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We have had one of the weirdest weather patterns this year. I know from the news and friends that it isn’t just here in Arizona. And, getting it in perspective, most of the time I’m loving the weather here at … Continue reading
I can hardly believe we are almost a third of the way through 2023. It’s scary when I consider what I have or haven’t achieved so far this year. With all that has gone on (nursing and worrying over my 97-year-old mum, looking after Dave pre and post his hip replacement, weeks without a washing machine, and so on) I’ve surprised myself by finally getting back into editing mode with my novel, two successful paintings completed, with another in progress, and one not so complete but will be soon.
What I have had problems with is reading. Considering how much I used to read, even known on Amazon as “AvidReader”, no matter what I started, I could not finish, either losing interest, the story didn’t engage me, or I was too tired to read anything. Most unlike me, normally having 2 if not 3 books on the go: 1 for reading in bed; another when there’s nothing decent on television, which is often; and in the summer, 1 in the garden. But for the past few months I can hold my hand up and say nothing I pick up inspires me to continue.
Truth is, I missed reading and determined to retrieve my lost mojo. Like my music tastes, I enjoy many genres but autobiographies are not ones I generally turn to. I can count on my hand the few that I have read: The Moon’s a Balloon, and Bring on the Empty Horses by David Niven; one about the composer Claude Debussy; and 2 years ago the autobiography of a close childhood friend, Peter Beaven, Director of Music at the Royal Military Chapel, Sandhurst, who sadly passed away suddenly this January.
Chance would have it, good old Amazon flashed up an autobiography on special offer. It was for Not Dead Yet, by Phil Collins, the singer/songwriter/drummer/actor. I enjoy his music and singing, and knew Phil came from my home town in West London. But apart from his music, that’s all I did know about him. Curious, I bought the book.
Although I am still reading it (I’m half-way through), I am so pleased I did. I learned that Phil, 2 years older than me, grew up a few streets away, his mother worked in a toy shop I knew well (I was probably served by her), and that teenage Phil frequented the same clubs, pubs bars and nightclubs I did. It is quite possible we were there at the same time on occasion.
Reading about familiar places and haunts, streets, cafes, incidents I remember came to life again, going back in time. He talks about the background to many of his songs and albums, the highs and lows of touring, his marriages and divorces, his children including the actress Lily Collins, how the music industry has changed since the 1970s, the concerts, the other bands and musicians he’s played with. His part in the film Buster, about the 1960s Great Train Robbery. His writing style is relaxed and full of humour, wit and sometimes with a sadness. In reading, it is his voice you hear, speaking as he would directly to you in normal conversation. I’m loving it. So much so, each night this week I’ve gone to bed early in order to delve into the world of music and rock&roll and visit memory lane.
My reading mojo has returned. Yay!
Posted in Books, Hobbies, Names, Nostalgia
Tagged Autobiography, Book review, Buster, Genesis, Kit Domino, Music, Not Dead Yet, Phil Collins, reading, review
Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented.
Maya Angelou
When I first became aware of that quote, it seemed like a massive undertaking and one that required a really huge and constant amount of awareness and work. It seemed impossible. But I’ve come to realise that reinvention doesn’t need to be huge, it’s more like a thousand tiny things over a period of time that mount up to the whole.
The sniff of spring always has me tidying out my closets, cupboards, and the garden shed. So I’m currently in the mood for ‘out with the old, in with the new’. A while back I bought Atomic Habits by James Clear. In this book he talks about how making small changes (or even minuscule ones) can grow into such life-altering outcomes and how these small changes can have a transformative effect on all areas of our lives. I love this book and as you can see it’s well flagged with my favourite sections. In fact, I love this book so much that I recently bought an audio version to listen to while walking Vivvy.
Anyhoo, one of the things that resonated with me was the idea of habit stacking, where you identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack the new behaviour on top… example: After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout gear.
I’ve tried this a few times (not with the workout one, ha!) and found it really effective. The most successful habit stacking I’ve done of late is every time I turn on my computer, I open up my work in progress first. I hoped it would stop me wasting precious writing time by heading down the rabbit hole that is social media. It’s worked really well and now I do it without thinking. Another one is every time I enjoy a cup of coffee, I drink a glass of water right after. Again, it’s worked for me and now really is a habit. I’m trying out a few new habit stacking ideas as we move into spring. The first one I’m adopting is every time I open the biscuit tin, I screw the lid straight back on without indulging. 🙂 That’s going to be a hard one, but giving up biscuits/cookies is my long term goal. Watch this space!
