I should be writing. I mean that’s what you are here for. And I’m trying, really I am but there is only so much a woman can say before she runs out of words, right? Only Joking! Well only a bit. See, I just got distracted. I went to a training day on how to…
What new horrors face me this week, in this world where I cannot quite see everything? What new joys does menopause bring, along with a powerful urge to tell the entire world to Fuck Off or eat my body weight in Malted Milk biscuits? This week, it seems, we need to talk about hair. I’ve…
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day. A chance to celebrate the women in your life. It’s a day to celebrate all of the achievements women have made – achievements that impact us personally, historically, economically, scientifically, politically and culturally. It’s a day to look with pride at the women around us, holding up the world, to…
My husband is looking after me. This is not a new thing, he’s nice like that – that’s one of the reasons I married him. That and the fact that he came for Christmas one year and literally wouldn’t go away - six kids later I figured I was stuck with him. We were sat,…
I miss my kids. Not just as they are now -the funny, bright, annoying, boring people they have become with their busy lives, exciting plans and lives far away. I miss them, for how they used to be, when they were mine, when I held their hands and wiped away their tears. It’s not all…
I write my blog posts a few weeks in advance, so you are reading this while I am safely recovering from Gall Bladder surgery. (Or I died, in which case this might be a bit weird.) But let’s assume I’m fine and catching up on my favourite hobbies – binge-watching Pottery shows while sniggering and…
It has been bought to my attention that my recent posts have been a little snarky. Friends have messaged me asking if I am ok? (Well, I say friend, more like an acquaintance. To be honest, I consider her reading this blog more than a little bit stalky, I mean I don’t want to meet…
Insomnia strikes again. Waking at 3 am rather than my usual 4 am seems spiteful and futile. One can conceivably get up at 4 but 3 is just bloody ridiculous. I turn over and try to go back to sleep, my mind racing as I groggily scrunch up pillows and gently elbow my husband to…
I seem to be losing my marbles. Have you seen them? Do you know where they are? Answers on a whats-a-ma-call-it!
As autumn ended I lost reading. My energies, turning like the seasons, faded. I needed a little more rest, took a little longer to do things, but this is normal for me and is often a time to disappear into books, a cup of tea and a few biscuits to keep me going. This year…
The dog died at the beginning of December. There was an accident. It was quite sudden. On the Monday she was fine. On the Thursday she died. I am heartbroken. Now over the initial shock of it all, I am left living without a dog. There is a silence in the house, no not a…
All the fuss is over. The tree is down, and the kids are back to school. I’ve cleaned the living room – seriously how does the house get so dirty? And how do you not really notice it until you start to clean and then all you can see is filth? Sorry I digress. It…
I’m not a New Year’s Resolution kinda woman. I used to be. I can still feel the distant call of the ‘I must lose 100LBs this year,’ but I silence it with another Ferro Roche. Some years I hear the distant thrum of ‘I should do more exercise,’ or the pull of ‘I’ll swim the…
Don't be missing from your family Photo's.
Sharing my love of Christmas TV
The fairy lights are on, there’s hot chocolate in my mug, a tin of roses on the sofa and Lebkuchen sitting daintily on a Christmas plate – with breakfast sorted it’s time to turn on a Christmas movie. Most of the year my early mornings take on a slightly different vibe, - walking the dog,…
Something about this time of year lends itself to exclamations – or is that just me? It is time to make the Christmas cake!!!! Facebook memories tells me I’m behind the curve, - in 2018 apparently, I’d time to crystalise oranges and lemons to make homemade German Lebkuchen. To be fair they were magnificent Lebkuchen…
I treated myself to one of those beauty advents boxes. In true working-class fashion, I need to tell you that I had a voucher, and there was a deal, so it hardly cost a thing – why do we do that? If someone compliments my dress I have to tell them that I got it…
Oh, my days, I am so excited! It’s begun! It started yesterday! Oh, I can’t tell you how excited I am! (I know that’s a lot of exclamation marks, but this is exciting!!!!!!!!!) I look forward to this every year. Planning as the summer ends, by now I have reached a fever pitch of giddiness.…
The one where I can't write for the tunes in my head.
