In Memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg ❤️
Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. Ruth Bader Ginsburg 15th March 1933 – 18th September 2020
It’s Not All About Me! Why I want to write about my life…
The thought of writing a memoir had never crossed my mind. I’ve listened intently as members of my writers’ group read from their life writings. One member decided to defy convention and sail around the world with her children. Another lived in India for years to learn the practice of Ayurveda, a form of traditional Indian medicine. Both amazing life experiences. But, consciously thinking about writing about my life experiences might not have occurred to me but, the fact was, I’d been doing it for years.
The Ark in My Heart
I first became aware of Gerald Durrell when someone gave me a copy of one of his books. After reading that book, My Family and Other Animals, I learned that Gerald Durrell had started a ‘zoo’ in Jersey, Channel Islands. As I would find out later, through my own first-hand experience, it was – and still is – so much more than a ‘zoo’.
LIFE AFTER LOCKDOWN
Let’s face it, 2020 has been a shit year, so far, but one good thing that has come out of it for me, is that it has highlighted the things that are really important.
Opting out of the Rat Race
Slow but steady is the pace I live my life these days, and I am much happier and less stressed for having opted out of the rat race.
MY LIFE IN ‘RESUS’: An Appreciation of A&E Doctors and Nurses Everywhere ❤️
I am the paradigm of an A&E nurse. I am the one that is chosen but would volunteer to shepherd young nurses through their first few days and weeks in A&E.
I am bombproof; unflappable. Nothing fazes me anymore.
Letting Go
During my life to date, letting go of bottled up emotion is not something I have been particularly good at. 1minute 43 second read.
Roots
I was born at my parent’s home in Fulwith Mill Lane, Harrogate. A stone’s throw away from the viaduct on the south side of town. I remember little about the house, as my parents decided to uproot my tender sapling self, aged three and replant me down south.
Despite my roots being pulled out from underneath me at such an early age, the draw of the place of my birth remains strong. It will forever be etched upon my heart.
Grateful
I am grateful for many things in my life, but if I have learned anything during the first four months of 2020, it is that the material things in my life matter less. Our own home and a car, are things that many of us take for granted, […]
Life After Lockdown: Need for Change
The human race has come a long way in the last 200,000 years. We have the innate ability to adapt to change, and now we are currently facing the most significant changes we will ever have to make. Climate change, overpopulation, pollution, and on top these three serious contenders, COVID-19 is raining down on us all.
With the help of the global scientific community, we will survive this cataclysmic period in our history but, then what?
Back to the Drawing Board
When you fall off a bicycle or a horse, you get straight back on again, and writing is like that. There will always be knockbacks, but you can’t let them get to you. There will always be negatives, but they are just the potholes on the road to achieving your goals.
Whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, you’ve got to bite into it hard and, like a terrier, refuse to let go. Hone your craft, until you get it right.
Photographic Memories
What would we do without photographs? Sometime around 1827, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce captured the first fuzzy photo. What a long way we have come since then! We are constantly snapping away on our phones and posting the resulting images on Social Media. Visual images unite us when we can’t be together. No more so, while we are in Lockdown.
Square Hands
I have square hands. I had no idea what having square hands says about a person, apart from realising that a career as a hand model would be a no-no.
Being in lockdown is forcing me to become a Domestic Goddess. I am trying, but it’s a slow process. I can’t see my hands ever baking bread or vying for the title of Master Chef any time soon. As for rushing around with a hoover and duster, its just a part of my daily lockdown routine.
LOCKDOWN
It’s Monday morning, the start of another working week, which was greeted by steely grey clouds at first light and the biting chill of a northeast wind. However, this was no ordinary morning because there was no rush hour, no scrabbling to find a parking place because as of 8.00 a.m. this morning, the small Island of Jersey, Channel Islands followed the UK’s lead, and officially went into lockdown.
How to Get My (Writing) Mojo Back
In January, I was in full steam ahead writing-mode. I honestly believed I could finish book number two by the end of April. I was writing with a confidence I had never felt before, and it was a fantastic feeling. Unfortunately, my purple patch fizzled out about 3 weeks ago as the Coronavirus shit really began to hit the fan.
Perhaps I had been blinkered up to that point? Hoping Covid-19 would just go away.
Now just doesn’t feel like the right time to be writing a murder mystery spoof. So, it’s not actually the curse of the writer’s block that is to blame; it’s the Coronavirus Curse. The inability to focus on the writing that I love.
The Road to Becoming a Domestic Goddess
My pièce de résistance is probably a toss-up between tuna pasta and stew. We have only been lying low for a couple of weeks, but I have already received a few pointed comments wrapped in sarcasm and drizzled with a little innuendo.
I have more cookery books than I have ever cooked anything sensational, so I’ve no excuse, and I am making an effort.
The Boomer Generation
After a week of soaking up the sun, I woke up to what sounded like gravel being hurled against my window this morning. Only it wasn’t gravel, it was rain/hail. It was only 5.45 a.m., which was annoying as I didn’t have to go anywhere. Still, I had five hours of sleep, instead of four.
Life As We Know It
It’s horribly surreal. Waking up to another beautiful morning and knowing the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan.
Life as we know it is about to change.
The fields around me were ploughed and planted with potatoes yesterday. Superficially, life as we know it appears to be carrying on as normal, but a big, black underbelly of invisible menace is lurking, waiting to strike.
Bringing out the Worst in People
IS IT TIME TO START ENFORCING FINES FOR PEOPLE WHO FLOUT THE SELF-ISOLATION RULES?
One woman went to a coffee shop yesterday having returned home from a holiday in Teneriffe. Another, in a similar situation, said she had run out of food, so had to go to the supermarket. Which begs the question, and just not here in Jersey, why do people have to flout the self-isolation rules when they know the lives of more vulnerable people are at stake? Does their selfishness know no bounds?
A New Dawn
For those of us already working from home, as well as those who are self-isolating, take heart ♥. The fantastic weather we are having may be doing more than boosting our Vitamin D and taking our minds off the uncertainties for the future.
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