Wednesday, 30 December 2020
One August Night
Saturday, 19 December 2020
Reflections of 2020




There have been many special moments of meeting friends outdoors, walking, chatting, finding a bench and sitting apart with a flask and cake. Being outdoors and walking has helped keep me positive and this tree hug was for all the people I love. Tyson the Bengal cat came to stay to keep us company for a few weeks and he wanted to be part of my window display! Doorstep visits have been appreciated but so unnatural not to ask people in, especially our lovely daughter.
Sunday, 29 November 2020
Guaranteed to get you singing....
How lovely to be transported from a dismal year to the beautiful scenery of the Swiss mountains and villages. Let it Snow by Sue Moorcroft will certainly delight you and get you feeling seasonal.
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Lily learns that her mums both had baby girls by different methods which leads her on a quest to meet up with biological half-brothers. In a temporary bar job in Middledip she ponders on whether she will ever tell her boss Tubb they are related. There is much conflict between her sister, her mums and her own heart too.
She has a trip to Switzerland with her other job for the Food, Lifestyle and Health show and arranges to take the Middletones choir with her to help promotional work. Singing well known British carols will attract attention to her stall.
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Isaac, having broken up with his girlfriend Hayley, moves into the flat above the pub and soon finds Lily attractive. An accident to Lily's hand prevents her from driving the mini bus of excited members of the Middletones, so Isaac steps in to save the day. Doggo the dalmation joins the trip too. However, a tragedy with his ex has him dashing back to the UK just as he and Lily are finding love. Will they hook up back in the UK or was it to be a holiday romance? Will Lily's brothers accept her into the fold? Will she manage driving back with her injured hand? There is a lot of tension, drama, health issues and family relationships to keep you turning the pages.
The trip to Switzerland has it all - snow ❅, lights🎄, expensive gifts🎁, romance, work, play and singing 🎸. It is Christmas in text, fueling the imagination and reminding us of better times. I don't think I'll ever hear Michael Buble singing 'Let it Snow' without thinking of this book and its contents.
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Well done Sue Moorcroft, five star reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Looking forward to reading this years' Christmas novel - Christmas Wishes.
Sunday, 1 November 2020
Who doesn't love a toy panda?
Pandemonium
By Gail Aldwin
I was asked by the author to review her book and it was a priviledge to do. I think it will make an ideal Christmas or Birthday present - this beautifully illustrated book is aimed at children between the ages of 2 – 7 years.
The adorable purple Panda will warm hearts as each page captures a scene even without the words. An adult reader can point out other elements to the growing child – where is Peta, what else is in the picture, who else is in the picture, what are they doing, what colour is Peta the Panda? Conversations the story evokes can be interesting and encourage the child’s imagination to build more into the story. It will be one they remember when they are older.
Early readers will enjoy the bold lettered short sentences. There are new words to learn the meaning of – Pandemonium and haberdashery – explanations again encouraging conversations between the child and reader. Also an opportunity to tell young readers about breaking big words down into syllables to make reading and spelling easier – the cover is a good ‘showing’ example.
As the book progresses Peta’s purple is disguised to make her look like the other Panda’s but her peers mock her which makes her unhappy. Lessons on how to deal with unhelpful comments from friends at school could take place from this page and how Mama Panda rescues Peta by undoing the disguise, freeing her and encouraging Peta to be herself. Conversation about love could be had here and how being accepted as we are makes us happy.
I love the messages –
- It’s ok to be different
- It’s ok to have fun
- It encourages and affirms
- Love and acceptance help us be
true to ourselves
It is also sweet and cute. It will appeal to lively children and make quiet children laugh at Peta’s antics. Ideal for girls or boys, schools, parents, grandparents, childminders, nursery nurses, etc etc.
Five star rating. Well done Author Gail Aldwin and Illustrator Fiona Zechmeister.
Available from www.victoriapress.com and https://www.waterstones.com/book/pandemonium/gailaldwin/fiona-zechmeister/9781999369675 pre-order now, publication December 2020.
Other reviews can be found on https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55315976-pandemonium
You can follow the author on Twitter @gailaldwin or Facebook: Gail Aldwin, Writer
Tuesday, 20 October 2020
A Year to Remember?
Pandemic. Covid19. Masks. Washing hands. Social Distance. Death rates. Covid Cases. Prime Minister's announcements. Lockdown. Job losses. Economic Crisis. Stay Home. Cheer for the NHS. Food banks. Captain Tom. Fundraising. Regional lockdowns. Black lives matter. Herd immunity. Schools & University returns. Social bubbles. Pubs close early. Elderly. Virus carriers. Mental Health matters. Sanitizer.
