My threesome with RM

It seems I have a lot to catch up with. So first of all here is a photo of my lovely Mother's day pressie. It's a Clivia and I'd been looking for one for years. They went out of fashion and you couldn't get them. Then on mothers day we went to the garden centre and Tada! There it was. (The neat and tidy garden through the window isn't mine).

Secondly for Fiona. I will try and find the synopsis for MG and post it. And DJ I have taken some before shots of the garden I will post them next time.

So to the threesome. Here we go.

3 names I go by; Claire (you all know that). Mummy. and Jamie's Mum (you seem to loose your identity when you become a mum).

3 jobs I want; To be a writer, to be a writer or to be Richard Hammond's love slave.

3 places I have lived; Northampton, Kettering and now Cornwall. We got out of the rat race before it was the fashionable thing to do and couldn't ever go back.

3 TV shows that I watch; Top Gear (obviously). Lewis (good one again last night I thought), and anything that involves snooping into other peoples houses.

3 Places I have been; Amsterdam (loved it, want to go back please), Alfriston (east Sussex, has the best book shop in the world), and we've just come back from Dorset. I'm one of those boring farts that hasn't really been anywhere. Mind you now I have a driving licence and a car that might change.

3 places I want to go; London (I miss being only 1 hour away by train, it's the only down side to Cornwall), New Zealand (we have family over there), Scotland (I'm part Scottish on mums side).

3 of my favorite foods; Chocolate (yes it is a food, well it is when you eat as much of it as I do), Chicken (in any form, but southern fried comes pretty high), anything from the Chinese takeaway.

3 things I'm looking forward to; Dad's cancer going away, Jamie saying 'I love you' and getting published.

3 favorite curses; (Warning swearing coming up, you might want to cover your ears). Bollocks! Say that far to much. Bugger, and that. And F*** in extreme circumstances.

So now I have to tag three bod to do this as well. Ok I'll tag Tom Foolery, Helen and Debs. I will not be offended if you don't want to do it.

We have a new blog friend joining us. She is a very good friend of mine called Maria. You can find her under 'Walking Interests' on my blog roll. Please go and say hi.

Mulberry Gin the final chapters.

Just to let those of you who are reading it that the last two chapters are on Writing not Reading. I will poat properly tomorrow with the results of my threesome with rainbowmummy. Have got loads of editing to do, so off to do that.

Thanks Peeps!

Wow you are a fantastic bunch. I was in a bit of a funk in my last post. You know when it all gets a bit much? Well that was were I was. I took it out on the front of the house and gave it a dam good tidy. It was looking like a squat rather than a home out there. Now I've just got the back garden to rescue. Nothing much got done out there last year. There was scaffolding all over it until July. And then Richard went and had his heart attack in August, which kind of put the kibosh on gardening.

So I've decided to get in early before everything starts to grow away from me. And when the garden is done there are the veg plots up on the field. We had 3/4 of an acre in the village which we (I) have great plans for. So far we (I) have two large raised beds for veg and some fruit trees to go in this spring. Then we might get the pollytunnel up this summer. We're going to have a tunnel party. But the beer stays in the shed till the tunnel's up! Any volunteers? (our village partys are rather legenderry round here so it'll be worth it).

So, by and large (and I am very large), I'm feeling better about stuff. Thank you so much for being lovely.

Now rainbowmummy has tagged me to be involved in her threesome (no not like that, and anyway there are more than three of us). Doing this involves thinking, so I'll do that another day.

We're Back!!

What a week! Dorset was beautiful, but wet and windy. We would go back again, except...

