I don't feel well today. A not-so-common cold has invaded my body with a headache, runny nose, coughs--you know the symptoms.

So, unable to think straight, I'm sharing the beginning of Still Rock Water, which you can see on the right sidebar.

Chapter One

My God, I'm flying. Or hallucinating. Blank it out. Close your eyes.

I'm so scared. My fingers reach out for reassurance. Nothing. Since emerging from the tunnel, my senses are spinning and the bed no longer supports my body. Wait. Tunnel. Death's a possibility. Can't be. I wasn't sick. Perhaps I died in my sleep. If I keep my eyes shut, maybe I'll wake up. Counting doesn't work. How long should I wait? Five minutes, an hour? I can't see the clock anyway, so how would I know? Impatient, I wriggle, or try. I can't feel my legs.

I ease my eyes open. White fluffy mist. At least I'm not surrounded by a casket. I reach out but don't make contact with anything solid. I won't close my eyes again. Now I'm curious. Right, I'll look down. I panic at the absence of anything beneath me. No bodily reactions. Hold it together. I can do this. At last, I focus through the blur below. It's as if I'm looking through a telescope with a haze around the edges.

An old car sits sideways behind another, with traffic driving around them on a motorway.

If this is heaven, it's very much like earth. Then, I'm falling—diving. I struggle, but a powerful force pulls me right through the roof where I land without feeling. Inside the car, I'm as helpless as I am in real life. It's scary. I don't want to be manipulated like this. Get me out of here.

Thick hands grip the steering wheel. A diver's watch clamps a hairy wrist. Cars slow outside the window and a woman peers into my car.

Where are the almond-shaped fingernails I've always taken care of? Overwhelmed by shock, rising panic and rapid heartbeat, I'm sitting in the driver's seat of a jalopy. A faint sound of thunder echoes inside my head. The taste of iron and smell of oil sicken me. I struggle, but the body doesn't move. Wait. Thoughts slam into me.

'Accident. Think, man, think'. Rigid with shock, I—we centre on a digital clock. Nine-zero-zero. Morning.

I've got to work this out. I'm me, but I'm also part of a strange man. His name is David. Multiple personalities? I've heard of that happening. I've suffered enough distress to cause the effect. Although I can't move, perhaps I can wish myself away. I concentrate, but it does no good. All David's panicked thoughts and body reactions pump through me.

He twists to the back seat. Worry rises, gripping his heart so hard he finds it hard to breathe. His four-year-old son Tim remains upright strapped into a child-seat—eyes closed with his head slumped forward. David leans back and touches Tim's shoulder, then checks for the faint pulse under his ear. He grasps the tiny wrist, and looks for any movement under the delicate eyes.

I'm staggered. Something tells me I should help him, help them both, but I don't know how. David's the one with the body. I'll just watch and wait. At some point I might escape.

With shaky hands, he reaches for his mobile phone and dials the emergency number. Following instructions from the voice in his ear, he climbs over to sit beside his son. The boy's head must not be moved in case of injury, and David must breathe for Tim until an ambulance arrives.

With the reassuring operator's voice crackling around my mind, I'm feeling everything David does, panic, worry and confusion. Maybe I can influence him rather than let his emotion drain me. With something like a heart-felt prayer, I will the child to breathe—assist the father to remain calm and help his son.

The child's head remains slumped forward, and David mustn't move him. With great care, he blows from the front but he can't reach the boy's mouth. A strong sense tells me whatever I do will be of some help. But what if, by participating, I'm trapped here forever without a body of my own, living through someone else's consciousness?

Terror squeezes David's heart. “I love you, son. Don't die.” He groans and his eyes blur. The operator tries to reassure him.

It's no use avoiding the situation any longer. It's as real to me now as my own life. I can't allow the child to slip away before help arrives. I urge David forward to lift the child's lip from the side. With empathy rising in me like a song, I assist with the breath of life.

By twisting his head, David's tender breath through the side of Tim's mouth brings results. When the blue eyelids flutter, David's heartbeat quickens in relief. After another breath, Tim opens his eyes and coughs. David murmurs, “Hello, little man. Are you okay?”

“Yes, Dad,” Tim blinks and looks around. “I heard your voice through a long sort of tunnel. It was so bright ... and I saw a happy fairy.”

