Category: LIFE

Ramblings, daft and humourous, dark and sad, but hopefully mostly happy

The Try That Never Was

December 9, 2018

This reminds me so so much of my son’s former years as a rugby player. He played from U7s through to Colts … before javelin took over. The gentlemanly attitudes he learnt on the pitch, which in no way appear to link to the physical needs of the game, set him up for his time in athletics and his life in general.
Great post guys
🌸

Fractured Faith Blog

Adam was involved in a very tightly contested rugby match yesterday against a much bigger Belfast school. Privately, I wasn’t expecting the boys to win but they played out of their skins, and almost did. The final score was 17-14 but the score doesn’t fully reflect the courage, skill and work ethic the team put into the contest, which was played in wet, bitterly cold conditions.

The score also doesn’t reflect an incident in the first half when Lurgan almost scored a try which would have won the match for them. A kick through was chased to the line by a Lurgan player and member of the opposing side. As the ball crossed the line, both boys dived on it. From where I was standing, it was impossible to tell who had touched the ball first.

The referee was equally unsighted and asked the boys who had grounded the ball…

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GRATEFUL

November 22, 2018

I am re-blogging this poem by our lovely Patty.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends who celebrate it. I think it should happen here in the UK. So many forget to be thankful at times for what they DO have .. and focus only on what they DON’T have (me included)
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Well said Patty

lovenlosses

A day of thanks
Grateful am I
For all that I have
I cannot deny.

My fate, my choices
Could have been better
But,  looking around
It all comes together.

So many struggle
Have pain and such sorrow
No reason to try
No hope for tomorrow.

So far out of touch
Out of balance, offset
They give me a reason
To never forget.

To give thanks
For the cards that I have been dealt
To know love and emotions
All I have felt.

They cry and they wail
They wonder why
Their lives are so dark
It brings tears to my eyes.

The grass isn’t greener
But, a tangle of weeds
It’s cold and it’s frozen
Nothing there… that I need.

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Marmite pinwheels and succulent lips 🌸

November 10, 2018

Hello my friends! How does this wet-under-foot Saturday find you in your various forms of homestead?

These mature cheddar and marmite pinwheels (thrown together with ready-made pastry) I watched being created by a client last week. I had delivered some clean horse rugs and sat sipping a welcomed cup of tea while she described the guests due for her dinner party that evening.

It all starts with a Japanese piece of art.

🤣 Seriously, it’s easy. You spread marmite across rolled out pasty, smother with grated cheese ….

.. roll into a log and slice.

I don’t recommend using the tart tin. I’d simply run out of baking trays playing host to the first 48! They’ve stuck in the tart tin and I can’t serve them out on the farm walk today (but I can sit here and eat them while we chat).

Funny. I hated marmite for years. I quite like the salty kick now.

Anyway, no NaNoWriMo words these last couple days but family stuff has taken priority. Thinking about it every chance I get. Mmmmm .. just grabbing another. They’re a little addictive if you do like marmite!

Look what arrived from a company in Ireland today .. the cutest lip balm 🌺 Check this company out! Literary Lip Balms

I did have a bit of a breakthrough yesterday with a plot hole which has threatened to swallow up my (perceived to be .. by yours truly) finest scenes because the dates never worked.

I had a huge time-line issue. I needed my Male lead to be born on a certain date, and I’d decided I’d set the main part of the book in 1999, with a final chapter with midnight on December 31st. In Edinburgh 😱🥂 (I can’t wait for you to see that!!!)

Finally sorted a few things out in my mind driving around yesterday and I think tomorrow I can crack on with more typing 💫

Have a good weekend!

A hundred years ago a lot of people were relieved the war was over, too late for so many

November 9, 2018

As a brief respite from NaNoWriMo chat, have sown visuals from my visit to the big smoke to check out the candles 🕯

I took my two children to the observation floor of The Shard on, wait for it, 9 November 2014 when the ceramic poppies had been laid all around the Tower. The view was outstanding.

Then we ate in this amazing restaurant on the river.. Coppa Club

Whether you’re watching the London Cenotaph service this Sunday, or attending a local church, or walking quietly, or working a shift… let’s remember all our servicemen and women who lost their lives in the First World War 🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺

Let’s go and collect some sloes from around the farm, make some alcohol and watch the sunset. Merry Christmas (as he won’t be with us )

October 29, 2018

Daughter mixed the ingredients. We do the simple thirds rule;

  • A third gin, a third sugar and third sloes.
  • Turn or tip the bottle/container daily until sugar is dissolved.
  • Try not to consume for at least three months, preferably a year or more 👌🏼 (you can enjoy what you made last year, yes?).

  • Pull some festive crackers, put screens down for an hour and play a game because your son will be the other side of the world on Christmas Day!

Man of the Woods went to the local garage to buy some bread and milk and came back with ‘snacks’.

This is severely dangerous and I could easily sit here and chomp through most of these Cadbury’s bite sized naughties 🙈

For a sensible look at how to make sloe gin, check out this great blog by MayFly.

NaNoWriMo means a clear head for November methinks 😇 so a quick slurp now

Letting go – when a child leaves for Uni – 3 important things I gave my son

October 29, 2018

Beautiful .. and rather poignant 💫

fabricating fiction

I still remember it so clearly; the heady joy of discovering I was pregnant; the overwhelm of a love that was almost painful the first time I held my baby.  It seemed unfathomable back then to think of a time I’d be without my children.  First steps, first words. Sticky toddler kisses, teenage uncertainty as they tried to navigate their way in the world and then, later, it was me who was uncertain and afraid as I took my second child to university. The heartbreak as I drove away in a car that was too empty. Too quiet. Back to a house that looked exactly the same but felt somehow different.

I felt somehow different.

A mother bird with an almost empty nest.

It was difficult initially to sift through my feelings. What was real and what was imagined. What thoughts were coming from ego, of which there were many:…

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Friday Night Drinks with….Jennifer Gilmour @JenLGilmour #GuestPost #FridayNightDrinks #FictionCafeWriters

October 26, 2018

Readers, readers – check this out!
Two bloggers close to my heart,
In ONE place … and drinking 🥂🥂

The amazing work of Jennifer Gilmour
brought to us in such a fun way by
ALittleBookProblem 💫

A Little Book Problem

cocktail-2098458_1920

I am so, so excited tonight to have my inaugural guest on my brand new feature, Friday Night Drinks, where I will be asking a variety of fascinating people the burning questions of the day such as, ‘What are you drinking?,

I am absolutely delighted to welcome, blogger, author, activist and all round wonderful human being, Jennifer Gilmour, as my first guest.

MNg9zXqG_400x400Thank you for joining me for drinks this evening, Jen. First things first, what are you drinking?

Well its almost that time of the year, you know the dreaded C word (sorry to mention it). So I will have a tipple of Baileys, cheers! I love to pour this on vanilla ice-cream, pop it in hot chocolate or on ice as I am tonight. 

If we weren’t here in my virtual bar tonight, but were meeting in real life, where would you be taking me for…

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