CHICKENS HATCHED? NEVER!

After a devastating experience over the summer which has left me demoralised, exhausted and heart broken in equal measure I have learnt another lesson from the things life throws at us. I grew up with a mother who spoke for  in idioms for most of her life. Along with, "Don't cross your bridges before you get to them" and "Too many cooks..." Another of her favourites was, "Don't count your chickens..." I listened, I nodded and soon without realising found they'd become part of my own phrases and dialogue, though I do try to limit them. Especially when I found the chicken phrase has been around since 1570!

(According to the Wiktionary; First attested in English in Thomas Howell's 1570 New Sonnets and Pretty Pamphlets in the couplet "Counte not thy Chickens that vnhatched be, / Waye wordes as winde, till thou finde certaintee".)

Why am I speaking about this? Because Gristle's Revenge is almost here and fate keeps dropping that chicken idiom into my head every moment. Ignoring fate for 30mins - at my peril - I decided to design and produce a few simple posters for my Book Launch which is on;

1st December 12 - 4pm at Olby's Soul Café Margate
Shameless  plug and not embarrassed at all, I'm past that stage.

I'd splashed out, designed and ordered several from my Vistaprint account and they arrived early. I  fawned over them. They were so professional, in my website colours too. Very posh I thought. Today I decided I'd have a stab at making my own smaller posters, trying to match the colours and font etc so I pulled up the original Vistaprint artwork and set to it.
I was very happy with the finished product and decided I'd take them all out this afternoon along with the posh Vistaprint ones, hoping several establishments might considering taking one of them.

PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO DISPLAY A POSTER. (Second plug, I have no dignity left either)

I printed off the first poster and stared at it. Then I stared at it some more. Then the penny dropped (Another idiom, The OED's earliest citation of a use of the phrase with the 'now I understand' meaning, is from The Daily Mirror August 1939: And then the penny dropped, and I saw his meaning!)

Horror of horrors (synonym) my beautiful new posters had the wrong date on them!!!! I'd inadvertently put the launch date of the Inspirations Writers Group Anthology Launch Yellow;

Saturday 24th November at Old Kent Market Margate 10.30 to 2pm

Has this woman no shame you ask? Apparently not anymore and its not an idiom - I checked. Thank goodness I watched Blue Peter all those years ago. Armed with my trusty laptop, scissors, glue and the printer I worked on matching the design, colour etc and cleverly printed off a new date to sneakily cover the incorrect one. Now I'm waiting for the glue to dry so I can roll them up.

Regards the novel itself? Final proof agreed after some last minute touches to the cover and they should be printing my first 100 copies next week. Fingers Crossed!

( Idiom - There are two main theories regarding the origins of finger-crossing for luck. The first dates to a pre-Christianity Pagan belief in Western Europe in the powerful symbolism of a cross. The intersection was thought to mark a concentration of good spirits and served to anchor a wish until it could come true. mentalfloss.com)

Here I sit waiting for my wish to come true. :)

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