Have you ever tried habit stacking? Do you think it would work for you?
Posted in Books, Faye Avalon, lifestyle, Spring
Tagged Atomic Habits, habit stacking, Habits, James Clear
It’s hard to believe we are already in the middle of February, the last two months for me having gone by in a blur of family health and other matters. It’s been a hard, difficult time. One that has seen little work, either in writing or painting, produced by me, and even less housework done. But a corner has been turned and life is returning to normal. I hate winter at the best of times; spring cannot come soon enough, and it’s definitely on the horizon; that alone gives me hope and joy. Here in the south west of England, the weather is mild although the nights are still cold, little rain, and joy of joys, dawn is arriving earlier each day, meaning before long I can enjoy my early morning coffee outside in the garden. Plus the evenings are getting lighter each day. Hoorah!
Soon Dave and I can get back to our joint passion: gardening. We are itching to be outside as there is a lot to do: dead leaves, stems and plants to remove, spring pruning to be done, flowers and vegetables to be planted. I’m particularly looking forward to planting up my new flowerbed, the one where we filled in the koi pond last year. The front lawn at present is a mass of snowdrops and crocus, before long the daffodils and hyacinths will be in flower too, giving pleasure not just to us but to passers-by, especially the children coming home from school. Most amusing of all is one particular dog, a gorgeous red setter, one of a pair walking with their owner by the house every morning. The dog always stops at our drive to have a look at the garden before he will walk on, no matter how much the owner tries to pull him away.
In the back garden, everything is budding into leaf including all the clematis. I have a large collection of hellebores currently in bloom providing lots of colour around the beds; they are one of my many favourite flowers.
I am finally back into the swing of working on my current novel, the editing going well, if slowly, and as you may have seen already, produced a lovely painting of a squirrel, one I am pleased with. The trouble with painting and art is that everyone (me included) expects every piece to be a masterpiece. It is rarely like that. For each “good” painting, there are possibly 4 or 5 bad ones, ones thrown or hidden away, never to be shown to anyone. I thought this only happened to me, but recently reading an art magazine the other day, I learnt this happens to many artists. We all reach for perfection and too often cannot see beyond our mistakes, things that others do not notice.
It is the same with our writing. We angst and strive to make each word, sentence, paragraph, chapter, book, the best it can possibly be often, to the extent of losing the spontaneity and life we have given our work. It’s the knowing when to stop and let it loose on the world.
And on that note, I shall stop here to allow this post to take flight.
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This is another book I found through Bookbub. I hadn’t read any of Katy Regnery books but she has a very extensive backlist. And all from 2012. (https://www.katyregnery.com/books) If you are looking for a roance with a capital R this one is … Continue reading
Here we are already in the middle of August. It seems unbelievable to think in a few weeks’ time we will be in the ’ember months of the year. Before you know it Christmas will be upon us again. It has already arrived in some of the stores here in the UK, and the children haven’t even returned to school yet from their summer break. But enough of that.
I missed posting last month; my apologies – major meltdown due to extreme heat! Heat that has only today started to climb back down the thermometer, and we have rain. Not a lot, admittedly. We do need plenty here as, like many countries, we are in a drought situation. Keeping the flowers and plants alive in the back garden has been hard work, but we’ve made the most of our grey water from the kitchen, about the only real exercise I’ve had, backwards and forwards several times a day. The vegetable garden and annual flowerbed at the front has, I’m sad to say, been a failure because of lack of rain; we have avoided using the hosepipe. As a consequence, we’ve written this year off on the gardening front and back, because the back garden will be given another make over.
The reason being, we have demolished our large koi pond and intend turning the area into another flowerbed. Whilst we both had a lot of pleasure from the fish, which had grown huge, it was becoming increasingly hard work for Dave to keep it going despite so-say modern filters and UV lamps and fitting a new pump each year – not cheap. We were plagued with pond weed, the water never clear. The fish loved it; we didn’t. We agreed back last October that we would run the pond down as each winter we invariably lost a fish or two. Needless to say, this past winter they all survived.
We gave the fish, some as long as 2-3 ft and weighing many lbs, to a local koi keeper so we know they would be going to a good home. Catching them was another matter. All three of us got soaked! Then
began the fun part, demolition of the pond walls. The pond was/is over 8ft deep, with half of it above ground, so we were hoping the bricks and blocks would fill that below ground level. Miscalculation. We now have to dispose of a lot of rubble. This Dave will do in the autumn when the weather is a lot cooler.
