Blogs

 

A new year just begun…

  This is the time of year we start to look back on the year that’s just past and make our resolutions for next year. Having already written, albeit a little prematurely, about what I feel I’ve achieved this year in my blog...

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Bah! Humbug!

I’ve always found Christmas a strain and every year I have a similar grumble to anyone who cares to listen: about the expense, the hassle, the busyness of the shops, the buying of unnecessary presents, the whole rigmarole actually. I’m not a religious person. Too many wars and too much strife seems to be caused by religion and when I look back in history it always seems to have been the same. So I have no religious reason to enjoy Christmas.  But the religion has long since gone out of Christmas....

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Book Review: Her by Harriet Lane

  I read this book because I had enjoyed “Alys Always” by the same author. It started well, grabbing my attention immediately and drawing me on as I wondered who the two protagonists were and what their connection was. Harriet Lane has an engaging style of writing. I felt I knew both characters immediately and the switch between the two was well executed. There were occasions, however, when I became slightly irked by the repetition: the re-telling of scenes by each person becoming unnecessary and monotonous. The descriptions, as in “Alys...

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A Sense of Achievement

I can’t believe it’s three months since I last wrote a blog. At least I have some pretty good excuses for neglecting my website: moving house, complete make-over of the new apartment, holidays, family visits and illness (a holiday in Majorca that ended up with a week in hospital!) But if my weekly blog has been neglected, my novel has been even more so. I opened the Word Document today and saw it was June when I worked on it last! I’ve had several inspirational ideas since then, but not found a moment to do anything about them and now I’m not sure where...

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Bethany Askew interviewed on 10 Radio’s “Talking Books with Suzie Grogan” about her latest projects: “Counting the Days” and <a title=""On Active Service"" href="http://www.onactiveservice.co more...

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All about Alys, Review of "Alys, Always" by Harriet Lane

You know when you start a book and you know instantly you’re going to love it? You wonder why you’ve never heard of it or the author. This was the feeling I had when I read the very first few lines. I just loved the style of writing: the first person, present tense give it an immediacy, but more importantly, the writer has that all-important asset in any writer a “voice”. Right from the start we see and hear everything that the heroine sees and hears, we can think her thoughts, we know her, yet there are things we don’t...

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I like coffee, I like tea

Can you remember a time when you asked for a cup of coffee in a café and were given just that? Maybe you had the choice of “black or white” or “hot or cold milk” if it was served separately, but nothing like the huge choice we are presented with nowadays. Even in Italy recently when I asked for “due caffe latte” we were given a hot milk with a shot of espresso in a glass. Ten years ago when I asked for the same it was a cup of black coffee with hot milk separately in a jug. Apparently that's now called a "Caffe Americano”. Is...

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"Loving the Love"

Review of “Love, etc” by Julian Barnes

  This is one of those books that sort of creeps up on you. I wasn’t sure of the style to begin with. Written as a series of internal monologues there is no real story, the reader is simply given an insight on each protagonist’s reactions to a situation which develops throughout the book. After the first two chapters though I was hooked and could scarcely put it down.  It is acutely observed, beautifully written. It made me think about love, marriage...

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Rainy Days in The Lakes

  My husband has a very convenient memory. He only remembers good times and good weather. Every year when he suggests a week in the lake District in June I remind him it always rains and every year he says “We had lovely weather last year, Look at the photographs if you don’t believe me!”  The photographs that were taken, of course, on the only two fine days of the entire week. In out twelve years of coming up to Cumbria we have stayed in various hotels and guest houses, the problem being that on wet days we confined either to our hotel...

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Settling in

I remember waking that first morning. Anthony had gone to the dentist and I had an hour to get ready for my Wednesday exercise class. Everything was still in boxes and I knelt on the floor amongst the towering stacks to do my make-up, my eyes drawn every so often to the garden outside. Early morning mist hung over the trees. The grass was heavy with dew. Birdsong filled the air. Woodland birdsong is quite...

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