Friday 26 June 2009

Anyone lost a pigeon?

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Anyone lost a racing pigeon? This handsome specimen has been with us for about 3 hours now. As you can see, food and water have been consumed and now the bird-table is serving as a comfortable bed on which to take a nap.

Trouble is - the cats are due to wake up from their nap at tea-time or so...

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Handling lemons

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Way back in February, my good friend Julie Cohen (whose new book Girl From Mars has gone into reprint in its launch week!) handed me a 'lemons' award. As in "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade"

Nice pressy, I thought. I could make a story out of that.

So I did. And Woman's Weekly have bought it.


It will be in the
WW Summer Special No 2, out next month.

Cheers, Julie, I owe you one!
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Monday 15 June 2009

See how we've grown

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A couple of gratuitous Merlin-and-Archer pics (taken four years apart) to wish daughter luck in her exams this week.

You can do it!





(Psst - remember to read the question half-way through just to check you're answering what you think you're answering)

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Procrastination fun

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You'll like this. This is so cool. I visited the fantastically talented Julie Cohen's site yesterday where she is celebrating the launch of Girl from Mars and found this link where you can turn yourself into a comic-book hero!

So I did.

(PS The title is nothing to do with me - the site comes up with that all by itself)
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Monday 8 June 2009

Progress so far

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Progress so far:



Plants in tubs









Submission ready to go











and, er, books still on floor. But hey, Archer likes them, see?

Wednesday 3 June 2009

... ... later

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Want to know what a wall of books looks like eight (yes, eight, count 'em) hours later?

[Er, daughter, if you are browsing rather than revising for your exams, avert your eyes now]



View from above:


And, as Karen said, at some stage I'll have to put them all back again.

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Tuesday 2 June 2009

Tote that bale

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Tomorrow the walls of this house are going to be cavity-insulated.

"It's easy," I was told enthusiastically. "They drill a few holes in the outside wall and simply blow the insulation in. No mess, no fuss, and come winter, the heating bills will be significantly lower."

Gotta be a catch, I thought.

There was. "You'll need to move breakable stuff off the windowsills, by the way. Just in case."


Now, my windowsills adhere closely to the 'never a flat surface wasted' school of display. Still, it's probably time they had their biannual clean.

A bit later I got, "The vibrations can be quite powerful, you know. Best to take any pictures off the walls. Don't want all that broken glass lying around on the carpets."

Those were the carpets now covered in vases, jugs, pretty stones, driftwood-from-Greece and odd
things made by the kids in Technology ten years ago, presumably.

Heigh ho, I thought, better make a start. Then I walked into the dining room and saw this.



It's a fairly delicate process anyway getting out the one book you want to read without dislodging the rest of the shelf.

And it's an outside wall.

Guess what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the day?

(PS - fortunately daughter is still at uni. A whole bedroom-full of carpet on which to pile books)
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