Compassion swells my heart and lifts me away. I'm floating free.

* * * *

Liliha opened her eyes in her own bed again. In the dark, her fingers slid over the ridges on her patchwork quilt.

A gigantic communal latrine created at the dawn of the dinosaurs has been unearthed in Argentina. A study in Scientific Reports tells of thousands of fossilized poos left by rhino-like megaherbivores were found clustered together. The dung contains clues to prehistoric diet, disease and vegetation.

The 240-million-year-old site is the world's oldest public toilet and the first evidence that ancient reptiles shared collective dumping grounds.

Here's something I didn't know: Nowadays, elephants, antelopes and horses defecate in socially agreed hotspots to mark territory and reduce the spread of parasites. The hoses in the field outside my window poo wherever they stand. Perhaps domesticated animals have given up the tendency to choose where they defecate in exchange for board and lodgings.

But the herd animals' best efforts are dwarfed by the enormous scale of this latrine - which breaks the previous record oldest toilet by 220 million years. Piles of fossil dung, some as wide as 40cm and weighing several kilograms, were found in seven massive patches across the Chanares Formation in La Rioja province. Apparently, fine ash covered the site and preserved the remains.

The animal behind the action was Dinodontosaurus, an eight-foot-long megaherbivore similar to modern rhinos. These animals were dicynodonts - large, mammal-like reptiles common in the Triassic period when the first dinosaurs began to emerge. The dicynodont skull is highly specialized, light but strong, which would have enabled dicynodonts to cope with tough plant material.

The shared latrine strategy suggests they were gregarious, herd animals, who had good reasons to poo strategically.  Firstly, it was important to avoid parasites. 'You don't poo where you eat', as the saying goes. But the huge pile also warns predators about the size of the herd.

What would aliens think of our sewers? Sometimes, I wonder if mankind will run out of space for all their cast-offs.

Stephen Hawking spoke recently at the Science Museum in London to reveal his disappointment after the God Particle, otherwise known as the Higgs Boson, was discovered. The famed physicist explained that the find made physics less interesting. During his speech, he also claimed that humans only have 1,000 years left on Earth.

That's the bit that fascinates me—the future. You'll see four futuristic novels on my sidebar, where my writing partner and I take on the perspectives of survivors after the Great Flood in Britland. Wind Over Troubled Waters is the first.

Stephen Hawking publicly revealed his thoughts on the landmark discovery of the God Particle—the particle scientists say is responsible for mass in the standard model of physics.

Hawking also gave his prediction for the end of the world. "I don't think we will survive another thousand years without escaping beyond our fragile planet. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space," he said.

Stephen Hawking was born on Jan 8th, 1942, as was I. That makes me feel very close to him. I imagine us on a cloud waiting for the moment of our birth, discussing what we'd do with our lives. I'm so proud of what he's achieved—although I don't understand half of what he's theorized about. But back to the subject.

Higgs boson essentially holds the universe together. It gives particles mass, which allows them to bind together and form things, like stars and planets and my home and yours.

More broadly, countless Higgs boson particles make up an invisible force throughout the universe called a Higgs field. Without it, the universe as we know it could not exist and I wouldn't be able to share stories from my imagination in the form of books.

To make the particle easier to understand, the Chicago Tribute published an article in 2012. They spoke to David Miller, a professor of physics at Purdue University and part of the multinational team of scientists on the Higgs project.
He said he understands the subject's complexity but believes people can at least appreciate the importance — and power — of understanding the world around us.

"We're the only species that can ask the question, 'Why?' and also has the tools to answer it," Miller said. "Any person can go out at night and look at the stars in the sky and wonder what place we have in the universe. We're a tiny speck, but it appears that from our little planet we can not only understand our whole universe, we can understand its evolution from the big bang."

The human brain is astounding, as is the whole creation. I'd like to believe we are all part of the Creator.

Sony has filed a patent application for SmartWig, as firms jostle for the lead in the wearable technology sector. The SmartWig can be worn over natural hair, and will be able to process data and communicate wirelessly with other external devices. The wig could be made from horse hair, human hair, wool, feathers, yak hair, buffalo hair or any kind of synthetic material. The technically intelligent device has the potential to become a trend and a fashion statement.

The communication interface and sensors placed in the wig are at least partly covered by parts of the wig in order to be hidden from sight during use. This significantly increases user comfort and improves the handling of the wearable computing device.

