Beach Chat with Jayne Ormerod

Happy Friday!  And it is with great pleasure I announce the return of my favorite blog segment, Beach Chat, where I ask a few questions of a fiction writer.  Today’s featured author?  Moi!  (that’s French for me!)  Enjoy! 

Name:  Jayne Ormerod

Recommend a Beach Read: Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews (or really any book by this definitive "beach read" author.)  Summer Rental depicts a summer vacation on the outer banks of North Carolina so well you will feel sand between your toes! 

Most cherished beach memory: At the tender age of 12, my son was bitten by the Surfing Bug.  Not unusual for people who live near the shore.  A little rarer for people like us who lived an hour away.  It was a problem because he could only surf when I drove him, sat there on the beach, then drove him home when he was done (hours later.)  He caught me in a week moment one balmy summer’s morn and I agreed to a day at the beach.  I grabbed a beach towel, beach chair, beach cooler and the book I was currently reading, The Great Gatsby by Ernest Hemingway (a much more interesting read as an adult than a high school student!)  I sat and lost myself in the world of Long Island in the summer of 1922.  Needing to flip myself for the even tan, I paused and looked out over the waves.  I spotted a lone surfer, my son, with fins to the left of him and fins to the right.  He was surfing amidst a pod of dolphins!  It was the coolest thing ever! 

Beach Tale: No Hablo Español

          The theme song for this stage of the construction process is the Ritchie Valens classic, “La Bamba.”  In order to get in the mood, crank up the tune by clicking the arrow embedded in the image below:

         

          One of the requirements for graduation from my high school was four years of a foreign language.  The choices were French, German, Latin and Spanish.  I took French.  Years later, I can still “parle” with the best of them.  (Well, I can “parle” with first year students, as I know how to say things like “Le chien est dans la maison.”) Oh, how I wished I’d taken Spanish.  It would have helped me greatly during the mudding process.

          Oops, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Beach Tale: "Moving Right Along..."

          The theme song for today’s construction update is brought to you by The Muppet Movie.  Click on the imbedded play button to watch the clip with Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear singing while driving a Studebaker across the United States:

       

          The part that is stuck in my head is “Moving right along, footloose and fancy free.  Getting there is half the fun, come share it with me.”

          “Fun” is the operative word there, and in my case means “fun--NOT.”  Not in the least.