One Families Ups and Downs of World Book Day Costumes!

The approach to this years World Book Day is filled with the usual costume dilemmas and elation but for me it also has a tinge to sadness. The bittersweet felling is as a result of it being my youngest offspring’s last WBD in primary education, and therefore probably his last year to dress up! So after years of WBD horrors, dramas and successes this will be the last WBD as most of the upper school choose to mark it in other way: quizzes and in fact one school, (my daughters) have the teachers dress up and not the pupils as it’s ‘More fun that way’ apparently!

So, as my son deliberates whether to go as Mr Munroe from Chris Riddell’s Ottoline books, or Douglas Adam’s Marvin the paranoid android from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (but fashioned like the 2006 film played by Warwick Davis and voiced by the late great Alan Rickman) I thought I’d take a look back at the highs and lows of our families WBD costume dilemmas.

Despite WBD celebrating is 20th anniversary on the 2nd of March, I had no idea that it was even a thing, until one morning I had a panicked phone call from a friend, asking what my daughter was going to dress up as at preschool. This resulted in a whirlwind of activity, mostly emptying the dressing up box, until eventually I found an outfit my 3 year old would ware, sadly no photos exist so I shall describe it for you, she wore a silver space-suite onesie (which I think was a Thunderbirds costume), with a hat which was a green skullcap with a pink flower sicking out of the top, accessorised with a pair of wellington boots in yellow I think. I took my daughter to pre-school, where the teacher look at my daughter with pity and me with disdain and asked what books she was from, so thinking on my feet I quipped ; ‘The Times, she a genetically Modified Fruit.’

 The dreaded question; “what are you children dressing up as tomorrow, for Wold Book Day?”

After the horror, of our first WBD, we had a few years before it came back to throw us in to panicked costume making chaos, I don’t know if this is because the school did not celebrate it or if we happened to take our family holidays that week, but it wasn’t until my daughter was in year 2 and my son was in foundation class that our second almost equally unprepared WBD came around. So I was helping out in my son’s class when the teacher asked me the dreaded question; “what are your children dressing up as tomorrow, for Wold Book Day?”

Cue panic – cue scrounging a sheet of green card from the class craft draws, followed by an evening of frantic costume making. For my son, we re-used a green tunic we had made for a Robin Hood costume, and added a self-made Roald Dahl & Quentin Blake inspired Enormous Crocodile hat, and for finished it with a green tail from some silly catch the tail game. For my daughter, I borrowed a red cloak from a friend (I had a 12 mile round trip to collect it) and used it as the finishing touches to a Red Riding Hood ensemble. The extra evening of notice really made the difference between epic fail and scraping a pass.

Having had WBD sneak up on my twice I made a mental note to never allow it to happen a third time. So the next year, we started costume preparation a few weeks before. At the time both children were big into Greek Myths, my son obsessed by Lucy Coats 'Atticus' books, and my daughter by Rick Riordan’s 'Percy Jackson' series. Percy Jackson was easy, all I had to do was make wings for the shoes, and borrow a pre-crafted trident from a crafty friend. But my son wanted to be Medusa, so we went about fashioning a hat using pipe cleaners and pictures of snake heads for her hair. The costumes were fun, and the kids loved them- they also got a second outing at my daughters Greek Myth themed birthday a few weeks later.

So the next year we started to preparations way in advance or at least I did for my son, who wanted to be ‘Frankie’ from the (then) recently published ‘My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish’ by Mo O’Hara. This as I’m sure you can imagine wasn’t the easiest of costumes to create, so I opted again to make a hat. The hat took planning and to my son’s joy and my relief turned out well. My daughter’s costume was a dream by comparison, because it was the first and only time she completely arranged it herself.

She and her school friends all decided to go as characters from Jill Murphy’s Worst Witch books, and sorted out their own costumes from their collective dressing up boxes – easiest WBD costume ever. And on a whole a successful year.

