When I was 51...

... I hefted a golden eagle!

Every year, soon after my birthday, I like to take a look back at stuff I've done for the first time EVER, in order to ensure that I'm not too deep into my middle-aged rut.

Here goes with this year just past ... when I was 51:

For the very first time IN MY LIFE:

• I drove a BMW Z4 35is convertible sports car (bright red, of course)
• I got a photographic driver's license instead of the tatty old paper thing I'd had since a teenager
• I acquired a smartphone!
• And bought a blu-ray player (not yet plugged in, I admit)
• We moved into a house that's actually big enough to hold all our books. (This is it, Peak House ... next stop is a nursing home)

• I thus became the owner of some chandeliers. Still getting rid of them...
• I stained my deck. It took 4 days and lasted less than 4 months, so I'm pretty pissed off about that, believe me
• I used a supermarket scan-as-you-shop handheld device. It's like Star Trek, I tell you!

• I ate a fortune cookie
• I visited Uzebkistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. 
• I attended our local Parish Council meeting ( which was one of the most horrifically poisonous, bitter, unpleasant public exchanges I've ever seen. Jesus Christ on a bike...)
• I visited Intensive Care in a hospital ... in fact I spent a lot of time hospital visiting 😔
• I delivered a eulogy at a family funeral
• I used Discord to play new-to-me RPG Numenera 

• I reviewed a Thesaurus - and got my quote on the back cover!

• I was commissioned to write a professional RPG scenario
• I went to the Edgelit convention, which may be my favourite now
• I had three dark fantasy stories published! (That's more than my erotica count this year ... the house move and family obligations really slowed me down I'm afraid)

• I picked the stories for a Sexy Little Pages anthology:

Now the hard editing work begins...

• I joined FreeCycle and the National Trust
• I bought a hanging basket for the front door, and a rotary dryer for the garden
• I hand-sewed some curtains
• I lit a Yankee Candle ... 

Shit, what was that about a middle-aged rut?!
I'm DOOOOOOOMED 😱😱😱

When I was 50...

Around my birthday every year I take a look back at what I've done for the first time EVER, just to check that I'm not actually dead of old age yet.

This year, sadly, has been very quiet on the travel front. Basically we have a frail and elderly dog so we haven't been able to go on holiday since last January. Maybe next year...

"No - I will live forever! Give me snacks!"

Anyway, when I was 50:

For the Very First Time:

• I rode on a banana-boat

• I had three publishing houses fold on me in one year - goddamnit! THREE!!! 
• I did my very first self-publishing, as a consequence - with more to follow

• I finished a novel trilogy: both In Bonds of the Earth and The Prison of the Angels were published this year
• I hosted a Facebook Promo Party - in fact I've done two now, if you count Blissemas on Tuesday
• I discovered that neat alcoholic spirits give me terrible indigestion. BOOO! I am getting old!
• I had a dishwasher installed. Don't tell Mr Ashbless, but I love it!
• I used a Rug Doctor and was impressed
• I used a juicer ... yeah, okay, someone shoot me now...
• I watched a branding (at Eroticon 2017)

• I went to the Leeds Festival (despite friends insisting it was VERY DANGEROUS)
• I saw ELO, Muse and Kasabian play live
• I sold all my vinyl records
• I had to handle serious fly-tipping in my wood
• I successfully escaped an escape room (we've beaten three out of four so far, in fact)
• I used a robo-loo! 
• 
  
  • 
• I attended a sibling's wedding (my sister's ... I missed my brother's a few years back because I was on holiday)
• I visited the James Herriot Museum AT LAST (it's up the road ... have I been there at any point in the last 27 years? Have I heck.) Thank you Jo 😉

• I set up a night camera in our wood and discovered that we have DEER, and DIFFERENT DEER, and FOXES, and BADGERS
• I helped shoot a porno - for real
• I stopped using shampoo for a month. It was okay, but expensive.
• I walked across the outside of the O2 Dome

• I discovered ZERO CALORIE GRAPE JELLY
• I went to  a strip show
• ... And a bin lorry ate my wheelie-bin!

