the field just down the way. Or one of those people who constantly fixates on what life might be like in the future, when everything is bigger, better and more successful, rather than enjoying THIS day, this moment!

It's a good lesson.

So, to celebrate this day and the life and works of HG Wells, I'm going to try to remember this not just today ... but down the line as well ... (There I go, thinking about the future!)

I love this idea that 'each moment of life is a miracle and mystery'.

May we never take 'today' for granted or risk missing out on the joyful moments of today by always thinking about tomorrow.

Just a quick thought for this Tuesday!

Apart from anything else, this picture features Winnie the Pooh ... one of my favourites. .. a poet and a leader and just full of fun. And his friend Tigger, full of energy and optimism ... What a pair!

May we always be like Pooh and Tigger and have good friends around us.

And may we always be all of these things!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

I can't believe it but we're rapidly approaching the end of the year 2021. 

Yesterday we marked the start of December - just 30 days now until we turn the page into 2022!

It means, of course, that I have just 30 more days to go with this daily blog. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me since January 1st, or have picked me up along the way.

I started writing 'One Day at a Time' at the start of 2021 really because I wanted just to set myself a writing task. At the time I still had a full time time job and although working as a producer and journalist for the BBC means that you do write a lot, and  every day, it's more reports and scripts rather than creative and 'fun' ... so I wanted to challenge myself to more creative writing.

Sometimes I've managed it, other times I've just shared good vibes and 'ramblings' and some of you have been kind enough to say you've enjoyed some of those thoughts. Thank  you.

Within three months of the start of 2021 I found myself in different circumstances ... I left my job ... and I am pleased to say that as well as this daily blog, my writing has upped its game. I've picked up some PR and event management work and since April I've been writing for  'RURAL' - Jersey's Country Life Magazine. I'm now actually Assistant Editor and it's a joy because it means I get out and about to talk to people, as well as writing and getting involved in proof reading, and distribution.

I've also just completed working on a manuscript for a new book which I'm writing with a friend of mine, Debbie Duncan ... who's a great writer! We first worked on a book together which was published back in 2014. 'Life Lines: Two Friends Sharing Laughter, Challenges and Cupcakes' ... it's a fun twist on being a Christian and a woman 'of a certain age'.

Our latest book is all about Kindness ... it's being published by the same publisher who we worked with before, Authentic Media, and it'll be out sometime in 2022. It's exciting.

So this year, which started out with me feeling that I needed to up my writing, has turned into a bit of a writing fest!

To write well, one needs to practice, and even when I'm done with this blog, I'm determined to keep the habit of writing every day.

There are loads of quotes about writing, from famous writers and ... not so famous.

But this is one which inspires me.

This is wisdom from the award-winning modern writerA Junot Diaz, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

He's also  creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), so he knows what he's talking about. 

I might never be world famous, or pick up any prizes, or be read by millions of people across the globe, I might not be the best writer on the planet, but I love to write. I love to weave words, I love putting together sentences. 

So ... I'll just keep writing anyway!

And if you are inspired to pick up a pen, or put fingers to keyboard and do the same, I invite you to join me.

As we journey towards Christmas, across the globe millions of excited children are beginning to count the 'sleeps' (or perhaps days) before Christmas Day and the arrival of Father Christmas and, of course, gifts around the tree.

Of course, I know not every child will have these aspirations and for many many millions of little ones Christmas Day will be like any other - a day in poverty and distress, and certainly not blessed with gifts around a Christmas tree, and that's sad.

But today I still want to celebrate the magical figure who is called 'Father Christmas' or 'Santa Claus'.

And did you know that he's modelled on a real life person? A chap called Nicholas who died on this day - December 6th - in the year 343AD. 

Today is St Nicholas' Day - in the Christian church it's the feast day of St Nicholas, who's the patron saint of children (also, by the way, of students sailors, merchants, thieves, and pawnbrokers ... weird!)

Nicholas was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent. He was born in the seaport of Myra in Asia Minor - now the modern-day Mediterranean coastal town of Demre in Turkey. Very little is known about his life and much myth surrounds him, but it's thought he became a senior church leader really young, at about 30, and from an early age he was associated with many miracles, good deeds and kindness.

Nicholas was famous for his generous gifts to the poor - including the rescue of three poor  girls being forced into prostitution, the calming of a storm at sea, the saving of three innocent soldiers from wrongful execution and one legend also says that the saint brought back to life three children who were chopped up by a butcher to cure and sell as ham.. In fact, he became known as 'Nicholas the Wonderworker'.

And he had a reputation for legendary secret gift-giving. One story goes that when his parents died he distributed the family wealth to the poor. One of the traditions attributed to him is the custom of putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, a practice celebrated in some countries on his feast day - today! More of that in a moment.

Nicholas lived an interesting and not uneventful life, including being imprisoned for his faith. His wasn't a life without sorrow and stress, but the thing he's best known for is that the legend of Santa Claus is based on his life.

The name “Santa Claus” is thought to derive from the word “Sinterklaas”, the Dutch name for St Nicholas after he became an important figure in Holland and in Dutch culture.

But the tradition of a kindly saint crosses continents. During the Middle Ages, often on the evening before his name day of 6 December, children were bestowed with gifts in his honour. In France in those days, nuns were inspired to continue the St Nicholas tradition of anonymous gift-giving at night. And although many of us give presents on December 25th, in quite a few countries, especially in Europe, it's TODAY that celebrations begin.

In fact, in some countries the traditional time of giving presents to children is today and running up to Christmas Day. I once knew a Danish family who began Christmas on December 6th and the kids got presents every day up to Christmas Day, with the final celebration on Christmas Eve. At the time it was a bit of a wonder for me, that other kids got presents BEFORE Christmas. Now I understand why.