12 months later and our lives (due to relocation) had completely changed: new house, new school, new car, new puppies, new jobs, new EVERYTHING, and living in a tiny rental house with most of our stuff in storage. So this year we – cheated. I had been asked by the children’s school to come in and do some WBD writing sessions, so we went as a family and brought a Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 Costumes. Despite not having made the costumes, they were a success, and Thing 1 and Thing 2 still get used for school fun runs and alike!

My Daughters last year of Primary school and therefore her last year of dressing up was back to costume panic – as both children were reading books about rodents, my daughter – ‘Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH’ by Robert C. O'Brien and my son ‘River Singers’ my Tom Moorhouse, and therefore a rat and a water vole costume was requested.

As I can’t sew, and I could find no rodent costumes to buy, so I enlisted the help of my mum, who crocheted some noses and ears for some plain woolly hats I had purchased. They were to make rodent head - you guess it - hats, and once assembled and worn with colour coordinated clothes, they worked really well. The kids were pleased, I was relived, and my mum was happy to have helped. It was all looking like a successful WBD costume year until…

… The Telegraph online newspaper ran an article; ‘World Book Day costumes: A parent's 7 stages of crisis’ and I was featured under section ‘7. Smug realisation that you are heading towards playground triumph .’ Being outed as a smug parent by a national newspaper did somewhat mar the feeling of that year's WBD costumes being a success.

Last year, 2016, was the first year of only needing to produce ONE WBD costume as as I’ve mentioned my daughters big school only permit teachers to dress up – weird I know. I however was busier than ever starting a new business and working for the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, meaning my time for costume making was somewhat limited. I therefore ran with the theme from work, and my son went in a BFG costume I brought. However being my son, he was not content without improving it, so we added a cape, a self-made dream trumpet (tin foil and toilet rolls, Blue Peter style!) and a suitcase (well old fashioned brief case) full of dream jars, plus a pair of paper plate ears. I wasn’t convinced it was successful WBD costume but he was happy which the main thing is.

You know I said that we only needed one outfit for 2016 WBD, and that I was prepard, well, at work, The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, then told me the day before that also needed to dress up as a Dahl character, so cue - costume panic!

So it brings us up to date and the impending WDB 2017 which is just two sleeps away. You may be asking what did we decide, a Marvin, or a Mr Munroe? Well actually he changed his mind and he going as Gandalf from the Hobbit (which he’s currently reading). Of course it’s not without its issues, the beard we ordered was delivered and it was the wrong colour; white not grey (Gandalf is Grey in the Hobbit you know) so had to be returned, and we still have to go a whittle a branch to be a staff (although thanks to Doris finding a fallen bit of tree should be easy!) So far preparations seem to be going well. And hopefully 2017, our final year of WBD dressing up will be a success. Now where did I put that wizards hat?

The Autopsy of a Writer’s (well my) Note-Pad

Recently I discovered that you can now buy re-usable notepads/sketchpads, that you use then ‘zap’ in the microwave and it comes out blank – cleansed- like NEW! Now this seems rather clever, but don’t think personally this would work for me. Why? well…

Firstly – I like to know that the marks I’ve made are permanent, there’s something not only self-affirming about it, but just the notion of it being permanent means it has more impact on one’s memory.

Secondly – and more to the importantly – I DON’T have a microwave. This is due to an unfortunate incident of a microwave fire costing twenty five thousand pounds worth of damage, so I suspect my family and insurance company would object to me purchasing one purely of notepad cleaning! And yes if you were wondering, I did cause the fire, please be warned wheat bags should not be put on for twenty minutes!

New note-pads grab ready!

Although I lament in not being able to participate in a evolution that could have positive effects for the environment I am actually pretty pleased to stay with the good old fashioned paper notepad. That being said, I’m somewhat envious of many of my writer friend’s relationships with their notepads, as often on my Twitter and Facebook feeds a post pops up about a writer-friend who is out on a search for the ‘perfect notepad’ for their next project. Inevitably this is followed up by a photograph of a stunning perfect pad, many linking to the theme of the author’s next project.

