It has been just over a week now since my last confession and it has been one that has yielded mixed results. Like our esteemed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who has made 5 pledges aimed at improving the health of the nation, I chose 5 aimed at improving my own. I have no clue as […]
Game set and match!
First service Tie break This morning I awoke to find myself on the potential cusp of a whole new start. Not that there haven’t been many other occasions when I have made this exact same proclamation only for my good intentions to evaporate into the ether usually by lunchtime on the same day. […]
A Mexican adventure in honour of Leyla Mae Bell
Leyla Mae Bell, our beautiful granddaughter sadly lost her fight for life in January 2023. She slipped away quietly in the arms of her doting parents who, just like their daughter, demonstrated feats of strength and resilience normally regarded to be beyond the scope of most people. I wrote about the brave battle […]
Leyla- the baby with a broken heart
I thought I knew and understood heartbreak. After all, you can not write a book with a title such as The Funny Thing About Being a Widow? unless you possess a hard-earned degree in devastation. Though I truly believed after losing my husband that my heart had broken beyond repair, the resilient, hard-working organ in […]
Dating After Decades
I had the very great pleasure recently of being interviewed by Kathleen Pickrel from Tucson in Arizona to talk to her about my book The Funny Thing About Being a Widow? In the book, one of the topics I cover is dating again after the loss of a spouse or partner and how that has […]
When springs are bustin’ out all over?
The above is a photograph of what until very recently was my permanent place of residence, and after performing above and beyond for almost two years my lockdown chair not unreasonably called time on its relationship with my bottom. I knew that this parting of the ways was both inevitable and necessary at some point, […]
The climate of change
I wrote the following piece around 2007 just as the so-called credit crunch began to bite. I can’t recall why, or even who I wrote it for but its re-emergence today caused me to stop and think how easy it is sometimes not to see the wood for the trees Whilst I knew about climate […]
The things that shape you…apart from donuts
‘Success comes not to extraordinary people but to ordinary people who achieve extraordinary things’ It had been thirty-odd years since those words penned in pale blue biro had seen the light of day, and now that they had, they prompted both a smile and the return of memories from a very different era. The death […]
The Labrador Chronicles – Part 2
Oookay puppy lovers…I managed to get my mum to allow me to provide you all with the latest lab report regarding my progress, right here on her blog. I am pleased to say that my broken leg has healed nicely which means, I have been able to start getting out and about to explore the […]
The chocolate Labrador chronicles
Ooookay puppy lovers…my name is Wispa. I am 12 weeks old and standing in for my mum today here on her blog. As you can see I am pretty flippin’ cute and though I say it myself my dribble is much more entertaining than my mum’s dribble. Keep that one under your puppy training pads […]