It's been five years since we moved in to our house. An extensive amount of work went in to renovating the property, resulting in us having to refit almost the entire downstairs space. Of course, I didn't complain about it because for the first time in my life I was...
Encouraging your children to read
Juggling work and the school holidays has thrown me and I haven't kept up to my usual Friday Fiction post. Apologies for that. What I did want to get around to writing about though, was an article I read in the Times about getting children to read. This article struck...
7 ways to manage close together children’s birthdays
Today I welcome Adam Barrett, kid's party planning expert from Snozzcumber.com, to talk about how you can plan and manage your children's birthday parties when they come close together. Over to you Adam... Whether you're bringing up an only child or have five little...
The Rise of the Selfie Pout
I feel like everywhere I turn at the moment, I see photos of teenage girls, long hair swept to one side, head slightly tilted and mouth shaped in a seductive pout. They're all at it, even my daughter and her friends have started doing it. Any chance they have and...
Friday Fiction – The Dust That Falls From Dreams – Louis De Berniere Book Review
As it is the first Friday of the month, I am opening my Friday Fiction slot to invite other bloggers to link up any fiction and book review posts. This is a great way to find recommendations for what to read and just to enjoy some quality fiction work. I hope you can...
Friday Fiction Link Up
If you write fiction pieces, tinker with prose or poetry and/or write book reviews, I invite you to share them with me on the first Friday of every month. Feel free to pop along this Friday and link up your work, to share it with others, whilst possibly finding some...
The Pull of the Sea – Friday Fiction
As he stepped out of his house and took a left, then left again, Jake could hear the seagulls above him, stirring up a storm with their rhythmic squawking. ‘Not-that-way,’ they seemed to chime. ‘Stay-near-sea.’ Jake understood. He had lived by the sea all his life and...
It’s the Final Countdown
My week, summed up in #littleloves style, shows how varied your week can be. We've been one child down, with the eldest being at my mum's house as she already finished school. The other two have been slogging on, becoming slightly more irritable with each other as the...
Summer Writing Plans
I haven't made up my mind whether or not to take a break from blogging over the summer. I think I would rather just see how it goes and not put any pressure on myself. I've edited the first three chapters of my manuscript and it's gone out to readers, so I hope to...
End of Year Madness, Moving on and Becoming a Showbiz Mum
Here is my weekly round up for #LittleLoves. I like writing this post because it makes me appreciate that although it's a very busy time of year, the things you manage to do over the course of the week are all worth the effort you put in. It's only when you are...
Tell No One by Harlan Coban – Book Review
Dr David Beck is a paediatric doctor in downtown New York, dedicated to his work, with nothing else in his life he feels worth living for. Eight years previous, he and his wife had visited their favourite spot as they did every anniversary, but things had gone...
What’s on my Reading List?
I have one more session left of a writing group I've been taking part in at my local bookshop. It's the first time I've ever done anything like this and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. What attracted me to the course was that it offered the opportunity to tackle your...
End of an Era, Melting in the Heat and Finding Some Quiet Family Time
Ok, so where did this week go exactly? It feels like all of a sudden time is running away with me and I can't believe that my eldest daughter has just two and half days left of her junior school career. She finishes a few weeks earlier than my other two, so for her,...
Friday Fiction – Evaluation
Welcome to Friday Fiction and it's linky week too! Click on the blue frog below to link up your fiction and review posts and don't forget to comment on other posts too. My post this week is a fiction piece from my Nano novel, pieces of which I have posted before,...
A Few Wardrobe Nightmares and Cooking up a Frenzie
Another week goes by in a blur of school runs and pick ups, work, sports days and general running around. It's called LIFE and I wish I could say that it was more exciting and I didn't live it mostly through my kids, but sadly that's not true and hey, we wouldn't...
Memories – Friday Fiction
I set myself the task of writing a descriptive piece of fiction this week using all the senses. I'm more comfortable writing active scenes with lots of dialogue, so this area of my writing needs more practice. I used Sara's prompt word 'laughter' and drew on a memory,...
Summer Term Madness
Why is it that schools feel as though they must pack everything in to the last term? Between all three children, my calendar is full of events: ones that we need to attend, others where we need to remember to take in certain things or do something special for. As a...
A Few Victories for the Shy Ones
I watched my daughter read a piece of her work in her class assembly this week and it struck me that it is the first time in her junior school career that she has done something like that. She's in year six and just about to leave to go to secondary school. Being one...
A Poem for Father’s Day
I love the way my middle daughter's mind works. She is creative, just like her older sister, but she has an understanding and level of empathy that goes beyond her eight years. This means that she always takes great care to come up with deep and meaningful words to...
‘The End’ – When Do You Really Stop Drafting?
'The End' Those two words can mean so much, especially to me this week. I finished the draft of my manuscript re-write. I wrote the end of my story. Except I never actually wrote those two words because I know that it's far from at that point. It felt good though....