After six years writing and blogging I am now, at last, into the final hurdle of completing a novel. My editorial report is back and it is much better than I expected. There are a few suggestions though. Fundamentally, these are adding extra material to flesh out some of the relationships and in one case to develop one of the more humorous story lines just for the pure entertainment factor. I have decided to follow this advice and to do this by inserting two, possibly three, new chapters which should slip easily into place.Writing more silly stuff for me is comparatively easy so I can now move full steam ahead knowing the end is truly in sight. For those of you who had read my short stories you’ll know that I normally write in the third person but for this novel I have written in the first person in a

I have mentioned my dreams several times on my blog and how I can’t understand them. There was the dream where I was a secret agent and parachuted into France with my horse. There was another where  I auditioned for the role of Santa Claus in a Ricky Gervais movie and there was one when I visited a prop shop where actors bought their props and where I discovered that in the garden they were selling mock decaying bodies for episodes of CSI. It’s all been very, very confusing. Now I know that for some writers like Chaunce Stanton and John Dickinson (who I interviewed for The View From Here) and John’s father (children’s author Peter Dickinson)  their dreams feature very much in their stories and are often the inspiration behind them. Not so for for Mrs T who dreams amount to nothing but some sort of weird Monty Python

So it’s officially summer which means the cricket and tennis seasons are in full swing and I am spending even more time with my boys ferrying them around training or competing at tennis and cricket. Hardly a day goes by when I do not have some sort of sporting commitment although yesterday I had a day off to go to Wimbledon and watch Juan Martin Del Potro and Novak Djokovic on centre court. And very nice young men they were too. There are some benefits to being a tennis and cricket mum – not many I admit – but eyeing up young men’s bottoms is one of them. Anyway, the subject of this blog post is actually sporting toilets. Firstly, let me say the toilets at Wimbledon are very good and plentiful which is exactly what us Ladies need to know when we’re on a day out. Unfortunately, on most

There are 52 weeks in a year. This is the 26th week of the year so far. Accordingly, I am about to start my 26th diet of the year. So in order that I achieve any weight loss I am now making a public statement of intent in the wild hope that it will shame me into some weight loss. Currently, I am living under the fear that should I need to produce an author portrait for my novel I will have to use Photoshop because otherwise everyone will think my novel has been written by a very creative elephant. So here goes: I, Jane Turley, resident of the United Kingdom and Her Majesty’s loyal and obedient servant, do publicly declare in the year of Our Lord two thousand and thirteen that by January  2014 I shall have a smaller arse. Obviously, I will blogging fairly frequently about this matter.

Just for my own sanity I would like to publicly inform all the social networking sites that I am not a Thai lesbian. Furthermore, I do not require a date with a Thai or Filipino lady of dubious background and I do not require them to do my household chores. (I have a husband to do that.) Now I know that occasionally on this blog I’ve said life would be a lot easier living with a lesbian because women generally understand each other better and you don’t have to do all that pseudo-pyscho analysis crap that you have to do with a bloke. (Such as interpreting that he’s holding his beer in his left hand instead of his right as meaning he’s had a bad day at work or that a grunt means more curry but without the rice but with an extra nan bread.) However, I want to now

If  “procrastination” was a name it would be mine. But it’s not. However, I am thinking of changing my blog sub heading from “The often dubious, politically incorrect and mainly humorous musings of Mrs Jane Turley, Housewife Extraordinaire” to: The often lazy, socially inept and mainly slothful musings of Mrs Jane Turley, Procrastinator Extraordinaire.  I cannot believe how lazy I have been lately. I have done virtually nothing productive the last couple of weeks apart from write the odd random musing which has taken less time to write than it takes me to do my daily chores. (Generally about twenty minutes.) All around me I’ve seen other writers publishing books, working on additional manuscripts, flailing book reviewers and occasionally paying homage to somebody called Chuck Wendig. Who this person is I have absolutely no idea but I think he might be a Scottish caber tosser.   Anyway, I feel like

As some of you are aware Master Benedict has a habit of producing some admirable one liners. This afternoon as we were travelling to tennis he produced his best yet… Mrs T: It’s Father’s Day on Sunday. Any ideas what we should get Dad? Master Benedict: We don’t have a father. Mrs T: What do you mean? Master Benedict: We have two mothers. So there you have it. The truth is out. There is not one but two Housewife Extraordinaries in the Turley Household. Is it any wonder I’m mad? I have a lot of sympathy with this poor depressed woman with her mound of ironing. However, I admire her too as she’s actually got her iron out. I try to leave the ironing to Mr T or I bury the iron in the utility room and use the excuse of not being able to find it as the reason

           “Good Morning, Douglas. I see you’re up to your neck in it.” “I didn’t hear you sneaking up on me,” said Douglas, tossing a shovelful of soil out of the grave and grinning as he saw Sister Lillian weaving her way through the headstones towards him. “I doubt if I pretended I was the Lord Jesus rising from the dead that you’d be shocked,” replied Sister Lillian, reaching the edge of the new grave and looking down at Douglas’ handiwork. “I don’t know how you do this job without getting the heebie jeebies.” Douglas took a breather and admired Sister Lillian’s shapely legs which were uncommonly good for a woman of sixty-three. “There’s nothing that’ll scare me,” boasted Douglas, propping his spade up against a muddy embankment. “I’ve seen just about everything. Besides, I’ve the lovely Sister Lily to bring me refreshments. What more could a man want?” “Indeed,” laughed

I will shortly be recounting yet another embarrassing tale of ineptitude about my attempt to get in and out of a multi-storey car park yesterday. However, before I do so as I know some of you have become familiar with my three young sons over the six years I’ve been blogging I am delighted to report/bragg that Young Master Sam has achieved a first class degree in Philosophy. I have touched upon my own experiences with philosophy a number of times in this blog, especially in the post Judgement Day, Philosophy and the Meaning of the Word “Chair.”  Fortunately, I think Young Sam’s experiences at university may have proved more beneficial than mine. But what a proud mum I am today! I am congratulating myself for teaching him the subtle art of bullshitting and, of course, suffering his underpants for 21 years. I am also pleased to report that I