According to the filing, the SmartWig can help navigate roads, collect information such as blood pressure, and help blind people navigate roads. A small video camera or a sensor on the wig could help to provide the position and the location of the wearer.

Google with its smartwatch Google Glass and Samsung with GALAXY Gear are among other firms that have launched wearable gadgets, which are predicted to be one of the big areas of growth over the next two years. Both Wearable Devices to Enhance the Freedom of Mobile Communications.

Android device developers around the world are planning to incorporate new Android KitKat technology into wearable devices and seize their share of this lucrative new market. Market researchers predict the global wearable device market will hit 125 million units sold by the year 2017. Smart watches, smart glasses, and fitness bands will be the biggest sellers in wearable computing over the next five years. Brace yourself for the coming wave of smart watches and headwear.

From a wristband that replaces passwords to a device that helps you read on the treadmill, these wearable tech gadgets break new ground.

I've written a first draft of a novel set in 2027, in which I predicted what society would be using in 15 years. But technology is progressing so fast. Whatever I come up with is already hovering on the sidelines.


Who could afford these devices? Once again, new technology separates the haves from the have nots.

Part of being human is to be born, to live, and to die. The years we spend living are the most interesting. Barring an accident, everyone will grow old. No argument. So why not take action while you're young to ensure your later years are healthy? Rather like taking an insurance policy or a fund for your retirement.

One of the most important things to consider is exercise, which cuts the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and depression.

In a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine of people at or abound retirement age, those of the 3,500 healthy participants who took up exercise were three times more likely to remain healthy over the next eight years than their sedentary peers.

People who took up exercise in their 60s were also less likely to struggle with day-to-day activities such as washing and dressing. Some experts suggest the over 70s should take up sport. Rather than slowing down, people should try to keep up. More and more pensioners are taking up ballet, according to the Royal Academy of Dance. It is putting the phenomenon down to the popularity of TV programs like Strictly Come Dancing. The best thing to do is to keep moving when you are elderly.

I hope my 10 minute daily walk uphill and back counts as enough exercise. I certainly breathe hard and stretch my legs even though I'm supported by the handles of a rollator. Unfortunately, my hips were malformed at birth. Now after 4 operations, I'm having difficulty walking.

I washed my hair last night. I've got to confess, my long hair is hard to manage. It nearly touches my waist now and I find drying the long strands awkward. Because my hair's naturally dry, I only wash it every two weeks. For me, that's enough. But now, with the length hard to manage, I'm considering having it cut. Why not sell my hair like Jo in Little Women?

Bloomsbury of London says on their site: We are constantly in need of hair whether it being to repair wigs or to make wigs that can help people who suffer from hair loss. They say the bottom 2 - 4" might be useless with dry or split ends so the length needs to be 10" of usable hair.

On another site, I found some tips for keeping your locks healthy before you sell it:

Okay. My hair is long, strong and full of body. My diet is good and I take calcium tablets to keep my bones strong. I'm hovering. To sell or not to sell? That is the question.

I'm in pain today. My agony isn't something that a pill would fix. It's caused by accumulated operations and time, one compacting on the other until there's nothing left of what should have been a beautiful, but aging, body.

I wonder how life treated older people from the past. Perhaps allowing nature to take its course would be better than this lingering half-life. My mind's still active, so I won't explore that avenue any further. At least I can entertain myself by writing. And I can luxuriate in my husband's company, knowing that very few partners are still together in their seventies.

A crackling cave fire sending out fingers of warmth sounds appealing. Just sit in shelter and allow others to find the food. I could pound grain and watch the children in their absence rather than be a burden to the others of my group. But, is this cozy picture one of reality?

Research presented to the Royal Society in London, shows a group of Neanderthals killed and ate their fellow ancient humans, including young children. Using modern forensics techniques, including DNA analysis, the researchers found that 12 Neanderthals, all from the same family, had been eaten by their peers. Remains, discovered at the El Sidrón cave system, near Asturias, in north western Spain, included the bones of three female and three male adults, three teenage boys and three children aged between two and nine-years-old.
According to the findings, the people were eaten raw during one sitting.

Did they run out of game to hunt? Where was their cozy fire? Maybe they were in a hurry. The most astounding thing is that modern man's moral code has changed. On the whole. Discounting murderers.

