The Witty Ways of a Wayward Woman

A Classic Mrs T Moment

Yesterday, I had one of my “moments”. So the boys were nagging me for a McDonald’s on the way back from a late-night tennis practice. So being a kind mother, we pulled into the drive-thru, ordered shakes and burgers, paid at the cash desk and pulled up at the delivery hatch. Whereupon, Master Ben requested that I asked for a sheet for him to stick on some stamps for a competition McDonald’s are running to win various goodies. The assistant duly handed the sheet to me with the shakes and I hand them to Master Jacob who was sitting in the front seat. Big mistake. Because Master Jacob has Master Ben’s sheet and Master Ben has the stickers. They started to argue over who was going to stick on the stamps to win the Mini Cooper. I closed the window, regretting I ever had children, and drove-off. After a while,

janeturley 29 March 2014 2 Comments

What is a Janerism?

So here’s a question – what is a Janerism? I’m not entirely sure. I’m somewhat confused. But apparently it’s something I do a lot. Now this description has been assigned to me by author, Karen Wyld, from my writer’s group on Google +. I’m slightly worried because the term reminds me of a Malapropism. Now if you’ve not heard of the term Malapropism before -basically it’s derived from this mad old bag who was in Richard Sheridan’s 1775 comedy The Rivals. Again, I’m slightly worried. Now, because I am a discreet and subtle person, there’s not many pictures of me on the net. But I have this awful feeling that people think I look like this: Well the hat’s not far off the truth. On a cold day and with a hangover. Or maybe they think I look like this: Well she’s a cheery looking lady. In a sort of weird

janeturley 28 March 2014 2 Comments

I am an author!

So I was “kind of” an author before, but now I’m on Amazon it’s official isn’t it? I am an author! If any of you good folks are tempted to buy and review – remember be generous in your praise – you don’t want Mrs T turning into one of those depressed writerly types. That would be so not good – I’ve only just got over finding a hole in my tights. At present, A Modern Life is only available on Kindle but don’t forget if you have a computer, tablet or mobile you can download a Kindle App and read it that way. It will be available on other e-readers and in paperback in due course. Enjoy! A Modern Life on Amazon.co.uk A Modern Life on Amazon.com

janeturley 25 March 2014 4 Comments

Countdown to Publication

So recently, my ISBN (international standard book numbers) finally arrived. These are the numerical codes that identify individual books and generate the barcode that you see on the back of books. By assigning ISBN numbers to my books, it means they will appear in industry catalogues and be available for retailers to purchase. It’s taken much longer to get this point than I imagined. However, it does mean that the publication of A Modern Life on Kindle is days rather than weeks away. It will follow shortly after on other e-readers and then in paperback in early April. In between all the preparations (which being a bit brainless I had not thought through – like tax requirements, setting up a business, blah, blah, blah) I have written a new story which I am going to include as a last minute addition to my short story collection. It’s called Pork Chops and

janeturley 19 March 2014 No Comments

Happy In Luton

I live fairly near Luton, in fact some of my most embarrassing car-parking moments have been in Luton, nevertheless when I saw this on Facebook it brought a big, big, smile to my face. Enjoy!

janeturley 15 March 2014 2 Comments

Monster Images

I made the mistake a while ago of syncing the boys ipads with my computer using the icloud. So, for anyone not familiar with Apple products, this means instead of plugging in the ipads to my computer to transfer songs, films and pictures it does it automatically. I’ve no idea how but it’s genius. It also means I get to keep an eye on what the boys are doing in a Big Brother type of way. Or maybe that’s a Big Mother type of way. *Looks at thighs* Yeah, okay. It’s a Big Mother type of way. Now initially, I turned on the icloud because I was fed up of updating all our gadgets with our shared music which is stored on itunes. The Big Mother aspect only dawned on me when I started to get notifications of new photographs arriving on my computer. These photographs were kinda shocking. (It’s

janeturley 9 March 2014 No Comments

Patience, Impatience and a Mission Statement

Now, I am sure you folks out there know how patient we Brits are about standing in queues. I’m not sure where all this patience originates from because personally I’d like to club some of the people standing in front of me in the supermarket queue. You know the ones – you’ve been standing in the queue for twenty minutes and the person in front of you announces they’ve forgotten something and heads off to the meat counter and doesn’t return for ten minutes. Meanwhile, you’re still standing in the queue watching the hands of your watch tick away like an unexploded bomb knowing that you’ve got pack, pay and repack the groceries into your car and drive across town pick up your kids in less than ten minutes. Then, of course, when the customer finally returns from their sojourn they forlornly announce that the turkey mince they wanted for

