So tomorrow is the beginning of the April A to Z challenge. I signed up for it a while ago not knowing whether I would be in the right frame of mind – and I am still not sure if I am or if I will make it to the end like I did last year. However, I am going to give it a bash and we’ll see what happens. The last 16 months of my life have been pretty horrendous. I have had a lot of issues to contend with from just about every quarter. I have, of course, been through many struggles before in my life and those were partially reflected in my novel The Changing Room which, I hope, also showed how I believe trying to adopt a positive mindset helps to overcome many problems. Of course, that isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Especially when you

I was bored last night and went for a surf on Amazon. And, by chance, I fell upon a unique item. A life-size cardboard cut-out of Tom Cruise! Now me and Tom have had a bit of a thing going on over the duration of this blog. I don’t know why – I don’t even fancy him. It’s just some folks tickle the comedian in me and Tom happens to be one of them. Yeah, so even though I tried to restrain myself I eventually succumbed to the temptation to leave a review. (Admittedly I didn’t try too hard to resist -I am just too shallow.) Now I know I’ve failed as a human being and will be damned in the fires of hell for being so cruel but, on the plus side, I’ll finally get to meet Tom whilst I’m there because I’m fairly sure that believing in little green

I’ve recounted a few embarrassing moments on this blog so it may come as no surprise to hear that I’ve had yet another… So the other day Mr T dropped me into our local town and arranged to pick me up a short while later outside the library after he had picked up Master Jacob from school. I duly did my shopping and rushed back to the library to see Mr T and Master Jacob parked in our silver-coloured car outside the library as agreed. I waved at them and rushed into the library to drop off a book and dashed back so not to keep them waiting any longer. However, when I came out, to my annoyance, Mr T was already reversing out of the space. (A few choice words about impatient husbands may have crossed my mind.) I duly ran over to our car, opened the door and was

I am on my second night of insomnia in a row. Now long term readers will know that I go in phases with my insomnia and have frequently posted in the middle of the night. (When I’ve got fed up reading The Daily Mail.) However, my insomnia hasn’t been too bad for a while but the last two nights it has come back with a vengeance and tonight I also can’t stop sneezing for no apparent reason and instead of reading The Daily Mail I have been forced to run numerous virus checks on my PC because of a potential threat. As we say in the UK: It never rains but it pours. So no doubt tomorrow I will get run over by a bus. I just pray to God that this perimenopausal phase I am in doesn’t prevent me from forgetting to change my knickers as if I am going

Thank goodness last year is over. It was not one of my best. (And that’s putting it mildly.) I’ve also a feeling that the rotten phase I’m in at the moment has not yet reached its nadir. Humph. However, as you know, I don’t like to whinge too much so instead of an in-depth, knee-deep whinge I shall simply sum up my present state of mind and my 2015 with the picture below. Okay so as 2015 didn’t go all that well for me, I think it’s important I start 2016 in a positive mindset. So my positive mindset begins with the news my short story Fantasia is free (yes FREE!) on Amazon Kindle until the 6th January and, at the time of posting this blog, it is 379 in the US Kindle free charts and no 1 in two children’s categories. They are only small categories but, nevertheless, I am

I was reading an article in the Daily Mail today about a Canadian study which suggested that people who post lots of inspirational quotes and messages on social media might have less cognitive abilities. The study also suggested that many of these inspirational messages may be just pure meaningless bullshit. In other words – gullible people are prey to believing in any old crap. This may or may not be true. I am not casting any judgement. (Yet.) However, I thought I’d conduct my own experiment and make up a few inspirational messages of my own and post them on social media and see what effect they have. I’ll be reporting back in due course. Here’s my first inspirational message. I’ll be testing it out tomorrow.

As you all know I am a Housewife Extraordinaire. Essentially, this means I’m an expert at household cleaning. However, since Young Sam returned home (bringing the total number of males in the household back to four) and I acquired a new pussy cat called Shand The Shitter (the name is self-explanatory) I have been struggling with my excessive cleaning duties. Therefore, I decided that in order to improve on my cleaning skills I needed to take a household cleaning refresher course. I found exactly what I needed on YouTube. I am now feeling far more comfortable about my cleaning abilities – I know exactly what I am going to do the next time I need to unblock the loo or find a stack of unwashed dishes left by the sink!

So one of the reasons I’ve been silent is I have become to addicted to the TV show I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! I’ve occasionally dipped into it over the years, but this year I’ve become intrigued by it due to the presence of the indomitable Lady C, otherwise known as Lady Colin Campbell. Yep, I’ve become fascinated by Lady C and her epic rants which make Hitler’s tirades look amateurish. The bizarre thing is that by being completely rude and obnoxious Lady C is getting loads of publicity which seems a tad unfair on the other celebs who are far more polite. But there is a lesson to be learnt from Lady C and I’ve worked it out… If I turn myself into a vile, ranting witch I will get way more visibility for my books! However, I have a problem: How do I make myself as mean and