Sunday 23 December 2018

Merry Christmas...

'Deck the walls and floors with frosting...'

'Tis the season, after all.


Pics 1 &2 are the obligatory Christmas #soblessed shots. 'Christmas Cookies With Kiddiwinks.'




Nice, eh? Soooo Christmassy! (Ho-ho-ho!)

Okay, now take a nice long look at pics 3 through to 5, (or 'Kitchen Armageddon' as I've privately labeled this selection of images.) Observe the alarming wreckage of flour, icing sugar, silver balls, sticky goop, and miscellaneous baking detritus adorning each and every surface of our 'heart of the home'...





('Ooh, it'll all end in tears!' Yes. It did. Mine! But that's another story.)

Note how there are no pics of me or the kids. They were tearing about the house on a sugar-fuelled rampage, terrifying the cats with their euphoric ear-splitting shrieks of merriment. Mummy, meanwhile, was wide-eyed and trembling, muttering to herself as she scraped down the walls and doors, occasionally pausing to take a crafty swig of her cold, whiskey-laced tea. 

Yes, #MakingMemories can be a really mucky, messy business but I wouldn't have it any other way. Honest! :D


Thursday 22 November 2018

Thanksgiving 2018...

... With love and best wishes to all my friends over at the other side of the pond.


Saturday 10 November 2018

Aftermath...


'Have you forgotten yet?
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget...'

Siegfried Sassoon - Aftermath


Wednesday 19 September 2018

Of cuddles and conkers...

On a rather breezy(!) autumnal day, in between writing sprints, there's always time for a cuddle or ten...

I love you, Mama!
No, I REALLY do love you, Mama!
Sir Fleur shows off today's conker haul.

Wednesday 8 August 2018

Guess what?

Today, I found ANOTHER A5 pad full of book five scribblings. Nope, I'm not kidding. I only wish I was. 

Tomorrow will be another long, hard day strapped to the keyboard, I guess. 

Headache? Sore wrists? No. Not at all! I'm doing grand, really. 

Will book five be worth all the pain? Oh, YES!!! Just you wait and see. :)

Tuesday 7 August 2018

Book five update...

That moment when you believe you've almost got the book five edits all nailed down, but then you realize that 'The End' hasn't actually been transcribed to the computer yet.

It was hiding itself away in an A5 notepad...

A very FULL A5 notepad full of lots of scribbly writing. *sob* That's all my plans for tomorrow out of the window, then.

Good job the kids are still away with my mum. 

Saturday 4 August 2018

Feeling groovy!


A picture of some of the many flowers I received on my birthday. Still going strong and smelling great, inspiring me to keep on keeping on with my edits. 

Another hundred pages down, just another hundred - or so - to go. My eyes are burning and my head is p-p-pounding, but I don't care. I'm having a lovely time with 'ma boys'. Book five is cleaning up beautifully.

(Not sure the same can be said for book four. Let's wait and see what my brave betas gave to say first!) 

Friday 29 June 2018

An update on book four...

You may have noticed that I haven't been about much in Interweb Land lately. 

This is because I'm trying to wrap up the 'Traveler' series before the end of summer. Book four - which is STILL nameless - has just been sent to its first beta reader, leaving me free to commence beating and pruning the 120k words of book five  - which DOES have a name - into some kind of decent order. 

So that's where I'm at right now. 

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

x

Tuesday 15 May 2018

GDPR? Say WHAT?!*

Great Dane's Pose Regally?

Green Dogs Poop Ratchets?

Nope. 

'GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, goes into effect on May 25, 2018, in the European Union and regulates how EU personal data can be collected, used, and processed...'

So in accordance with these new regulations, and to avoid a hefty fine, I've had to contact all of my newsletter subscribers with one of these standard forms...


So if you are one of my newsletter pals and you still want to hear from me every once in a while, then PLEASE click on the big blue 'update settings' button. 

If I haven't heard back from you by the 25th of this month I'll be forced to remove your name from my list. I'd hate to lose you, but the law IS the law. 

Saturday 12 May 2018

For all our mums...



