Oh, My Days!

This is me conversing with a barn owl, a few years ago when I spent a delightful day on a ‘Birds of Prey Experience’ that Andy had given me for my birthday. The owl is saying, ‘It was THIS big!’ and I am replying, ‘Oh really?’ (It is also in the days of my being a slave to the hair dye. Makes me wonder if I ought to return....) Anyway I’ve chosen this photo because it is pertinent to a question I have to ask you. Since being in the state of withdrawing from society, I have been busy, as you know. I have been especially busy with writing. Now, you might think, ‘Oh have you REALLY?’ because I’ve been a bit lax in dishing up episodes of ‘Clive and Min’, my current Work In Progress. But what I have also been doing is some pretty heavy editing and additional writing on ANOTHER novel that I wrote a few years ago, called ‘Night Owls.’ Some of you more established residents of the West Wing of Much Malarkey Manor may well remember ‘Night Owls.’ It was produced in the frenzy of a NaN

Good morning, everyone! Greetings from a slightly cooler, yet still pleasant Three Counties Border (Shropshire side). I've been busy this morning baking bread, making a chicken and leek pie for His Lordship Malarkey's lunch, some jam tarts with the last of the Damson Cottage damson jam, and , of course, working up another episode of 'Clive and Min' for you. His Lordship Malarkey is outside constructing a window for the potting shed. It is reminding me rather of that scene in 'Carry On Cleo' when Kenneth Connor as Hengist Pod occupies himself making square wheels which his new neighbour, Horsa (played by Jim Dale) then repurposes as a window frame. But don't tell Andy I said that. Enjoy today's episode. I want to know how much you gasp when you reach the cliff-hanger. If at all... Min wasn’t at home the afternoon that the proprietor of Cluedon’t was due to visit and inspect the room that had been provisionally hired at Satis House. Min had fre

Oh the excitement! The anticipation! What boundless joys await me this evening on the televisual machine!  For tonight, not only is there one of my current Top Two Favourite Programmes on - the delightful and transfixing... but following straight afterwards, the new series of ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’! Oh, it’ll be wonderful to see Esme, Patrick and Joe back again after too long a break! I am literally jiggling with excitement! I shall be riffling through my fabric stash, heaving out the sewing machine, expanding Marjory, my tailor’s dummy, to my new and not necessarily improved social isolation girth, and whipping me up some elasticated palazzo pants before you can say ‘Ease up on your gusset, missus’, just you wait and see! And if you’ve never seen ‘The Repair Shop’, please have a squizz - it’s hosted by a band of highly talented yet very modest artisan craftspeople, and bobs along for an hour full of gentleness, kindness, and tear jerking, happy making personal stories

I almost put ‘rhymes with ham’ in today’s blog post title, but then I reckon Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is more of a jam gal. Raspberry. Or plum. It’s her 94th birthday today! For the first time in EVER she has cancelled the Gun Salute that marks the occasion, so I sang her a ‘Happy Birthday’ this morning instead, as I am rather fond of our Queen. I think she is an all round marvellous woman. Happy Birthday to her! My tomato seedlings have been wrestling their way out of the seed tray on the kitchen window for a few days now so I hied them up to the potting shed and transplanted 38 of them into separate pots. Will 38 be enough, do you think? I could have done twice as many, but it’s too late now because I fed the rest of the seedlings to the girly hens. Anyway, I shall ask our neighbours if they’d like a few of the plants. I expect they will. They like a spot of gardening. And who doesn’t like a home grown tomato? Apart from his Lordship Malarkey, but then he rarely eats what i

Well, I didn't think you'd get a 'Clive and Min' episode today, such is the current mood of her Ladyship the Grumpy Author, but, having done some vacuuming, made a sponge cake, made a loaf of bread and received notification that she has PASSED the second module of her C & G embroidery course (hurrah!), she cracked on with the business of writing et voila! Here we are, a Sunday episode delivered on time, with aplomb, and a large and heavy black cat called Bambino Bobble Wilson sitting on her lap. Sergeant Kieran Phelps closed his front door behind him, dropped his rucksack on the hallway floor, and expelled a sigh of relief. It was the end of his last shift and the start of two weeks of annual leave and, quite frankly, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Usually, he wasn’t much of a one for taking his holiday entitlement, preferring to keep his weeks focused on the rhythm of his shift pattern and then being paid in lieu for his untaken holiday. Working a

