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…
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…
The world feels scary right now, the threat of social division simmering, barely contained on our streets. With everything going on, I retreat to the calm of the garden to take stock. The early sweetcorn, tidied away now, was lush. The courgettes and beans were plentiful, the raspberries and tomatoes have been endless. With all…
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…
Sorry, I’m late. I seem to be snowed under, but with what I’m not sure. The truth is I’ve been feeling a little anxious. Did I mention I’ve been writing a book, that has a title and a cover and everything? No? It must have slipped your mind. Well, the book is about to go…
Can you guess what I'm saying? Ooh, I have news! Top secret news! I’m not allowed to share it with anyone, but you, dear reader, are not just anyone, so I will tell you anyway. But first, in other news, I was temporarily banned from Facebook. Do you want the long or the short version?…
The great declutter has taken on Olympian proportions as the son is down from Glasgow to empty the attic. Long-time readers will be aware of the oppression of the attic. It's not so much what's up there, though there's a lot of shite that isn’t mine, but not being able to get up there and…
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…
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,…
I am an economic migrant. I came to this country 26 years ago. Not fleeing persecution from wars, or death threats for my religion, my sexuality, or my political views, I came here simply for a better life. Because I wanted to. Leaving the poverty and greyness of my country of origin, I rushed across…
No go I wanted to travel to London. I live in Mid-Wales, not the most connected of places but this is the 21st Century so how hard could it be? The Welsh National Legend, Micheal Sheen was giving a talk about underrepresented writers at the London Book Fair and he was going to mention my…
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…
I love stories. I love to read and watch and hear all kinds of tales. I love the sway and swoosh of words, the almost-not-there creak of the turn of the page. I love the sing and dance of stories in my ear, suspended in a world that, for a moment, only I can feel.…
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…
What a real writers room looks like. Hey! How are you doing? Did you have a good holidays? The summer is over and the Autumn, after that weird little heatwave, is finally here. And with that, I am back to writing – so hello and thank you for coming back to read. I am writing…
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…
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,…
Spring is here, despite the inclement weather. With it comes the endless dance – do I need a coat or sunblock or a balaclava? Is it too hot/ too cold to put the delicate seedling out in the garden, a sigh of relief as the dining table-come-potting bench is free of clutter if only for…
I am writing this with the puppy. We have had him for a while now. He has been fed and watered. We have been outside for wee’s and poos. We have been outside again just to check. We’ve played catch and savaged a poor innocent stuffed banana and ripped the guts out of a stuffed…
Have you seen Brian, our pet dragon ? Hunting for dragons in the wilds of Wales.
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,…
The one where I forget to write a blog.
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…
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…
No words- just a photo I've taken that speaks of my week
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…
Seed sowing and tomato obsessions.
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…
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…
Bordering Grey 