 I'm hoping by next birthday to have done some more travel to new countries, and be in a new house ... we'll see!

When I was 49...

That's it, I've officially Brexited my Forties. It's the Big One!
Since every year I take a look back at what I've managed for the first time since my last birthday, here's how I kept things fresh when I was 49:

For the Very First Time:

• I bought an exercise DVD. (I nearly killed myself for about 3 weeks, then gave up)
• I obtained a PAC code to move my phone number: TECH-WIZARD AWARD TO ME!
• I scaled a climbing wall:

"Okay, that was fun, never again"

• I visited Brittany and the standing stones of Carnac

Merlin's Tomb. For sure.

• I fell in love with the amazing Machines de l'Ile 
• I visited Sicily and the Tombs of the Capuchins and walked on an active volcano - in a blizzard!
• I played Sardines and used a Ouija board, thus completing my 1920s credentials
• I got my car stranded in the snow (and was rescued by a guy in a Land Rover and a kilt!!!)

I discovered tea with whiskey in it, possibly the greatest medicinal breakthrough of our time:

It's the only thing keeping me alive right now

• I started using a chainsaw again, after a break of several years :-) 

• I gave a workshop at Smut By the Sea 2016
• I watched a movie on IMAX (yes, seriously)
• I shot an airsoft gun
• I finally got to see Newgrange in Ireland:

• I voluntarily held both a chihuahua and a baby (but not at the same time). I was quite taken by the chihuahua, tbh.
• I visited the John Rylands Library in Manchester for a witchcraft and demonology exhibition
• I went to the once-in-a-lifetime Hieronymus Bosch 500 Exhibition in the Netherlands
• I discovered on the same weekend that the wrong sort of smoke makes me paranoid - and I don't mean a bit edgy: I mean "Oh my god I'm having a psychotic break, what if this never stops?!"- rpt ad nauseum for several hours paranoid. Not nice at all.
• I was contacted by a film-maker interested in adapting one of my books!

What am I looking forward to as I turn 50? The publication of In Bonds of the Earth and The Prison of the Angels, of course! And, most of all, getting rid of this damn cold...

When I was 48 ...

Janine Ashbless: culture vulture 

Every year  on my birthday I look back - just to check that I haven't got old and stopped trying new things yet. So here, as I teeter on the far edge of my forties, is my latest log...

When I was 48, for the very first time ...

• I started going grey!
• I fulfilled a lifetime dream and I now OWN A SMALL WOODLAND! For my birthday I went out to saw my own trees for the first time ever and it was AWESOME :-)
• I gave a Powerpoint presentation (it was at Eroticon 2015, where I also drank my way through a party tray of flavoured vodkas, and tried cupping, so it was a whole weekend of Firsts) 
• I briefly owned a selfie-stick. I never used it.
• I bought a she-wee. I have used it, with varying degrees of success (!)
• I got spanked in public by Cara Sutra (and it was Facebooked!)

• I had my first breast-cancer scare and my first mammogram. Thankfully, the results were negative, but for two weeks I was seriously focused on rearranging my life.
• I started running. I stopped running ... :/
• I bought a vape pipe. Two, in fact.
• I had my DNA sequenced
• I visited Germany (Munich, several times, because Mr Ashbless' employer was paying), Austria (Salzburg), Portugal (Lisbon), and quite a lot of Ethiopia.

• I got a story into Best Horror of the Year!
• I started getting Friend requests from weird blokes attempting to pull on Facebook. Somehow I'd managed to avoid it until now.
• I took a cushion to the cinema because the seats hurt my back :-(
• I saw AC/DC, the Foo Fighters and Fall Out Boy gig live. I liked FOB best, because they had the best sound set up by far. I mean Wow, you could actually hear the lyrics!