The extreme heat here has meant I have not done a lot of art. A special request for a contemporary flower painting was completed and I began working up one for my students to copy at my next workshop at the end of September. They had requested a waterfall, so waterfalls I did. Several of them. It became clear to me that each one was a little too adventurous for some of my group, but I finally came up with a much simpler version that hopefully will stretch them without any duress.
Other than these efforts, I have to admit nothing has been done. Hardly any writing because my office was too hot even with a fan running. No housework other than the basics – no point with all the doors and windows open; little laundry to wash – thank goodness for kaftans to lounge about it in all day. On the plus side, we’ve spent most days and long into the evenings in the garden. Our patio is in shade from midday so it has been comfortable, and I have been able to enjoy uninterrupted reading, getting through 5 books, unusual for me in a short space of time.
We treated the month as a long holiday, being exceedingly lazy and relaxed. It was fun while it lasted; now it’s back to normality. I hope your month has been good too.
Posted in Books, Christmas, clothing, Entertainment, Flowers, fun, garden, Hobbies, Holidays, Home Improvements, Nature, Pets, Remodling, Seasons, Special Days, Summer, Vacations, Yard
Tagged demolitition, fish, heatwave, Kit Domino, koi
Jillian here. Can you believe it’s already August and will be in the double digits of August tomorrow? Where is the time going?
I have completed (with my editor) edits on my newest book which will be under my other name. I hope to make a series of this one, but I am having a dickens of a time figuring out a cover plan. I used a lot of local places in the story and lots of local ghost lore with the historical buildings and areas being visited by the heroine. I don’t want a cluttered cover and am not sure about the new covers out there for cozy mysteries and so I am just at a standstill with the book. Gotta figure it out! LOL!
My mom and sister both are August babies so I actually went out shopping (!) for their gifts last week. I am not a shopper at all so this was big.
Premier league football (soccer for the USA crowd) has started back and I am cheering on the Liverpool team as I have for over 20 years.
The air conditioning has been out at my office and we are sweltering. Have had my fans going and windows open– a small breeze is always an “ahhh” moment. We have had two estimates for a new unit and waiting on a 3rd. Over $8,000.00 is what we’re looking to have to spend. UGH! But it has to be done. We’ve had some rain too so that helps cool it off. It’s decision time, though.
The best news of the month is that my husband will finish his cancer treatment this week and we can’t wait for him to ring that bell on Friday. We have kept it on the down-low on FB as he didn’t want all his extended family to tell the whole town where he is from. A small town in Alabama where he only had 18 people in his graduating class. He hates even when his sisters call to check on him so he sure didn’t want the whole town to know. 🙂 (and I’ve now told the whole blogger-verse!)
Happy August to all!
Jillian here! Hope everyone is having a nice summer. It’s been wild weatherwise here. Over 100 degrees Fahrenheit with over 111 heat index every day for a couple of weeks in June, then rainstorms with thunder and lightning all day, every day (dark as night at noon) for the end of June and first six days of July. As I write this, we’re back to more normal temps of around 85-90 and only small afternoon thunderstorms.
All this heat and rain misery made me decide to start reading a book I got at Christmas – It’s called The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries and is a collection of a ton of stories set at the festive season. Lots of favorite writers have set mysteries at Christmas and this book is chock-a-block. From Agatha Christie to Peter Lovesey, to Colin Dexter, Rex Stout, O. Henry, John Mortimer, Ellery Queen, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and some new to me authors that I am digging), I am loving this set of stories. The pages are double-columned so its 640 pages is more like 1,280 pages– enough to keep me entertained for the month, I hope… Except I am almost to page 400 already and it’s only 8 days into the month. LOL
I am liking this collection of tales so much, I ordered The Big Book of Ghost Stories edited by this same gentleman. He has great taste in stories.
Here is the cover and the list of stories sorted into types. Hope you recognize some of your favorite writers, too. – I love the picture from the 1930s, don’t you?
Posted in Books, Christmas, Entertainment, fun, Holidays, Jillian Chantal, Seasons, Summer
Tagged anthologies, books, Christmas, fun, Jillian, Jillian Chantal, July, mysteries, rain, reading, short stories, Showers, Summer, weather
You would think with all the time we had on our hands during lockdown I would have found the inspiration to do a job that has been waiting for some considerable time: that of sorting out my study, my kitchen cupboards, my wardrobes, and several large storage boxes full of notes/manuscripts/photographs/junk. But no. Although there was ample time to do it all, during lockdown there did not seem much point.