But, I'm happy with my life. I love what I do—love sharing my stories with you. During no other time on earth, has one isolated woman been able to contact so many other people.

And now, a story. Here's a short excerpt from Knights in Dark Leather, my co-written post-apocalyptic novel, which is the second in line from the Higher Ground Series shown on the right sidebar.

Several items on the news today sadden and sicken me. A heavily pregnant woman showed a video of herself pounding her stomach with a hammer to show how strong her baby was. During the ongoing Syrian war, snipers are targeting children. A UK bank leader is held in disrepute. Online lending firms are sucking in the vulnerable by offering loans they cannot hope to repay. In the UK just recently, a case came to light of a boy being offered £400 at an exorbitant interest. The repayments would need to be kept up for over 90 years.

What is wrong with our society? Surely, things like this didn't happen in the past.

Everyone has heard of Robin Hood, Nottinghamshire's most famous son and the world's favorite folk hero. His adventures have been retold down the generations, from medieval ballads to Hollywood blockbusters.

Tradition tells that the outlaw Robin Hood poached (killed and ate illegally) the king's deer in the royal hunting forest of Sherwood and fought with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Stories relate how travelers through the forest provided rich pickings for the gentleman robber and his band of merry men.

 Robin Hood is often seen as a champion justice by robbing the rich to give to the poor. Central to the legend is how Robin outwitted the Sheriff and King John, and turned the tables on corrupt churchmen and officials who abused their power over an oppressed peasantry.

Many people have tried to unravel the legend by delving into its origins. Did the tale of Robin Hood begin with a real historical figure, or was he a creation of medieval storytellers?

If you look at the facts, the man took advantage of anyone who happened to come close. No too different from the online money-lenders. Robin Hood injured or killed anyone who he considered bad. Not so different from insurgents and rebels fighting modern warfare. He lived off other people's profits. Not so different from modern banks, which some hold largely responsible for the decline in the world's economy.

Does it help us cope if we know about the bad things going on around us?

A shotgun once owned by Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley is expected to fetch between £60,000 and £100,00 ($96,546 - $160,910) at auction. The 1893 16-gauge Parker hammer shotgun is thought to be Oakley’s first proper gun and came to be one of her favorites. However, anyone who buys the gun is only purchasing a trophy, not the skill behind the eyes, the steady aim and the true heart.

Like an athlete today, Annie Oakley's competence gave her the opportunity to entertain, become famous and even tour the world. She used the shotgun to wow audiences around the world for 20 years.

Born to a poor family, she taught herself how to shoot her grandfather's gun after her father's death and began hunting for food. She could shoot the animals without ruining the important parts of the meat, and she then sold them to the people in her town. When she was fifteen years old, she had made enough money to pay for her family's farm.

At sixteen years old, she was invited to a shooting contest with a famous marksman.  Frank Butler claimed that he could shoot better than anyone else. Annie surprised everyone when she won the competition by shooting all twenty-five targets, while her competitor was only able to shoot twenty-four of them. Perhaps their shooting abilities attracted them to one another, because Annie and Frank married in 1876.

In 1882, Annie took the name Oakley. She and Frank Butler started putting on shows together, demonstrating their abilities to shoot a gun.  Frank Butler was the star of the show and Annie Oakley was his assistant. However, sometimes she did her own shooting.  Two years later, Annie Oakley met the famous Native American chief, Sitting Bull, at a performance and they became friends. He gave her the name "Little Sure Shot" because of her shooting ability and because she was only one and one-half meters tall.

In 1885, they joined "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" where Annie starred and Frank acted as her assistant for 16 years. In 1887, Buffalo Bill took the whole Wild West show to Europe. Amongst their many appearances, they performed in England for Queen Victoria.  Annie Oakley received a lot of attention. The newspapers wrote stories about her and she took part in many shooting contests where she drew huge crowds with her remarkable skills.

The Wild West show returned to Europe two years later. By this time, Annie Oakley had become even more famous. The Wild West show performed in Paris, France, for six months. Then the performers traveled to Germany, Italy and Spain. In Germany, the Crown Prince asked Oakley to shoot the ashes off of a cigarette that he held in his mouth, as she famously had done with her husband.  She asked the Prince to hold the cigarette in his hand instead and did the trick easily.