Jamie hardly slept the whole week. He was physically fighting to stay awake. So we didn't sleep much either. Still it was barely two hours away and everything was close to the cottage. And you can drive with you're eyes closed! It is possible to be asleep and still function as if you were wide awake! But it did make me wonder if we will ever be able to have family holidays as Jamie gets older. If it's going to cause such disruption is it worth it? And today we saw one of his doctors who told us that he will almost certainly never live independent and will always need a high level of care. Which we knew, sort of, but it brings it home when someone says it out loud. I don't mind not being able to go back to work, I never had a high flying job anyway. But Richard will want to retire an a few years and I was supposed to go back to work then, so we would swap if you like. Now that can't happen. Richard wouldn't be able to look after Jamie full time with his own health problems. And now factor my dad into the equation and it looks like I'm going to be a full time career for the rest of my life. Which is fine, really it is. It's not what I expected my life to become, but there you go. What worries me is how it's all going to work. I can't expect Richard to just keep on working till he drops, but nor am I going to be able to go back to work until Jamie is much older, if at all. His care needs might get more the older he gets, we just don't know. And all this is assuming my mental health stays level. I haven't had an 'episode' for a year or so now. I get very down and weepy, and wound up about anything and everything, but I haven't gone to sleep and hoped desperately not to wake up for a long time.

Anyway while we were away we got news of dad's scan. It seems to show that the cancer has not spread. And it looks like they can operate and remove it completely. He has got to have another kind of scan to confirm this. And then we wait for op day. He's loosing a lot of weight, which he needed to do quite honestly, but seems quite bright now. Fingers crossed that it is all as hopeful as they seem to think. Maybe I can start to think about what to get him for his birthday after all.

Next 2 chapters of MG are on WNR.

In the wilderness

Hi everyone.
This is just to let you know that we're off on our hols in a mo. I may, or may not, be able to stay online while away. If not then please don't be offended if I don't leave comments or reply to emails/comments for a week.

Dad's scan went well but no news yet. They are sending a report to his GP so we should have something to go on when we get home. If anything happens while we're away they'll call. We're only going to Dorset so we can be home in a couple of hours if needed.

Bye for now. And thank you for being there.

PS. Will post more Mulberry Gin when I get back.

Getting Flustered

I seem to have got the lovely Fiona a bit hot under the collar when I suggested a good 'me' day would involve Richard Hammond and a bottle of baby oil.

So these pics are for her (and me!).

First draft of Digging for Victoria is finished!!!!! I ended up with 83000 words, but that will go up when I start the rewrite. It will defiantly need a rewrite. There are at least two scenes that need expanding and a couple of characters that I would like to include more.

We have snow again! It's march in Cornwall and we woke to 3in of snow. What is going on with this weather? They managed to get here to fetch Jamie for school. Town was clear and so was the main road. So just us then. We were worried that Dad wouldn't be able to get to the hospital for his scan. Mum was nearly stranded at Instow last night after skittles. The got home eventually, the whole journey in 2nd gear! Still by the time they had to go for the appointment it was clearing, and you could see the fields were clearing across the valley.

They're not back yet (4.45pm) so no new yet. If there is anything to tell I'll post tomorrow. We're of on our hols tomorrow for a week. Might be the last one we get for a while. Had a letter today with the results of Jamie's lumber puncture. The pressure is still up, in fact up a bit more from the last one. So they have started talking about the shunt again. We have to see the consultant in May so we can decide then.

Hope all of you that have not been feeling too good are feeling better soon. I won't name names but you know who you are, and you know we all love you.

Time flys!

Wow I can't believe it's been a week since I last posted! I wish I could regale you with all the fantastic and fascinating things I've been doing since last week, but I can't.

Life in a small village changes very little. This is a good thing really. I hate change. No, not quite right. I hate it when change is thrust upon me. If the change has been my own, then fine. The trouble is life ain't like that is it?

Still on a positive note I have a new laptop! We had to do the Sainsbury's run yesterday. And as that's a 25 mile trip we usually combine it with other things. This time it was a trip to PC World. The scanner died weeks ago and we needed to get a new one. Then last week Richard's printer went the same way. So we decided to get one of those combi unit things that do both. And there was this laptop winking at me. I've be thinking of a new one for a while, my old dinosaur is getting a bit past it, but have been put off by the hassle of transferring everything. But I couldn't resist. One thing life has taught me over the last few years, life is too short. So I decided to give the old credit card an airing.

Now I just have to figure out how to make it do what I want it to do. It's taken six years to get this one to do that!

New chapters of MG are on WNR.