This is what I’m envious of: having a special notepad that is specifically and unique tor one project. I’m jealous of the ritual and the record of the creation of a project from conception to finished novel or picture books etc. DON’T GET ME WRONG, I have as much of stationary fetish as the next writer, I’m just not monogamous to my notepads.

Usually, I need a notepad in hurry as the one I’ve been working in is full, so I pick one of the pile of beautiful ones I have on the shelf (gifted to me by friends and family) and I stuff this is my bag, and carry it everywhere until it too is full. This is nowhere near as romantic as picking one for the start of a project, and also it means that I use it for everything. I mean EVERYTHING, from working on my current WIP, to excitedly scrawling new concepts, to the more mundane to-do-lists, and shopping lists.

So, as my last notepad has just had its last blank page filled with ink, I thought I’d do an autopsy.

YES an AUTOPSY. I shall dissect it and investigate what it gorged itself to death on, so here we go, let the autopsy commence.

Autopsy of Notepad- Campervan

Believe D.O.Bu - (Date of Beginning (of) use) - June 2016

D.O.Eu (Date of End (of) Use) – February 2017

On first glance, the notepad seems healthy and undamaged, but upon opening it is immediately obviously that it has been heavily used. The first page is covered in barley readable miss-spelt scrawl of something called an 'epilogue' to what it the apparent owners WIP#1 a YA Urban-fantasy sci-fi novel. 

Strangely after only a few pages we find the apparent end of the same WIP#1, which makes one wonder what happened to rest of the novel?

Next we have notes from the zoo, literally, scrawls from a trip to London Zoo for the owners other current project (lets call it) WIP#2 a MG post apocalyptic story, set in yes you guessed it a zoo!

A random photograph of the owner and owners sister at the Moon-dial circa 1990 is found between the pages along with a random pair of 3D glasses - strange!

The user of this now de-funked notepad apparently switches and changes projects at will, as the next section is back to WIP#1, with character notes, and large quantity of post-its.

Flicking over the page is more development work for the owners WIP#1 along with her 10 Year old Manga Panda, in the medium of felt-tip on paper-towel.

Delving deeper into the pages we find more indecipherable scrawls along with one child's ticket to the Purbeck Steam Railway, stamps, air-mail stickers and a pearl of wisdom from Candy Gourlay (which clearly the writer is ignoring in preference for being distracted writing a completely bonkers blog post!) 

The notepad is stuffed fill with  doodles, along side lists of blog ideas, breaking up form the monotony of the badly spelt writing.

Oh, some colour, more WIP#1 work in an array of biros.

Another photograph (clearly from the 1980's) found between the pages which show the owners pet dog Lucy along with pet pidgon Dusty, besides the longhand version of a blog post about dodo's. 

Lastly one of many to-do-lists and shopping lists of which the owners has tormented the notepad with, this time, no contented with just writing the mundane notes on the pages of the pad, there also an additional printed out to-do-list too, obliviously the owner is still not needed Candy's advise and instead likes to distract them self with making multiple to-do-lists!

To conclude, it is obvious that the cause of death of this notepad, has been over consumption of the ramblings and thoughts of a erratic and slightly deranged individual. 

An Ode to the Dodo

So, I set out writing this post on the process of expanding a novella up to a full length novel, to talk about the perils of getting the plot sound and the pleasure of fleshing out the characters and devolving their back stories and story arcs. All very interesting stuff but…

I GOT DISTRACTED.

In my defence: distraction is somewhat of an occupational hazard to any creative individual.

The distraction was in the form of a news article about the auction of a complete (well 95% complete) reconstructed Dodo skeleton. The skeleton is not made up from one specimen as no actual complete specimen from one individual bird survives; even the famous Oxford Dodo has little left due to a botched taxidermy attempt. Instead, much like the Jonny Cash song ‘One Piece at a Time’ about a car that’s made up from bits of lots of other cars, the Dodo has been constructed from bones from many specimens obtained over the last thirty years, and assembled to a true likeness of the extinct creature.

Why would this distract me, you may well ask?