• I took part in one of those Puzzle Rooms where you get locked in and have to Adventure Game your way out. WE FAILED.
• I was granted a small coastal town in the amazing Map of Literature

• I had some POETRY printed in an anthology! Good grief! Then I videoed me reading some!

Forty-eight was pretty amazing really. I have no idea what forty-nine will bring - and that's a good thing :-)

When I was 47...

Sometimes I wear a BIGGER hat

I've just suffered my 48th birthday so this year, as every year, I'm totting up a list of all the things I've done for the FIRST TIME EVA. Am I getting old? You decide!

When I was 47, for the very first time...

• I got a speeding citation, goddamnit. It was the end of a five-hour drive and I got clocked literally one minute from my home, doing 35 in a 30 m.p.h. zone.

•  I put up Xmas lights outside my house:

A strong sign of old age...

•  I acquired a tablet. I played Plants vs. zombies all the way through! It's pretty much the only thing I've done with the tablet, I admit, apart from use the lovely lovely sat nav :-)

• I rode a Segway, and loved it.

• I decided I liked Marmite after all, and that scones taste best with just butter.

• I met Shanna Germain at last! (And visited the British Library on the same day)

• I grew a beard. Not just one beard either. It's amazing how fast I got used to it.

• I gave up on IPL. It doesn't work (for me).

• I recorded a couple of podcasts. Well, other people did the actual recording. I just talked.

• I set up Amazon Author Pages ... (more stuff to fail to maintain, frankly)

• I had my back garden covered in plastic lawn. You have no idea how much I love it, now winter is here.

• I visited Carcassonne in France, and the island of Bermuda - where I SWAM IN CAVE!

• I visited the awesomely wonderful Talliston House and crawled under the sideboard there.

• I bought an eyepencil sharpener. They are not just the same as normal pencil sharpeners, it turns out, and are well worth it if you use eyeliner. Who knew, eh?

• I watched a pig race.

•  I played Plants vs. Zombies - the first computer game I've ever downloaded and played all on my own.

• I finally managed to see Deliverance and The Big Lebowski.

• I paid £8.55 for a glass of wine in a hotel bar. Jeez. I'm still suffering flashbacks.

• I ate a gin-and-tonic flavoured cupcake!

• I kept a phenology log.

• I took up oasis sculpting:

It's not the best medium to make sarcophagi out of, tbh.

PLUS:

Having spent all 2012-3 writing Cover Him with Darkness, Fierce Enchantments and Summer Seduction, which went one by one to three different publishers ... In 2014 I saw them all published within a month of each other. *rolls eyes*

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

When I was 46...

This is me, two weeks ago :-)

It was my 47th birthday this week, so in order to keep a record of (and hopefully a brake on) my slide into senescence, here is is my annual post on Fings Wot I Have Done For the First Time Ever.

When I was forty-six, for the first time

• I bought a  Xmas-scented room-freshener (Dude, not a good start!)

• And a Kardashian Kollection dress (!) ... which I reluctantly gave away, because my boobs weren't big enough to fill it.

• I went to three nerdy non-erotica conventions: Eastercon, Nine Worlds Geekfest, and the World Fantasy Convention. I was on panels for two of these. Scary!

• I ate at a Yo Sushi with the awesome little conveyor belt thingy!! Woooo!

There were four of us, I swear

• I went to a Ripley's Believe It Or Not, which was perfect entertainment for me. My whole life is a "believe it or not."

• I read all four Gospels and the Book of Genesis all the way through. No, I never did that as a Christian. Most Christians don't.

• I went to the Chelsea Flower Show, and the world-famous Ashmolean and Pitt-Rivers museums in Oxford.

 

This is serious anthropological research, I'll have you know

• I missed a plane.

• I started a course of IPL. It hasn't worked yet.

• I bought a Kindle, and discovered just how much truly shit self-published stuff there is out there :-0

• I attended Smut by the Sea and had a great time :-)

• I took my parents on holiday abroad (and we got on well!).

• I visited three new countries: Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Croatia. All of which are beautiful and fascinating and deserve many future return visits.