janeturley 3 March 2014 No Comments

A German Football Challenge or Deutsche Ein Fuss Herausforderung

Now before I get started on this post properly, I need to say that I know the two “ss” of “Fuss” in my title should be one of squiggly things that looks Kim Kardashian’s boobs from the side view. However, I’ve no idea how to get a squiggly boob thing and life is too short to worry about it. So before any of you language teachers (that’s you Susann Fruendt) make any formal complaint I’m lodging my excuses now. Okay? Right, so the background to this post is that I stupidly said to my writer’s group that if anyone spotted a typo in my last post I would write a blog post of their choice. Now, I had already self-flagellated as a result of spotting two typos in the first line so I didn’t think it could get any worse. I was wrong. Because language teacher and writer Susann Fruendt

janeturley 13 February 2014 No Comments

Yet another rant from Mrs T involving a letter to the English Cricket Board

Have you heard the tragic news, readers? Kevin Pietersen has not been selected for the next English cricket tour. His career with England is over. Okay, a quick explanation for my American friends: Kevin Pietersen is to English cricket what Michael Phelps is to USA swimming. Only Kevin doesn’t pee on the pitch like Michael pees in the pool and Kevin has a bigger mouth. Right, so Kevin has not been selected to play for England. I am disgusted, mortified, shocked, sickened, etc etc etc at this decision. Now I’m not even going to mention Kevin’s vital statistics (rumour has it they’re pretty darn good – even the ones with his bat) but, in addition to his stats, Kevin is “hot”. I mean seriously “hot” and we ladies, who must suffer hours of watching international test cricket, need something decent to look at every now and then. And, believe me,

janeturley 10 February 2014 1 Comment

What shall we talk about? The weather or vaginas?

I was going to write a post about the awful weather in the UK at the moment but then I read this article in The Daily Mail and decided it was way more interesting and deserving of some serious analysis. So to sum up the article there’s a woman called Kim Anami who, supposedly, can lift a 12kg kettle ball with her vagina. I can lift a HB pencil with mine. Which is handy because if I ever have my hands amputated I will still be able to sign my name. Now I don’t want to cast doubt on the strength of this woman’s vagina but whenever I read stuff like that two words cross my mind. They are “mentally” and “unstable.” Now I regularly lift an 8kg kettle ball (with my hands) as part of my on-going fitness drive and whilst this has resulted in many things (a broken

janeturley 9 February 2014 4 Comments

The Need to Express

Relax. This is not a post about breastfeeding. No, today I am going talk about the need to express oneself artistically – which is a pompous way of saying you like to fart around wearing a silly hat and want everyone to admire you for it. Needless to say, I have always worn lots of hats. Anyway, this subject came up for discussion in my writers group where my fellow writer, Susann Fruendt posed the following question; I noticed that many of you have mentioned a real NEED to write; that it keeps you from going insane; that you feel restless/unhappy/incomplete/add other adjective of your choice if you don’t find the time to write. So my question is: Do you think that this necessary to be a good writer? Do all of you feel that to be writing is your calling? Does this consuming passion make you a better author?

janeturley 6 February 2014 No Comments

Ten Reasons Why I Love Americans

1. Over 100, 000 Americans have just signed a petition to have Justin Beiber kicked out of the US. That action deserves a round of applause. True, there’s been the odd occasion I’ve thought Americans were all bonkers (Eat Pray Love, election of George Bush Jnr, Kindegarten Cop) now I know they’re not. Hurrah. 2 Lots of Americans wear really big hats and I like hats. I especially like those ten-gallon hats cowboys wear. I also like the hat Huggy Bear wears in Starksy and Hutch. Cool. 3. I like Americans’ style. Even though Americans blow each other’s heads off with guns they still manage to justify their gun policy on the grounds of personal safety. In England we call that irony. In the US they call it logic. As I said, I like their style. 4. Americans spell words wrongly. I’ve got used to it. In fact, I find it rather

janeturley 30 January 2014 2 Comments