The one where I forget to write a blog.
showing off sock knitting for Socktober
It is time to put the garden to bed. The tomatoes are in. The kitchen drawers are full of them, glistening green with a banana sat on top, to ripen in the darkness. I’ll make more tomato sauce for the freezer, as soon as they are done. I used to make green tomato chutney, the…
I have stopped following the news. I feel guilty for this, embarrassed to tell you. Being an informed member of society is an essential part of democracy, particularly with the shitshow that is currently in power. How can we know what’s going on – the bigger picture, the world events, if we don’t follow the…
I don’t know when I lost my voice. Loud and brash in my twenties, I would stand my own with all comers. Was it a life running after kids that quietened me? Certainly, four kept me busy. Then my mother-in-law died and, leaving two adopted kids with profound multiple disabilities, her two joined ours to…
My friend just got a new puppy. She’s adorable, seriously bouncy, a bit nippy and struggling with bladder control – the puppy is cute too. There is nothing like bringing a new dog into your home, be it a puppy or a rescue. We’ve always had rescue dogs, adopting them when they were just hitting…
My bras have turned against me. All at once, as if they’d set a date, they have decided to pop their seams and send sharp spiky wires jabbing into the tenderest parts of my flesh. My draw is full of bras with escaping wires, ones I keep meaning to mend. The fix, sewing soft felt…
I often think about death. Well not often, but I do think about it. Not so much my impending mortality, the brevity of our short lives, nothing quite so highbrow. More along the lines of embarrassing deaths and how to avoid them. Is that weird? There are the obvious ones – dying on the toilet,…
Imposter syndrome is alive and kicking. Sat there in the crook of my arm, right next to the dog. It sneers as I sit here on the sofa, trying to type. ‘A real writer would have a desk,’ it whispers, ‘or a shed, or a table. A real writer would have a room of one’s…
My husband is doing my head in. Not in a ‘I need to lay a new patio’ kinda way. Nor in ‘I need to look for one bedroom flats’ though the latter is certainly appealing. I should point out for fairness and balance that my husband is a lovely bloke – kind and supportive, a…
Consider this your tomato update. I planted too many. I know right, who knew? But I tried this time, I really did. The three I planted in the raised bed by the back door were perfectly spaced when they were little. But then they grew. Do you know how to grow tomatoes? You pinch off…
I have a terrible confession. I mean, I don’t think it’s terrible, but the way people react you think I’d shoved a cat in a bin or something. And it’s not like my thing, this thing I’m confessing, really impacts anyone else. It’s not particularly weird or gross. I don’t think it is even that…
Image chosen by my Grandson, pointing out that we need to hurry so we can play another game. I used to really admire stories of women who’d get up at 5 am, before their kids woke, to write their novel - banging out 2000 words before breakfast or staying up into the wee hours to…
Do your kids have pets? Over the years we’ve had a whole bloody menagerie. There were several Hamsters, though my daughter thought we only had one – We also had three cats so I will let you work it out. One time, on an early morning dash back from the pet store with a replacement…
I’m going on holiday. Two weeks away, first staying with the grandsons and their mum and dad, then a week with just hubby and me. It’s only our second holiday away without children. The first one was in lockdown, and it was cancelled. I need to pack. I hate packing. I never know how much…
The lingering effects of Covid are curtailing are usual culinary delights. We are too tired to cook - eating pilchard on toast and a lot of jacket potatoes. Researching for my next novel, I’ve been struck by mentions of food and shopping from the 50s and 60s Rationing was in place until 1954 and food…
It has happened again. I swear to god, this is the last straw. Never mind insomnia, mood swings, the midlife spreading in places I didn’t think I could spread any further, this -THIS- has tipped me over the edge. What, I hear you say? You always do this – make these grand announcements and then…
I, like many, stand horrified at the overturning of Roe versus Wade in America last week, seeing abortion made illegal in many US States. This appalling act sees the rights of women everywhere undermined, and their lives made second best. I don’t care why a woman needs an abortion. For me, this is not about…
Sunrise over Treown The cool grey light of 4 am seeps beneath bedroom curtains. No matter how I straighten them the night before - battening down the hatches, blocking out the light - by morning cracks have appeared and sunlight pierces the room, refracting into rainbows. This morning I rise before the sun, before even…
According to the Internet, the average person in the UK reads ten books a year. This figure is inflated by those of us that read a lot, so the figure is more like four or five books a year, with just under half of all UK adults not reading books at all. I read a…
I am a writer of lists My life could be measured in my to-do lists, their contents varying depending on the stage of my life. Early lists might have included Do Homework Try not to argue with sister STOP BITING NAILS Find missing library books Early motherhood saw lists as the only way to function…
Well, the tomatoes are out! Phew, I hear you gasp – I know you’ve been worried about their progress. Covid is still lingering like a teenager hoping to cadge a tenner when they already owe you twenty. We cannot seem to shift it. The tomatoes slipped way down the list of things to do. Barely…
Sewing Bee is back! Do you watch it? Not just a program for sewers, it is one of those comfort programs you can watch nestled up on the sofa with a cuppa and a biscuit. I sew. I’ve sewn for years. When ill health trapped me at home on the sofa I needed something to…
