Another gratuitous pic of the dog…just to cheer you up.

Oh and here’s another…

Right enough of that. How are you all? Happy Mother’s Day. Hope all you mums out there are having a good one. I was given breakfast in bed this morning: toasted bagel, orange juice and tea. Plus lots of hugs, kisses, cards (home-made and bought) and some lovely vintage bags (bought by myself – well, I needed to ensure I would get what I wanted!!). Then I had a couple of hours to myself reading in bed…and looking on Facebook and on Pinterest. Fab.

Now it’s back to reality – there’s a pile of dishes needing done and my ironing is threatening to take over the world it’s that high. I hate ironing.

So how’s your week been? Ours has been a tiny bit quieter and it’s been good to get a bit of time to catch up with things. We’ve had fewer visitors and fewer trips to hospital which means I’ve been able to keep up with the house. It’s amazing how quickly things back up when you’ve not had the time to do them. It’s taken me all weekend to tackle the washing and there’s still a big pile slumped forlornly up against the washing machine waiting its turn.

Anyway, enough of me moaning. The boy was ill this week with a cold. He had a really sore throat at the start of the week which turned into nasty earache yesterday. He was up in the wee small hours this morning crying in pain. I had to administer more Calpol and kisses. Wee soul. He’s better now, I think the inflammation must be getting better. You might think that getting up at that time (I think it was around 3am or 5.10am, I can’t remember, it’s all a sleepy blur) is horrendous and normally it is, but it gave me the time to peek out the windows and gaze at the sky. I do this a lot at night. I always look out the back windows when it’s night-time to see what the stars are up to. Last night, the sky was stunning. There was not a cloud in sight and the stars were out in all their glory. It was as if someone had taken a handful of glittering diamonds and thrown them up into the air where they stuck to the black velvet of the sky. Gorgeous. I wish I had had a camera (and the talent) on hand to take a pic. The nice thing about it is that the image has stuck with me all day and it’s lovely.

Millie had her first walk on Thursday and had a mixed reaction to it. Once she had gotten used to the lead she walked quite well. However, I don’t know if it was a mixture of being cold (despite having her little coat on) and being a little scared, but she whined and wanted up for most of the walk. She’s not daft that dog – why walk through cold, squidgy mud when you have a giant to carry you! Anyway, the kids have been enjoying taking her out for walks around the estate and showing her off.

Just wanted to say a big thank you to my friend Ian and his brother Scott from Averton Landscapes who came and cut up the big branches that fell in the back garden. About half the tree fell down in the high winds a few weeks ago, but it was so big it was as if a tree had fallen!! Here is what it looked like:

So thanks guys for doing the work for us! We greatly appreciate it.

What else has been happening chez moi? Um…not a lot of exciting things, I’m afraid. We’re just trying to have a normal life at the moment. I’ve been getting a lot of paperwork and stuff sorted so that it frees me up to get back to writing.

Talking of writing…I watched Giles Coren’s programme My Failed Novel which was his (incredibly brave) look at why his book Winkler failed to sell in great quantities. It was an excellent programme in which he talked to many famous writers and readers about his book and what it takes to be a successful writer. The crux of the position is: few writers make enough money from writing to support themselves (which I knew), even fewer make the millions that everyone seems to think writers always earn (we don’t) and that it’s bloody hard work (this I also knew). I really admire Giles for letting other people critique his book and talk to him about why they think it wasn’t a success. Good on you Giles. It’s hard to hear criticism of your writing, particularly if you spent months working on it. I would recommend this programme to anyone who wants to write, not to put you off, but to give you an insight into what it actually takes to be a writer and what the reality of it is. It’s not all champagne quaffing and doing readings to an appreciative audience. On that note, am off to quaff some champers…only joking!!

Right, I am off to get the ironing board out and a good wummin’s film on the telly to take the sting out of the huge pile I have to do. Just limbering up the old arms in readyness for the horrendous amount of work I have to do with the iron.

Til next time!

Dawn xxxx