I am annoyed. We could change the name of the blog to I AM ANNOYED, as I’m pretty much always annoyed, but that would be really annoying, as ANNOYED is one of the words I struggle to spell. Mind, so is the word RESISTANCE, and I put that in my book title. So, I’m annoyed.…
30 Days of Giving begins today! If you remember, I give a gift a day to make the run up to the Solstice. You can read more about it here https://borderinggrey.com/2023/11/21/30-days-of-giving/ Despite my love of giving, I am not good at receiving gifts. When faced with gifts (and that language says it all), when faced…
Despite what others might say, I am not a collector. I mean, you casually say that you like teapots and suddenly, every birthday and Christmas, it’s a teapot! Pink tea pots, red tea pots, vintage 70s matching tea and coffee pots. There was even an exquisite early 20th-century suffragette teapot, which, by the way, I…
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…
I have flaps! (Oi! You in the back, get your mind out of the gutter! ) Have I mentioned that I’ve written a book? No? I’m sure I have. Is there something wrong with your memory? Do you need to see someone? What is the name of the current Queen? What year is it? For…
Do you ever feel like you are doing life wrong? Like you should be doing loads of stuff, but instead you are quietly just doing you? July started with a much-anticipated trip to Barry in South Wales. There to perform an extract of my work for Folding Rock magazine, I took the chance to catch…
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…
I’ve fallen down another hole on Instagram. I’ve been learning how to get dressed. I’m aware some of you have seen me wearing clothes before. I do know how to get dressed, though, to be fair, it was fairly recent that I learned the label in your knickers goes on the left, meaning you never…
I’ve lost my reading classes, so if this post has more than the usual number of spilling mistakes you’ll know why. The last time I remember having them, I was squinting through one lens attempting to dye my eyebrows, the other half of the glasses balanced on my head, all skew-whiff. I’d look where I’d…
I’ve been thinking about words. I write, so words literally fill my world. In English, we have an average vocabulary of between 20,000 and 40,000 words. (You know I am competitive so you can absolutely bet that I went online and did a test to measure my vocabulary.) The measure of our vocabulary is…
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…
I’m struggling to read. I don’t know if it’s all the writing wearing out my eyes, or my brain sinking into a stupor, but after a morning writing in bed, all I want is some Disney + and my knitting. I’m missing books. The house is filled with them so it's not a lack of…
Hello! How are you? I hate that we don’t chat as much. I miss you. And I can never remember if I've written to you or not - so here goes. It’s that time of year again. It is the time of coat roulette. The summer has long gone, pumpkins and fireworks are mere wisps…
The grandson came for the summer. Three weeks with an eight-year-old. I’m still bloody exhausted, but we squeezed every bit of joy from it. We are all geeks here. It’s wall-to-wall Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, (before she-who-must-not-be-named went off the deep end). We’ve had Pokémon, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Disney, Witchy,…
‘Shall we go away for Christmas?’ the mister asks as we are sat in bed, psyching each other out over whose turn it is to get up and make more tea. For a moment I think he might have had a stroke. Does he think it is Christmas now? Dear god, is he actually planning…
My daughter says she wants me to stop writing about her. This is going to be a short-lived blog. I didn't set out to write about my kids, or my dog, or my annoying husband but, write what you know and all that, and anyway, I can’t think of anything else. The great Sue Townsend,…
This week I have been mostly scrolling Instagram. I could be writing, or cleaning my house, or talking to my husband... This is what I have learned. Do not let crazy hairdressers wax your head. I’d have thought this was a given, but it seems there is a newfangled trend for waxing lollipop sticks into…
So, I’ve written a book. Well, to be fair it's nearly two-thirds done. It's a bit like this blog, only bigger and more personal, though I’m not sure how much more personal you can get than discussing your boobs on the internet. It’s a bit weird, writing about yourself. Even though I do it every…
‘I’m off to Morrisons to collect my meds, do we need anything,’ the Mister asks? There was a time when a trip to Morrisons was all about a bottle of wine and a pizza, now it’s more likely to be a search for HRT and blood pressure pills. ‘Will you bring me something nice?’ I…
This week I discovered my new passion. My world has changed. With full on Neuro-spicy hyperfocus I'm hooked. Researching, planning, hunting down all the new kit. (Ok, I had most of it already, but a new outfit wouldnt hurt, you've got to look the part.) What is this new obsession, I hear you ask? Well,…
Oh my friggin’ God, it's still January! How the fuck can it still be January? Despite still having cupboards full of Christmas biscuits, panettone and chocolate, Christmas feels like a hundred years ago. (I feel I should apologise for still having Christmas chocolate in the house, I know I've let you all down. I’ve let…
‘Mum, you have to stop it.’ I’m being told off by my kids again. And what heinous crime am I being scolded for this week? In that post-Christmas sort-out, I stacked a load of serving dishes and offered to bring them down to my daughter on my next visit. ‘But you haven’t got any,’ I…
Oh my heart, this movie! I was a weird kid. I found other kids impossible to understand and the constant threats from parents, who wanted me to 'go outside and play,' when I was perfectly happy reading or watching old movies, was unfathamable. Weekends were spent sneaking off to the Library, having lied that I…
OK, I know I did a post about Christmas movies last year, but bear with. Christmas is all about traditions. Christmas is all about those little family rituals that make the holidays special. There’s the advent calendars, and the cakes and the mince pies and Christmas is absolutely about movies. If you missed my post…
Todays beauty tip from The Housewifes Handy Book. I wanna see you really puffing those cheeks.
