Story Titles... and an apostrophe problem

The strange pics are realted to the oddness of some of my story titles, sometimes the title comes to me straight away, other times, I change the title over and over and it still doesn't seem right.

Lime Jelly was 'What was your name again?' originally,
The Last Pair was 'Last chance' and The red Shoes was always 'The red shoes'

Do you think the title of the story is important enough to attract a reader or put them right off? I'm also stuck with the title of my story because I can't decide where to put the apostrophe....

Problem:

'The dog is in charge.' Ok. So to abbreviate 'dog is' ...I can't put dog's can I?, because that just implies belonging to said dog.
'Dogs' is wrong because that's just plural, Dogs' is wrong too isn't it? Grrrgh. Should I just stick with 'The dog is in charge'
When I first typed it, I put 'dog's ', but now I'm sooo confused! :(

Unwanted Gifts

Aww, it's a hard life.

This naughty little girl brought me a bird the other day. Luckily, she dropped it, when I went to inspect the poor thing, it was still breathing. So I shut Misch indoors and put poor little bird on the shed roof, hoping she might recover. She was breathing very, very fast and I think she was in schock. I spoke softly to her, hoping she knew I meant no harm. Then I went away, checking up on her ten minutes later to find her sat upright, she'd turned around, breathing slower, so was obviously feeling better. As I got closer, she suddenly took off. I cheered as she flew away and she chirped. I like to think she was saying, 'thanks, I'm ok now!'

I don't know anything about birds, but I have just looked her up and I'm pretty sure she was a female greenfinch. I found the website here, Great for identifying birds.

I hadn't thought much about birds, but now I'm quite interested to know which ones are coming in the garden, instead of assuming they're all sparrows. It never fails to amaze me, the vast wealth of info there is out there in cyberspace.

Anyway, naughty girl is forgiven, seeing as she didn't hurt it. Funnily enough, my story about the cats has just arrived, in 'The Last Laugh' which is very exciting. The story mention's Mischa's (named Calamity in the story) various gifts to me, alive and dead.
I love it, here's a picture. I'm so thrilled to be in an actual book!



Yay!! (Dances about with book in arms)
I am now in a submitting frenzy, I don't want this to be a one-off. I've had two rejections this week, but not to worry...

Berry interesting

Hmm.
So here is a pic of the unidentified berries, hopefully you are all more knowledgable than I am when it comes to nature! I have wild blackberries in the garden, I only knew that they were edible when my mum came to visist and just picked them and ate them! Just like that!
Apparently she and her sisters picked them all the time when they were kids and their mother made jam. So, really I'd like to know what these are and if they're edible!

Thank you!

Finally a bit more sun!

It has rained constantly for weeks and my little apple tree was looking rather sorry for itself. Several small dodgy looking apples had dropped on the ground. I made some apple puree with them though, it was actually really nice! (The five spoons of sugar may have helped)

I'm rubbish at gardening, the slugs have destroyed my petunias :(

At least the sun is out today, I might be inspired to write something sunny. Last week I finished a story where somebody drowned in the end. Hmm perhaps all that rain was getting to me?




I took this photo last week of this little bee, he was busy going from clover to clover and it was quite fascinating to watch him, I though he was quite cute!
Co-incidently last night's Countryfile on BBC had an article about bees. They are in serious decline and landowners are being encouraged to grow wildflowers such as clover to attract the bees. They are pretty essential in our lives as they account for seventy five percent of pollination! I then felt incredibly guiilty as I've just mowed the lawn! No more clover. So sorry, bees! Please come back!

How do you feel about bees? Any tips on encouraging them into the garden?

What to do?

Hi
Sorry I've not been here much, I'd love to say I've been busy writing away in a feverish frenzy, or sunning myself on a glamorous holiday.



(I wish!) Alas no, I've been decorating -yawn. Painting walls, glossing the doors, wall papering. Finally almost done, just the ceiling on the landing to paint.

I haven't written anything new for two weeks! I did send a story to a competition, it's one of the first short stories I wrote, back in 2002 ish, but I haven't been able to place it anywhere, I'm very fond of it though, so haven't given up on it yet.

Anyway I have just been thinking about how reliant I've become on my mobile phone. The other day, I had a short errand to run in the car, did that, then on the way back, I decided to pop in the supermarket for some chocolate (as I do frequently). I thought I'd call home, see if anyone wanted anything and...no!!! The bag was empty (not totally empty obviously, there were till receipts, bits of tissues, sweet wrappers and my lipgloss, but no phone! I must confess to an immediate panic. Had I dropped it? Left it in the car? Had somone sneakily taken it from my bag? Of course not, idiot, you left it on the sofa! I replied to myself.

Ok, so no big deal, I bought the usual bits and bobs that are normally requested of me and hurried back to the car. I hurried because I realisse they'd be wondering where was, as I hadn't said I would be off shopping. Then on the way home I found myself thinking, 'what if the car breaks down?'
Honestly. I felt alone without the little pocket sized assistant. Then I thought, 'Get a grip, woman! How did we ever manage before?'

Well that's true. When I was young I'd set off to school with a 'bye' to mum and that was that, they had to assume I'd safely walk the half mile to school, safely remain at school all day, safely walk home from school and be safely home at 4 o clock. Now though, when anyone leaves the house, what do I say?
"Have you got your phone?"

Ah, the mobile phone. They were quite a rarity back in the day, huge brick weight things, that cost a fortune to buy, not to mention to actually use! Then along came Pay-as-you-go and gradually we all have a phone, camera, diary, calculator, gaming console, mp3 and moble internet in something so small you can pop it in your jeans pocket. But what if it runs out of battery or ahem, gets left on the sofa at home. What do you do in an emergency? Do many of us actually know the numbers we have stored in out phones? (I do now, but I didn't the other day)

So, my recommended emergency measures :
1.Memerising the most important numbers in your phone, so that you can use a phone box should your battery be flat.

2.Carrying a charger in your car (this only works if you have got the phone with you)

3. If you haven't got the phone, you could hope and pray that a public phone box exists somewhere in the vicinity. (There's only one near where I live, there used to be four. BT know they aren't needed. Why? Because we all have mobile phones. Grrrgh!)

4.If you're lucky enough to break down near a shopping area, you could just purchase a new phone for about twenty quid! Then again, if the shops are nearby and open, chances are you can ask to use a phone anyway. Save your twenty quid, you can go shopping while you wait for help to arrive!

5.If all else fails and there is no phone around, you may have to risk asking a passer by for help, also hoping and praying that said passer-by is not one of those people with psycopathic tendancies, that the mobile phone is meant to protect us from...How exactly? I suppose you could throw it at an assailant and run for it (that might have been better when they weighed as much as a brick)

Yes, I know, no help whatsoever.