Thermotaxis

Thermotaxis is the regulation of heat in warm-blooded animals.

When it's hot, I like to cool down in the sea. Does that make me thermotaxic? I'm not a good swimmer, but in the UK that doesn't matter as the sea is generally so cold that a quick paddle is more than enough to do the job.

A thermotactic reaction is movement in a living organism as a response to temperature. If you watch a litter of puppies or piglets, you'll see that if it's warm they spread out more. When the temperature drops, they snuggle up together.

Tidemark

My dictionary gives three definitions for the word tidemark. 

It can be the line on a beach at the high water point, the scummy ring around the bath at the level the water reached, or a line on a person's body revealing they didn't have a bath and just washed the bits they thought would show.

I'd like to suggest a fourth – the patterns left on sand as the tide recedes. Don't you think this tidemark is beautiful?

Hydromania

Hydromania is a craving or passion for water. 

I'm not sure my wish to be on a beach qualifies as hydromania, but I would quite like to be somewhere sunny and sandy, with gentle waves rippling on to the shore and gulls wheeling overhead...

Matins

Matins, which may also be written as martins, is a service of morning Christian prayer. Or it may be a night 'office of prayer', but it can also happen at daybreak or in the evening. There, aren't you glad I cleared that up for you?

Matins (or mattins) is both the singular and the plural, so at least that's simple.

You may recall me moaning about poets getting an extra definition for the word bedew (no reason you should remember, but you might). They're at it again with matins as they can use it to describe birdsong. Only in the morning though.

Bedew

According to my dictionary, to bedew means to cover with dew or sprinkle with drops of water. That part seems fair enough, but it goes on to state that poets can also use the word to mean sprinkle with tears.

Does it seem fair to you that a poet's characters' cheek may be be bedewed with tears but mine may not?

No, I didn't think so. Oh well, sometimes life isn't fair, so I'll confine all my bedewing to that involving unsalted water.

Conflate

To conflate is to blend or fuse together two sets of information – usually texts. When Rosemary J Kind and I worked on our joint book, she conflated her contribution with mine. The resulting conflation is From Story Idea to Reader.

Gadabout

A gadabout is a person who gads about. Obvious when you think about it, isn't it? Well, that's unless you're not entirely sure what gadding about involves. Fortunately I'm a gadabout myself (even when writing my books) and therefore able to enlighten you.

To gad is to go about in search of pleasure, or idle wandering and adventure. A person doing this can be said to be 'on the gad'. I have gadded on numerous occasions.

After writing it in all it's forms, I'm no longer sure I like the word gadabout and would rather you thought of me as the travelling writer.

Undertow

An undertow is a current, below the surface of the sea, which is moving in a different direction to that of the surface current.

Today is our fith wedding anniversary – and the sixth anniversary of the day Gary proposed to me at sea. It happened just about here.

Feel free to complain about that news not being current, or suggest I've had him under tow ever since.

Family

There are several definitions of the word family. It can be used to describe all the languages derived from the same earlier language, a group of objects distinguished by common features, and a group of related genera in an order or taxonomic collection (the daisy family, cat family etc).

The most common and familiar use though is for a group of people. That's the meaning I had in mind for my set of family themed short story collections. The latest* of these, Can't Choose Your Family, is available now. For this week, the kindle version is on sale for 99p (or 99c). Usual price will be £1.99 ($2.99)

In order to define family, my dictionary starts off by mentioning parents and their children, but families come in a huge variety of combinations. There may be one parent, or none. Perhaps it's step-parents, or grandparents who raise the children. Maybe there aren't any children. I feel that a family can be any group of people related by birth or marriage, or possibly even by circumstance.

* No Family Secrets was the first. Does that make it a big sister to the second one?