There are different traditions associated with St Nicholas, Santa Claus and Christmas. In Holland, children traditionally receive three oranges which are said to come from Sinterklaas. The three fruits symbolise the three bags of gold St Nicholas gave in the legend where he helped three girls avoid slavery. 

In some countries, children receive their gifts in shoes, because St Nicholas is said to have left gifts in children’s shoes. It's thought that this is the concept behind Christmas stockings. In Eastern Europe, children leave their shoes by the windowsill on the evening of December 5 - St Nicholas' Day eve - and go to sleep hoping to wake up to shoes filled with gifts. In Central Europe, children sometimes place a boot called the 'Nikolaus Boot' outside the front door on the night of December 5. If the children are good and polite during the year, they wake up to a boot filled with sweets and goodies. If they are not, they wake up to a boot with a stick.

Apparently in France, some families await the arrival of the Saint while listening to stories about St Nicholas narrated by their grandparents. There's special food prepared for the day ... including spiced gingerbread biscuits and mannala, a brioche in the shape of a saint. When my parents lived in Paris in France we noticed that many people ate their main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve and then rested the following day.

In Italy, in some provinces, St Nicholas' Day is celebrated by giving gifts to children and also by hosting a fair called “Fiera di San Nicolo”. And there's a ritual called the “Rito delle nubili” on December 6th which is held for unmarried women who want to find a husband. 

Different traditions exist on different days in different countries but it was the Dutch (who else?) who are thought to have brought the legend of St Nicholas to America where down the centuries he became a central feature of the Christmas holiday season. That's the 'Santa Claus' we know today.

Other little touches which relate back to St Nicholas is the tradition of placing chocolate coins in kids’ Christmas stockings, symbolizing the gold coins the saint is said to have given away. And those candy canes which are a common Christmas decoration, especially in America, are based on the bishop's stall or 'crozier' which St Nicholas would have carried. 

In the United Kingdom, St Nicholas became known as 'Father Christmas' but Santa Claus has other names - including Saint Nick and Kris Kringle. Other names for him include Joulupukki (Finland), Julenissen or the Christmas Gnome (Norway), Pere Noel (France), Babbo Natale or sometimes Bobbo Natal (Italy), Black Peter (Morocco and Liberia), Shengdan Laoren (China), Santa No Ojisan which translates to 'Uncle Santa' in Japan, Ded Moroz which means 'Grandfather Frost' (Russia), Niklo (Austria) and Sing dan lo ian is another name for Santa in Hong Kong. 

In Spain they celebrate El Niño Jesús  - the Christ Child. In Germany, as well as Kris Kringle they also call Santa 'Christindl' or 'Christkindl' which also mean 'the Christ Child'.

In England, Father Christmas is officially documented as far back as the 16th century and the reign of King Henry VIII, when he was pictured as a large man in green or scarlet robes lined with fur. He was the epitome of good cheer at Christmas, bringing peace, joy, good food, wine and gladness.  And as England no longer celebrated the feast day of Saint Nicholas on 6 December, the Father Christmas celebration was moved to 25 December to coincide with Christmas Day.

So that's why, as a child, I awoke to those Christmas gifts, rather than on December 6th like my Danish friends.

These days, we usually envisage Father Christmas as a fat man with a long white beard dressed from top to toe in red. But that's not always been the case.

Some traditions have him in green ...that's thought by some to date back as far as pagan, pre-Christian times in England when winter festivals would include a Father Christmas type figure. This green-clad character was fixed in the public's mind through a famous image by John Leech - the illustration of the "Ghost of Christmas Present" in Charles Dickens's  classic 1843 book  A Christmas Carol.  Father Christmas is a great jolly fellow in a green coat lined with fur who takes Scrooge through the bustling streets of London during 'Christmas Present', sharing the essence of the day with the old miser and all those with whom he comes into contact.

There are, of course, lots of myths that surround Santa Claus or Father Christmas, or whatever you want to call him. He lives in the North Pole, he rides a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer and he delivers gifts to the children of the world all in one night. 

And he wears red!

THAT particular image was consolidated by 20th century advertising by the Coca Cola company in the USA - the red and white matched their brand colours. But the idea of the jolly fat red robbed gentlemen goes back a bit further, including in the early 19th century. Many of the things we now associate with Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, are the product of imagination, literature and poetry, as well as branding.

In 1823 a poem called 'A Visit from St Nicholas' ... or 'Twas the Night before Christmas' by Clement Clarke Moore, describes 'St Nick' as 'dressed in fur from his head to his foot' but there's no mention of red. But he is described as being 'chubby and plump', having a 'broad face and a little round belly, that shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly' and being 'a right jolly old elf'.

On January 3rd 1863 a magazine called Harper's Weekly carried an illustration of Santa Claus by the American cartoonist Thomas Nast, in which Santa was dressed in an American flag (red, white and blue) alongside a puppet called "Jeff" - this reflected its Civil War context. In this drawing, Santa is also sitting in a sleigh pulled by reindeers! A few years later Nast also published other images and in fact some say he is responsible for the belief that Santa lives at the North Pole. The modern concept of Santa Claus was developing.

Today, as I said, the influence of Saint Nicholas is global.  And whether or not children celebrate or are given gifts today, and whatever they call him and however he is dressed, there's something special about celebrating the influence of kindness and gift giving at least once a year. 

There's something very special about creating 'magic' for children before the 'realities' of life hit them. That's what I think, anyway. I know some would disagree with me on this, but life can be hard when you grow up so keeping the innocence of Christmas, the magic and imagination and fun and laughter, is important. And there's something incredible about celebrating kindness and love, and sharing and caring.

So, as today we remember the 'real' St Nicholas, I hope we will all hold these Christmas sentiments and truths in our hearts.

Happy St Nicholas' Day!