The municipal recycling/waste site was closed, as were all the secondhand shops, on-street charity collections had ceased, and we simply hadn’t the space to store things no longer wanted. You might say I’m a bit of a hoarder; well, aren’t most of us? I mean, who else has 7 frying pans, 3 saucepans sets and 4 of china, one of which is a 72 piece? A food mixer that hasn’t been used for 5 years? Who else after being 11 years retired has business suits and skirts still hanging in the wardrobe unworn since along with fancy outfits bought for office Christmas parties? Who among us has a separate wardrobe full of clothes and shoes that have never been worn? Who else has a stack of books enough to fill a town library, read once if at all, filling every spare shelf in the house? Okay, perhaps that one doesn’t count – we are all readers and book lovers here.
So, this week, I made the decision something had to be done and soon but which to attack first? A series of small events occured which were fortuitous in setting the clean-up ball rolling. My other half ordered yet another pair of new jeans which, when delivered, transpired he had ordered the wrong size,and didn’t fit. Yes, he could have sent them back, got a refund, but they were inexpensive and the cost and hassle of reposting not worth the effort to him. The next day a charity collection bag came through the letterbox. The day after I picked up a message on social media from a local, newly opened residential care home seeking books in excellent condition for the home’s library. The following day, Dave decided to buy a new television for the lounge, not that it was necessary, he simply wanted a larger screen with a higher-quality picture. Which was fortunate, as the one in my office was playing up and hardly watchable. Bingo!
The charity bag was filled and left out for collection. A large hessian shopping bag filled to the brim with my unwanted books and delivered. A larger pile of unworn/new clothes, including the jeans, appeared on the spare bed, ready for me to take to our local St Peter’s Hospice charity shop. The office was tidied, unwanted items put either in the charity bag, recycling boxes or dustbin in order to make room for the still perfectly good television from downstairs to fit in my office. All in all, productive week which has made me feel virtuous, although the kitchen cupboards and other items will have to wait a week or so. Good job I’m not in any hurry.
Meanwhile, it has been a hard month for us in some respects: lots of memories and anniversaries, good and not so good, to get through but helped by a lovely mild week here despite being mid October. Warm enough for us to enjoy 9:00am coffee outside listening to our resident robin singing amongst plants which are still blooming, a clematis in flower for the third time this year, a thunbergia in flower which it hasn’t done all summer, the dahlias still glorious, and the sweetpeas still not giving up.
Enjoy your month, whatever it brings.
Posted in Books, Family, Flowers, garden, Hobbies, Home Improvements
Tagged Charity, hoarder, hoarding, Kit Domino, recycling, unwanted things
Jillian here. October is my favorite month of the year. I’ve always loved it. When we lived in Virginia when I was in elementary school, we’d always drive up Skyline Drive in October to get pumpkins and fresh, cold apple cider—there was nothing like that fresh taste and Florida has nothing to compare with it. Not many leaves change color here—a few trees do- like maples— but most are evergreens like pine. I love the look of bare trees in the twilight of mornings or dusk as well as in the fog. Some trees here have leaves one day and are naked the next.
Why I love October: Orange is my favorite color, the smell of smoke in the air always brings back memories of fall leaf burning, pumpkins, Halloween is fun, and the new baking shows with the fall themes are delightful to watch (not so delightful for my cravings for chocolate though) 😀And it cools off a bit here—most years, it’s low 80s at beginning of the month and 70s by end of month.
Lat year, for NaNoWriMo, I wrote a story that was inspired by my great grandmother’s name and her tombstone. Weirdly, her tombstone has her names in the wrong order which is kind of wild—I can only imagine they didn’t have the money to fix it when it was made incorrectly. I’ve always loved her first name. Her name (in the correct order) was Sophronia Neal Akers Richardson. The story I wrote is a ghost story/mystery. I turned in the edits this week, so I hope to have it out soon. It will be published under my other name as my mysteries are under that name to keep them separate from the romance-driven tales.
Happy October to all. Get out and enjoy some reds, oranges, fall scents and even some ghosties!
Posted in Books, Fall, Holidays, Inspiration, Jillian Chantal, Names, Nature, Nostalgia, Relationships
Tagged Autumn, cider, fall, halloween, Jillian, Jillian Chantal, Leaves, life, life in general, Over The Backyard Fence, seasons, Trees, Virginia
69nancy
Faye Avalon
Jane Smith
Kit Domino
Laurie Ryan
Lavada Dee
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Author
Tricia Jones
Theresa Scott
Valerie J. Patterson
Over The Backyard Fence 