In 1901, Annie Oakley was in a show train crash that badly injured her back. After five operations, Annie left the Wild West show and they built a home in Cambridge, Maryland after which she took up acting.

Her skill, born of necessity and forged with determination made Annie Oakley a worldwide household name. Others might curse the trials that plague them, but it takes strength of character to rise above hardship and burn a brand on the hide of the world.

Or have the honor of being featured on a stamp.

Scientists have analyzed a cosmic explosion, the brightest ever seen, caused by the death of a massive star. The monstrous blast from the dying star was spotted by Nasa's Swift and Fermi space-based telescopes. The journal of Science published the results of the blast of radiation, called a gamma-ray burst, spotted earlier this year.

Researchers believe the distant star was about 20-30 times the mass of the Sun. When the star ran out of fuel from the material at its core, it exploded and hurled radiation across the cosmos. The core of the star would have collapsed into a black hole, while liberating a powerful jet of energy—the gamma-ray burst.

A blast wave would have caused the rest of the star to expand outwards, creating another dazzling event called a supernova. Although the event was closer to Earth than most gamma-ray bursts that have been detected, the radiation would have posed no danger. Once it reached our planet, the energy would have been absorbed by our atmosphere.

Several months ago, observations from the Hubble Space Telescope appeared to show a distant collision between two neutron stars—the remnants of massive supernovae.

Astronomers suggest that such collisions are responsible for ultra-short bursts of gamma rays occasionally seen across the Universe. The rare cosmic event could produce heavy elements such as gold. Neutron stars are incredibly dense and massive. As well as bursts of light, when they collide they are also expected to send gravity shock waves through the Universe.

Although uncommon, neutron star collisions would generate the enormous fluxes of neutrons needed to make elements heavier than iron, like platinum, lead and gold, by rapid neutron capture.

At some point in the Earth's history, we were probably irradiated by a gamma-ray burst, and it will happen again in the future. If a similar explosion happened closer to home, within a distance of 1,000 light years, it could damage the ozone layer, with devastating consequences for life on Earth.

Fascinating, but the circumstances are out of our control. What I take from this is that there's a reason why gold and platinum are so precious. Giant superstars gave up their life to produce these prized metals. From now on, I will regard my golden wedding band with more reverence and awe—not only does it represent a union made before God, but the metal has been forged by a supernova.

This sense of awe spills over into all my novels that feature a star moonstone ring, set in pure gold. Both the gold and the stone were created from materials made during the original big bang at the beginning of time.

Two news items that make me feel small in the grand scheme today.

The first is about how mankind evolved and moved around our planet. DNA from a 4 year-old Syberian boy who died in south-central Siberia 24,000 years ago, link him to the origins of Native Americans, whose ancestors crossed from Siberia into the New World during the last Ice Age. Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen said native Americans are composed of the meeting of two populations - an East Asian group and these Mal'ta west Eurasian populations.

The burial of an Upper Palaeolithic Siberian boy was discovered along with numerous artifacts, one of which was a Venus figurine, in the 1920s by Russian archaeologists near the village of Mal'ta, along the Belaya river. Apparently, these Venus figurines are found all the way west of this area into Europe.

Dr Willerslev and a colleague obtained a sample from the boy's arm bone, extracted DNA and compared it with that of present-day populations. "When we sequenced this genome, something strange appeared," he explained. "Parts of the genome you find today in western Eurasians, other parts of the genome you find today in Native Americans - and are unique today to Native Americans."

The most puzzling part was the genones showed no link with the East Asian populations such as the Chinese, Japanese or Koreans.

The other story is about the planet Mars. Scientists believe a rock discovered in the Sahara Desert is the oldest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth. New tests indicate the rock dates to 4.4 billion years ago. The dark and glossy meteorite, nicknamed Black Beauty, would have formed when the Red Planet was in its infancy. It would have been created during a turbulent period of Martian history, when volcanoes were erupting all over the surface.

All that history about the formation of planets is hard to take in. Earth is such a tiny part of the cosmos. Here on our world, life has evolved to make the human race the most powerful of all the species. In charge of the day-to-day running, eliminating animals and insects we don't consider important, clearing forests, using rivers and seas for our dumping grounds, and, in our greed, using the land for our own purpose without considering other life forms that inhabit the earth with us. What have we done?