Warning: This post is about grief and child-loss. It is the anniversary of my lads’ death, the scent of May blossom lingering in the air. I lost two of my children, within five years of each other - one age16 and the other 24. They were both adopted, which doesn’t make any difference, though a…
Bore da! Sut wyt ti? I have been learning Welsh. I’d wanted to for years, I live in Wales, after all. With courses moved to Zoom over lockdown and the course being half price – I could never afford the original £90, I am now dysgu Cymraeg. Learning a new language is challenging for everyone…
3.48 am. I am incandescent with rage. No that’s not right. I’m too tired for incandescent, more a dark glowing ember, burning slowly, threatening to set fire to the bedsheets. What is going on, I hear you ask? Are you ok? Well, no! I’m not ok! My husband, the gentle, chilled out man who…
World book night is here! Whatcha reading? There are loads of really fabulous books on the book list, from some fantastic authors. But, as ever I am freestyling and so tonight, when I curl up under a throw with a cuppa and maybe something sweet to nibble on - I've said it once I will…
No words- just a photo I've taken that speaks of my week
I am looking for a book, I wonder if you can help? It was my favourite read as a kid, repeatedly borrowed from the library, and read cover to cover. I’ve been searching for this book for years. On the cover was a black cat, possibly a girl, by some water with a dark Victorian…
Wordless Wednesdays
Seasonal Illness Stickers by Michele Bruttomesso is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 I came home from London with covid. It has not been the one where people say it was just like a bad cold and didn’t stop them doing much – a weird combination of bragging about the strength of their immune system, combined with…
Star Trek Communicator Badge (badge) by Unknown maker is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 Today is National Caramel Day. – I don’t know where? Everywhere, I guess? Are you prepared? Do you have a box of caramels, robed in chocolate, soft and sticky enough to rip a filling out? Are you planning on making caramel sauce…
Sunrise over Newtown I am writing this at 7.30 on Sunday night and it is still light. In the garden I can hear a chorus of blackbirds serenading the setting sun. On the distant hills a kite calls, underpinned by the thud, thud, thud of some distant party beat. The clocks have sprung forward. Spring…
I’ve been thinking about school dinners today. I think we’re divided into those who loved school dinners and those who did not. I loved my school dinners. A hungry child, I loved the smell of cooking wafting up the hallways after break. The scent of puddings baking, dinners roasting, was almost too much to bear…
Seed sowing and tomato obsessions.
Why I celebrate international women’s day. I’ve always celebrated International women’s day – today 8th March. I worked in a women’s refuge in my late teens, and it taught me the solidarity of women and the difficulties many of us face. International women’s day has always been a time to celebrate, always been a time…
I once said to Michael Sheen - you don’t get to say that very often, do you? I once said to Michael Sheen that saying you wanted to be a writer when I was growing up was like saying you wanted to be an astronaut. For a girl, growing up in the relentless poverty of…
I am writing this in bed today, not well enough to get up and like everyone else I am watching the news showing the horror of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. My heart breaks for the people of Ukraine, who are now living through a reality many of us can’t imagine. Last weekend, they were…
Remember me going on about winning A Writing Chance Award with New Writing North and the very lovely Michael Sheen ? No? Well you cant have been listening! Back in the summer I won a place on a writing program for underrepresented writers and this weekend we are all heading off to the BBC in…
Do you write? Are you a writer? Obviously, I do because I never stop bloody going on about it. It’s a weird thing writing, a weird passion. And that’s what it is for most of us – a passion, an obsession. Not an anguished struggle – well it's that’s as well. It’s certainly not something…
There is a silent but deadly war occurring in my garden. Provisions have been procured, barricades have been built and blockades are at the ready. What is this new global terror I hear you ask? What is the unending conflict? I am at war with the neighbourhood cats. I should point out here that I…
Talking and not talking about menopause
I meet her down the bottom of the alley. Litter needs picking again. She’s off to get her paper, leaning on her stick, dodging curled lottery tickets and discarded masks. She’s a bit Daily Mail, if you know what I mean but she’s always out in her garden. Her roses are stunning, not a black…
I have become a writing bore. Of course, I was boring before writing, I’ve just changed the subject. All I can talk about is writing, and the novel, oh and name-dropping Michael Sheen at the snarky woman who said she was glad they had special writing awards for ‘people like me.’ The lovely people in…
Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com I learnt to cook in the library. Not literally but the library has been there for all of the major developments in my life and by my late teens, a mum with no money it was natural to learn to cook, borrowing a new book each month. Turkish, French,…
In spring 2021, in an uncharacteristic moment of bravery, I decided to practice getting rejection letters for my writing. hands trembling I hit send and entered my first writing competition. In all honesty, I didn’t read much about the prize, there was a bursary, the chance to work with a mentor to develop your writing,…
I'm not beautiful despite being fat. I am beautiful. Full stop. I choose being beautiful as a radical act of resistance.