These words and phrases are just some of the things that have been in my brain, and probably everyone else's thoughts, since about February this year. 2020 will be written in the history books of the future. As a compulsive writer I started a new notebook in March and wrote in it each day thinking this event was too big to cope with. Writing my thoughts down has long been a way of safeguarding my mental health - once its on paper it's out of my head and therefore I can get on with the day. I have now begun a second notebook as the situation has continued far longer and devastatingly than I could imagine. But adapting to a new way of being, I turned days into opportunities to rest, read, write and walk. My four favourite pastimes.
Zoom's, Skype and FaceTime have become a 'norm'. Ordering food and any other needs on-line I am now adept at. You may have thought that as a writer I would have by now become a published author. I have not been idle, everyday new challenges abound and both novel 1 and 2 have been attended to. I have also had on-line workshops to attend. Here's my progress report -
- I had a letter printed in The People's Friend Magazine and a book review published in the SWWJ journal. Yay.
- I have read and reviewed lots of books on this blog site, Goodreads and Amazon.
- Novel 1 - I had a very good meeting with Laura Williams, Literary Agent via Blue Pencil Agency zoom conference. Having sent Novel 1 to several publishers/agents over previous years, this zoom inspired me to revamp my synopsis and covering letter which, together with the first 50 pages, has gone off to her for her consideration to accompanying me onto publication.
- Novel 2 - that fact that I've sent Novel 1 off to several publishers/agents and received rejection letters has not put me off. However the time it takes to do each submission delays me getting on with Novel 2. Each submission is unique. Each covering letter, synopsis and manuscript has a unique requirement from the publisher/agent. So many words, include this, single/double spaced manuscript, first three chapters, first 5,000 words, first 50 pages etc. etc. So work on Novel 2 gets delayed. However, I can report I am back on it and up to 40,000 words. Ideas are scribbled on notepaper and although I pencil in times to be in my garden cabin to write, other things creep in and now I am having to limit my zoom workshops as, as useful as they are, they are a distraction to ACTUALLY writing.
Here's some of the zoom meetings I have attended:
- Tamworth Writers - weekly
- Writing for Wellbeing - monthly
- Facebook Live & Tamworth Bookclub - meet the author events
- Society of Author events
- Society of Women Writers & Journalists events
- Writing West Midlands events
- Writers & Artists events
- Swanwick Writers Summer School events
- Birmingham, Derby & Bristol Literary Festival events
The advantage of Zoom meetings is not having to travel to venues! But of course the downside is that you don't meet people in person and I'm quite a sociable person.
My next blog will be about the walks I have done during this year - A Year to Remember. But in the meantime here are two 'pause for thought' pictures:
Tuesday, 15 September 2020
THE BEACH HUT
I so L O V E beach huts. My bathroom is 'beach hut' themed with white towels that are embroidered with navy and red beach hugs, a Snug Rug mat with light blue beach huts on it and a variety of seaside ornament decorate the window sill including a mini row of beach huts. I even have mini beach huts and light house on sand around the base of a fuchsia bush in my garden. I have taken many photographs of places I have visited that have beach huts - favorites would be Holkham beach, Norfolk and Bournemouth.
Somewhere in my brain is a very distant memory of a beach hut on Looe beach, Cornwall. We used to go there as a family when I was a child. We would meet up with Aunty Olive, Uncle Bing and cousin John; my paternal grandparents and sometimes my father's cousin Roy and his family or his brother Jack and my cousins Christine and Ann. I have black and white photos of us eating ice creams on the beach. We would all sit in deckchairs in the same place each visit which was in front of a beach hut (who it belonged to I can't recall) where we children were sent to change into or out of our swimming costume although I do remember trying to do this with mother's help behind a large towel on the beach which was embarrassing and sandy. I guess my love of the shape of beach huts: the wood and the colours came from this early life experience.
Before the Pandemic of Covid-19 struck I attended a book event where someone criticized books with beach huts on the front cover and I was incensed by the comments. Not usually brave to reply, I found myself defending such books, speaking up and saying how some of us like these type of books. The critic's voice rankled for months afterwards so when I saw Veronica Henry's novel I gladly bought it knowing I would not be feasting my eyes on a beach or row of beach huts this year. The virus spreading has put paid to any holidays in 2020 as the message 'Stay Safe, Stay Home' rings out.
So I dip into fantasy land and on the pages of this book am instantly transported to a place that reminds me of Branksome Chine. This little book promises a big heart as I am soon introduced to Everdene Sands, North Devon and the owner of a beach hut that has been in the family for 50 years. It quickly became a torrid affair between a young innocent typist and an acclaimed author. Passion and innocence clashed and the author's manuscript and Jane disappears for 50 years
Soon I was reading about Harborne and Hagley - familiar places having been born in Birmingham. However the book progresses with different tales in different beach huts - an affair, a one-off fling, a marriage, two children, financial commitments and status, property and a beach hut.