Woot! This is an ACTUAL PROP from Game of Thrones - They use false walls and doors to close off streets during filming. Taken in Split, Croatia.

• I discovered a new god.

• I swam with the fishies in the Red Sea - and didn't, despite my dire predictions, get eaten by a shark.

• My picture featured in the Daily Mail Online.

• We finished our nine-year-long Dragonlance Dungeons & Dragons campaign ...and started on campaigns in 4th Edition D&D and Deadlands. (Huzzah, more rules-systems to learn...)

• I fell in love with a BLUE WIG, and wore a bodystocking in semi-public. Twice, in fact. Different bodystockings too, but the same wig. Is lycra addictive?

• I wrote Cover Him With Darkness, the novel, and finished These Fierce Enchantments, a third short story collection. Both should be published in 2014.

• I heard the, ahem, "backward masking" on Stairway to Heaven.

• I switched to heavy-duty facecreams for Older Skin. (Boooo!)

• I went sea-kayaking (Yaaaaaay!)

• I drank a pumpkin spiced latte, and a Long Island iced tea. I ate white truffles.

• I spent a night (awake) in a nuclear bunker.

• I started wearing eyeliner every day, even in private.

On that showing I reckon I'm only halfway dead so far, give or take :-) Not many publications this year though - books are like buses: none get printed for ages and then they all come out at once. Maybe I should stop arsing around on kayaks and get stuck into some writing?

When I was 45 ...

Yes, it's my Birthday Blog Post, in which, every year, I look back with a critical eye on my life and check whether I need a kick in the ass or should just give in and collect my coffin.

When I was 45, for the first time ...

• I was invited to drinkies at the House of Lords
• I was propositioned in the street (very politely, in fact), on the way to an exhibition - the Naked Muse - where I bought a picture
• I went to Camden Market, probably the coolest place in Britain.
• I had three new books published (all in the space of a few months. Publishers - What are they like?): Heart of Flame, Red Grow the Roses, and Named and Shamed

• I saw geek-god Alan Moore live! And Jonathan Coulton! My nerd apotheosis...
• I wore a cheap-n-slutty glow-in-the dark minidress to a blacklight party
• I reported someone on Facebook for abusive language
• I visited Florence, Barcelona and Ravenna.
• I saw Mumford and Sons in concert!!!

• I crawled around an Etruscan necropolis. Two, actually!
• I went by motorhome all the way from from Italy to England, and right through the Alps in a tunnel.
• I ate samphire (salty).
• I swam in a freshwater lake (in Italy).

• I got my PADI open water scubadiving certification.
• I saw Mathilda, and Stomp, and Jesus Christ Superstar, all live.
• I appeared in a national newspaper - the Express.
• My name was mentioned in The Bookseller, on BBC Online, and ... by the Canadian Broadcasting Company!
• I backed something on Kickstarter. It still hasn't turned up.
• I co-edited the fiction for Geek Love, which is just the coolest anthology ever, and the highest-backed fiction project on Kickstarter. I found I rather like editing other people's work, mostly because I am mean.

• I was headhunted and contracted to write the first volume of The Book of the Watchers for Cleis.
• I went to Eroticon 2012, which was great but exhausting. Still not sure I can cope with 2 days in 2013!
• I had 10 short stories published. I'm definitely not going to manage that many next year!
• I went to a burlesque show.
• I slept in a yurt (I say slept ...), and watched the stars through the roof hole while possibly not entirely free of the influence of mind-altering substances. My hippy weekend.

• I went to the London Book Fair and hung out with the editors of Samhain and Ellora's Cave (No, not at the same time. Hell would freeze over first, I suspect).
• I got my kit off and posed butt-naked for photographs that'll appear in public. In Geek Love, in case you were wondering.

Other firsts ... Heh. Not telling!
So: 45 was the year of sex, drugs and ... folk music.
And geeks.

I'm definitely not dead yet :-)

When I was 44...

