I was going to write a blog post. It was going to be full of the normal New Year roundups – how many books I read last year. How many I didn’t buy; Hooray! for the library. How many I actually bought anyway. It would have been fascinating, incisive, obviously witty, full of smart things to…
Greetings, gorgeous ones. How has your week been? I’ve been visited by the Lady Covidia; throat scarred with razor blades, mind numbing fatigue and muscle aches that have left me winded. After a long weekend in bed, I was feeling if not better then less ill, but then my sense of taste disappeared, I felt…
Bore da Chickens, I know you weren’t expecting to hear from me today after all the drama about my flaps (really, that joke never gets old). I could get badges made, ‘Ask me about my Flaps!’ You know how I might have mentioned I’d written a book? You know the one with the fabulous…
Bore da, my lovelies. Did I mention I was writing a book? Funny, it must have slipped my mind... Well, the day is finally here, and I can reveal the cover and title of my new book. I am so excited to share it with you guys first. I can’t tell you how much I…
Today is M.E Awareness Day I’ve forgotten that I am sick. Well, I say I’ve forgotten, but that’s not entirely true. I know it’s there. I can feel it in the shaking of my limbs, in the burning of my bones, the stumbling on the stairs. So no, it’s not that I’ve forgotten. It’s more…
What are you reading my lovelies? Continuing to share books and writers I love, let me introduce the wonderful Vik Bennett and her memoir. I loved this book so much, an exploration of grief and motherhood and the making of something wild and magical to heal and grow. More than a book about gardening, this…
I am a sick and disabled woman and I am dependent on disability benefits. I will not justify why I receive PIP. I will not explain to you the expenditure that I incur as a direct result of my chronic ill health. I will not list the things I have to spend more money on…
The dog and I are wintering. Well, I am, the dog is being a dick but more on that another day. I am embracing the season and have slipped from the winter festivities into the warming embrace of hibernation. My health, always declining in the darker days like some Victorian invalid, requires this time of…
Brightest blessings for the season. Mid-winter is, for me, the perfect pause, a chance to rest and recharge. This year, struggling with my health, I’ve rested for the whole of December, getting writing work squared away so I can make time for nourishment, - a little yoga, a little knitting, - readying myself for…
The end of summer came down with the heavens, washing out the beaten path across the fields, sliding me and my wheelchair out of the mud and onto the tarmac. Normally, with a few good frosts, I can eek out the last few weeks of freedom until mid-October, but this year the kids had barely…
So, Rishi Sunak wants sick and disabled people back to work with the age-old diatribe of how benefits have become a ‘lifestyle choice’ for some people. If the Conservatives win the next election they plan to strip benefits from some sick and disabled people if they have failed to get work after a year. I’ll…
In a recent magazine article a woman was explaining that she'd been struggling with life. A difficult pregnancy while already having a toddler, she'd been working freelance from home, when the little one slept. Then new baby came along and feeding was hard and she had to go back to work early because they were…
The dog is doing my head in. I should change the title of the whole blog to ‘The Dog is doing my head in,’ think of the precious seconds I could save typing it out each week. We’re at the thieving little shite stage, with an extra helping of, ‘Why yes I would love to…
It's that time of year again. I can barely contain my excitement. My mind working overtime to come up with this years plan. I wrote to you last year about 30 days of giving. Don’t tell me you don’t remember! ‘The idea is to give a gift to someone every day for 30 days. 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…
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.…
showing off sock knitting for Socktober
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
Bordering Grey 