I loved going to the nearby pub - The Ship Aground - and wondering if Jane would connect with her first love - the author. It captivated me to the end and it was hard to put down; the ending uplifted the soul.
I so enjoyed it and wanted to stay by the seaside a while longer so I purchased another by Veronica Henry -
5 star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.
Monday, 10 August 2020
Escape to Giddywell Grange

There is
romance, hospital visits, new home and loving family ties. It will make you miss your mum more if you
have lost her or want to spend more time with her if she is still around for
you. During our lives, when work and
home life are busy, we often neglect those closest to us and don’t really know
them at all. A holiday break for Maddy
and her mum brings them very close and there is more to her mum than she
realises.
The men in the
book are charming, sexy, hunky and two cause Maddy to have quite a dilemma on
her hands. You will be willing her to
make the right choice.
There are
some very tender moments that will pull at your heartstrings and have you
reaching for the tissues.
I am
usually a very slow reader but I amazed myself by reading this lovely book in
less than a week – a record for me I think!
Well done Kim Nash. *****
Monday, 3 August 2020
The Gift book review
Monday, 29 June 2020
The Summer Getaway
Still stuck in Lockdown Land (Day 102 or thereabouts!) very few of us are getting away this summer. However, through reading books I have travelled to Malta with Sue Moorcroft, USA with Michelle Obama, places in the UK and more recently to France with Tilly Tennant. No planes, no suitcases, no foreign currency. Just me, my back garden, a sun lounger and birds tweeting.
There is power in reading - getting lost in imagination, escaping the reality of Covid19; people flooding beaches and leaving litter behind, riots, stabbings, murders and all that is bad in the news at the moment can be blotted out as you are transported to another place, another world, another time.
Published by Bookouture, The Summer Getaway sees two families collide whilst staying in neighbouring holiday homes for a week. The connections reveal secrets, joy, love, fun, excitement and fear.
Romance blossoms for the single parents and their teenage girls form special bonds too. Ashley and Haydon's relationships turn into real complications. Being at a birthday party for a 100 year old French lady turns into a nightmare and opens a can of worms. The teenagers go missing and caring family and friends help the search which is fraught with anxious thoughts and tense with fears.
Leaving France for the UK brings about a dilemma of how the relationships will continue but the reader is left feeling sure of a happy ending.
Well done Tilly Tennant - a lovely novel that is hard to leave behind. Where will I go next, I wonder?
Wednesday, 10 June 2020
A Malteser anyone?
Book Review – Summer on a Sunny Island by Sue Moorcroft
The first pages of this book transported me back 40+ years ago when I took my first holiday abroad. I stayed in
Before long I was swimming in the sea with Rosa and Zach as they and the local youth were on a plastic clearing mission. As it was a very hot day I sat on a sun-bed in my garden during whatever day it was of this seemingly never-ending lockdown, I realised how much I was missing donning my swimming costume and being immersed in cool water. The thought of holidaying abroad this year has long gone but even to go to my local leisure centre is curtailed for now.
So I read on with delight having visited Mosta,
As the weather in my garden warmed up to the hottest May since records began so too did this sunny island tale. Romance had not been on Rosa’s agenda when she escaped the broken relationship with Marcus in the
The apartment block in the book where Zach and his sister and niece live too, is very much in keeping with my penfriend’s home and every time the stairs and balconies were mentioned I was back there meeting Mary’s family, going up onto the roof space and having lunch with them in a dining room in their apartment.
Even when Zach’s other family members turn up I was transported back 20 years when on a New Year’s eve in Cyprus where I was living in a similar two bedroom apartment, like Zach, I had to find beds for friends and family members who had made a ‘surprise’ visit, which actually was more of a shock than surprise for me!
Weaved through the book is a character of suspect, a young man Zach cares about. He turns up in unexpected places and holds an air of mystery. He’s elusive and seems to be playing into the hands of an unsavoury gang leader.
Also sprinkled throughout the book are glimpses of castles, beaches, harbours and restaurants. Zach gives
I slowed my reading towards the end as I didn’t want to leave
Thank you, Sue Moorcroft, for another fabulous read. 2020 will be remembered not only for the Lockdown but for a fictional re-visit to
Friday, 29 May 2020
Becoming, Book Review
Becoming by Michelle Obama
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Michelle had humble beginnings and learnt to play the piano by the sound of a stream of students visiting her aunt for lessons in the apartment where her family all lived together. In early years she experienced racism and fearmongering but her mother taught her to rise above it. From early life and teenage years the reader will find a really nice girl who is full of ambition, good morals, decency and fun. An independent girl and proud of her parents and brother.