As Nessa from ‘Gavin and Stacey’ would say : ‘I’m not going to lie to you - this week hasn’t been the best.’ Oh, it’s not been hideous, you understand. Not in the grand scheme of the world in which we currently live. The weather has been divine (until this morning when it suddenly started raining and is so cold you can see your breath when you go outside) and therefore much gardening has been done. A load of cat litter arrived, so the cats are happy, and the greenhouse arrived, which is good except it now needs erecting and that’s a whole new set of hoo-ha malarkey in itself. And I completed Module 2 of my City and Guilds course bang on my self-imposed deadline of yesterday, and it has now gone to my tutor for marking and feedback. I’ve been busy and productive - I have bread making nailed now and even managed to buy some flour AND yeast on my once-a-week shopping trip! The shopping trip provided me with a smile because all the while I was in the supermarket all I could hear was a

Thought it would be a good idea first thing this morning to move the 63 concrete paving slabs from the driveway, where they were deposited on Friday by a disgruntled delivery chap, to the top garden where they will form the base for the new greenhouse. This is what I learned : 1) a concrete paving slab (45 cm square by 35mm deep) weighs 16.5kg or, if like me you are still programmed to imperial measurements, 2 stones and 8lbs 2) you cannot move two of these slabs at the same time. Well, I can’t. Not if I want to maintain forward momentum 3) each paving slab moved becomes progressively heavier. I believe this could be a trick of mechanics versus my physical fitness 4) one wouldn’t need a gym membership if one shifted paving slabs for a living 5) I’m glad I don’t have to shift paving slabs for a living 6) I felt quite wobbly once the job was done, but I experience no chest pains, which was reassuring given my paternal family’s propensity for dying young of heart attacks Any

 As promised, a second episode of 'Clive and Min' because it is Easter and we can't go out and it'll give you something to read for 10 minutes or so. I spent all day gardening yesterday, and am paying for it today in the thigh muscle department so a bit of writing and editing has been just the ticket! Enjoy! Stay home, and stay safe, you lovely people! The journey to Florence’s home was not long – through town and away in an easterly direction, just   before you hit the retail park – and soon Connie was pulling into the neat driveway of a small, 1930s bungalow, two bay windows flanking a cornflower blue front door that was tucked back inside an arched storm porch. Clive jumped from the roof of Connie’s car, landing in front of Willow and making her squeal. ‘Is that Clive?’ snapped Min. Really, she could do without all this faff. ‘Yes,’ said Willow, fanning herself with her hand and glaring at Clive, who shrugged. ‘Just as well,’ said Min, addressing t

Sorry, sorry...it's late, I know, but I was very busy yesterday. Sorry! I decided to re-pot all my houseplants and it took longer than anticipated. The Mummy Aloe Vera plant had eight babies! Eight! I am going to have to explore how to make some sort of health/beauty potion using aloe vera as a main ingredient or Damson Cottage will look like 'The Day of The Triffids' by the end of summer. I also did some writing, sewing, made leek and potato soup, a quiche, did laundry because the sun was shining and it could dry on the line rather than in the energy guzzling tumble drier, fed the sour dough starter I've started in lieu of there still being NO yeast to be had out there, and went for a walk which exhausted me beyond belief. Anyway, in recompense, what you will get this week is TWO (count 'em!) episodes of 'Clive and Min.' How exciting is THAT? Here we go, then. A bit more plot thickening to get your heads around. I hope everyone is well and keeping themsel

How are we all, then? Do we know what day it is? I was convinced it was Wednesday today, but turns out ‘tis Thursday! Who knew? There’s been some very entertaining clips emerging on the Internet, as people find things to fill their hours during this most peculiar or times. Today, I watched a mini film of a family - mum, dad, and three late teen/ early twenties children - learning a dance routine together. It was lovely to see them working as a family unit, sharing time, talents, laughs and teamwork. It also made me wish I was a bit more ‘physical exercise’ orientated. You know, one of those people who jumps out of bed and goes for a run, and then squeezes in a bike ride later on and finishes the day with a dance class and yoga set. There’s lots of that on the Internet, too, at the moment - people grappling with daily exercise and using the imposed ‘stay-at-home’ rules as a time to get themselves fitter. But I think there is something in my genetic coding that makes me reject all this