Blogs
New Book
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
books, self publishing, writing
Posted date:
April 14, 2013 |
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April 14, 2013
New Book
So, with four novels under my belt, two of them published, I’m starting on the fifth. It’s always hard starting a new novel. I’m sure every writer has a different approach but in my case it happens like this: first comes the idea, sometimes it’s a dream I had, sometimes just a story that builds gradually in my mind. The characters sort of create themselves, the plot is vague. After that I live with it for a while, getting used to the story, the characters and the setting. Finally I start writing. This is the hard bit. I type the title, type “Chapter One”, then...Read More
Easter Holidays
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
Belly dance, Dance, Exercise classes, health clubs, keep fit, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arhritis, swimming, Zumba
Posted date:
April 6, 2013 |
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April 6, 2013
Easter Holidays
Easter holidays and a break from all my classes and my voluntary work at the school. A change may be as good as a rest, but, I do like my routine. I miss seeing the children on Monday lunchtime and Tuesday first thing, and I miss my usual exercise classes. I do three classes a week: Pilates on Wednesday mornings, Zumba on Thursdays and a Dance class on Fridays. Luckily the Zumba classes have still been running so I have been able to go to extra: I did three last week! I have come to exercise and dance quite late in life. Like many people I have always...Read More
“The Double Life of Jemma Langford” Now Available on Amazon Kindle
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
self publishing
Posted date:
March 30, 2013 |
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March 30, 2013
"The Double Life of
Jemma Langford"
Now Available on Amazon Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C3L8LL4#_Read More
I’m dreaming of a White Easter
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
Easter, global warming, seasons, weather
Posted date:
March 26, 2013 |
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March 26, 2013
I'm dreaming of a White Easter...
What’s happening to our weather? Here we are, the end of March, Easter in two days’ time and the temperature’s struggling to rise above zero. At least here in Somerset we’re lucky enough not to have snow, but it’s no surprise to hear that the cold air is coming from Siberia. It certainly feels like it. The jet stream, I understand, is way down in Spain, giving the Spaniards the warm, moist weather we normally have. Hard to imagine that this time last year we had one of the best springs on record, temperatures in the twenties, people getting...Read More
“Am drams”
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
acting, amateur dramatics, theatre
Posted date:
March 16, 2013 |
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March 16, 2013
Am Drams
We went to the theatre twice last week, two different theatres, two very different plays, both put on by local amateur dramatic clubs. The theatre in our county town of Taunton, The Brewhouse, has had to close due to lack of funding. Another unfortunate “sign of the times”. For the last three years the local amateur dramatic and opera groups have been unable to afford the weekly hire charge of £10,000 and have been performing in other venues like the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre in Monkton Heathfield and the Regal Theatre in Minehead. There is a campaign...Read More
“Out of Step” Kindle Version, now reviewed on Amazon
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
self publishing
Posted date:
March 11, 2013 |
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March 11, 2013
Customer Review
 Out of Step by Bethany Askew, 10 Mar 2013By
Times change and we change with them
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
"Any Human Heart", children, growing up, personality, stages in life, William Boyd
Posted date:
March 9, 2013 |
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March 9, 2013
Times change and we change with themMy son is thirty nine today. I remember the day he was born as clearly as if it was yesterday. And yet it seems to me I was such a different person then. This led me to think about whether we are indeed different people at different stages of our lives. Certainly that’s what the author William Boyd thinks, and writes about in his novel “Any Human Heart”, recently brilliantly dramatized on television. It’s not just the fact that I was thirty nine years younger when my son was born that makes me believe I was so different.... Let the children read
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
learning, reading, voluntary work
Posted date:
February 15, 2013 |
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February 15, 2013
Let the children readTwice a week I go to the local primary school and listen to the children reading. It must be about the easiest voluntary work you could wish for and so rewarding. Learning from our elders and betters
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
old people, reminiscing, residential homes
Posted date:
February 14, 2013 |
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February 14, 2013
Learning from our elders and bettersIt’s always an effort to visit an elderly relative in an old people’s home. You put it off and put it off. You know you should do it. You’ll probably be like that one day and you’ll look forward to someone coming to visit you. But you agonise over what you’re going to talk about. Little goes on in their lives after all. A lot goes on in ours, but where do you start? And if they’re deaf you have to keep repeating yourself. And the old people’s homes are all the same, full of old ladies (seldom old men), and there’s an all-pervading smell...Read More A walk with the poets
Posted by: Bethany Askew
Tags:
coleridge, Quantock hills, walking, wordsworth, writing
Posted date:
February 14, 2013 |
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February 14, 2013
A walk with the poetsWe went for a walk on the Quantocks the other day. It was a crisp clear morning, but cold, there was still snow on the ground. It lingers longer up here than in the vale of Taunton Deane. We took to talking about Coleridge and Wordsworth, of how they would have walked these very paths, of what we would think if we suddenly saw them now, walking towards us. Easy for us to see now that they were giants of literature, but if we came across them on our walk (fashions notwithstanding) we would see them as jobless layabouts, scrounging off others while they scribble...Read More |