I have been thinking of her today, here’s how I remember her. She holds herself upright, a head teacher used to being listened to, though that authority long since diminished by age and circumstance. She is a ‘fat old lady’ now, her words not mine. She doesn’t take ‘fat’ as an insult, more of an…
I am writing this sat in the early morning dark, my favourite time to write. The room is lit by just the Christmas tree lights and the ghostly glow of the laptop turned down low. Today is the Solstice, the turning of the year when the reign of darkness is at its peak before the…
I volunteer to phone old ladies. Not randomly, I don’t just dial any old number and ask ‘Are you an old lady? Right, off we go?’ I phone, once a week for an hour, and chat to those in our communities who are isolated at home. It’s a bit weird at first. I’m a bit…
Remembering the summer. My grandson came to stay. Him, the new baby, my son, and daughter-in-law. They live six hours away. It’s been two and half years since they visited last. Different countries, different lockdown rules. All just trying to do our best. I hold onto my son as he walks through the door like…
A is for not following the instructions. B is for basting and other boring activities. Or maybe that should be D for discipline? A quilt is made of three layers: the top is the pretty bit, the middle is the filling or wadding – normally wool or polyester, the backing is more, slightly less pretty…
It was me. I stole all the tomatoes. Well, I didn’t steal them but while you were all panic buying loo roll and chocolate digestives I, in a covid-induced stupor, ordered tomato seeds. Do you garden? Were you one of the new recruits keen to make use of time on your hands, becoming self-sufficient on…
My daughter calls. Not for a chat. Well, no. We chat. But it’s not like chatting when ‘Strictly’ is on and we like Aj’s dress or how utterly fabulous team JoJo are. It's not just hanging out on the phone, catching up. This call has an altogether different purpose. It always starts the same. “Hi…
Photo by Armando Are on Pexels.com We have this myth that our kids are grownups at 18. This is a myth mostly perpetuated by 18-year-old who think they know everything, and possibly by the parents of young children who are desperately clinging to the idea of a little light at the end of a very…
I have offended the local drug dealers. Not in a ‘my house is going to get torched and I’m in hiding, fearing for my life ’kind of way. Or at least I hope not. More that they don’t say ‘good morning’ to me anymore. Before, they would all greet me when they saw me out…
The river is resplendent in the colours of the season. Oak leaves turn biscuit brown, the Gelder Rose a dark lipstick pink, deepens to vermillion. Field Maples litter leaves the colour of sunshine, while Lime, leaves limp like hankies, drip to the floor. The Willow, luxuriating in a great unrobing, scatters its leaves across the…
Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Pexels.com ‘What time is it really?’ The dog and I stalk around the house trying to work it out, the shifting of the clocks having discombobulated us both. With our precise internal clocks, we are tipped off-kilter for the whole of November, trying to perform mental acrobatics to work out…
It is hard to tell you that I have six children. Not hard for me, I am used to it. But it’s hard for you. I could lie to you. Not lie, so much as not tell the truth, there is a difference. I could tell you I have four children and we will laugh…
I felt bad. Trouble was I should’ve felt much worse. Which was why I felt bad. Everyone told me I was going to find the last of my duckling’s leaving home hard. And I mean, it was a bit. I’m not a monster, I shed tears. But mostly, I was just thrilled. Which is bad.…
I quilt. Bear with me, there is a point to this. I make beautiful quilts. They are quirky, unusual, stunning - ask me nicely and I’ll show you my Harry Potter bookcase quilts. I have no difficulty in calling myself a quilter, even when meeting fabulously famous quilters, whose skill I could only ever dream…
Bordering Grey 