Welcome to Sue Vincent’s weekly Write Photo challenge. Every week, she provides us with one of her photographs.

For visually challenged writers, theimage shows a green hill against a misty, grey sky. Across the top of the hill strides a strangely proportioned figure. His head is bowed and he is carrying a staff.
He had travelled many miles, living off the land on his solitary journey.
Where his destination was, he had no idea other than he would know when he arrived.
Strange cloud like creatures littered the hillside. They walked on spindly legs eating the grass unchallenged and were totally uninterested in this stranger.
He did not see the two of them watching from the tree.
No more the size of his foot, they blended and merged with the leafy shadows, unseen and unheard, but aware of his presence.
He trundled on.
The sky was grey, yet…

That was the headlines 42 years ago today, the day when Elvis Presley died at the age of 42. It is the symmetry of the time passed and his age that has triggered this post.

I remember I was in bed listening to Radio Luxembourg when the news came across the air waves. Luxembourg was an evening commercial station, running adverts between the records, but that night everything stopped and it was Elvis cover to cover.
They played nothing but Elvis songs, and no adverts whatsoever.

I was never a true fan, though I’d seen his films and yeah, he was a good looking guy who could sing and strum a guitar.
That all changed in the ’60s, the first record I bought being In the Ghetto.
Then I bought a lot more, including Kentucky Rain, Don’t Cry Daddy, Suspicious Minds and The Wonder of You.
The 45s all had…

I think I mentioned, when I came back to blogging, that I’d taken some time off to work on a book called The Last Raven. It’s one of the most complex stories I’ve ever written so I needed to focus on it, and also on my goal of getting a traditional publishing deal.

So how’s that going? Well, it turns out that The Last Raven, in its current state, is an ‘almost’ book. I’ve had several full manuscript requests, from both agents and publishers, but nothing has actually come of it. Lots of people have liked it, think it’s an original concept, and have given me advice and feedback. I’ve taken my story apart and put it back together again. But still, nothing.

Apparently, when you get to this point, when you’re getting feedback and requests and people are interested, you’re ‘thisclose’ to getting representation or a publishing…

Back in May, all of a sudden, I was going to be spending about 12 hours on the road every week shuttling between Oregon and Washington to care for my parents.  Add to that, the daily commutes between homes, appointments, and errands.

What better use of the time than to listen to books.

But I didn’t have Audible, didn’t have time to look up books, and didn’t have unlimited funds. AND I had a teetering pile of ebooks that I hadn’t read. Hmm…

Can I have my antique, cracked iPhone read to me?

The answer was YES.

The Pros:

1. I “read” a bunch of books that were languishing in my Kindle file.

2. A book doesn’t need to be an audiobook to listen to it.

3. I accessed the books through the Kindle App on the phone.

4. It’s easy to do (mostly).

5. The reading speed is adjustable.

The key question to keep asking is,
Are you spending your time on the right things?
Because time is all you have.

~ Randy Pausch ~
__________

After the odd meeting  with the woman at the pub, we now felt we had to visit Hadrian’s Wall. It had been on my mind for a while, for some reason, and had cropped up a lot in odd places as I read and researched various things. I admit that I felt that Stuart should one day see at least part of it… I have fond memories of time spent in the area and at the isolated Mithraeum on the moors in particular.  The trouble was, well…Romans.

Now, it has to be said that, along with plumbing, central heating and a host of technological and educational innovations, the Romans brought a ‘civilising’ influence to the country that came to be known as Britain. But you have to take the word in a literal sense… they built cities. And with cities, you get administration, record-keeping, statutes and organisation… and control. In…

Photo by Sue Vincent

I don’t remember ever being so hungry.  Starved.  What an awful journey!  I cursed our captain and king, and went over the ridge.

Just think, we had been staying in a land where the fruit was unlimited.  There was nothing to do but sit back, eat, sleep and enjoy ourselves.  After all of those years of war, what more could a man ask for?  But no, we had to move on, continue our journey.

The idiot.

I stopped and pointed.  The weeds had been close cropped, so I assumed there was something edible around, but my suspicions were proved correct when I spotted the sheep.

Oh, delicious mutton!  Lamb steaks!  Lamb chops!

Actually, any meat would do, but this was glorious.