Have you ever wanted to know how to address the Eldest son of an Earl? Or how to whitewash your ceiling? Or mend a wicker chair? Then I have the book for you. I am currently obsessed with News Chronicles Housewife’s Handy Book. Printed in 1930 it declares itself a ‘firm, reliable friend in every…
The dog is doing my head in. No longer happy with being a dick he is now aiming for full-on twat! At nine months he is now full of teenage angst. Having gone through the biting stage, briefly pausing for the humping stage, we are now in the ‘your-not-the-boss-of-me-stage. This mostly involves forgetting every bit…
I would like a round of applause. No really, I mean it. Stop sitting there drinking your coffee and give me a clap. A standing ovation would be nice, but I recognise we’re all busy people so, you know, a hearty congratulations will be just fine. Have you done it? I’ll be able to tell…
It is that time of year again. Not the time of year when the grass is too soggy to hold my wheelchair and I am relegated to the confines of the path, - that came a few weeks ago. (Still it helps me avoid the dog-walking mafia.) No, I am talking about apple season. This…
It's my blog-aversary and coincidentally this is my 100th post. Two whole years writing to you, and I don’t even get a card! I told a friend that it was my blog-aversary and she looked at me sideways, ‘God, do you still have anything left to say?’ It sounds worse than how she meant it.…
*This is a work of fiction- any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental! The puppy has grown. No longer a puppy, he is a hulking teenager, trying to throw his weight around and then when tired wanting to curl up on my lap for a nap. He is now way too…
This is my last blog post for a while. I’m taking the summer off. The grandson is coming for a few weeks, and I’ve other writing I need to focus on, and books I need to read, and while I love hanging out with you on a Tuesday morning over a quickly grabbed coffee, we…
Can I just say before I get started that I adore dogs. I like dogs more than I like most people. Dogs are reliable. Dogs are loyal. Dogs are beautiful. But, it has to be said, dogs are dicks. Now before you start getting all judgemental hear me out. I am a woman who cannot live…
I am sitting writing this in the garden. Later in the evening, in the winter I’d be thinking of bed, but as we stroll towards midsummer the air is still and bright. The sky, fading to the palest blue at the very edges, is still swimming-pool-blue above me. I curse not grabbing my cardi though,…
The great knitting monstrosity is nearly complete. What is this monstrosity, I hear you ask. Surely, you Maya, the keeper of taste and refinement, are no creator of monstrosities? Well, monstrous is in the eye of the beholder and while this is a very pretty project it did kinda get away from me. It was…
Insanity has struck. Despite all of my plans, I’ve done something mad. I gave myself a good talking too, reminded myself that I was of an age, was quite emphatic that this wasn’t the time, then ignored myself and did it anyway. We got a puppy. My husband was useless. Rather than talking me down,…
Facebook is trolling me. I don’t mean anyone on Facebook, but Meta itself. It started like any other morning. Yoga finished, I decided to check in with my online world and see who was up to what. It was great to see that a friend had knitted her pubic hair into a jumper, and another…
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…
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 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!
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…
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,…
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…
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…
Bordering Grey 