Well it just so happened that I had just finished reading the book, ‘A Dodo in Oxford; The unreliable account of a student and his pet Dodo.’ It is a fascinating book which was published in 2010 by Oxgarth Press and penned by Philip Atkins and Michael Johnson, who write that they found an old tired book in a second-hand bookshop in Oxford dating from the 1600’s, which claims to be a diary of a student about his pet Dodo. The diary if genuine gives a rare insight into the habits and behaviours of the instinct bird, which may actually have been the last dodo to ever have lived.

The book reproduces every page of the diary along with notes about the authors’ endeavours to investigate and prove that the diary to be genuine, along with facts about the people and places mentioned; the printing process and further information to aid the understanding of seventeenth century Oxford life. All in all it is fascinating and fabulous read, whether it is real or a centuries old student hoax.

The thing that appealed to me most about the diary within A Dodo in Oxford was the descriptions and observations of the Dodo’s character, mannerisms and behaviour. To me it seems far too accurate to be pure imagination, or the butt of a joke.

How, you may ask, would I know what a Dodo may have behaved? And in fact, why, you may ask would I be interested?

Well to answer the first question, I was brought up surrounded by birds; finches, fowls of all varieties, parrots and pigeons. My father was obsessed by birds and kept many aviaries and during the 90’s bread and hand-reared parrots. So I’ve been weaned on the knowledge of keeping and training of birds and am well versed in bird husbandry, including pigeons. As we know dodos were just very large flightless, and docile (open to discussion) pigeons. 

Me and an array of birds and animals that belonged to the family

The pigeons my family kept were not plump, and flightless but were the majestic Tumbling variety, who suddenly fall from the sky mid-slight as if dead, only to pull up yards before crashing fatally into the ground. The sight itself is awe inspiring and bird, who come in a variety of speckled whites and browns or whites and black are actually rather pretty – for a pigeon anyway. There was one pigeon in particular that me and my sister had a close bond with, Dusty, who for reasons long since forgotten, we incubated and hand-reared. Dusty lived in the house either sleeping on one of the parrot cages or in the dog basket nestled up with our two Jack Russell’s Lucky and Lucy. 

Dusty and Lucy

Dusty was NOT an intelligent bird like a parrot (who IQ’s are equivalent to a three year old human child) but he made up for it in character and clumsy wit, compounded by the fact he did not know he was a pigeon. In many ways he seems similar to the Dodo in the diary of A Dodo in Oxford, who adored the company of people, and the landlords fowl and normal domesticated pigeons.

Also having had the experience of teaching parrots of many different types, from African Greys to the endangered Lesser Vasa, and Macaws to Cockatoos, tricks and of course the odd annoying rhyme or inappropriate word, I find the Student’s observations and the results from tests he conducted on the Dodo to be strangely similar to the behaviour of parrots. So, coming back to the question: in short, I believe my background and bird keeping experiences qualifies me enough to make an assessment of the believability of the dodo behaviour in the book. 

Dusty being hand-reared

Second Question; why would I care? Well party as described above, but mostly as I’m fascinated by now extinct animals and the way they have becomes steeped in mythology, fuelled by the lack of knowledge or study of living specimens. And I’m always interested to see how these type of creatures are handled when written about in fiction. 

When thinking about Dodo’s in fiction one’s mind my curiously fixate on the Dodo from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but personally my favourite fictional dodo is Pickwick from Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels. Pickwick is the pet of Literary Detective Thursday who cloned the bird herself from a home cloning kit. Pickwick is fantastic, and shares many of the characteristics with the Dodo from A Dodo in Oxford, like being able to grasp simple task of standing on one leg (or tapping in sequence in A dodo in Oxford). 

So to answer question two, I’m interested in how a long extinct creature still inspires writer today whether in novels, or on screen (think Aardman Animations Pirates!)

All in all, I think dodo’s are great, they are comical in appearance and have a kind of naive charm. They are one of my favourite birds to doodle, and one day hopefully I’ll get to include one in a story. But for now I’ll end with this; that I hope we see many more dodos in stories in the future, and that they live on in fiction to inspire young minds and hopefully get the next generation thinking about humanities attitudes and responsibility to endangered creatures.