When I read that her school had taught her in a class of like-minded students, regardless of age, so that they could set their own goals and work speeds, I was thrilled. This hooked into my own 'beef' about our education system - one size does NOT fit all. Working independently rather than corporately is SURELY better for students. (Perhaps this time of LOCKDOWN has confirmed that and the Education system will change!) It was school lunchtimes that Michelle formed a solid girl-friends group taking them home for mum-made sandwiches. Again I identified with the need to be part of a small group rather than the whole school playground of peers where trouble brewed, gossip and teasing occurred with boys and girls of all ages mixed - the older ones racing around being inconsiderate of young frightened kids who were new to the whole regeme of 'school'.
This book proves that no matter who you are, where you are from, what colour your skin, or how different your name - if you are clean living, hard working, goal focussed, have faith in your own ability, love justice and your family - you can achieve anything you want from a low paid or voluntary job to a high powered position; from being single to married and family life. 'Making a difference' is both singularly and as a couple, what Michelle and Barak's lives are about. They mastered the art of living separate lives together, maintaining their individuality whilst remaining married.
I felt very close to this wonderful (now former) first lady of the USA when she described having had a miscarriage and in attempt to raise a family used the drug Clomid unsuccessfully, which I did too. The heartache and confusion ones own body can give you when a much wanted child is not conceived is hard to put into words. I also identify with her saying, "Being with children.... was balm for my spirit." She of course went on to have two lovely daughters and I have one for which I am truly grateful for.
When I read that she and Barak disliked Les Miserables, the way I did, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought everyone but me liked that play or film. They left the theatre half way through and found relief from the gloom. Yes!
Her visit to England and meeting the Queen was worded with such realism that you can imagine the scene - either from your own recall of the news or on the pages it is described.
My favourite of all her quotes, one I will never forget, is "When they go low, we go high." I have huge admiration for this lovely lady. Do add this book to your wish list, to be read list, Christmas or Birthday present list, you will not be disappointed.
You can follow Michelle on Twitter @MichelleObama and see her on YouTube with Oprah Winfrey, Instagram etc.
5 star review. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Friday, 8 May 2020
Book Review 2 during Lockdown 2020
Friday, 24 April 2020
Book Review during Lockdown 2020
Thursday, 16 April 2020
LOCKDOWN LAND
Monday, 30 March 2020
Bournemouth
What a wonderful time we had despite breaking news of the Corona Virus. We really didn't know whether to go or not but when we got there is was sooooooooooooo lovely to be besides the sea. And as we now know, probably our last break away for a long time.
The Bed and Breakfast accommodation we stayed in I can't recommend highly enough. We were the only guests and had a large ground floor room (Rm 1) in Mory House, 31 Grand Avenue, Bournemouth - see my review on Trip Advisor.
The attention to detail at this B&B was superb - a little fridge in our room filled with treats, a jar of liquorice allsorts and plenty of beverages; in the bathroom the sink plug chain was curled on top of the plug - such lovely touches to make us feel special guests. Outside our room there was an array of home-made cakes and cookies as well as a bowl of fruit to help ourselves to.




Grand Avenue, Southbourne is five minutes walk from the High Street where there are a plethora of eateries, a lovely library to pick up information leaflets from, lots of bus stops and well knowns shops as well as querky but classy gift shops. It is also a walkable distance along the coast to Bournemouth and interesting walk to Christchurch. If you are not a walker and don't want to drive, the buses are extremely plentiful and frequent.
In the High Street of Southbourne we visited Brewhouse and Kitchen where we sampled real ales and good food; the Larder House and Makla Bistro restaurants and Urban Reef Café on the front at Bournemouth.
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Brewhouse & Kitchen 1 |
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B & K 2 |
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B & K 3 |
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Makla Bistro (Morrocan Food) |
Looking over the sea, or walking on or next to a beach, no matter what the weather is soul-joy for me. If there are beach huts to feast my eyes on, so much the better.


The highlight and main purpose of our visit was that I had won tickets to the Russian Ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty at the Bournemouth Pavilion courtesy of Yours Magazine. Again it was decision time whether to go or not, but in the end we had a taxi there and back, waited outside until it was about to start and were pleased to find the seats either side and immediately in front of us were empty. We enjoyed the show but there was definitely an atmosphere of tension in the theatre. We left promptly and that began our journey into the current situation where all places of social gatherings have closed. Staying home, self isolating, social distancing, toilet rolls and panic buying became every day words along with Corona Virus.


Outside Spring was blooming regardless of the spreading of COVID19, streets and roads began to become deserted and today we are in lockdown - paramount to curbing the spread, saving lives, helping the NHS.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and seeing the photos. Do Tweet me on @tweetsue13, your comments are appreciated.