or something like that.

Whatever the cause, I've been having a 'difficult' week, poor Bev has been snapped at a few times, I've been quite morose and more introverted than usual which really is saying something. Maybe its not getting out on a bike, maybe its the whole Covid thing, maybe worry over the future but whatever it is, it needs to stop and soon!

We've managed to escape the snow and cold that has gripped much of the country, there are tales of 15cm and more falling on the lower parts of GOC, quite a lot more above the 'snow line' which is @ 150m asl. But that just makes me sadder, not being there, sharing in the delight/misery, exploring a countryside blanketed in white.

So what have I been up to this week? Well, with the bike out of commission I've turned to longer walks to get my daily exercise in, Thursday was about 6km then Friday a longer affair out to the edge of the countryside had 12km of walking. Yesterday it was back to a shorter job of 5km which has in total, pushed me to 73km for the month - just 27km away from completing the 100km challenge! I'll have a spot of lunch after this post then i'll do todays jaunt, not sure where or how far but almost certainly there will be food shopping involved.

Looking forward, the good news is that the new wheel is due to arrive tomorrow, half a week earlier than expected so even if the weather is looking a bit dire I should be able to get the bike roadworthy again.

I've not just been walking and contemplating my navel of course, I've been doing a lot of 'research' for new tales and having thrashed the ideas around in my head for a few weeks, actually committed a few words to the page on the first of them, Skin Squared. Its a break from the usual slightly saccharine Maddy stuff, a tale set in a future where social and economic divide has polarised, where the State is no longer the arbiter of citizens well being and survival - well here's a quick synopsis

 

'2060 – science fiction had long predicted a world run by mega corporations, the whole 'sovereign state' form of government pretty much sidelined. As is often the case with SF, reality lags somewhat behind but the pandemics of the '20's, the breakdown of the USA into several smaller, insular regions and the rise in manufactory mechanisation in even the poorest countries finally opened the door. That doesn't mean Utopia, far from it, those in power wield it with an iron fist, below the veneer of gentility at corporate level a darker, more sinister world of gang warfare, violence and extremism somehow keeps the staus quo.

For most citizens of Earth just existing without attention is the main aim in life.

Toi, or Toivan Eskil as his parents named him eighteen years before, was already, not exactly a model citizen. Oh he'd done well at school, his grades marking him out as prime salaryman fodder but Toi lived in the Well, an area of Uppsala where the law was in the hands of the underworld. Of course it doesn't follow that he would be drawn into that world of drugs, vice and, well who knows what else, but it did mean recreational use of narcotics had been part of his life since Jamba Andersson introduced them to his world soon after his fifteenth birthday.

Was he an addict? Define addict, he functioned well enough on a day to day basis, and, if not a model employee of Brød Selskab A/B, he was at least diligent in overseeing the machinery in his charge. Outside of the workplace was another matter, Sweden's tight alcohol laws may be reality in polite society but when you live in the Well, its the cartels who control supplies, not the Government or even the corporations. And Toi and his friends liked to party, sex, alcohol and drugs, the safety valves of society for millennia.

But everything has its price and Toi was about to find that out first hand.

 

The term, 'saving your skin' has taken on new meaning, for those short of money you can literally sell your skin, there are plenty of buyers willing to pay for someone else's. What started in the late 20's as a quirky body art form has, thirty years later become a method of economic survival for some, a hobby for others and lucrative business for 'Agents'. The average adult has between 1.7 and 1.9 square metres of skin, women up to 5% more than men, its a lottery for the seller, corporate billboard, criminal post it, fetish pin cushion, they have no say in what or indeed where, the ink, the needle, the tech is placed - but there again, neither do the buyers!'

Copyright Madeline Bell 17.01.2021

There you have it, I won't say any more on the plot, when you will get to see the first instalment I won't predict, there are so many variables involved.

What I can tell you is that Lezo Laps, the next chapter of Gaby - Avoidance is now up for your reading pleasure. The teams are in San Sebastian of course and today its a leg stretch after the two day journey from Germany.

I guess that's it for now, be well,
Wiedersehn,
Madeline Anafrid