I have always been a believer in writing lists. My Father wrote lists for everything and it is probably the first memory of writing that I have. Amongst those I best remember were the lists of people to send cards to at Christmas, the list... Read more

Back in May I had two pieces in successive copies of The People's Friend. On the old site someone suggested I post one of them for those who didn't see a copy but it has taken until now to track the originals down. A change of computers since subm... Read more

The postman has just delivered a copy of Writers' Forum for July. They run a feature called First Draft for which you are invited to take around 300 words of a published novel and introduce twenty errors for others to proof-read. I decided to give it... Read more

  When OH discovered that the forecast for the first week of Wimbledon was good he decided it was a great week for a break. Could I find anything on-line? Now we do not do "abroad" so it was the UK I was confined to. We do hotels for short b... Read more

 As we drove to our nearest town to shop this morning I spotted a number of sections of the roadside that had burst into colour as the latest wild flowers reached their flowering season. I noted the locations of especially good patches of meadow... Read more

I thought it was about time I did some actual writing today. I did manage to send off a letter to a magazine with a suggestion for content but haven't got any further with the articles I have been working on. I think I need a spur and I just hope I h... Read more

It's a glorious sunny day here today and we have been drinking our coffee on the patio. Just as we finished a shadow passed overhead and we saw a red kite circling around. Since their successful release in the Chilterns some twenty odd miles away the... Read more

By rights I should hate this time of year and especially the plants that choose to flower at this time as I suffer from hay fever and grass and tree pollens are the chief culprits. However, I find the colour of our wayside verges a very uplifting sig... Read more

At the beginning of the week I read about a magazine that was looking for submissions on green living issues amongst other topics. I thought a topic I had recently written about could be reworked with a green twist and decided to contact the editor. ... Read more

Why is it that when I have plenty of time I never seem to achieve much on the writing front but as soon as I have a busy day I manage to slip in an hour of writing and feel I have really achieved something?   Yesterday the whole day was spent ... Read more