For all our mums (female, male, biological or otherwise) from all of your kids (be they human or fur-babies). <3 

#allflavors #allsorts #loveismum

Thursday 5 April 2018

Of Smugglers, Fossils, and Chocolate Eggs...

Hello, lovelies. Who wants to hear a bit about our Easter getaway? You do? Marvellous!

Situated on Yorkshire's east coast, the little town of Robin Hood’s Bay was once the busiest smuggling community on the whole of the Yorkshire coast. Nowadays,  it's a haven for day-trippers, all keen to wander the warren of narrow - almost vertical at times! - cobbled streets, and to peer in at the windows of the quaint higgledy-piggledy houses.

As you wander around town, it's easy to imagine the furtive comings and goings of shadowy figures of men, women, and children hurrying back from the shore, their arms laden with contraband. You can almost hear the rumbling carts piled high with the finest lace and silks; casks of brandy; gin; tea; tobacco. Items destined to be sold on the flourishing black market.



Back in mists of time, Baytown (as RHB was once known) was an inaccessible, inhospitable sort of place and pretty much the entire town - rich and poor alike - were involved in the smuggling trade.

Thankfully, we didn't spot any smugglers during our stay, but because Robin Hood's Bay sits on Yorkshire's Jurassic coast, we did find lots of fossils as we wandered the beach at low tide. Sure, it was bitterly cold, and the walk to Boggle Hole was extremely muddy, but we had a wonderful time, culminating with an indoor chocolate egg hunt on Easter Sunday. 

#makingmemories? We sure did! 


Sunday 18 March 2018

Old Friends...

I came across these little beauties earlier on while I was cruising through ebay land. Aren't they precious?

This, my dears, is where my writing journey began, way (way!)back in time in the 1970s. These gorgeous little books are still as familiar to me as my own reflection. Wish I still had my set. 



Wednesday 14 March 2018

The Loss of a Giant...




“The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.”

Well, you can go anywhere you want now, Professor. Go on. Fly free. Enjoy all those lovely stars! 💫💫💫

Monday 26 February 2018

Pinterest Procrastination....


Swing on over to my Pinterest page and say hello to some old (and new) friends!

What do you reckon? Do they look anything like you imagined?


Thursday 1 February 2018

The Secret to Writing. . .

This is such a good blog post. It really resonated with me. If you want to know the secret to writing a book/ short story/ blog post, you need look no further than these three simple steps:


1) Place butt on chair. 

2) Place fingers on writing apparatus. 

3) Write words. 

And that's it! Easy-peasy, right? 

(For a more in depth explanation, please click on the purple link.)


Wednesday 31 January 2018

Fancy a Freebie?

Just checking in to say hello. Hope you're all fit and feisty? 

It seems that Erde still hasn't quite finished with me, and I've now resorted to good old fashioned pen and paper in order to reach The End a little bit sooner. 

A side effect of my writing longhand is that I've now developed an almost insatiable reading habit. Every spare moment I get, I'm gorging myself on some of the 600+ books currently on my Kindle. (Chain-snorting novels, I call it!)

Has this stopped me downloading more reading matter? Has it heck as like! 

Here's my latest acquisition. 'A Slip in Time' by Kathleen Kirkwood. Even better, it's currently FREE on Amazon. Go check it out. <3 



Tuesday 30 January 2018

Don't Mind If I Do!

Mummy's not the only one in this house who enjoys the 'occasional' tipple!

C'mon. Stop taking pictures and just open the flippin' bottle!

Ooooh! Go on, then. Just a small one!

Sunday 7 January 2018

Trumpet Tooting Time...

It gives me great pleasure to announce that, following a brief and rather dismal dalliance with Kindle Unlimited, my 'Tales of a Traveler' serial is now available from all good online retailers again. (Hu-bloomin'-rrah! )

As a sweetener, you can download the first book ('Hemlock') for absolutely FREE.






Amazon
Everywhere else!

Warning! Please steer clear if cliffie endings make you gnash your teeth.

Happy 4th of July!

Hope you all have a safe, happy, and wonderful day!