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The Ghost Lake by Wendy Pratt

Another brilliant working-class writer, I could not put this book down. Rich in landscape and emotion I felt as if I were there with Wendy, searching the ancient landscape of her home as she excavates her ties to this ancient land through class, grief, and neurodiversity. This is my book of the year so far. i read this book slowly, savouring each word. This is a book you will read more than once,…

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Chopsy

Bore da, my lovelies. Did I mention I was writing a book? Funny, it must have slipped my mind… Well, the day is finally here, and I can reveal the cover and title of my new book. I am so excited to share it with you guys first. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your ongoing support. I am a writer because you are a reader, and it means everything to share a moment together. I hope you…

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Honesty and Lies by Eloise Williams

Pic by: RICHARD STANTON.http://www.stantonphotographic.comImage is copyrighted – © 2019. Eloise Williams is an award-winning author from Wales and the inaugural Children’s Laureate Wales 2019-2021. She was chosen for the prestigious Hay Festival Writers at Work Scheme and has an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Swansea University. She failed her Art GCSE but likes to draw…

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Exciting News

Can you guess what I’m saying? Ooh, I have news! Top secret news! I’m not allowed to share it with anyone, but you, dear reader, are not just anyone, so I will tell you anyway. But first, in other news, I was temporarily banned from Facebook. Do you want the long or the short version? The long version involves the photo shoot, where I learned much about myself, including that I am incapable of…

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The Stuff of Life.

The great declutter has taken on Olympian proportions as the son is down from Glasgow to empty the attic. Long-time readers will be aware of the oppression of the attic. It’s not so much what’s up there, though there’s a lot of shite that isn’t mine, but not being able to get up there and sort it has frustrated me for over a decade. There are boxes up there that have not moved since we moved in,…

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Living Well with Chronic Illnes.

This is the book that I wish I’d found when I first got sick, nearly twenty years ago. Getting sick and not getting better was such a shameful and isolating experience for me ( as well as being extremely ill). This book would have banished the shame and made the isolation a little less lonely. I love love love the dyslexic friendly layout and font. It is sooo easy to read, I almost wept.…

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Forgetting and Remembering

Today is M.E Awareness Day I’ve forgotten that I am sick. Well, I say I’ve forgotten, but that’s not entirely true. I know it’s there. I can feel it in the shaking of my limbs, in the burning of my bones, the stumbling on the stairs. So no, it’s not that I’ve forgotten. It’s more that I’m ignoring it – the fact that I have a chronic illness, one that requires I rest more than most, sit more…

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Lost in Insta (again.)

I’ve fallen down another hole on Instagram. I’ve been learning how to get dressed. I’m aware some of you have seen me wearing clothes before. I do know how to get dressed, though, to be fair, it was fairly recent that I learned the label in your knickers goes on the left, meaning you never spend the day with your knickers on backwards. (You know the rule. It’s bad luck to change your pants…

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All MyWild Mothers

What are you reading my lovelies? Continuing to share books and writers I love, let me introduce the wonderful Vik Bennett and her memoir. I loved this book so much, an exploration of grief and motherhood and the making of something wild and magical to heal and grow. More than a book about gardening, this is the story of a woman learning to live in the world with her grief. About Vik Victoria…

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I Am More Than My Biology

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex. This means that the term ‘woman’ as used in the Equality Act means biological woman and the term ‘sex’ means biological sex. It also means that those born male, but who identify as a woman, do not have the right to use women-only services or spaces. As a feminist, I’m horrified by this…

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I Am More Than My Biology

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex. This means that the term ‘woman’ as used in the Equality Act means biological woman and the term ‘sex’ means biological sex. It also means that those born male, but who identify as a woman, do not have the right to use women-only services or spaces. As a feminist, I’m horrified by this…

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Sick and Tired

I am a sick and disabled woman and I am dependent on disability benefits. I will not justify why I receive PIP. I will not explain to you the expenditure that I incur as a direct result of my chronic ill health. I will not list the things I have to spend more money on because of my disability.   It is hard to resist the urge to tell you the intimacies of being sick but I will not parade my…

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Only Here, Only Now

Well, Hello there my lovelies, How are you doing, and most importantly what are you reading? I’ve been reading this gem of a book, and excitingly the writer, fellow A Writing Chance Award winner, Tom Newlands is here to tell us all about it. TOM NEWLANDS is a multiply neurodivergent Scottish author. He is the winner of a London Writer’s Award and a Creative Future Writer’s Award. In 2021 he…

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Lost in Enunciation

I’ve been thinking about words. I write, so words literally fill my world.   In English, we have an average vocabulary of between 20,000 and 40,000 words. (You know I am competitive so you can absolutely bet that I went online and did a test to measure my vocabulary.) The measure of our vocabulary is influenced by class and education and whether English is our first language. There’s an implied…

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A lack of Resolution

How was your January, my lovely? How are your resolutions holding up? Did you go dry or become vegan? Did you make it to the gym? Have you started a diet? I’ve done none of these. I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. With an absolutist mindset, in the past, I’d make bold, sweeping statements that I’d lose six stone by February and then be crushed when obviously I failed. A few years ago, my…

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Wintering

The dog and I are wintering. Well, I am, the dog is being a dick but more on that another day. I am embracing the season and have slipped from the winter festivities into the warming embrace of hibernation. My health, always declining in the darker days like some Victorian invalid, requires this time of rest and recuperation. This year, instead of battling on, I’ve decided to embrace it. Well,…

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How come ?

leedspostcards.co.uk Warning* This post refers to male violence against women. As a young woman, I had a poster of this postcard on my wall. I have embroidered it onto linen in green and purple threads, stitching words still depressingly relevant nearly 30 years later. How can that be? When so much has changed in the world, how come life for women and girls is getting worse, not better? How…