Heh heh.

Belated, of course, but I still wanted to do my traditional birthday round-up post. This is where I log all the things I did for the first time in the previous year, just to make sure I'm not sitting in a daze on my midde-aged arse.

So, when I was 44, for the first time...

• I went to the Alps, and climbed about in the snow on really really high mountaintops, and walked inside a glacier.
• I found out what snowblindness is like.
• I bought a laundry basket. (My lack of a laundry basket was regarded by my mother as a sign of my wild bohemian eccentricity.)
• One of my books  featured in a porn clip and I got a mention on the Maxim website, lol! ... thank you Jenny!
• I smoked a clay pipe, and chewed coca leaves.
• I rode in a red sports car with the top down (BMW Z4, I believe). (I'm no car-slut, but it's a pretty cool car. Sadly I disgraced myself by screaming "OH FUCK NO!!" as we overtook into oncoming traffic...)
• I pogoed! It was at my first Big Country gig. I also saw Simple Minds and Hayseed Dixie, live, for the first time.
• I met a whole slew of wonderful smutwriters at a public reading at Sh!

• I went canyoning. Okay, so it was a small, English, canyon, but we did have to leap into icy rockpools.
• I harvested chequers. Yum.
• I went to Maelstrom, the LARP fest.
• I played Call of Cthulhu via Skype. Go technology!
• I had my official photo taken as part of a professional portfolio.
• I went on a romance writing course, and it was excellent.
• I got caught short on the motorway, and had to pull in on the hard shoulder and dive over the barrier and down a bank to pee. (This is not such a good sign.)
• I got over my kissing phobia. With help ;-D
• I went to Bologna in Italy - where I was also subject to my first attempted pickpocketing.
• My first Ellora's Cave romantic novel, The King's Viper, came out.
• I sold my romantic Arabian Nights adventure, Heart of Flame, to Samhain.
• I tried a Hollywood wax. (It was the shock of my life when it grew back black, instead of ginger.)
• I wrote an e-signature. (I'm left-handed. Weirdly, I have to fake my own signature with my right hand, when using a mouse to write.)
• I filed an American tax form.
• I had champagne (and only champagne) for lunch. (Result: terrible sunburn.)
• I went to Peru! Where I went sand-boarding, walked in the Amazon jungle, and fed piranha. I saw wild condors and sea lions :-)

And I sold 5 short stories - down on last year, because I've been writing and editing novels instead. But not bad.
All other Firsts this year are filed under "Classified - restricted personnel only."
;-)
Looking forward to being 45!

Eyecandy Monday - birthday post

 

Look what I unwrapped!

Ahem, no. But I have had another birthday, and as usual I've compiled a wee list of things I managed to do for the first time in the last year. Daren't fall into a rut at my age!

When I was 43, I:

• Watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat on my birthday.

• Had a White Xmas - yes, my first!
• Had my hair cut by a man.
• Got Gokked by a friend - makeover, haircut, eyebrow threading (OW!!). It didn't stick though. I have gone back to being unkempt.
• Went to Rome, and to San Francisco. I walked in a redwood forest!
• Did my first ever public erotica reading, at the World Horror Convention.
• Ate lunch at the Fat Duck.
• Went out in a strappy dress without a bra. Yes, first time in my adult life.
• Danced all evening in high heels. Yes, ditto.

• Saw Rammstein, live - twice!
• Invited to my house a friend from the internet who I'd never spoken to IRL (in exactly that way you're supposed not to) and it turned out she wasn't a six-foot axe-murderer with a beard (Yay!). She did make us - and I'm not exaggerating here - a bucket full of cookies. Which we ate in two days.
• With small blips (see above) kept my weight down to 9 stone. That's er, 126lbs. I like my body.
• Sold 9 short stories and got 4 rejections. 
• Started publishing with Ellora's Cave
• And I endured a house extension - beginning to end. Well, endish. (Oh, I am so middle-aged. Pass me my slippers.)