I hear it all, nodding, my cheeks hot with the need to deny, explain, apologize, insult, beg, words that will explode like shrapnel if I open my mouth.

They must know what I am, underneath. The bewildered child who still wonders how she can be responsible for a boy in middle school, already taller than her.

Oh, AmyLiz, I love that. It captures so beautifully that bewilderment so many of us feel about "adulthood" sometimes.

I especially love that last image, of the son taller than the mother.

(Also, I am so writing a companion piece to yours, if you don't mind! I'd love to do the other side.)

(Also, I am so writing a companion piece to yours, if you don't mind! I'd love to do the other side.)

Ooh, do! That would be very cool. (And he is taller, by an inch. Not that I'm not short, of course, but still. And his feet are like small canoes.)

The bewildered child who still wonders how she can be responsible for a boy in middle school, already taller than her.

I especially like how it makes the mother look even younger than her son, with "bewildered child". It creates a picture in my mind's eye, of a girl sitting in a chair too big for her, so her feet can't reach the ground, dressed up in grown-ups clothes and high-heeled shoes, looking all lost and out-of-place, holding her purse and nodding to the teacher. All that long sentence.

And his feet are like small canoes.

Scary visual place.

deb, backsent from both addresses, as we posted about (sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - we had a network problem here yesterday, no computer agreed to talk with the outside world. But they're behaving now).

Just wanted to thank everyone for the great feedback on the last story. Confirmed many of my own suspicions and made it easier for me to fix some problems.

There's a book "The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles - The Comprehensive Guide to Over 900 Armored Fighting Vehicles From 1915 to the Present Day", General Editor: Christopher F. Foss, 2002

The only reference I can find is of the "Crusader Dozer and Crane (ROF): Used by Royal Ordnance Factory in bomb disposal."

There's a picture of a truck being used for bomb removal here: [link]

And here are the handwritten notes of a Cpl. Duckworth who did bomb removal/disposal along with pictures of bombs and such. [link]

I found a mention of armored car use in England (rather than being shipped elsewhere) during the war, but no definite word that they were used specifically for bomb removal or disposal. Armored cars were used in other countries (specific mention Africa) for bomb removal/disposal as they were thought to be superior to tanks, but the implication is that the idea of their superiority was later disproved.

And, AHAH! A land rover! [link]

Heh. Deena, the problem has been not so much finding out the vehicles used during the war itself, but rather what would have been considered appropriate usage in peacetime, in central London. Plus, it turns out that the UXB units in, say, the Home Counties, had entirely different vehicles than the London units.

I sent an email to the Royal Engineers Museum and Archive at Chatham. Hoping they get back to me soon, since I really want to start this damned thing; my editor's assistant, Toni Plummer, asked for a synopsis. Which I was able to send her, but I feel like a fraud.

The infuriating thing - Susan will understand this - is that all this is needed for one damned scene, in the prologue. The next thing that's going to require extensive looking-up and downloading are sources on the materials used in 16th century architecture.

Deb, do you find that organizations like that are generally receptive to writer inquiries?

Yeah, I hate how a tiny thing can get in the way of getting on with it. I may try again later.

eta: assuming,that is, that nothing comes of your inquiry or it takes too long.

connie, it depends on the organisation. I'd actually been referred to them, within a day of sending my original email, to the guy in charge of archives for a different branch of the British Army; he got back to me at once, gave me the name and email to contact, and warned me that they're sometimes slow in response.

Deb-I thought you'd like to know that when I popped onto amazon today to check something, it recommending four books that it thought I might like...and one of them was Famous Flower! I just thought that was pretty cool considering I don't use the buffista link or anything.